tick of
firewood, sharpened at one end, makes an excellent substitute.

Your breakfast done, turn out the gas, remount the stairs quietly, open
gently the front door and slip out. You will find yourself in an unknown
land. A strange city grown round you in the night.

The sweet long streets lie silent in sunlight. Not a living thing is
to be seen save some lean Tom that slinks from his gutter feast as you
approach. From some tree there will sound perhaps a fretful chirp: but
the London sparrow is no early riser; he is but talking in his sleep.
The slow tramp of unseen policeman draws near or dies away. The clatter
of your own footsteps goes with you, troubling you. You find yourself
trying to walk softly, as one does in echoing cathedrals. A voice is
everywhere about you whispering to you "Hush." Is this million-breasted
City then some tender Artemis, seeking to keep her babes asleep? "Hush,
you careless wayfarer; do not waken them. Walk lighter; they are so
tired, these myriad children of mine, sleeping in my thousand arms.
They are over-worked and over-worried; so many of them are sick, so many
fretful, many of them, alas, so full of naughtiness. But all of them
so tired. Hush! they worry me with their noise and riot when they are
awake. They are so good now they are asleep. Walk lightly, let them
rest."

Where the ebbing tide flows softly through worn arches to the sea, you
may hear the stone-faced City talking to the restless waters: "Why will
you never stay with me? Why come but to go?"

"I cannot say, I do not understand. From the deep sea I come, but only
as a bird loosed from a child's hand with a cord. When she calls I must
return."

"It is so with these children of mine. They come to me, I know not
whence. I nurse them for a little while, till a hand I do not see plucks
them back. And others take their place."

Through the still air there passes a ripple of sound. The sleeping
City stirs with a faint sigh. A distant milk-cart rattling by raises
a thousand echoes; it is the vanguard of a yoked army. Soon from every
street there rises the soothing cry, "Mee'hilk--mee'hilk."

London like some Gargantuan babe, is awake, crying for its milk. These
be the white-smocked nurses hastening with its morning nourishment. The
early church bells ring. "You have had your milk, little London. Now
come and say your prayers. Another week has just begun, baby London. God
knows what will happen, say your prayers."

One