I did find a ladder, and fortunately it was long enough. Mr. and
Mrs. Sparrow were out when I arrived, possibly on the hunt for cheap
photo frames and Japanese fans. I did not want to make a mess. I
removed the house neatly into a dust-pan, and wiped the street clear
of every trace of it. I had just put back the ladder when Mrs.
Sparrow returned with a piece of pink cotton-wool in her mouth. That
was her idea of a colour scheme: apple-blossom pink and Reckitt's
blue side by side. She dropped her wool and sat on the waterspout,
and tried to understand things.

"Number one, number two, number four; where the blazes"--sparrows are
essentially common, and the women are as bad as the men--"is number
three?"

Mr. Sparrow came up from behind, over the roof. He was carrying a
piece of yellow-fluff, part of a lamp-shade, as far as I could judge.

"Move yourself," he said, "what's the sense of sitting there in the
rain?"

"I went out just for a moment," replied Mrs. Sparrow; "I could not
have been gone, no, not a couple of minutes. When I came back--"

"Oh, get indoors," said Mr. Sparrow, "talk about it there."

"It's what I'm telling you," continued Mrs. Sparrow, "if you would
only listen. There isn't any door, there isn't any house--"

"Isn't any--" Mr. Sparrow, holding on to the rim of the spout, turned
himself topsy-turvy and surveyed the street. From where I was