In the same way Aunt Deb appeared with a plate of crumpets, her favourite dish, and swallowed them one after the other, making eyes at me all the time they vanished down her throat. This done, she went off waltzing round and round the room, till she popped up the chimney. I cannot now remember one-tenth of the sensations which presented themselves to my imagination, showing, as I opine, that the stomach is in intimate connexion with the brain. Among others, by-the-bye, I fancied I was wandering about the streets of Liverpool, looking into cookshops and eating-houses, where people were engaged devouring food, which they in the most provoking manner held up to me on the ends of their forks, and instead of allowing me to take it, put it down their own throats.
Again all was a blank. Silence reigned around; when suddenly a faint light streamed across the space before me, and I saw armies of rats tripping from all directions and assembling not five feet from my nose. Over the casks and bales and packages they streamed in countless numbers, whisking their tails, leaping and tumbling over each other; some making somersaults, others playing at leapfrog. Numbers climbed up from beneath the kelson; some came from the fore part of the ship, others from aft. “Why, she must be perfectly overrun with the brutes,” I thought. “I wonder how any human being can exist on board. It’s surprising that they should never molest me.” They were merry fellows. I could not help laughing at the curious antics they played.
Presently I heard a voice shout “Silence!” A buck rat had seated himself on the top of a plank, which I had not before observed. Much to my surprise he held a note-book in his hand, and opening it began to read. He was too keen-sighted, I suppose, to require spectacles, though how he managed to see in that light I could not tell.
“Silence!” he again cried; and he then shouted at the top of his voice, which was somewhat squeaky for an orator, “Friends, Romans, countrymen,—Lend me your ears.”
I thought this a very odd way for a rat to commence an oration. As he spoke, all the rats, cocking up their ears, sat on their tails—some on the tops of the casks, others round and below me.
“Thank you for the attention you seem inclined to pay me, brother rats,” he continued. “I wish to impress on your minds the serious fact that we, as a race, have been maligned, abused, hunted, and ill-treated in all varieties of ways. We have had traps set for us, and although we are not often caught in them, it serves to exhibit the malice of our enemies. Adding insult to injury, they have, as I have only lately discovered, designated us in one of their popular dictionaries as troublesome vermin of the mouse kind. Why should they not have described us as rodents of graceful form, endowed with wonderful sagacity and activity to which the smaller animal called the mouse is allied? These human beings have also the audacity to malign our character, to insinuate that we are fickle and undependable, besides being fierce and savage. Thus, when one of their own race changes sides, they say that the wretched biped has ‘ratted,’ Not content with abusing us, they make savage war against our race by every cruel mode they can devise. They chase us with cats and dogs. Not that we care much for the cats, who seldom venture into our haunts; but those horrid, keen-scented terriers, are, it must be confessed, justly to be dreaded. Still more so are those cunning little ferrets which insinuate themselves into our abodes. The hatred of our enemies is exhibited in their use. Nowhere are we safe from them. They make their way through the narrowest crevices, dive down to the lowest depths we can reach, disturb our domestic happiness, watch for us on our hunting expeditions, and rout us out of our securest strongholds. This fearful persecution is originated, aided, and abetted by our malignant persecutors, who, besides the traps I have already spoken of, even attempt our destruction by mixing poison in the food they leave in our way. We have only the melancholy satisfaction of creeping beneath the boardings of their rooms, there to die, and to allow our decaying bodies to fill the air with noxious odours. Friends, Romans, countrymen,” he went on, repeating his former curious style of address, “we have met to devise means to assert our rights among created beings, and to revenge ourselves for the injuries we have for so many centuries of the world’s history suffered. We are now decidedly in the majority on board this ship. We hold possession of her chief strongholds. Her captain, officers, and crew exist only on sufferance; so then, brother rats and sister rats, young and old, as it is our glorious privilege to belong to a free republic, express your opinions without fear. It is my business to note and record them.”
Directly the speaker ceased, even for a moment, the rats began frisking and whisking about, biting at one another’s tails and leaping over one another, till he again shouted “Silence!”
“Has no one any opinion to offer?” he asked.
On this a grave-looking rat from the top of a cask answered, “Yes, I have an idea, which I’ll propound as soon as those frolicsome young fellows at the bottom of the hold will keep quiet.”
On this the president again cried out, “Be quiet, you young rascals, or I’ll singe your whiskers. Now, Brother Snout, let us hear what your idea happens to be,” he said, turning to the rat on the top of the cask.