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A
tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's
Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a
detailed bronze sculpture of a rat.
The
sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks
the shop owner the price.
"Twelve
dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and an
extra thousand for the story behind it."
"At
that price, you can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but
I'll take the bronze 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, 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... following him.
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
racing to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve blocks long is
behind him.
Making
a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a lamp post, grasping it with one
arm, while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay as far
as he can throw it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the 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
sir, you've come back for the story," says the owner.
"No,"
says the tourist, "I was just hoping you had a bronze sculpture
of a lawyer "
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