Honored and
noble Miss:Since you have been so nice to me all day long,
as if I was a captain, I want to be nice to you, in return, as if I was a real captain:
for I do not want you to be embarrassed at this Christmas season by a thief; but you can
give back the money to the old man on the road-side, who has the money pouch hanging on
the window frame as a bait for poor wanderers.The rat trap
is a Christmas present from a rat who would have been caught in this world’s rat trap if
he had not been raised to captain, because in that way he got power to clear
himself.Written with friendship and high
regard,
In The Rattrap, the
homeless rat trap seller shows himself to be mean spirited and mercenary when he takes
the crofter's (tenant farmer's) hospitality and friendship then later goes back to take
his money too:
He only went up to the window, smashed a pane,
stuck in his hand, and got hold of the ... the thirty kronor. ... and thrust it into his
own pocket.
The rat trap
seller's normal way of life makes him insensible to the immorality of his thefts until
the veil is lifted one night when he reluctantly accepts, at the urging of the
ironmaster's daughter, freely given hospitality from the ironmaster who, ironically,
mistakes the rat trap seller for an old friend:
[The ironmaster] had sent his daughter,
apparently hoping that she would have better powers of persuasion than he
himself.
It is here that the
daughter of the ironmaster shows the rat trap seller so much genuine love, respect,
courtesy and understanding that he is prompted to confess all to her in a letter and
return the crofter's money through her. Her kindness brought out the inner goodness
dwelling silently within the rat trapper when she took up his side and insisted he stay
with them for Christmas, even after it had been discivered that he was not the old
friend:
That
morning she had felt so happy when she thought how homelike and Christmassy she was
going to make things for the poor hungry
wretch.
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