 Rod Serling 's concluding statement in the episode - that Bemis has become " just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself " - alludes to Robert Burns ' Scots language poem " To a Mouse " ( 1785 , for which John Steinbeck 's book , Of Mice and Men ( 1938 ) , was also named ) . The poem concludes : " The best @-@ laid schemes o ' mice an men / Gang aft <unk> " ( translation : " Often go awry " ) . 
