llow was not at first patent.

"You see, YOU keep apart," he said at last. "You couldn't say that so
easily if you had, like us, to take up the position in which we find
ourselves."

"Why take it up?"

Malloring frowned. "How would things go on?"

"All right," said Tod.

Malloring got up from the sill. This was 'laisser-faire' with a
vengeance! Such philosophy had always seemed to him to savor dangerously
of anarchism. And yet twenty years' experience as a neighbor had
shown him that Tod was in himself perhaps the most harmless person
in Worcestershire, and held in a curious esteem by most of the people
about. He was puzzled, and sat down again.

"I've never had a chance to talk things over with you," he said. "There
are a good few people, Freeland, who can't behave themselves; we're not
bees, you know!"

He stopped, having an uncomfortable suspicion that his hearer was not
listening.

"First I've heard this year," said Tod.

For all the rudeness of that interruption, Malloring felt a stir of
interest. He himself liked birds. Unfortunately, he could hear nothing
but the general chorus of their songs.

"Thought they'd gone," murmured Tod.

Malloring again got up. "Look here, Freeland," he said, "I wish you'd
give your mind to this. You really ought not to let your wife and
children make trouble in the village."

Confound the fellow! He was smiling; there was a sort of twinkle in his
smile, too, that Malloring found infectious!

"No, seriously," he said, "you don't know what harm you mayn't do."

"Have you ever watched a dog looking at a fire?" asked Tod.

"Yes, often; why?"

"He knows better than to touch it."

"You mean you're helpless? But you oughtn't to be."

The fellow was smiling again!

"Then you don't mean to do anything?"

Tod shook his head.

Malloring flushed. "Now, look here, Freeland," he said, "forgive my
saying so, but this strikes me as a bit cynical. D'you think I enjoy
trying to keep things straight?"

Tod looked up.

"Birds," he said, "animals, insects, vegetable life--they all eat each
other more or less, but they don't fuss about it."

Malloring turned abruptly and went down the path. Fuss! He never fussed.
Fuss! The word was an insult, addressed to him! If there was one thing
he detested more than another, whether in public or private life, it
was 'fussing.' Did he not belong to the League for Suppression of
Interference with the Liberty of the Subject? Was he not a