Tag Harris smiled. "When I have something that will utterly destroy something, I do not place anything valuable near it," he said. "In Manton's own laboratory the boys dropped spare parts through it. In hardware stores all over the country the clerks were dropping screws and nuts and the like. Most of this stuff fell to the floor and was swept up a few days to a week before." Tag Harris held up a scrap of newspaper. The date was four days in the future. "Proof," he said. "I'll be sending that to myself later." "And the tagged mice--the duplications?" "Animals that had gone through the time-trap twice and were living their lives in parallel. You see, your honor, not only did Manton's Better Mousetrap hurl mice back in time, but it could hurl the same mouse back to the same era several times--and the Plague of Rats was a Man-Made Plague." * * * * * Epilogue-- _'Tis said that he who laughs last laughs best. The world who beat a path to Peter Manton's door in anger because he built the Better Mousetrap, returned to thank him anyway. You see, with mice being hurled backwards in time, they lived and they died in the mad rat-race in time. And America, for its trouble with more rodents than it could stand for a short period, now reaps its reward. For America is free of rats._ THE END.