One rainy, rather dark afternoon, there was this busy executive type, who was being divorced by his wife and who was feeling just a bit down. He was even more depressed as his business was being audited by a client's law firm, and he had just received notice that one of his major accounts had escaped paying their delinquent billing by claiming bankruptcy. The letter they sent stated that "God would forgive them". He needed cheering up and maybe a drink, so he took a little walk down into that strange, old, slightly-shabby part of town where unusual goods and services could be procured. You know, the sort of place where you could find oddities like those cute little Mugways that you don't want to feed after midnight...
Anyway, our executive stumbled into a dusty sort of (was it oriental?) shop to escape a flurry of wind and rain (could it have been the same shop?) and there in the dim light, stumbled upon a great, arcane treasure languishing there upon the shelf in the dim light. It was a great, brass rat the likes of which our fellow had never seen. He called the shopkeeper over and asked him if the rat was for sale, and the old fellow nodded that it was. "How much do you want for the rat?" asked our man, and the old (oriental?) gentlemen answered that the price of the rat was twelve dollars, but warned that the true background story of the great, brass rat would cost the man five thousand dollars.
Well, the executive, brushing off the old man as executives often do, ejaculated that he didn't give a fig about the story, he just wanted the rat. He then reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a wad of money and paid for the rat. The shopkeeper asked if our man wanted a bag or box in which to carry the rat, but our executive waved off the offer, and tucking the great, brass rat under his arm, hurriedly left the store.
Well, the rain had passed, so our executive continued his walk and hardly noticed that after a half a block or so, a rat began following him. It wasn't long before two rats fell in step and before long, it seemed that every rat in the city was chasing after our executive. Wriggling and writhing, the multitude of rats hurried after our man, and their incessant squeaking and squalling really annoyed him. In fact, after glancing over his shoulder at the spectacle behind him, our man finally became concerned and began to walk faster. Soon, he found himself on the waterfront, and then racing for the edge of the docks, he quickly climbed a light standard and pitched the great, brass rat in to the swirling sea. Well, don't you know that he was relieved as he watched all the rats jump into the water like lemmings after the great, brass rat and there die in the frothy, white waters?
The next day, shortly after noon, our executive threw open the peeling door of the old, dusty shop and hastily entered therein. The shopkeeper thereupon became excited at the prospect of receiving a large amount of money and asked if our executive wanted to buy the true story of the rat. "No," said the man in his usual, curt executive manner, "I could care less about your rat story. I just came in to find out if you had any brass lawyers?"
