Page:The animal story book.djvu/160

 'He has developed an unnatural craving for eggs; he got into M. Acoyer's poultry-yard and stole all his. M. Acoyer came to complain to me. How do you suppose he lost his foot?'

'You told me yourself—in somebody's grounds where he had forgotten to read the notice about trespassing.'

'You are joking, sir—but I really believe he can read.'

'Oh! Michel, Pritchard is accused of enough sins without having that vice laid to his charge! But about his foot?'

'I think he caught it in some wire getting out of a poultry-yard.'

'But you know it happened at night, and the hens are shut up at night. How could he get into the henhouse?'

'He doesn't need to get into the hen-house after eggs; he can charm the hens. Pritchard is what one may call a charmer.'

'Michel, you astonish me more and more!'

'Yes, indeed, sir. I knew that he used to charm the hens at the Villa Medicis; only M. Charpillon has such wonderful hens, I did not think they would have allowed it. But I see now all hens are alike.'

'Then you think it is Pritchard who——'

'I think he charms M. Charpillon's hens, and that is the reason they don't lay—at least, that they only lay for Pritchard.'

'Indeed, Michel, I should much like to know how he does it!'

'If you are awake very early to-morrow, sir, just look out of your window—you can see the poultry-yard from it, and you will see a sight that you have never seen before!'

'I have seen many things, Michel, including sixteen changes of governments, and to see something I have never seen before I would gladly sit up the whole night!'