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Sensibility.

It was during the Great War. William and I stood together on the wharf at Wellington, watching a transport go out with a large number of soldiers, mostly young men—one of my own boys among them. Together we stood watching the vessel and the cheering lads until lost to sight. As we moved away neither of us spoke for some considerable time. At last William broke the silence.

“It is hard to go away like that, to you know not what,” he said.

“It is harder to stay behind”, I replied.

Again silence, and we walked on until we came to the point at which our roads home diverged.

Then William said:

“It's funny, isn't it? Here's you wishing you were young enough to go to the front. And here's me glad I'm just over the age, and hoping the war will be over before the powers that be are forced to raise the age to get the men to fill the additional drafts wanted. Yet nobody that knows you would accuse you of being eager to throw your life away; nor would those that knew me tell you that they always took me for a bit of a coward.”

“Well, William,” I replied, “after all it is not what folk take us for, it's what we are that counts. But I don't believe you would hesitate to go if the call came.”

“Maybe not,” he replied in a deprecatory tone, as if ashamed of the admission. Then, after a pause, he continued:

“I hate taking life. I once did.”

Seeing my look of startled inquiry, he added:

“It was rats; and I'll never forget it, nor forgive myself for it.”

His earnestness impressed me, so I said, “Tell me about it,” and we started on what was to prove a Scots convoy.

“They were three Maori rats,” said William. “They used to come out in the night time, when I had yielded to sleep. Some nights I slept lightly, and I would awake about midnight with a feeling that something was happening. I'd lie awake awhile and listen intently. Soon I would hear the soft crunch, crunch, crunch of a rat's teeth eating through some pasteboard-like material. Then I'd make a noise and the pests would scamper away. In the morning I would find that some book, left out of the bookcase over night had been eaten down the binding joints by the rats to get at the paste.”

“You must have an eident house-mother, William, seeing there are not sufficient remnants left lying about from belated human feasting to feed a few vagrom rats, that they must take to such destructive marauding!” said I. Ignoring my interruption, he went on:

“This eerie crunch, crunch, crunch occurred every time I neglected to lock away the book I had been reading before retiring for the night. Wifie blamed my carelessness in not putting my books safely out of harm's way. I blamed the rats for daring to be guilty of such vandalism. Then, somehow, one night they got into a box in which I had placed some valuable original manuscripts—precious specimens of Kipling's, Stevenson's, Barrie's, Professor Blackie's, “Surfaceman's” and others—and destroyed the lot utterly! Now I determined to lay in wait for the intruders and mete out justice. During the day I had everything removed from the room, with the exception of my bed and a chair. I placed the chair at the far end of the room from the door, and upon it laid the book on which my nocturnal visitors had been dining when I last disturbed their hard paste repast. The bed I drew near the door, leaving the latter open, and retired to wait and watch. Close on midnight I heard once more that destructive crunch, crunch, crunch. I reached out my hand quietly and closed the door quickly. I lit my candle and rose, vowing that before sunrise their sun would set for ever. There sure enough lay the sacrificial volume eaten right down the back of the binding, while three Maori rats were wildly careering round seeking escape from the avenger. Now, if there is one creature I hate it is a rat, and three of them raised all my dormant lust for blood. And I got it! This, too, although the Maori rat is not so repulsive as the common brown beggar and a great deal less clever and cunning. One was a perfect fool. He rushed to his fate. Eyes! Great Scot, what eyes! The last little fellow bunched himself into the smallest proportions possible. He was all eyes! Two burning balls—no, not burning; but like liquid electric lights shining through the precious stone known as peridot. I see those eyes even now, and somehow esteem myself a little less for having extinguished their light.”

William hurriedly bade me “goodnight”; and as I walked homeward I could not help reflecting how impossible it would be for a man who talked like that about killing rats, to set out to kill his fellow-humans, even though among the least of their crimes was the destruction of valuable books—whole libraries of them!