“You have me there!” replied he, with the most winkish of winks. “But we digress. Where is the blue rat now? Perhaps a few specimens might be found, falling back, with the Red Men, upon the Rocky Mountains. And where will the Caucasian race be three centuries [his very figures] hence? Your statesmen are right, but, like Opecancanough, right too late. Your race is doomed; not, indeed, to extinction, for already the despised Mongol begins to find wives among you, but you will be crossed out of existence by a superior and prepotent race. Look at me,” said he, giving himself a slap upon his broad chest; “do I look like an inferior specimen of—there he comes again!” Looking, I saw the rat, stealthily creeping toward the egg, his larboard eye covering us, his starboard fixed upon a cat that lay dozing in the shadow of a post. “There he is, that intruder from Persia, and he will remain with you. Housewives may poison, here and there, a score of them,—the survivors take warning; pussy may lie in wait,—he learns to avoid—even to bully her. Terriers may dig down into their hiding-places,—they will bore others. An incautious youngster gets his leg in a trap,—his squeal is a liberal education to the entire colony. He has an infinite capacity for adjusting himself to his environment. He is here for good; and so is the Chinaman. Congress may legislate against him; it will be a Papal bull against a comet. Mobs may assail him, trade-unions damn him; but the Chinaman will not go. And myriads more, the survivors of ages of a fearful struggle for existence at home, will pour in. He will not go. He will come; and between Ying Kee and Yang Kee the fittest will survive.” “Westward,” began I, “westward the star of empire—” “Scat!” cried he, leaping from his seat. Our rat, having, at last, after many advances and retreats, secured the egg, was making off with it to his hole, when the cat, awakening, sprang after him. Down he plunged into his hole, bearing off the egg, but leaving an inch of his tail under pussy’s paws. “Scat!” cried I, rushing to the rat’s assistance,—and bump! I fell upon the floor. Ah Ying had vanished. My door was still locked. It had all been a dream. 20. No, my boy, I am not a candidate for the Presidency. This is no hook baited with the Chinese question. My object is merely to explain how you happen to have almond eyes. And if you don’t, you will understand that it is no fault of mine. The Welsh rarebit dream overcame the canned lobster vision,—that’s all. And having made this clear to you, as I hope, the time has come for me to say a few words about myself. 21.