the area railing in a row below her, all
speaking at once in an effort to convey to her the fact that a retreat
on her part would be tactful.

The sparrow obviously buys all his clothes ready-made, probably at
Jumble Sales, and he always seems to choose clothes made for a stouter
bird. There is no reason why he should never look chic; he has a slimmer
figure than the bullfinch, for instance, who always manages to look so
well-tailored. It is just arrogance, pure Londonism, on the part of the
sparrow, just that impudent socialistic spirit that makes it so
difficult for us to reform the Naughty Poor.

Sarah Brown retreated one step. "I'm not going farther away. Either you
eat that sandwich with me looking on, or you leave it."

The sparrows whispered together for a moment, saying to each other, "You
go first." They obviously knew that it was a charity window-sill, and
were afraid Sarah Brown might intend to rebuke them for not shutting
their beaks while chewing, or for neglecting to put any crumbs into the
Savings Bank. But after a minute one sparrow moistened his beak and
came.... He ate, they all ate, and did not seek to escape as the door of
the office opened and the witch came in. She went straight to the window
and picked up from among the stooping sparrows a piece of the broken
sandwich, and ate it. The Dog David was making sure that there was no
surviving crumb on the floor to tell the tale of his mother's
sentimental weakness. Almost instantly, therefore, that sandwich was but
a memory, a fading taste in about twenty beaks and two mouths. But still
the window stood open, and the air danced, and the white reflections of
the ship-like clouds lay on the oilcloth floor.

Sarah Brown in the meanwhile, disregarding the witch, had returned to
the index, and had taken from its drawer a notification form. In the
space given for Name of Case she had written in her irreproachable
printing hand:

"CHARITY, Cautionary Case, 12 Pan Street, Brown Borough. With reference
to the above case, I have to report that it seems unsatisfactory. There
are indeed grave suspicions that the above name is only an alias, the
address being also probably false, for the genuine Charity's place of
origin is said to be the home rather than the office. The present
registrar is at a loss to identify with certainty this case. It would
seem to be one of the Habits that haunt the world, collecting Kudos
under assumed names...."

"It puzzles me," s