"Hear! Hear!" Mr. Crow's friends cried.
And Major Monkey had hard work to make himself heard.
"Whose eggs do you think I've been eating?" he asked Mr. Crow.
Not knowing the exact answer to the question, Mr. Crow pretended not to hear it at all. But he looked so slyly at the Major that the Major himself was not deceived. He winked at Mr. Crow and shied a pebble at him.
"I'll tell you, old boy!" the Major cried. "I've been eating hens' eggs."
"Hens' eggs!" everybody repeated after him. "Hens' eggs! Where do you get 'em?"
"At Farmer Green's henhouse, of course," the Major answered. "I've been going there regularly for some time. I find that the eggs are bigger than any I can find in the woods."
"It's no wonder he's getting fat," Jasper Jay murmured as he gazed at Major Monkey.
"You'll have to stop eating so much," Mr. Crow told the Major solemnly. "Aunt Polly Woodchuck says that the reason you throw so many stones is because you overeat and feel in too high spirits."
Major Monkey looked disgusted when he heard that speech.