The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-29
HE SAW RED RATS.
The. Peculiar Position in Which Such
 a Sight May Place Man.

The. Peculiar Position in Which Sucf a Sight May Place Man.
 Tt was a most peculiar dilemma,
 said the young man who told the story
 lone of those situations in which fel.
 low can't explain himself for fear of be-
 ing misunderstood.
 "A couple of weeks a go rented a
 suite of three rooms in an old building
 not far from the Hotel Royal, one of
 those ramshackle barracks that were
 once handsome mansions, and precisely
 adapted to the picturesque semi-Bohem- ian snuggery I had been longing for
 several years to establish on that side
 of town. Well. I moved in. and every
 thing went all right until the afternoon
 ofs the second day, when I was smoking
 corncob pipe in the. rear room, which
 overloks a very quaint bricked court yard, and happened to notice red rat
 on top of the cistern---" w
 "A red rat!" exclaimed his listeners
 in astonished chorus. Did you say red
 rat or dead rat?"
 T said red rat and meant red rat"
 replied the narrator. "The rat saw
 was abnormally large in size and bright
 vermilion in color. Naturally I was
 somewhat startled. Tn fact, I got such
 a sudden move on me that I fell over
 backward and when picked myself up
 the rat was gone tried to argue that
 the thing was an optical illusion, prob
 ably some scrap of red paper which the
 wind had carried to the cistern top and
 blown again, but it was go. Iremem-
 Der the beast too distinctly.
 "If went to bed trying to solve the
 enigma" continued the young man,
 "and got up still thinking about red rats. Of course 1t was absurd, yet the
 incident so preyed upon my mind and
 disturbed my train of thought that found myself unable to do some writ ing which had mapped out and was particularly anxious to complete"
 "But. why didn't you question the neighpors?" interrupted one of the par ty, who were deeply interested.
 "That occurred to me, but they were all strange, foreign-looking folk, who never spoke English, and I was satisfied I couldn't make them understand Be- eides. it is an awkward job to approach total stranger with inquiries about red rats. He is apt to conclude that you are either crazy or guying him, and in either case will probably punch your head before you can explain. So l said nothing, but kept a close eye on the old court and after three or four days had elapsed I was beginning to think 1t was all dream, when I again saw the red rat--this time with companion equal ly large and equally red. The two crea- lures were stunning themselves at the end of my own back gallery, and l saw them through window not twenty feet away. There was no earthly chance for a mistake, they were large, live rats, the exact shade of od-fash- toned red flannel I glared at them per- haps minute and then a door slamm- | ed somewhere and they both suddenly vanished down a drain pipe. That visi- tation determined me to solve the nys- tery or perish in the attempt and I | rushed down to a little store on the same block. Excuse me- said to the proprietor but did you ever see any red | rats around here?' I must have looked | pretty wild. anyhow he burst out laugh ing. Only once he said. They wore little tin caps and carried blue para sols.' Oh! but seriously!' I insisted. 'you'u find it serious said he, unless you, quit drinking
 'eThat discouraged me, I had intend- ed going through the whole block sys- tematically and questioning everybody but I saw it was gound to land me in the jim jam ward if I persisted, so went quickly back to my room and tried to view the situation philosophically. There are some red rats on the premis- es.' said to myself T don't know where they came from or how they &C., uuired that peculiar color, and what is more I don't care. I will dismiss them from my mind' But that was easier said than done. I hate mystery and was haunted by the horrible fear that was the victim of hallucination. Do what I would, those internal red rats through my brain morning, noon and night. I went into store to ret a cigar and paralyzed the clerk by skiing him for an imported red rat not Q dry, and a correspondent wired to 1now what the dickens meant by writ ng that red rats were certain to drop i've points before the close of Mondays rading r. Finally couldn't stand it any long IF. and although I had seen nothing nore of the rats I decided to quit the ooms. That was last Thursday and yhen I told the landlord I wanted to 70, he was astonished and pressed me lard for a reason. Well, to tell you the ruth I said at last, T don't like the olor of the rats in that house They on't match the furniture. Oh! the red ats!' he said laughing; are there still ome of them left? Yes fairly yell q. and for goodness sake tell me quick yhat you know about em.' Why, there 5ere two German feather dyers on the hird floor last spring he said, and ust for fun they caught lot of rats nd dyed them red. It killed most of he lot, but three or four seemed to get at on it, and I've seen 'em running round lots of times Surely they aven't scared you out, have they" hen I lied abjectly and told him no; nat it was something else, and tel him s,,%,. -+a