"No; never heard of 'em, afore."
"Never heard of Burnham's Cochin-Chinas?"
"Never! What are they?"
"Well, I reckon you ha'n't lived in these 'ere parts long, my friend," continued the other; "and you'd better step in and look at 'em."
In came the stranger, and after examining the fowls he returned.
"How do you like 'em?" asked the man who had already seen them, and was waiting for his friend outside.
"They're ronchers, that's a fact!" exclaimed the gratified stranger. And this was the universal opinion.
Nobody had ever seen such fowls (I had seen a good many better ones!)—nobody had ever beheld any so large, so heavy, so fine. And every one who came to look at them purchased or engaged either eggs or chickens from these "extraordinary" and "never-to-be-too-much-lauded" royal Cochin-China fowls!
For my first broods of chickens (at three and four months old) I readily obtained twenty-five dollars a pair; and every one of them went off "like hot cakes" at this figure. It was too low for them, altogether; and I had occasion to regret, subsequently, that I did not charge fifty dollars a pair;—a price which I might just as easily then have obtained as if I had charged but one dollar a pair, as events proved to my satisfaction.
But everything connected with this fever could not well be learned at once. I was not a very dull scholar, and I progressed gradually. One year after the receipt of my Cochins, I got my own price for them, ask what I might. I sold a good many pairs at one hundred dollars the couple; and, oftentimes, I received this sum for a trio of them.