| Episode 7 (Rats) First
Transmitted 18.2.1991 |
 Starring: Ken Wynne as The Weasel Jo Warne as Prunella Plum
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In the T-Room, T-Bag is quivering in her bed because she had been blown to bits in the previous episode.
Polly arrives in Victorian London. She is approached by a scruffy, stinky old tramp, who politely offers her assistance as she looks like she is lost. Polly turns down his help. The man warns her that the streets are crawling with rapscallions, so she should keep her wits about her. She tells the man that she is not planning on staying long, and the man grabs her bum-bag with the rings in and dashes off into a sidestreet with a cry of, "Neither am I!". Polly follows hot on his heels, but when she gets to the alleyway, he has vanished into thin air, with no visible means of escape as it is a dead end.
The man (the notorious sneak thief known as "The Weasel") hides the loot behind a loose stone in his secret hideout in the sewers.
Polly sits hunched up on a doorstep in the street, when a kindly woman bustles out of her house and greets her. She tells Polly not to look so downhearted. Polly starts to explain that she has been looking for some gold rings, when she spots that the woman (Prunella) has one as a keyring.
T-Bag sees that she has found the ring and is furious. She leaps out of bed and tells T-Shirt that she has got to get down there. T-Shirt tells her that he will go because she is in no fit state. T-Bag is not convinced. "I'm not as green as I'm cabbage-looking." Says T-Shirt. "Let's face it, you're pretty cabbage-looking!" says T-Bag. She agrees, however, and T-Shirt goes. T-Bag tells him to report backregularly and gives him a walkie-talkie.
Prunella gives the ring to Polly, before she goes to put her spuds on. T-Shirt appears and yells, "Stop!", but Prunella has already gone. T-Shirt notices that Polly has lost her bag and he asks where it is. Polly tells him that she had it nicked and she leaves to track it down.
T-Shirt is tapped on the shoulder by the Weasel. The thief asks if he can be of any assistance, and T-Shirt tells him that a close friend has had her bag stolen and that he wants to get it back. He asks if the Weasel has seen any suspicious characters lurking around the place. The Weasel says that he has, and goes into a set of impossible direction to get to the thief. As T-Shirt is trying to remember the directions, the Weasel snatches the walkie-talkie and dashes off into the alleyway. T-Shirt follows, but can't find the Weasel as, again, he has vanished.
Later, the Weasel is yelling at the walkie-talkie and asking what it is. T-Bag can hear his voice over the other one, and assumes that it is T-Shirt. She starts yelling at him down it. This scares the Weasel rigid and he drops it on the floor and starts poking it with a stick.
Up on the street, T-Shirt can hear T-Bag screeching away from the alleyway. He hears that the noise is coming from a grate on the ground. He climbs down and finds the Weasel pleading with the walkie-talkie to shut up. T-Shirt picks it up and turns it off. He talks to the Weasel and manages to persuade him to take him on as an accomplice, as they would be able to get twice the loot. The Weasel tells him that he will take him on on condition that he can go and rob someone.
T-Shirt goes up onto the street and sees Prunella coming out of her house with a great big bag of money. He asks her if she knows where he can catch a bus. Prunella is puzzled and whilst she is confused, T-Shirt grabs the bag and dashes off. Prunella bursts into tears. T-Shirt stops and explains that he's only an apprentice. Prunella cries her eyes out and tells T-Shirt that she has had a horrible life, "Squalour, deprivation and back-breaking toil, and those were the good bits", she says, as T-Shirt looks on, sympathetically. She explains how she scrimped and saved all her life to get a few pennies together, only to have them stolen by T-Shirt. T-Shirt is overcome with remorse and bursts into tears. He gives her back the money and then gives her his pocket money, his comics, his pen, crisps, his pineapple cubes, etc.
T-Bag sees this and despairs. She decides that she had better go herself.
T-Shirt offloads the rest of his belongings onto Prunella, and she goes into her house, filled with gratitude. T-Bag appears and yells at T-Shirt. She tells him that she will get the bag herself. T-Shirt takes her to the sewer and tells her to go down and get the rings. T-Bag is not impressed. She eventually gives in, but tells T-Shirt that they will do it her way.
Later, the Weasel is sorting through the loot. T-Bag comes down the sewer dressed as a ratcatcher. She says that she is on the trail of a huge rat Rattus elongatus. The Weasel tells her that he is not afraid of any rats. T-Bag then sees a shadow of a huge rat behind him, and she warns him. The Weasel whirls around to see T-Shirt in a rat costume. He panics and flees.
As he climbs out of the sewer and runs down the street, Polly points him out to Prunella as the thief that took her bag. Prunella picks up a flower pot and lobs it at him. It smashes over the back of his head and he sinks to the floor. They search the body, but there are no rings. Polly follows the way that he came and finds the grate in the side alley open. She climbs down.
T-Bag and T-Shirt find the bag behind the loose stone in the wall. Polly comes in and demands to have her bag back. T-Bag starts telling her how finding the bag of rings has really brightened up her day. She then notices that Polly is staring at her feet. Polly tells T-Bag that there is a massive rat crawling around them. T-Bag doesn't believe her and says that she's just being pathetic. Polly notices that there are loads of rats now congregating around T-Bag's feet. T-Shirt gets a bit squeamish as he notices them. T-Bag then notices them and goes barmy. As she flails around, she throws the bag and Polly catches it. T-Bag then goes back to the T-Room.
Back in the T-Room, T-Bag is once again a blabbering wreck in bed. T-Shirt sees something moving around under the covers and thinks that it is a rat. He conjurs up a big hammer and smashes it down on the movement, but it turns out to be T-Bag's foot.