rotection of the coverlid, particularly as the stranger's aspect
was anything but friendly, his little sharp teeth and fierce little
black eyes seeming to say, "Paws off from me, if you please!"

At length, remembering the maxim that "discretion is the better part of
valor"--the truth of which, I imagine, rats understand as well as most
creatures,--he made a sudden jump off the bed, scuttled away into the
next room, and was never seen or heard of afterwards....

Rats are not selfish animals: having found out where the feast is
stored, they will kindly communicate the intelligence to their friends
and neighbors. The following anecdote will confirm this fact. A certain
worthy old lady named Mrs. Oke, who resided at Axminster several years
ago, made a cask of sweet wine, for which she was celebrated, and
carefully placed it on a shelf in the cellar. The second night after
this event she was frightened almost to death by a strange unaccountable
noise in the said cellar. The household was called up and a search made,
but nothing was found to clear up the mystery. The next night, as soon
as the lights were extinguished and the house quiet, this dreadful noise
was heard again. This time it was most alarming: a sound of squeaking,
crying, knocking, pattering feet; then a dull scratching sound, with
many other such ghostly noises, which continued throughout the livelong
night. The old lady lay in bed with the candle alight, pale and
sleepless with fright, anon muttering her prayers, anon determined to
fire off the rusty old blunderbuss that hung over the chimneypiece. At
last the morning broke, and the cock began to crow. "Now," thought she,
"the ghosts must disappear." To her infinite relief, the noise really
did cease, and the poor frightened dame adjusted her nightcap and fell
asleep. Great preparations had she made for the next night; farm
servants armed with pitchforks slept in the house; the maids took the
family dinner-bell and the tinder-box into their rooms; the big dog was
tied to the hall-table. Then the dame retired to her room, not to sleep,
but to sit up in the arm-chair by the fire, keeping a drowsy guard over
the neighbor's loaded horse-pistols, of which she was almost as much
afraid as she was of the ghost in the cellar. Sure enough, her warlike
preparations had succeeded; the ghost was certainly frightened; not a
noise, not a sound, except the heavy snoring of the bumpkins and the
rattling of the dog's chain in