stepped on to the veranda. Still no sparrow was to be seen. He now
felt sure that his wife, in one of her cross tempers, had shut the
sparrow up in its cage. So he called her and said anxiously:

"Where is Suzume San (Miss Sparrow) today?"

The old woman pretended not to know at first, and answered:

"Your sparrow? I am sure I don't know. Now I come to think of it, I
haven't seen her all the afternoon. I shouldn't wonder if the un-
grateful bird had flown away and left you after all your petting!"

But at last, when the old man gave her no peace, but asked her again
and again, insisting that she must know what had happened to his
pet, she confessed all. She told him crossly how the sparrow had
eaten the rice-paste she had specially made for starching her
clothes, and how when the sparrow had confessed to what she had
done, in great anger she had taken her scissors and cut out her
tongue, and how finally she had driven the bird away and forbidden
her to return to the house again.

Then the old woman showed her husband the sparrow's tongue, saying:

"Here is the tongue I cut off! Horrid little bird, why did it eat
all my starch?"

"How could you be so cruel? Oh! how could you so cruel?" was all
that the old man could answer. He was too kind-hearted to punish his
be shrew of a wife, but he was terribly distressed at what had
happened to his poor little sparrow.