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 His deep eyes were on them with a veiled expression, as though behind them he were engaged in some complicated thinking.

"Evans wanted him to stay in town," answered Renny, covering his cold beef with mustard.

"Do you think he will get Eden something?" asked his sister.

"Oh, I don't know. There's no hurry."

Ernest said peevishly: "As I was remarking just before you two came in, something must be done about the young cockerels. They crow, and they crow. I did not get a wink of sleep after gray daylight for them. I was told a month ago that they would soon be killed, and here they are still crowing."

"Ah, say," interrupted Finch, "don't kill all the pretty little Leghorn cockerels. They're so—"

"It doesn't matter to you, Finch," said Ernest, getting angry. "You sleep like a log. But this morning they were dreadful. The big Wyandottes experimented with every variety of crow, from a defiant clarion shout to a hoarse and broken 'cock-a-doodle-do,' and then the little Leghorns with their plaintive reiterations in a minor key, 'Cock-a-doo-doo!' It's maddening."

"You do it very badly," said his brother. "It's more like this." And in stentorian tones he essayed the crow, flapping his arms as wings. Piers and Finch also crowed.

"Then a hen," pursued Ernest, "thought she would lay an egg. Fully twenty times she announced that she thought she had better lay an egg. Then she laid the egg, squawking repeatedly, that the world might know what an agonizing and important task it was. Then her screams of triumph when it was accomplished! Worst of all, every cock and cockerel in the barnyard immediately crowed in unison."