DOWNS AND DUNGEONS 



Two small cages hung side by side just 

 above the open door of a dingy house in a 

 dingy London street. It was a street in the 

 region of Soho, gloomy and forlorn ; dirty bits 

 of paper, fragments of old apples, treacherous 

 pieces of orange-peel, lay sticking in its grimy 

 mud, and a smutty drizzle was falling which 

 could do no honest washing away of grime, but 

 only make it stickier. It was not a cheerful 

 place to live in, nor did the creatures living in 

 it seem to rejoice in their life, all except the 

 Canary in one of the two cages, who sang a 

 rattling, trilling, piercing song incessantly, with 

 all the vigour of a London street-boy whistling 

 in the dark mist of a November evening. Cats 

 slunk about disconsolate ; carmen sat on their 

 vans and smoked resignedly, with old sacks on 



