Pigeons. 109 



They have perfectly lovely metallic 

 reflections, especially on their necks, 

 which their full smooth feathering 

 defies even London soot to wholly 

 spoil. 



One day I had been waiting in 

 offices, and doing sundry businesses 

 in the old street called Paternoster 

 Row, and feeling a bit weary, I 

 turned for a rest into the narrow 

 plot of garden ground that surrounds 

 the east end of St. Paul's Cathedral. 



There are many seats there, and 

 beds of gay (if somewhat smoke- 

 bedimmed) flowers. Numbers of 

 people come there poor, and work- 

 ing people mostly : it is pleasant to 

 find a spot for rest, and a flower to 

 look upon amidst the gigantic tide 

 of bustle and toil that flows for ever, 

 in daylight hours, in the City streets. 



As I sat there I noticed a lad in 

 a kind of go-cart A girl, a sister 

 evidently, had brought him from 

 the Cornhill corner carefully enough, 



