Living, as he did, surrounded by the most disgustingly unpleasant sewage, the Sewer Rat was soon able - with only a minimal amount of muckraking - to find out the dirt on everyone!There were no smelly, smutty secrets that he did not know and when others discovered that he knew things about them that they didn’t want anyone to know, they made the Sewer Rat their friend - inviting him to private parties, weekends in the country and all the most prestigious social events - in the hope that, through flattery, they could buy his silence.
The Sewer Rat enjoyed the kind of life denied to most rats and, since he was constantly discovering more and more dirt on more and more people, succeeded in widening his circle of intimate friends and social influence until he was able to forget that he was, in fact, just a Sewer Rat.
Everyone else, by common consent, decided to tolerate the Rat, since they knew that it is always better to have those who can damage you as an ally rather than an enemy, even if they were born and bred in the sewer. After all, as a price for confidentiality, the occasional, albeit pungent, smell of sewage was little more than a minor inconvenience.
© Brian Sibley 2006
Read more of my Likely Stories.
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