serious and the only thing that would cure me was to learn the song
myself. He said the butcher had learned it already, so it was not
hard, which indeed it was not. It was about as hard as:


The battle of the Nile
I was there all the while
At the battle of the Nile.


I had to learn it and sing it (Heaven help me, for I have no more
voice than a mouse!), and the landlord said that the motion of my
little finger was very promising.

The chestnuts are never better than after harvest, when they are
heavy-laden with their pale green hedgehog-like fruit and alive
with people swarming among their branches, pruning them while the
leaves are still good winter food for cattle. Why, I wonder, is
there such an especial charm about the pruning of trees? Who does
not feel it? No matter what the tree is, the poplar of France, or
the brookside willow or oak coppice of England, or the chestnuts or
mulberries of Italy, all are interesting when being pruned, or when
pruned just lately. A friend once consulted me casually about a
picture on which he was at work, and complained that a row of trees
in it was without sufficient interest. I was fortunate enough to
be able to help him by saying: "Prune them freely and put a
magpie's nest in one of them," and the trees became interesting at
once. People in trees always look well, or rather, I should say,
trees always look well with people in them, or indeed with any
living thing in them, especially when it is of a kind that is not