'
'Would you advise-,' I started to say, when he interrupted me.
'The man that gives advice is a bigger fool than the man that takes
it,' he fleered impatiently. 'Go and do your best!'
Before he had given me this injunction he had dipped his pen and
begun to write hurriedly. If I had known him longer I should have
known that, while he had been talking to me, that tireless mind of
his had summoned him to its service. I went out, in high spirits,
and sat down a moment on one of the benches in the little park
near by, to think it all over. He was going to measure my
judgement, my skill as a writer- my resources. 'Rats,' I said to
myself thoughtfully. I had read much about them. They infested
the ships, they overran the wharves, they traversed the sewers. An
inspiration came to me. I started for the waterfront, asking my way
every block or two. Near the East River I met a policeman - a big,
husky, good-hearted Irishman.
'Can you tell me,' I said, 'who can give me information about rats?'
'Rats?' he repeated.
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