"His 'super-ratism'? That's the whole point. That's the object of the entire experiment. They were going to try it soon." The three white rats had scarcely moved. The two mothers-to-be had apparently fallen asleep. Only SK540 stood quietly eying the humans. When they left him to find a place where they could talk in private he did not follow them. "It comes down to this," Philip said at the end of half an hour's fruitless discussion. "We promised him, or as good as. He believed us and trusted us. "But if we keep to our promise we're _really_ traitors--to the human race." "You mean, if the offspring should inherit his brain-power, they might overrun us all?" "Not might. Would." "So--" "So it's an insoluble problem, on our terms. We have to think of this as a war, and of them as our enemies. What is our word of honor to a rat?" "But to a super-rat--to SK540--" As if called, SK540 appeared. Had he been listening? Had he understood? Neither of them dared to voice the question aloud in his presence. "Later," Philip murmured. "We must eat," said Norah. "Let's see what's left in the way of food." * * * * * Everything tasted flat; they weren't very hungry after all. There was enough left over to feed the three rats. But they had evidently helped themselves earlier; they left the scraps untasted. Neither of the humans guessed what else had vanished from the pantry shelves--what, when he had heard enough, SK540 had slipped away and sprinkled on the remaining contents of the icebox, wherever the white powder would not show. They did not know until it was too late--until both of them lay writhing in their last spasms on their bedroom floor. By the time the house was broken into and their bodies found, SK540 and his two wives were far away, and safe.... And this, children, is the true account, handed down by tradition from the days of our great Founder, of how the human race ceased to exist and we took over the world. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Oh, Rats!, by Miriam Allen deFord