"It is without any exception the biggest rat in the history of our mammals.

It is a combination of the Castoridae, the Chinchillidae, the Dodgastidae, and the Lagomydian Leporidae, with just a dash of the Dippydoodle on the maternal side." His Majesty gave a sigh of disappointment, and resumed his writing.
"I haven't come here to shoot rats," he observed coldly, removing the three extra pairs of spectacles from his nose.

"I am a huntsman, not a trapper." "Your Majesty does not understand that this is no ordinary rat," I returned calmly.

"If I may be permitted to continue, what would Your Highness think of a rat that was several thousand feet higher than the pyramids, that has lived continuously for thousands of years, and is as fresh and green in spirit as on the day it was born?
Suppose I were to tell you that so great is its strength that I have myself seen a whole herd of aboriginal elephants lying asleep upon its broad back?
What would you say if I told you that its epidermis is so thick that if there were such a thing as a steam-drill in creation six hundred of them could bore away at it night and day for as many years without making any visible impression thereon ?" He again put down his chisel, and laid the hammer aside, as he ranged the extra eyeglasses along the bridge of his nose.
"Colonel Methuselah," he said, incisively biting off his words, "if you told me anything of the kind I should say that you are what posterity will probably call a nature faker, and one of a perniciously invidious sort." "I can bring affidavits to prove it, Your Majesty," said I.
"It is strange that I have never heard of it before," he mused.
"We are not particularly proud of it," I explained.

"One may boast of the number of Discosauri one finds in one's hunting preserves, or the marvelous fish in one's lakes, or the birds of wondrous plumage that dwell in one's forests, but none ever ventures to speak of the number or quality of rats that infest the locality." "You say it overtops a pyramid ?" he demanded.
"I do," I replied.