43 
EX F LICET QUI P OS SIT 
these Blue Tits when I was a lad of eighteen. It don’t matter 
to you — if you’ll excuse me saying so — how I got ’em. P’raps 
I bought ’em, or may be I took this little ’un off her nest, Blue 
Tits take a deal of moving, and the gentleman here must needs 
resent it and come along too. P’raps the pair of them came to 
me with a lot of other stuff when the old folks died. The whole 
point of the story, / say, is that these little ‘ bee-biters ’ are 
standing before you this very moment on this very counter.” 
I could not altogether agree with the kind old man, but 
would not tell him so. The point of the story, to me, was to 
learn the origin of these bewilderingly natural little birds, and 
I also felt a certain anxiety on another point, namely, whether 
“ the inner eye” for birds with which the old dealer accredited 
me might not be a sign of some threatening brain trouble, for 
even as I watched the wholly engrossed little Blue Tits I was 
once more compelled to believe (this time with a thrilling sensa- 
tion) that I saw a shake and a flutter pass along the blue wings 
and through the small yellow feathers of the soft under parts 
of the body. Yet the modelling, however achieved, of these 
unsociable small “gourmets” was open to all beholders, the 
stoniness of the beautifully coloured wings was incontestable. 
“ And when you ask me whether these birds are for sale,” 
the old man continued, “ I say again, no ! ” Here he banged 
on the counter so heavily with his fist that the Blue Tits made 
a ringing sound against the wood. “ But I repeat that I don’t 
say I never mean to part with them.” 
“Yes?” I murmured, stroking the smallest Blue Tit with 
loving covetous fingers. 
“ During all these sixty years — come each spring-time — not 
another soul except myself has seen what you’ve seen to-day. 
Yet wherever I’ve been, these birds have caused more talk than 
anything else in my shop. Gentle and simple all say the same, 
‘ They might be alive,’ and many a one has wanted to buy, 
offered good prices too. But I know what I know, so the little 
monkeys and I have stuck to each other, and if I was twenty 
or even ten years younger, they wouldn’t leave this shop unless 
I left it too.” 
“But now?” I enquired in what I hoped was a wholly 
disinterested voice. 
“ And if you hadn’t seen what you’ve seen,” continued the 
old man without heeding the interruption, “ they would go 
(nesting-time or no, poor souls) where neither man, woman or 
child, in this town or any other town, would ever hear of them 
again.” 
He paused, and as my fingers involuntarily closed round the 
smaller Blue Tit, he snatched it from me and pressed the tiny 
strapped head to his ugly old lips, holding the little bird 
tenderly in the hollow’ of his hand. 
“ Have you ever kissed a living bird. Miss ? ” he asked 
significantly. 
“ Yes, often,” I replied. “ Once I caught two Blue Tits 
