CHICHESTER 275 



or ever seeing the blue sky and green earth again. 

 Eight to nine years had he been immured in that 

 cursed prison, and he would never leave it until his 

 tortured life had left him ; then his dead body would 

 be taken out, and another bird, I daresay, put there 

 in his place. 



The third prisoner was the owl, and I think he 

 was even worse off than the others ; for he was kept 

 in an always malodorous and usually uncovered cage, 

 in the kitchen, where a big fire was burning sixteen 

 to seventeen hours every day. The heat must have 

 been and alas ! still must be dreadful to the poor 

 bird ; but if speech had been given him he would, I 

 think, have complained most of the gas jets: they 

 were burning all about him until twelve o'clock every 

 night, and the sensation they produced must have 

 been as of fine heated needles, heated red and heated 

 white, stabbing and pricking his sensitive eye-balls. 

 In this chamber of torture the miserable bird had 

 existed for nine months. 



When I went to the landlady to plead for the 

 owl, I was very diplomatic, remembering what certain 

 wise men have taught us namely, that if we want to 

 get anything out of anybody we must not begin by 

 rubbing him up the wrong way. I praised her greatly 

 for her merciful heart, and told her how it had de- 

 lighted me to hear her fame in Chichester as a lover 

 and protector of animals. But her treatment of her 

 feathered pets was wrong; and in mild language I 



