"He can't stand it. And look here!
If you stop feeding him, I wouldn't give that for him tomorrow!" He held
up the circle of his thumb and finger. "You're the best judge of what
sort of chance you've got of going on in your present state of mind!"
Then, motioning to Thyme, he went down the stairs.
CHAPTER XVI
BENEATH THE ELMS
Spring was in the hearts of men, and their tall companions, trees. Their
troubles, the stiflings of each other's growth, and all such things,
seemed of little moment. Spring had them by the throat. It turned old
men round, and made them stare at women younger than themselves. It made
young men and women walking side by side touch each other, and every
bird on the branches tune his pipe. Flying sunlight speckled the
fluttered leaves, and gushed the cheeks of crippled boys who limped into
the Gardens, till their pale Cockney faces shone with a strange glow.
In the Broad Walk, beneath those dangerous trees, the elms, people sat
and took the sun--cheek by jowl, generals and nursemaids, parsons and
the unemployed. Above, in that Spring wind, the elm-tree boughs were
swaying, rustling, creaking ever so gently, carrying on the innumerable
talk of trees--their sapient, wordless conversation over the affairs of
men. It was pleasant, too, to see and hear the myriad movement of the
million little separate leaves, each shaped differently, flighting never
twice alike, yet all obedient to the single spirit of their tree.
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