"That won't do," said the Chief Contractor, "the girls mustn't speak to each other. They don't know, none of them knows, that their father was beheaded, and if they spoke to each other about it they would all know." "Well, well," said the Mother of the Crow, preparing to be very wise, "they can surround each garden by a wall and keep the girls separate." So it was decided that the little man and his wife were to be banished after sunset; but they could live beyond the wall, and the girls should each have a green garden surrounded by a wall of its own. [Illustration: THE CHIEF CONTRACTOR REPLIED] These walls were to be quite low to suit the stature of the young girls, and each year the walls were to be raised as the girls grew taller. Thus the girls would not be able to see each other or be able to confide to each other indiscretions on a thousand and one subjects of which they knew nothing. [Illustration: CHILDREN WERE BUILT OF MUCH FEWER SLICES OF CAKE THAN THE GROWN-UPS] Here the Chief Contractor again made a very strong objection. "It's important," he said, "that every year on their birthdays we should insert a slice of cake in these little girls so that they should grow tall enough to suit their age." In the somewhat embarrassed silence which followed, Smaly discovered why the Wigs had such short legs and such long bodies. "Of course, that is it," he said to himself; "each year on their birthdays somebody adds another tart or slice of cake to them, and they grow taller." [Illustration: THESE CREATURES WILL EAT THE TOP OFF THE WALLS] He glanced out of the window and saw that this was indeed so, that the children were built of much fewer slices of cake than the grown-ups. * * * * * The Chief Contractor now made a second objection. "But what shall we do," he said, "when the garden wall of the eldest girl grows to be five feet high, for you mustn't forget that that is the height at which the fishes and lizards fly, so the wall will never be able to be higher than five feet, for every night these creatures will eat the top off the walls." It was again the Mother of the Crow who saved the situation. The dark hole in which she wore her eye when her son was not carrying it round his neck seemed full of intelligence. She placed her finger upon her brow without moving her arm (for the simple reason that she did not possess one), and said: "When we can no longer make the walls higher, then we will sink the gardens as much as is needful." All the same the Wigs could not accept this as a solution, for it seemed to them that men grew upwards and not towards the ground, that is to say, from the head and not from the feet. [Illustration: ANGER] The Chief Contractor gave the matter due thought. [Illustration: IT SEEMED TO THEM THAT MEN GREW UPWARDS AND NOT TOWARDS THE GROUND]