pass through our street at Longchamps. They carried in a tiny cage two Norway rats, with the prettiest pink eyes in the world. White animals were a passion with us just then, and we carried this passion so far that even our poultry-yard was stocked with white cocks and hens. We bought the white rats, and had a large cage made for them, with interior staircases which led to different stories,—to dining-rooms, sleeping-chambers, and gymnasiums fitted up with trapezes. In this cage they were happier and better lodged than even the rat of La Fontaine in the middle of his Dutch cheese.
These pretty creatures—of which so many people, for reasons that we cannot understand, have a silly fear—grew tame to an astonishing degree, so soon as they became certain that no harm was intended them. They allowed themselves to be stroked like kittens; and taking our finger
