“You are perfectly right,” said Scott, with the utmost seriousness, interest sparkling in his eyes; “they must be understood and met on their own ground, for they have surely some runway by which they enter and leave, and no two tribes of rats work in exactly the same way, any more than any two gangs of housebreakers handle their tools alike.” Then, as he saw that all eyes were fixed on him inquiringly, he added, in the most casual way possible, “I’ve always been keen on watching animals to learn their ways, and as a young chap I had some queer experiences with rats.”
“Why don’t you take up the reward offered, and clear the town of the rats?” asked the drummer, sneeringly; “a gent who’s so well acquainted with their ways ought to find it a cinch.”
The sneer passed unnoticed. “Have the Selectmen offered a reward in the matter?” Scott asked.
“Yes, posted this afternoon,” said the druggist; “there is one of the bills on the tree opposite. One hundred dollars’ reward for any one who will either do the job or suggest a remedy.”
For a full minute Tom Scott stood with his hands in his pockets looking into the show window and whistling softly to himself as if he were alone; then squaring about he almost called, so loud was his voice, “I’ve time on my hands now, and I’m going to take up that challenge, boys: if I make the rats go in my traps, I’ll give the hundred to the Bridgeton Hospital; if they don’t, I’ll add a hundred to the sum to make it bigger bait for a smarter fellow.”
“I wish you could start to-night and begin at my house, but of course that is asking too much; my wife and the maids are completely upset,” Martin Cortright said beseechingly, as though Scott were some sort of priest whose incantations would bring immediate relief to the nerves of the feminine part of the household, and safety to his own beloved books.
“No, I was going to suggest that myself; I must get the lay of the land a bit before I can plan my game, and night’s the only time for that. I must go to my house first for a few things that may come handy. Has any one a team outside?”
“I have,” said father, who had opened the door as the conversation began, only entering far enough to hand some prescriptions to the druggist, with a few words of directions concerning their filling. “I must wait about for an hour at least, so that I can drive you up and back again as well as not. What, you are going to try and rid us of this plague? Surely, then, as health officer, it is my duty to give you a lift.”
“Thank you, Dr. Russell,” said Scott, still in a sort of dream, as the two went out together.
“I wonder where Tom Scott got acquainted with rats,” said the first Selectman, who had all this time been playing chess imperturbably with the Town Clerk upon the top of a barrel of pop-corn balls.