Ferrars often kept back good things at meals for it, and the bond between them seemed to grow rummer and rummer, till he let the rat get on his mind, and Wilson said he was getting dotty about it. Which I think was true, for one day, going into the class-room to get a knife from my desk, I saw Ferrars with his rat out, talking to it. He was swatting like anything in play-hours for a special Old Testament history prize, and he had the rat and the Bible and various books of reference all before him. Then, not knowing I was there, he spoke: “I must win it, ‘Mayne Reid.’ Stick to me this time, old chap, and see me through.” He called his rat “Mayne Reid” because that was his favorite author. And “Mayne Reid” seemed to understand, and he turned his pink eyes on to the open Bible and walked over it. Finding he’d walked over the ninth chapter of the Second Book of Kings, Ferrars got excited, and, seeing me, said, “By Jove! then I’ll learn that chapter by heart, though it is so long. It’s good, exciting stuff, anyway, and I bet my rat walking over it means that there’ll be a question about Jehu and Jezebel.” “You’ll go cracked about that rat,” I said. “It’s part of my life,” he answered. “I know it seems very peculiar, and so it is, and I don’t suppose such a thing ever happened before, but something tells me my prosperity and success is all bound up in that rat. He’s a familiar spirit, in fact, like Saul had. If he died I should never do much more good, and very likely stick in this class for the rest of my days.” “You’d better not think like that,” I said, “because rats are short-lived things, owing to the nasty food they eat. Not that ‘Mayne Reid’ has nasty food; but all pink-eyed animals are delicate, and you’ll have to lose him sooner or later.” Ferrars didn’t take warning by me, but after he really did win the Old Testament prize, and there really was a question about Jezebel, he made a sort of idol out of the rat, and some chaps declared he said his prayers to it. I know he constantly bought it cocoa-nut chips, which it was very fond of. He trained it, too, to live in his breast-pocket, and I often saw him glancing down in class just to get a glimpse of its little eyes looking up at him. That taking the piebald rat into class shows the lengths Ferrars ran. The whole thing was very peculiar. Some chaps said there was a strong likeness growing up between Ferrars and the rat; and certainly his thin, white face had a rattish look sometimes. Other fellows told him his rat was an evil spirit, and would end by doing him a bad turn, but Ferrars turned upon them and jawed them with such frightful language that they never said it again. Meanwhile the Doctor went on taking to Ferrars more and more, and there seemed every chance of his getting the whole Bible by heart before he left Merivale.