He grinned, and said, “Want to know?”
Then, very cautiously, he opened the mouth of the sack, made a sharp nip with forefinger and thumb, and brought out a big-sized rat.
“There are four hundred in that bag,” he remarked proudly, “and all alive and kicking. One has to handle ’em carefully. They bite like blazes.”
“What are they for?” I asked. “What are you going to do with them?”
“Sell ’em to fancy gents who like a little sport with their dogs on Sunday, down Mitcham way. Care to have my card?”
He handed me a visiting card, and I read the inscription, which notified that my new acquaintance was
“Rat Catcher to the Lord Mayor and the City of London.”
I made an appointment with this dignitary, and found that he was the modern Pied Piper, who spent his nights in luring the rats of London from riverside warehouses, city restaurants, and other establishments along the bed of the Thames where they swarmed by the thousand.
“Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,