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“NEWTOWN, or Franchville, as twas called of old, is a sleepy little town, as you all may know, upon the Solent shore. Sleepy as it is now, it was once noisy enough, and what made the noise was -- rats. The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth living in. There was not a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but they ate their way into it. Not a cheese but they gnawed it hollow, not a sugar puncheon but they cleared out. Why, the very mead and beer in the barrels was not safe from them. They would gnaw a hole in the top of the tun, and down would go one master rats tail, and when he brought it up round would crowd all the friends and cousins, and each would have a suck at the tail.”-The Pied Piper |