A tourist
wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed,
life-sized bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting
and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it costs.
"Twelve dollars for the rat,
sir," says the shop owner, "and a thousand dollars more for
the story behind it."
"You can keep the story, old
man," he replies, "but I'll take the rat."
The transaction complete, the tourist
leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the
street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain
and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he
begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain,
more rats come out and follow him. By the time he's walked two blocks,
at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point
and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as
multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and
abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees
the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run
full tilt.
No matter how fast he runs, the rats
keep up, squealing hideously, now not just thousands but millions, so
that by the time he comes rushing up to the water's edge a trail of
rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he
jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls
the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can
heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he
watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the
breakwater into the sea, where they drown.
Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way
back to the antique shop.
"Ah, so you've come back for the
rest of the story," says the owner.
"No,"
says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze
lawyer."
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