But, since God made me, I never beheld six such birds before, or since! They resembled giraffes much more nearly than they did any other thing, carnivorous, omnivorous,—fish, flesh, or fowl. I let them out upon the floor, and one of the cocks seized lustily upon my India-rubber over-shoe, and would have swallowed it (and myself), for aught I know, had not a friend who stood by seized him, and absolutely choked him off!
This is truth, strange as it may seem; but I presume they had scarcely been fed at all upon their fortnight's voyage from Dublin, and I never saw any animals so miserably low in flesh, in my life, before. What with their long necks, and longer legs, and their wretchedly starved condition, I never wondered that the friendly reporters spoke of their appearance as being "extraordinary, and strikingly peculiar."
These were the original "Cochin-China" fowls of America. And they probably never had the first drop of Chinese blood in their veins, any more than had the man who bred them, and who knew this fact much better than I did—who knew it well enough.
I housed my "prize" forthwith, however, and provided them with everything for their convenience and comfort. The six fowls cost me ninety dollars. They were beauties, to be sure! When I informed a neighbor of their cost, he ventured upon the expressive rejoinder that I "was a bigger d——d fool than he had ever taken me for."
To which I responded nothing, for I rather agreed with him myself!
Nine months afterwards, however, I sold him a cock and three pullets, four months old, raised from those very fowls, for sixty-five dollars; and I didn't retort upon him even then, but took his money. The chickens I sold him were "dog-cheap," at that!
