_Trotter._ [_Aside in a mysterious tone._] Who knows? [_Aloud._] If I do not die, others do. Have you forgotten Ratapon and his numerous family? They suffered for several days from hunger: taking heart, they asked their neighbours for help; but the first they came to, a big fat porker, whose sty was full of corn and vegetables—— _Gnawer._ Well, I know what happened to them as well as you do. Roused by their cries, Mr. Pig looked over the wall, and addressing them in a surly tone, said, “What is all this noise? What do you vagrants want?” “Your charity, my lord.” “Be off instantly. How dare you interrupt me in the middle of my dinner?” _Trotter._ That was all that came of it; only, next morning the bodies of Ratapon and his family were found scattered over the country. Want and despair had killed them. _Gnawer._ Want and despair! You are drawing on your imagination, my boy. It was simply poison—some balls of lard-and-arsenic which they greedily swallowed without waiting to send them to the parish analyst. _Trotter._ What more simple, more soothing than death? Is it not {101} our lot? Are we not menaced with cats, poison, and traps every day of our lives? _Gnawer._ Yet we—some of us—reach a happy and honoured old age. _Trotter._ Yes; nevertheless, it seems to me that every hour of our life is full of misery. [Illustration] _Gnawer._ A thousand evils and misfortunes overcome are preferable to the event that deprives one of life. {102} _Trotter._ Better for fools, but the courageous rat has no love for a life full of torments, and casts it from him. _Gnawer._ Ah, so you contemplate suicide? and would withal be accounted a wise and courageous rat. It is a gay thought to toss lightly away the life you lack the courage to defend and protect. _Trotter._ This is no time for jesting; I am sick of life, and I give it up.