ic we have to deal with at the Horse Guards," whispered Lord
----.

LADY EGLINTOUN AND THE RATS.

Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edinburgh" (p. 191), gives an
interesting account of the elegant Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, who
was in her eighty-fifth year when Johnson and Boswell visited her. She
died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved to the last her
stately mien and fine complexion. She is said to have washed her face
periodically with sow's milk.

"This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising
rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and
they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in
early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her
ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude
except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of
her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when
ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table.
At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again
to their native obscurity--a trait of good sense in the character and
habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons
do not always find in two-legged _proteges_."

GENERAL DOUGLAS AND THE RATS.

The biographer of this highly-distinguished military engineer-officer
relates an anecdote of him when a lieutenant at Tynemouth. The future
author of well-known works on Gunnery and Military Bridges, early began
to show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely
habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted
their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of
being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with
loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining
quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a
light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint
and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had
kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested to him another device. He
looked out all the holes, and covered them with slides, connected with
each other by wires, and these he fastened to a string, which enabled
him to draw them all with one pull, and thus close the outlets. The
contrivance claims to be mentioned as his first success i