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Agias was catching glimpses of a little Olympus of his own an Olympus in which he was at once Zeus, Poseidon, and Apollo; Sesostris so he declared the lame cup-bearer Hephæstus; and in place of Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, were the smiles and laughter of Artemisia. Agias was head over ears in love with this pretty little cage-bird shut up in Pratinas's gloomy suite of rooms.

"If men realised, as they realise that physical illness follows physical excess, that for every moment of pain unnecessarily inflicted upon any living creature a horse, a dog, a cage-bird they must suffer themselves a worse pang, would not the world be a better place?" he asked.

So, wherever a man is, he will find something to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country without some amenity let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he will surely find.

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water's edge. The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes. Poor cage-bird! Do I not remember the time when I myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry its complement of freemen into the night, and read the names of distant places on the time-bills with indescribable longings?

More and more she began to wish that this butterfly existence, this passive basking in the sun of indolent luxury, would come to an end. She commenced again to wish that she were a man, with the tongue of an orator, the sword of a soldier, able to sway senates and to lead legions. Pothinus finally discovered that he was having some difficulty in keeping his cage-bird contented.

"As my brother Michael, yes," she twittered, with her most ponderous, cage-bird manner; "yes, indeed, he is devoted to her." I, alas, have no friend. I am cut off from all society of my kind. Often and often have I felt the weight of loneliness press heavy upon me in this darksome tower."

The Reed Warbler, though entirely insectivorous, is a very tame and amusing cage-bird, and may easily be fed on raw meat chopped fine and a little hard-boiled egg; but its favourite food is flies, and of these it will eat any quantity, and woe even to the biggest bluebottle that may buzz through its cage, for the active little bird will have it in a moment, and after a few sharp snaps of the beak there is quite an end of the bluebottle.

How different was the reality! Miss Beale, rushing across London in a taxi, reminded him of nothing more masterful than a cage-bird turned loose in a tempest. He was about to reenter the mansions, meaning to telephone to both the Fortescue Square house and the Old Broad Street offices, and ask for instant news of Mr. Forbes in either locality.

So, wherever a man is, he will find something to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country without some amenity let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he will surely find.

Crimson carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the balcony overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed passer solitario, the favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups with apparent cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison.