"But you will sell them, I s'pose?"
"No, sir. I have younger ones to dispose of; but that pair are my models. I can't sell them."
The gentleman's eye was exactly filled with this pair of chickens.
"What will you take for those two fowls?"
"One hundred dollars, sir," I replied.
"I guess you will—when you can get it," he added.—"Name your lowest price, now, for those two. I want good ones, if any."
"I prefer to keep them, rather than to part with them at any price," I insisted. "If, however, a gentleman like yourself, who evidently knows what good fowls are, desires to procure the choicest specimens in the country, why, I confess to you that those are the persons into whose hands I prefer that my best stock should fall. But I will show you some at a lower figure," I continued, driving this pair from the fence.
"Don't you! Don't drive 'em away!" said the gentleman;—"let's see. That's the cock?"
"Yes, sir."
"And this is the hen?"