A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San
 Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on
 display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze
 sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and
 unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner what it
 costs.

"Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner,
"and a thousand dollars more for the story behind it."

"You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but I'll
 take the rat." The transaction complete, the tourist
 leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm.

 As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live
 rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind
 him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to
 walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain,
 more rats come out and follow him.

 By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred
 rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and
 shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot
 as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant
 lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the thousands are at his
 heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the
 hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how
 fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now
 not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he
 comes rushing up to the water's edge a trail of rats
 twelve city blocks long is behind him.

 Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post,
 grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat
 into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can
 heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light
 post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats
 surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown.


 Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique
 shop. "Ah, so you've come back for the rest of the story,"
 says the owner.

 "No," says the tourist, "I was wondering if you have a bronze lawyer."

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