One little dog was put in the pit to amuse himself with the dead bodies. He seized hold of one almost as big as himself, shook it furiously till the head thumped the floor like a drumstick, making those around shout with laughter, and causing one man to exclaim, “He’s a good ’un at shaking heads and tails, ain’t he?”
Preparations now began for the grand match of the evening, in which fifty rats were to be killed. The “dead ’uns” were gathered up by their tails and flung into the corner. The floor was swept, and a big flat basket produced, like those in which chickens are brought to market, and under whose iron wire top could be seen small mounds of closely packed rats.
This match seemed to be between the proprietor and his son, and the stake to be gained was only a bottle of lemonade, of which the father stipulated he should have first drink.
It was strange to observe the daring manner in which the lad introduced his hand into the rat cage, sometimes keeping it there for more than a minute at a time, as he fumbled about and stirred up with his fingers the living mass, picking out, as he had been requested, “only the big ’uns.”
When the fifty animals had been flung into the pit, they gathered themselves together into a mound which reached one-third up the sides, and which reminded one of the heap of hair-sweepings in a barber’s shop after a heavy day’s cutting. These were all sewer and water-ditch rats, and the smell that rose from them was like that from a hot drain.
The Captain amused himself by flicking at them with his pocket handkerchief, and offering them the lighted end of his cigar, which the little creatures tamely snuffed at, and drew back from, as they singed their noses.
It was also a favourite amusement to blow on the mound of rats, for they seemed to dislike the cold wind, which sent them fluttering about like so many feathers; indeed, whilst the match was going on, whenever the little animals collected together, and formed a barricade as it were to the dog, the cry of “Blow on ’em! blow on ’em!” was given by the spectators, and the dog’s second puffed at them as if extinguishing a fire, when they would dart off like so many sparks.
The company was kept waiting so long for the match to begin that the impatient Captain again threatened to leave the house, and was only quieted by the proprietor’s reply of “My dear friend, be easy, the boy’s on the stairs with the dog;” and true enough we shortly heard a wheezing and a screaming in the passage without, as if some strong-winded animal were being strangled, and presently a boy entered, carrying in his arms a bull-terrier in a perfect fit of excitement, foaming at the mouth and stretching its neck forward, so that the collar which held it back seemed to be cutting its throat in two.
The animal was nearly mad with rage—scratching and struggling to get loose. “Lay hold a little closer up to the head or he’ll turn round and nip yer,” said the proprietor to his son.
Whilst the gasping dog was fastened up in a corner to writhe its impatience away, the landlord made inquiries for a stop-watch, and also for an umpire to decide, as he added, “whether the rats were dead or alive when they’re ‘killed,’ as Paddy says.”