I used to read books about the Great African Silence, dreaming about it as a Mussulman dreams of Paradise. If there is a certain hour known as cock-crow why may not other hours be apportioned in the same way and devoted to a particular animal? If this were done I could arrange my day. I would not go to bed until after cock-crow, I would do my shopping at dog-bark, and arrange to dine with a friend during caterwaul. As it is there is no method about the nuisance; it is all adrift and mixed up. And in the case of the Buttons there were the children, who welded single aggravations into one vast outrage. They used to disperse themselves for conversation, when reasonable people approach one another. They planted one in the turret at the top of the house, another at the bottom of the garden, a third and fourth, within quarrelable distance, at the drawing-room window, while the fifth remained in a distant potting-shed, and then they began; the dumb animals acting as chorus. “Ron----ald?” (From the turret.) “Ye----s?” “What are you doing?” “Wh----at?” “Wha----t--are--you--do----ing?” “Mending my boat.” “Wha----t?” “Men----ding--my--boa----t.” “Mend----ing--your--wha----t?” “My bo----at.” “Your--co----at?” “Bo----o----at.” (“Bow--bow--bow!----Bow--bow--bow!----Bouff!”) “Down, Spot----Spot! Spot! Spot!” (Whistling) “Peow, weow, weow----” “Jimmy----” “Wh----at?” “Mother says, do you want your hammer?” “Wh----at?” “Mother says--do--you--want--your--hammer?” (It would not be right to say what I did with that hammer in my mind, because a sin thought of is a sin committed in the eye of Goodness.) “I ca----n’--t he----a--r.” “Kwakee--scrwaak.” (From the parrot.) “Bow--bow--bow!----bow!----Bow--bow--bow!----bow!” “Cock--a--doodle--do!” “Co--rr----a--warra--corrawarra.” (From the hen.) Dog-bark and child-call lasted nearly until cock-crow came round again, because the Buttons, like the poor, keep their little ones up rather late. They trundled rattly things along the gravel, and joked loudly with papa after he came home, until half-past ten at night. We only needed cries of “Salt!” “Herrings!” and “Murder!” to give us the flavour of life at its fullest. By way of side-shows there were the gramophone, and the pianola, and the annual baby (who never slept very well), and Mrs. Button’s singing, and the flirtations of the cook’s cat.