aid the witch, looking out of the window, "why one
never sees two birds collide. If there were as many witches in the air
as there are birds, I bet you twopence there would be constant
accidents. Do you think they have any sort of a rule of the road, or do
they indicate with their beaks--"

"Witch," said Sarah Brown, "I have got to say something."

"Oh, have you?" said the witch, a little disappointed at being
interrupted. "Oh, well, I can sympathise, I know what that feels like.
Get on and say it."

The Dog David, who was really a good and attentive son to Sarah Brown,
came and laid his chin, with an exaggerated look of interest, on her
knee-cap.

"Is it any use," said Sarah Brown, "fighting against the Habits in the
world, there are so many. Who set these strange and senseless deceivers
at large? Religion which has forgotten ecstasy.... Law which has
forgotten justice.... Charity which has forgotten love.... Surely magic
has suffered at the stake for saner ideals than these?"

"Why, of course," said the witch impatiently. "Magic generally suffered
_because_ it was so sane. I thought everybody knew that."

"All habits. All habits," chanted Sarah Brown. "What is this Charity,
this clinking of money between strangers, and when did Charity cease to
be a comforting and secret thing between one friend and another? Does
Love make her voice heard through a committee, does Love employ an
almoner to convey her message to her neighbour?"

"Not that I know of," sighed the witch. "Sarah Brown, how long do you
want me to keep quiet, while you say things that everybody surely
knows?"

But Sarah Brown went on. "The real Love knows her neighbour face to
face, and laughs with him and weeps with him, and eats and drinks with
him, so that at last, when his black day dawns, she may share with him,
not what she can spare, but all that she has."

The Dog David grunted a little, by way of rather dubious applause. Sarah
Brown, with her own voice printed loud and stark upon the retina of her
hearing, felt a little abashed. But presently she added in a whisper:
"Listen. I am a spy. I am a lover of specially recommended neighbours
only. I am here to help to give the black cloud Tyranny a rather dirty
silver lining. I am the False Steward, in the interest of the
Superfluously Comfortable. My Masters sit upon the King's Highway,
taking toll in bitterness and humiliation from every traveller along
that road. For surely comfort is every m