"That's the thing to do with your cockerels. I have no time to try it myself, but you are so clever, Mrs. Westenra, and would be sure to make it pay. Turn your cockerels into capons. It is the most profitable business going."
"Capons?" said Val, vague-eyed. "I always thought capons were fish, and that monks ate them for Friday's dinner."
"Oh, dear me, no, they are not fish, though monks will eat them fast enough if they get the chance--any one will, they 're delicious. You 'll get from seven shillings and sixpence to ten shillings for them any day in the week," averred Mrs. Scone, and proceeded to explain to the open-mouthed Val and Haidee the process of caponising.
"So simple. Just cut a small slit above the wing of each bird with a pair of special scissors which you buy; then you hook up and remove the two little glands that lie along the backbone, and there you have your capon!--instead of a young cockerel that is always tearing about the run fighting and eating his head off without putting on any fat."
Val was deeply intrigued. Cockerels had become one of her problems. More than half the chickens upon which she had counted for spring eggs had either succumbed to the pip, or never hatched out at all; of the remainder the larger proportion had turned out to be of male sex. Rose-coloured dreams of getting into touch with the Jesuit College on the hill above St. Helier and doing a flourishing business with the monks now floated through her mind. But she shivered at the thought of the caponising operation. She was physically incapable of cutting anything, even the head off a dead fish.
"Oh, I couldn't," she said, "at least I don't think I could."
"A pity!" said Mrs. Scone. "There's a fortune in it for them as will do it--a mint of money."
This gave Val pause. Had she, just because she was a coward about cutting things, any right to reject a scheme that had a mint of money in it? Was it fair to Westenra? After profound consideration, and much guileful persuasion by Haidee, always eager for experiments, she decided to at least give the idea a fair trial. So, on an afternoon, twelve of the finest cockerels were enthusiastically chased and captured by Haidee, aided by one of Farmer Scone's farm boys kindly lent for the occasion, and put under a rabbit-hutch to await their fate. A packing case constituted the operating table and the instruments of torture lay beside it--Val had sent for a little case from London (price thirty shillings). Mrs. Scone and Haidee held the first bird on the table, and Val under the direction of the former, with white face and trembling lips, made the first slit. The cockerel at the prick of the instrument screamed like a banshee, and Val's unnerved hand fell to her side.
"Oh! how brutal it seems!" she faltered.
On the urgent advice of the others she attempted to finish the operation (with her eyes closed), but the cockerel objected strenuously, blood flew in every direction and heart-rending shrieks tore the air. White as ashes the operator let the scissors fall and staggered to the door. Mrs. Scone, purring solicitously, supported her into the open air.