“Then go to the restaurant and have something to eat; eh Chunky?” asked Jerry with a smile.
They walked on in silence and soon came to the little park of which Bob had spoken. It was prettily laid out, and in the centre was a large fountain, surmounted by a large statue on a pedestal, the statue being that of a man on a horse, holding aloft a bronze object that represented an ancient torch.
As the boys came in sight of this art work they saw several men gathered about it, and one was raising a long ladder to the shoulder of the figure.
“What’s going on, I wonder?” asked Bob.
“Maybe they’re going to wash the man’s face, or feed the horse,” observed Ned. “How about it, Chunky?”
A man was now mounting the long ladder, and looking up our friends saw, fluttering from the torch which the bronze figure held aloft, a long rag.
“What’s up?” asked Jerry of one of the workmen who was holding the ladder steady.
“Oh the sparrows have carried a rag up on the statue to build a nest in the torch I guess,” replied the man. “The birds like to get in there, but they make such a litter of straw, grass and rags, that we have to clean it out every once in a while. The top of the torch is hollow, you see, and it makes a good place for ’em. But I never knew ’em to take up such a big rag before. It’s been there several days, but we’ve been so busy cutting the grass that we haven’t had time to take it down. To-day there was a letter in the paper from some old lady, who said the rag looked bad, so the superintendent of the park told us to get it down.”
The explanation was satisfactory, and the boys watched the man climb up, and pull down the offending rag.
“Pretty good size for sparrows to take up,” he remarked to his fellow workmen, as he descended. “There was this package in the hollow torch, too. I wonder how it got there?”