48 THE PIGEON-FANCIER. 



broil. Or he may have become itinerant agent 

 for the Royal Bubble Insurance Company, arid 

 would inveigle me into insuring my life in his 

 office. Under such equivocal possibilities as 

 these, I deem it best to let sleeping dogs lie. I 

 leave the idols of the playground alone, and am 

 content to revel on in the same hazy, happy 

 manner, and enjoy their society as the idols of 

 the imagination. 



For some years after this the Fancy flourished 

 joyously, till the denizens of the aviary num- 

 bered fifty. Eventually I began to waver in 

 my attachment to the birds. I did not visit 

 them as frequently as I had previously accus- 

 tomed myself to do. In a word the spell was 

 broken, and in a rash moment I conceived the 

 base idea of partii^g with my pets. In the im- 

 petuosity of youth I sold them for an "old 

 song." 



Do you ask the cause of this false and trea- 

 cherous conduct of mine ? Ah, me 1 there is a 

 woman at the bottom of it, as the man said when 

 his wife fell in the well. I was in love, and oc- 

 cupied with the ethereal delights of courtship; and 

 whilst living in the purple light of love's young 

 dream I was oblivious to every other thing of a 

 mundane character. 1 centred my thoughts, spent 



