In the dark of night, one light still yet burns.

Frightened fingers tremble as brittle pages turn.

Fireside Mystery Theatre presents the Midnight Reading,

a summer series of dramatic recitations of dark masterpieces in miniature by the masters of the macabre.

Good evening. I'm Ali Silva.

M.R. James. For lovers of dark fiction who are squarely in the know, that name represents something of a gold standard.

There are some who swear that in the English language,

no one else in the field comes close to James at his finest.

We here at Fireside are also huge admirers of Mr. James's work.

Now, we normally create wholly new and original work for our radio plays at Fireside Mystery

Theatre, but we made a notable exception when we adapted M.R. James's frightening story,

Lost Hearts, which can be found in our London Fog podcast episode.

Tonight's story is a late period sketch by M.R. James, a little chiller called

rats.

It has all the markings of a typical James tale, a middle-aged, stuffy academic placed in an

equally ordinary and drab setting that conceals something totally bizarre, menacing, and just plain off the wall.

Here to read rats for us is our own James Reeser.

Music And if you were to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd see the ragged, mouldy bedclothes

a heathen and a heaven like seas, and a heaven and a heaven with what?

He says, why were the rats under them?

But was it with the rats? I ask.

Because in another case it was not.

...