“Just a rat, she repeated to herself. After all, there were rats in the palace. Human and otherwise. Could be worse.”

“It was a pleasure, Enna, Finn, tree rat.""Did she just call you tree rat?”

“We must be as stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society. It was easier in the old days, of course, and society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as old wooden buildings have more rats than concrete buildings. But there are rats in the building now as well. Now that society is all ferrocrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps in the joints. It takes a very smart rat indeed to find these openings. Only a stainless steel rat can be at home in this environment...”

“But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.”

“Did you bring me a rat?""He has no time for rats, George.""No time for rats? That's just sad.”

“He looked exactly like a rat. Like the human being version of a rat. Like the villain in a Don Bluth movie.”