A VOICE.
SCENE I. A DINING-ROOM MODESTLY FURNISHED.
GNAWER alone, coming and going, seemingly much preoccupied.
MY pupil Trotter is coming to share my dinner. I hope he may find no cause to regret his old master’s invitation [smelling an old piece of cheese he found under the table]. There now is a bit of cheddar whose delicious perfume would make a dead rat come to life! We shall hear what my pupil thinks of it. The rats of the rising generation are so strange they seem to care for nothing. Nothing pleases them, or dispels the frown they constantly wear. In my young days we were less fastidious, we took things as they came. One day we dined off corn, another off wood—wood or corn, it was all the same to us. Now, alas! all is changed. There is no contentment. If my pupils have bacon and nuts, they lament the absence of cheese. What is the world coming to? Trotter is late, I wonder if anything has happened to him.
SCENE II. THE OLD RAT AND HIS YOUNG PUPIL.
Trotter. [Looking in at the window.] Master, may I come in?
Gnawer. What! by the window? can’t you find the door? But I forgot, you rats of the modern school never do as others do. Come, let us dine, the things have been waiting long enough.
Trotter. Master, it is no fault of mine if, instead of crawling under the door, I was obliged to make a long journey round and come over the roof.
Gnawer. [Laughing.] Nor mine that I know of. [He helps himself.] Try a little of this grilled nut; it is delicious!