Of course the extraordinary thing was Ferrars. After the Doctor had gone, old Briggs, to whom he had whispered something before he went, gave out that his natural history half-hours would be suspended for the rest of the term; then I got a word with Ferrars. I said: “However did you have the cheek--you supposed to be such a saint?” He said: “I don’t know. Something came over me to do it. I’ve got a jolly peculiar feeling to that rat. It’s not an ordinary rat. I’m wrapped up in it. Even my respect for the Doctor couldn’t stand against it. I know what you chaps think. I dare say you reckon I’m a hound, but I couldn’t help doing what I did. Somehow that rat’s a sort of ‘mascotte’ to me. A mascotte’s a thing that brings luck. All my best luck’s happened since I had it.” Of course, when a chap goes on like that, what can you do? I didn’t understand Ferrars. He seemed to me to be simply talking rot. So I said: “Well, it’s pretty measly, considering the opinion the Doctor’s got of you. I sha’n’t try to score off your rat, because I know it’s a jolly fine one, and I like it; but Freckles or somebody will very likely kill it after this.” He looked in a fair funk when the dreadful thought of having his rat killed came to him. Before the end of that day he spoke to every chap in the class separately, and all but three promised and swore not to lay a finger on the rat. But Freckles, Murdoch, and Morrant wouldn’t swear. Finally he paid Morrant sixpence and so got him over, and Murdoch he let crib off him in “prep.” three times; and Freckles, who was an awfully sportsmanlike chap really, said he was only rotting all the time, and would be the last to do a classy rat like Ferrars’s any harm. In fact, he said he’d much sooner kill Ferrars himself. Mind you, though, of course, it was simply barbarous for Ferrars to think that his piebald rat could have any effect on his work, yet he proved to me that his success in school and his great popularity with the Doctor dated from the coming of the thing. When he first got it, it was a mere cub-rat, so to say; now, though not a year old, it had turned into as fine a rat as you could wish to meet anywhere. In appearance it had pink eyes and a white head, and a fairish amount of white fur about the body, which got thinner on its stomach, so that you could see the pink skin through to some extent. But the piebaldness of the rat was the great feature. It had two big round patches of fur like the common or garden rat, and one small patch at the nape of its neck; and in addition to this it had one large patch of beautiful yellowish fur, such as you chiefly see on guinea-pigs. Its tail was pink and long, and quite hairless.