drink, were the easiest to handle. The younger people were more troublesome. They were apt to become abusive, sometimes violent when he approached them; and more than once Knipe was slightly injured on his rounds.
But on the whole, it was a satisfactory beginning. This last year—the first full year of the machine's operation—it was estimated that at least one half of all the novels and stories published in the English language were produced by Adolph Knipe upon the Great Automatic Grammatizator.
Does this surprise you?
I doubt it.
And worse is yet to come. Today, as the secret spreads, many more are hurrying to tie up with Mr Knipe. And all the time the screw turns tighter for those who hesitate to sign their names.
This very moment, as I sit here listening to the howling of my nine starving children in the other room, I can feel my own hand creeping closer and closer to that golden contract that lies over on the other side of the desk.
Give us strength, Oh Lord, to let our children starve.
Claud's Dog
THE RAT CATCHER
IN the afternoon the ratcatcher came to the filling station. He came sidling up the driveway with a stealthy, soft-treading gait, making no noise at all with his feet on the gravel. He had an army knapsack slung over one shoulder and he was wearing an old-fashioned black jacket with large pockets. His brown corduroy trousers were tied around the knees with pieces of white string.
'Yes?' Claud asked, knowing very well who he was.
'Rodent operative.' His small dark eyes moved swiftly over the premises.
'The ratcatcher?'
'That's me.'
The man was lean and brown with a sharp face and two long sulphur-coloured teeth that protruded from the upper jaw, overlapping the lower lip, pressing it inward. The ears were thin and pointed and set far back on the head, near the nape of the neck. The eyes were almost black, but when they looked at you there was a flash of yellow somewhere inside them.
'You've come very quick.'
'Special orders from the Health Office.'
'And now you're going to catch all the rats?'
'Yep.'
The kind of dark furtive eyes he had were those of an animal that lives its life peering out cautiously and forever from a hole in the ground.
'How are you going to catch 'em?'
'Ah-h-h,' the ratman said darkly. 'That's all accordin' to where they is.'
'Trap 'em, I suppose.'
'Trap 'em!' he cried, disgusted. 'You won't catch many rats that way! Rats isn't rabbits, you know.'
He held his face up high, sniffing the air with a nose that twitched perceptibly from side to side.
'No,' he said, scornfully. 'Trappin's no way to catch a rat. Rats is clever, let me tell you that. If you want to catch 'em, you got to know 'em. You got to know rats on this job.'
I could see Claud staring at him with a certain fascination.
'They're more clever'n dogs, rats is.'
'Get away.'
'You know what they do? They watch you! All the time you're goin' round preparin' to catch 'em, they're sittin' quietly in dark places, watchin' you.' The man crouched, stretching his stringy neck far forward.
'So what do you do?' Claud asked, fascinated.
'Ah! That's it, you see. That's where you got to know rats.'
'How d'you catch 'em?'
'There's ways,' the ratman said, leering. 'There's various ways.' He paused, nodding his repulsive head sagely up and down. 'It's all dependin',' he said, 'on where they is. This ain't a sewer job, is it?'
'No, it's not a sewer job.'
'Tricky things, sewer jobs. Yes,' he said, delicately sniffing the air to the left of him with his mobile nose-end, 'sewer jobs is very tricky things.'
'Not especially, I shouldn't think.'
'Oh-ho. You shouldn't, shouldn't you! Well, I'd like to see you do a sewer job! Just exactly how would you set about it, I'd like to know?'
'Nothing to it. I'd just poison 'em, that's all.'
'And where exactly would you put the poison, might I ask?'
'Down the sewer. Where the hell you think I put it!'
'There!' the ratman cried, triumphant. 'I knew it! Down the sewer! And you know what'd happen then? Get washed away, that's all. Sewer's like a river, y'know.'
'That's what you say,' Claud answered. 'That's only what you say.'
'It's facts.'
'All right, then, all right. So what would you do, Mr Know-all?'
'That's exactly where you got to know rats, on a sewer job.'
'Come on then, let's have it.'
'Now listen. I'll tell you.' The ratman advanced a step closer, his voice became secretive and confidential, the voice of a man divulging fabulous professional secrets. 'You works on the understandin' that a rat is a gnawin' animal, see. Rats gnaws. Anythin' you give 'em, don't matter what it is, anythin' new they never seen before, and what do they do? They gnaws it. So now! There you are! You get a sewer job on your hands. And what d'you do?'
His voice had the soft throaty sound of a croaking frog and he seemed to speak all his words with an immense wet-lipped relish, as though they tasted good on the tongue. The accent was similar to Claud's, the broad soft accent of the Buckinghamshire countryside, but his voice was more throaty, the words more fruity in his mouth.
'All you do is you go down the sewer and you take along some ordinary paper bags, just ordinary brown paper bags, and these bags is filled with plaster of Paris powder. Nothin' else. Then you suspend the bags from the roof of the sewer so they hang down not quite touchin' the water. See? Not quite touchin', and just high enough so a rat can reach 'em.'
Claud was listening, rapt.
'There you are, y'see. Old rat comes swimmin' along the sewer and sees the bag. He stops. He takes a sniff at it and it don't smell so bad anyway. So what's he do then?'
'He gnaws it,' Claud cried, delighted.
'There! That's it! That's exactly it! He starts gnawin' away at the bag and the bag breaks and the old rat gets a mouthful of powder for his pains.'
'Well?'
'That does him.'
'What? Kills him?'
'Yep. Kills him stony!'
'Plaster of Paris ain't poisonous, you know.'
