Chapter 13 Doctor Dolittle's Zoo by Hugh Lofting
THE HOTEL RAT
When most of the introductions were over the Doctor surprised me (as he often did) by his remarkable and accurate memory for animal faces. Out of the thousands of rats and mice who were all staring at him in rapt admiration he suddenly pointed to one and whispered to the white mouse:
“Who is that rat over there—the one rubbing the side of his nose with his left paw?”
“That's the Hotel Rat,” said the white mouse. “Did you want to speak to him?”
But the rat in question had already noticed the Doctor pointing to him and, most proud to be recognized, came forward.
“Your face is very familiar,” said the Doctor. “I have been wondering where I saw it before.”
“Oh, I'm the rat who was brought to you half dead, you recollect?—About four years ago. My two brothers had to wake you up at six in the morning. It was an urgent case. I was quite unconscious.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Doctor. “Now I remember. And you were taken away again the following morning before I was up. I never got a chance to talk to you. How did you come to get so badly smashed up?”
“I was run over,” said the rat, a far-away look of reminiscence coming into his eyes, “by a perambulator containing two heavy twins. It happened—well, it's a long story.”
“I'd like to hear it,” said the Doctor. “After dinner is a good time for stories.”
“I would gladly tell it,” said the Hotel Rat, “if the company has time for it.”
At once a little buzz of pleased expectant excitement ran through the big crowd as every one settled down to listen in comfort. There is nothing that rats and mice love more than stories and something told them that this one would likely be interesting.
“It was about five years ago,” the Hotel Rat began, “that I first started living in hotels. Some rats say they're dangerous places to make your home in. But I don't think, once you get used to them, they are any more unsafe than other places. And I love the changeful life you meet with there, folks coming and going all the time. Well, I and a couple of brothers of mine found a nice old hotel in a country town, not far from here, where the cooking was good, and we determined to settle down there. It had fine rambling big cellars; and there was always lots of food lying around, from the oats in the horses' stables across the yard to the scraps of cheese and bread on the dining room floor. With us another rat came to live—a very peculiar character. He was not quite—er—respectable, as people call it. None of the ordinary rat colonies would let him live with them. But I happened to save his life from a dog once; and ever after that he followed me around. Leery, he was called. And he only had one eye.
“Leery was a wonderful runner. They said he cheated at the races. But I never quite believed that part of his bad reputation, because with a wind and a lightning speed like his, he didn't have to cheat—he could win everything easily without. Anyway, when he asked me could he live with us I said to my older brother, 'Snop,' I said (my brothers' names were Snip and Snop) 'I think there's a lot of good in Leery. You know how people are: once a rat gets a bad name they'll believe anything against him and nothing for him. Poor Leery is an outcast. Let's take him in.'
“'Well,' said Snop, 'I suppose it will mean that most of our friends will refuse to know us. And Leery surely is a tough-looking customer. He's only got one eye, and that's shifty. Still, I don't care about society's opinions. If you want to have him with us, Snap' (that was my nickname in the family, Snap), 'take him in by all means.'
“So Leery became part of our household in the little old country-town hotel. And it was a very good thing for me he did, as you will see later on. Now there was one subject on which Leery and I never agreed. He was quite a philosopher, was Leery. And he always used to say, 'Rely on yourself—on your wits. That's my motto.' While I, I always pinned my faith to the protection of a good hole. You know there are an awful lot of dangers around a hotel—any number of dogs, two or three cats at least, plenty of traps and rat-poison and a considerable crowd of people coming and going all the time. The hole I had made for myself (it joined up with those of my brothers but it only had one door which we all used) was the nicest and snuggest I have ever been in. It was alongside the back of the kitchen chimney and the bricks around were always warm from the fire. It was a wonderful place to sleep winter nights.
“'Well, Leery,' I would say, 'myself, I always feel safe when I get back to the home hole. I don't care what happens so long as I'm in my own comfortable home.'
“Then Leery would screw up his one shifty eye and blink at me.
“'Just because it's familiar to you,' he said—'because you know everything in it and love everything there, that doesn't mean it's a safe place, or a protection, at all.'
“'Well, I don't know, Leery,' said I. 'In a way it's like a friend, one who will help defend you.'
“'Oh, fiddlesticks!' said he. 'You got to carry your defense with you. A good hole won't save you always. You got to rely on yourself; that's my motto—Rely on your wits.'
“Now there were two cats living at the hotel. Mostly they'd snooze before the parlor fire. They got fed twice a day. And of course we hotel rats knew their habits and their daily program hour by hour. We weren't really afraid of them because they were lazy and overfed. But about once a month they'd decide to go on a rat and mouse hunt together. And they knew where our holes were just as well as we knew what their habits were.
“Well, one day the Devil got into those two cats and they went on a rat hunt that lasted for three days. We got word that they were out on the warpath from one of our scouts—we had scouts on duty day and night, of course we had to, with all those dogs and cats and people around. And from then on we took no chances on being caught too far from a hole of some sort. But my own policy, as I told you, had always been to count on reaching my own hole. I didn't trust any others—not since I dived into a strange hole one day to get away from a dog and found a weasel in it who nearly killed me. However, to go back: late in the afternoon, returning home I ran into both the cats at once. One was standing guard over the hole and the other made for me straightaway. I kept my head. I had been chased lots of times before but never by two cats at once. There was no hope of my getting into my hole, so I turned about and leapt clear through the open window into the street.”
The Hotel Rat paused a moment to cough politely behind his paw; while the whole of the enormous audience, who had experienced the thrill of similar pursuits themselves, leaned forward in intense expectation.
“I landed,” he said at length, with a grimace of painful recollection, “right under the wheels of a baby-carriage. The rear wheels passed over my body; and I knew at once that I was pretty badly hurt. The nursemaid gave a scream—'Ugh! A rat!'—and fled with the carriage and babies and all. Then I expected the cats would descend on me and polish me off right away. I was powerless; my two back legs wouldn't work at all, and all I could do was to drag myself along by my front paws at about the speed of a tortoise.
“However, my luck wasn't entirely out. Before the cats had time to spring on me a dog, attracted by the commotion, arrived on the scene at full gallop. He didn't even notice me at all. But he chased those two cats down the street at forty miles an hour.
“But my plight was bad enough in all conscience. I didn't know what was wrong, only that I was in terrific pain. Inch by inch, expecting to be caught by some enemy any moment, I began to drag myself back towards the window. Luckily it was a sort of cellar window, on a level with street. If it hadn't been, of course I could never have got through it. It was only about a yard away from the spot where I had been injured, but never shall I forget the long agony of that short journey.
“And all the time I kept saying to myself over and over, 'The hole! Once I'm back there I'll be all right. I must reach the home hole before those cats return.'”