A Spanish priest was reading mass in bad English. He sang in awful tones into the over-amplified microphone, but behind him was some ivy on the stone wall, and there the sparrows were chattering, chattering so close to the microphone that one couldn’t understand the priest any more. The sparrows were amplified a hundred-fold. Then a pale young girl collapsed on the steps and died. Someone daubed cool water on her lips, but she preferred Death.
