Let ol’ Screed tell yer, the advan’age o’ rats is ’ow simple they are as prey.  Tricky to catch, o’ course.  (They’re clever in their own way, more than most folks give credit for.)  On the other ’and, ’umans can be tricky, too.  All too easy to frigh’en ’em; and then they run and scream.  You can’t always choke ’em off fast enough neither, not before some ’ero type comes to the rescue—like as not the ’alf-vamp ’unting type what’ll spot you for wha’ you are.  (Nasty, those.)  ’Course, if you’re pretty as the V-man, then ya can sweet-talk your dinner off to some lonely place where it’s easy to get up close and ’ave a nibble.  Now I’ll be the firs’ ta admit, me luck wi’ the ladies ain’t that good.  Not that I don’t get me share, usually when I’m in the money; but Vachonetti, now, ’e just ’as to blink those huge dark cow eyes of ’is and they beg to be taken.

Anovver trouble wi’ ’umans is, when you’ve ’ad your fun an’ games, you’ve a body on your ’ands.  Disposing of those is a bugger.  Buryin’ ’em is work; not buryin’ ’em stinks; and just droppin’ ’em off any-damn-place leads to trouble.  Once upon a time, long long ago, ya only ’ad to fly off to the next town.  Nowadays, it’s pitchers on the goggle-box, millicents flashing their badges, and seesy-eye types taking funny swabs of things they should leave alone.  Bloody Enforcers on the doorstep if y’re not careful!  Not worth it—I’ll tell yer, I decided that one a while ago.  Which means I’ve not ’ad meself a cheena to snuggle me arm round for far too long.  (Well, truth be told, I don’ miss it ’alf as much as you’d s’pose.)

Now, you’d probbly say the answer’s to go to the Raven and chat up a pretty vamp-type wiv a big pair of groodies and a taste for a nip o’ the red stuff.  (Well, you’d say that.  I knows better.)  First off, there’s a door-man at the door wha’s job is keepin’ folks like me out o’ the place.  Second, the types wha’ chance-a-dance at yer hi-class joints like the ravin’ Raven—well, they don’ go for low-life types who go sewer-scramblin’.  Meaning carouches in general and me in partikerler.  Rats not bein’ their cuppa, and me tastin’ of ’em.  Or so they say.

Also there’s the stinko.  Sewer-scramblin’ leads inevitable-like to unfortunate apple-lewd-shuns in the stuff wha’ runs in such places.  Anyone can ’ave a slip up on the slime and go arse over tip.  Yer do get a bit manky at times.  Flat out merzky, even.  And, if you say “Cheest yer clobber!”, then yer a nob:  cast yer minces this way, I arst yer.  Do I look like I ’as a wardrobe?  Nor yet am I about t’go prancing about the cellar stark nagoy while me best bib’n’tucker is adryin’ on the line alongside the rats I pegged up.

Which brings us back to the subject at ’and, don’t it?

There be rats, and there be rats; and the largest is to be found in the sewers but the sweetest is to be found in barns.  There bein’ sadly few o’ the latter in a city, a carouche type wha’ ’as a taste for scuttlers—meaning me, o’ course—’as ter get wha’ ’e can where ’e can.  One bit o’ ad-vice I can give, at least ter those wi’ the sense to learn from it:  stay clear of the pretty white ones.  They look as though they’ll taste extra special (and they’re fair enough in that department, I will admit); but they carry a nasty bite.

No, ya nazz!  It ain’t the teeth ya hafta look out for!  That were a metty-for, as Bourbon calls it.

I ’ad one of them once.  It were unpleasant to fatal, an’ I reckon I’m lucky to be ’ere.  Less said the better.

The advantage o’ rats, as said above, is their simplicity as prey.  Now bein’ a nob, you may think Screed’s tellin’ porkies ’ere, bu’ I’m not, cross me ’eart wi’ a white rat (an’ ’ope not ta die!).  Truth is, rats is everywhere.  Sometimes they come out where anyone can see ’em; mostly they lurk; but yer’ll never clear ’em out altogevver.  So dinner’s always near to hand, see?  Just a quick snatch—and there’s none faster than a ’ungry carouche!—and there’s a tasty mounch for yer.

Go on:  get down on yer bugs’n’fleas and take a butcher’s under the coal chute.  This cellar comes wiv its own corner store, I tell no lie.

As fer disposing of the sad remains, nothing is simpler.  Stick the corpus in a dumpster.  It’ll like as not be gone come mornin’.  There’s bigger vermin than rats in these parts:  some of them go ’alf-inchin’ with bandit masks and rings round their tails (and grow pretty fat on the garbage, too).

So wha’ more do yer need in life?

Don’t be sarky.  I mean it.  I got a roof over me ’ead (or over the building that’s over me ’ead); I got food for easy pickins.  Whadja mean “friends”?  I got mates.  Once I ran wiv a gang, even, though most’ve those’re long gone.  I still got me ol’ china Vachon, though.  It were ’is crew.  Y’know, most o’ those “real” vamp types, they’re too hi’n’mighty to give the time o’ day to the likes of me.  (Snuff me more like.  There’s reasons not to go to the Raven.)  Vachon’s crew were dobby types, though.

Well, yeah, I said they left.  Only ones left round ’ere are Vachonetti and Goldilocks.

’Ow’d we meet?  On the docks.  Years ago.  I’m a sailor by trade—another good point for rats.  Y’find ’em on every ship.  “Real” vamp types, they usen’t to take long voyages, not easily, not wivvout coming into port wi’ ’alf the crew gone.  “Lost overboard” may be easy disposal; but then the crew comes hunting what’s killin’ ’em all off.  When yer on a schooner in the middle of the herring pond, broad daylight … well, you fill it in.  Me, now:  I sign on, pull a little boozle to get night shift, then nip below for my tiffin.  Easy peasy.

Met the V-man in Boston.  Not the one back ’ome:  the one that had that Tea Party.  Come up from the south, ’e ’ad.  Long story.

He’s a droog.