MS-WU-MSS008-2-47

[2463] would naturally have told the truth, for he did not suspect he
had done anything wrong. [2464] But they must have assumed he would do
nothing but lie and stoutly deny and that it was therefore useless
to press him with questions. [2465] Besides no questions were ever asked
in the House of Saint John of God's,^[₰] but stern measures were simply
taken, or not taken, according to the ^[⁁] dictatesof ^{dictates of} a peculiar logic.

[2466] For, when you come to think of it, in virtue of what possible
principle of justice can a flower in the hand fix fasten on the
bearer the crime of having gathered it? [2467] Or was the mere fact of
holding it for all to see in itself a felony, anⁿalogous to that of
the receiver or fence? [2468] And if so would it not have been preferable
to make this known, quite plainly and frankly, to all concerned, so
that the sense of guilt, instead of ^[⁁] beremy ^merely following on the guilty
act, might precede and accompany it as well?

[2469] Problem. But nicely
posed, I think, very nicely indeed. [2470] Thanks to the white cloak with
its blue butcher stripes no confs^usion was possible between the
M^Macmanns on the one hand and the Lemuels, Pats and Jacks on the
other. [2471] The birds.

[2472] Numerous and varied in the dense foliage they
lived without fear all the year round, or in fear only of their
congeners, and those which in summer or in winter flew off to other
climes came back the following winter or the following summer,
rought roughly speaking.

[2473] The air was filled with their voices,
especially at dawn or dusk, and those which sey^[⁁]t[^t] off in flocks in
the morning, such as the crows and starlings, for distant pastures,
came back the same evening all joyous to the sanctuary, where
therⁱr sentinels awaited them. [2474] The gulls were many in stormy weather
which paused here on their flight inland. [2475] They wheeled long in the