THE DOCTOR
waving jungle of broccoli. The very sparrows, deprived of their daily crumbs, grew thin and nervy with the green diet they were compelled to subsist upon. Croaking and griding, instead of chirruping musically to their young as is their wont, they so affected the good-hearted doctor that he could never pass them without some cheering word, and never could he withstand the beseeching look in their eyes. Within doors the prospect was hardly more encouraging. Strong vegetable-marrows twined their branches and their many tendrils round the table legs and the chairs; great turnips stoutened and burst upon the stairs; spring onions bristled in the corners of the Lord Mayor's dining-hall, while his grand piano was completely hidden in the gorgeous festoons of mint that, unchecked, had run a ragged riot about the place.
'At last, after two months of sickness, and despite every attention and kindness on the part of the doctor, the patients began to weary of being ill and kept to their beds for so long. The Lord Mayor was the first to arise and, although very weak in the legs, he managed to crawl to the top of the stairs, and looking down, beheld, to his dismay, the dreadful state of ruin in which everything was involved. He called for his servants as loudly as his weakness would allow him, and, obtaining no reply, he scrambled down the stairs on his hands and knees, and clamoured shrilly for a cut from the joint. As, of course, there was no one 86
