CHAPTER V 



HENS 



HE next day I was so stiffened by my 

 somewhat unusual exertions that I 

 fairly creaked. So I rather slighted 

 the grooming of my horses, but looked 

 carefully to the welfare of my thoroughbred 

 fowls, and was fully rewarded by seeing two on 

 the nests. 



That day a slatted box arrived at my office by 

 express, containing a most magnificent black- 

 red gamecock. I was out when the expressman 

 arrived, or I should have required him to deliver 

 it at my farm. As it was, the bird kept up a most 

 terrific crowing during the forenoon, leaving 

 some doubt in the minds of casual callers or pro- 

 spective clients as to whether they were entering a 

 cockpit, a poultry exhibition, or the unassuming 

 office of an attorney-at-law and amateur farmer. 

 As the charges had been prepaid by my unknown 

 benefactor, I felt that I could afford to secure 

 the bird's transmission to my farm at the hands 

 of a small boy and at the expense of ten cents. 



That noon when I went to lunch, I first re- 

 paired to my barn to liberate the gamecock. 



