“I say, Mister Teacher, why don’t you set traps for these brutes? Surely you are not fond of them!”
“No,” replied the teacher with a smile. “We would be glad to get rid of them if we could; but if we were to trap all the rats on the island, it would occupy our whole time.”
“Are they, then, so numerous?” inquired Jack.
“They swarm everywhere. The poor heathens on the north side eat them, and think them very sweet. So did my people formerly; but they do not eat so many now, because the missionary who was last here expressed disgust at it. The poor people asked if it was wrong to eat rats; and he told them that it was certainly not wrong, but that the people of England would be much disgusted were they asked to eat rats.”
We had not been an hour in the house of this kind-hearted man when
