"Who's afraid!" cried the boaster, flinging up his hind legs with a saucy flourish as he scampered on. Clap! he was caught in the trap! Poor rat! had he possessed the courage and skill of Whiskerandos himself, they would have availed him nothing. His miserable squeaking was louder than that of all my six brothers put together. He would not take advice, and he found the consequences. He thought himself wiser than his neighbours, and only discovered his mistake when it had led him to destruction. Had he only listened to the counsels of a little black rat! Whiskerandos remained for some moments quite still, looking towards the dismal prison of his companion. He knew too well that it was impossible to rescue him now. Then, with such bounds as few rats but himself could make, he sprang to where I was standing. "Rat!" he exclaimed, "you have saved my life, and I shall never forget the obligation. Though you are black and I am brown, no difference between us shall ever be regarded. Let us be friends to the end of our days!" "Agreed!" I cried; "let's rub noses upon it!" and noses we accordingly rubbed. He never flinched from his word, that bold Whiskerandos. I never feared him from that hour; no, not even when I knew that he was hungry, and had tasted no food from morning till night; I knew that no extremity would ever induce him to eat up his friend; and many a ramble have we had together, and through many strange paths has he led me. I ventured even into the haunts of the brown rats, for his presence was a sufficient protection. None would have dared to attack me while he was beside me,-- I should hardly have been afraid of a cat! I had naturally a fancy for roving, and a great desire to know more of the world; and what better guide could I have had than the heroic Whiskerandos? He had not, however, been so great a traveller as Furry,-- he had never yet crossed the water; but he and I determined, on some favourable opportunity, to take our passage in a ship, and explore some foreign region together. There was but one subject on which Whiskerandos and I were ever in danger of quarrelling. I had made up my mind-- and Furry, who was a very learned rat, was quite of the same opinion-- that the ancestors of the brown rats came over from Hanover to England with George I. We liked to call them Hanover rats, but this gave great offence to the race, as it made their antiquity so much less than that which we claimed for ourselves.