"'I wonder whether Mary ever saw the like of it before,' he continued, examining me with attention; 'I'll put it in the empty wire-cage, and try if I cannot tame it for her.' "Here was a reprieve, and a most unexpected one. No one who has not believed himself to be just on the point of being smashed, can tell how glad I was when I was set loose from the farmer's terrible gripe, though only to find myself in a cage! "But soon the longing for liberty came. I attempted to gnaw through the wires, but they resisted my utmost efforts. The farmer watched me, spoke to me, gave me food-- treated me like a creature that could feel. That man has a gentle and kindly heart! At length I grew accustomed to my master, and to see him approach my prison with food was the only pleasure of my life. He ventured his finger between the bars, and I never attempted to bite it. He released me at last from my cage, and gave me a far warmer, snugger home-- in the pocket of his own great-coat!" At this point in the story Whiskerandos and I uttered expressions of amazement. "Wherever he went," continued Oddity, "I went too. He taught me many things altogether new to a rat. It is our nature to take what we can get,-- he taught me to see food and not to touch it! He never suffered me to feel hungry: he conversed with me as though I were a little companion, and never one blow did I receive from his hand, or one kick from his heel! It was not in the nature of a quadruped to be insensible to kindness like this!" "And yet you owed it all to your piebald coat!" exclaimed I. "Never was beauty such an advantage to a four-footed beast as ugliness has been to you!" "I found," pursued Oddity very quietly, "that Will Grange, my master, was going to London, to be married to the young woman whom he had spoken of as Mary. We travelled to the city together, I snugly sleeping, coiled up in his pocket." "And were you given to the lady?" said Whiskerandos. "I was placed before her on a table, in a quiet little back-parlour, in which she and my master sat together. She admired my appearance." "No, no!" interrupted I, "that's impossible, I can believe anything but that!" "Well, then, she wished to gratify my master by appearing to do so. She praised me, and fed me from her hand, and said that such a rat she never had seen in her life. Then I crept under my master's chair, and there very quietly remained, while he and his Mary talked over future plans together. "He told her of the various things that he had bought to make his home more comfortable for his wife. How he had planted the garden himself with all her favourite flowers, and twined honeysuckle over his porch. Then he took her hand within his own, and in a lower and softer voice asked her if she were happy.