dy worries or disturbs them. And then, of course, they know me. And
if they or their children get sick I presume they find it handy to be
living in a doctor's garden--Look! You see that sparrow on the sundial,
swearing at the blackbird down below? Well, he has been coming here
every summer for years. He comes from London. The country sparrows round
about here are always laughing at him. They say he chirps with such a
Cockney accent. He is a most amusing bird--very brave but very cheeky.
He loves nothing better than an argument, but he always ends it by
getting rude. He is a real city bird. In London he lives around St.
Paul's Cathedral. 'Cheapside,' we call him."

"Are all these birds from the country round here?" I asked.

"Most of them," said the Doctor. "But a few rare ones visit me every
year who ordinarily never come near England at all. For instance,
that handsome little fellow hovering over the snapdragon there, he's a
Ruby-throated Humming-bird. Comes from America. Strictly speaking, he
has no business in this climate at all. It is too cool. I make him sleep
in the kitchen at night. Then every August, about the last week of the
month, I have a Purple Bird-of-Paradise come all the way from Brazil
to see me. She is a very great swell. Hasn't arrived yet of course. And
there are a few others, foreign birds from the tropics mostly, who drop
in on me in the course of the summer months. But come, I must show you
the zoo."

THE TENTH CHAPTER. THE PRIVATE ZOO

I DID not think there could be anything left in that garden which we
had not seen. But the Doctor took me by the arm and started off down a
little narrow path and after many windings and twistings and turnings
we found ourselves before a small door in a high stone wall. The Doctor
pushed it open.

Inside was still another garden. I had expected to find cages with
animals inside them. But there were none to be seen. Instead there were
little stone houses here and there all over the garden; and each house
had a window and a door. As we walked in, many of these doors opened and
animals came running out to us evidently expecting food.

"Haven't the doors any locks on them?" I asked the Doctor.

"Oh yes," he said, "every door has a lock. But in my zoo the doors
open from the inside, not from the out. The locks are only there so the
animals can go and shut themselves in any time they want to get away
from the annoyance of other animals or from people who mi