Idle Days. 141 



yards through the bushes. Never was any thorough- 

 fare in a great city fuller of busy hurrying people 

 than one of these roads. Sitting beside one, just 

 where it wound over the soft yellow sand, I grew 

 tired of watching the endless procession of little 

 toilers, each one carrying a leaf in his jaws ; and 

 very soon there came into my ear a whisper from 

 somebody 



Who finds some mischief still 

 For idle hands to do. 



It is always pleasant to have even a hypothetical 

 somebody on whom to shuffle the responsibility of 

 our evil actions. Warning my conscience that I am 

 only going to try a scientific experiment, one not 

 nearly so cruel as many in which the pious Spallan- 

 zani took great delight, I scoop a deep pit in the 

 sand ; and the ants, keeping on their way with their 

 usual blind, stupid sagacity, tumble pell-mell over 

 each other into it. On, on they come, in scores and 

 in hundreds, like an endless flock of sheep jumping 

 down a pit into which the crazy bell-wether has 

 led the way : soon the hundreds have swelled to 

 thousands, and the yawning gulf begins to fill with 

 an inky mass of wriggling, biting, struggling ants. 

 Every falling leaf-cutter carries down a few grains 

 of treacherous sand with it, making the descent 

 easier, and soon the pit is full to overflowing. In 

 five minutes more they will all be out again at their 

 accustomed labours, just a little sore about the legs, 

 perhaps, where they have bitten one another, but no 

 worse for their tumble, and all that will remain of 



