ibly
shabby caps, in ragged trousers that are turned up at the ankles,
and look as though they had been gnawed by mice, crowd round the
birds, splashing through the mud. The young people and the workmen
are sold hens for cocks, young birds for old ones. . . . They know
very little about birds. But there is no deceiving the bird-fancier.
He sees and understands his bird from a distance.

"There is no relying on that bird," a fancier will say, looking
into a siskin's beak, and counting the feathers on its tail. "He
sings now, it's true, but what of that? I sing in company too. No,
my boy, shout, sing to me without company; sing in solitude, if you
can. . . . You give me that one yonder that sits and holds its
tongue! Give me the quiet one! That one says nothing, so he thinks
the more. . . ."

Among the waggons of birds there are some full of other live
creatures. Here you see hares, rabbits, hedgehogs, guinea-pigs,
polecats. A hare sits sorrowfully nibbling the straw. The guinea-pigs
shiver with cold, while the hedgehogs look out with curiosity from
under their prickles at the public.

"I have read somewhere," says a post-office official in a faded
overcoat, looking lovingly at the hare, and addressing no one in
particular, "I have read that some learned man had a cat and a mouse
and a falcon and a sparrow, who all ate out of one bowl."

"That's very possible, sir. The cat must have been beaten, and the
falcon, I dare say, had all its tail pulled out. There's no great
cleverness in that, sir. A friend of mine had a cat who, saving
your presence, used to eat his cucumbers. He thrashed her with a
big whip for a fortnight, till he taught her not to. A hare can
learn to light matches if you beat it. Does that surprise you? It's
very simple! It takes the match in its mouth and strikes it. An
animal is like a man. A man's made wiser by beating, and it's the
same with a beast."

Men in long, full-skirted coats move backwards and forwards in the
crowd with cocks and ducks under their arms. The fowls are all lean
and hungry. Chickens poke their ugly, mangy-looking heads out of
their cages and peck at something in the mud. Boys with pigeons
stare into your face and try to detect in you a pigeon-fancier.

"Yes, indeed! It's no use talking to you," someone shouts angrily.
"You should look before you speak! Do you call this a pigeon? It
is an eagle, not a pigeon!"

A tall thin man, with a shaven upper lip and side whiskers,