"I'm afraid—" I said, and stopped again.
"Hard work, big-game hunting in this weather," said the man. "Take a long breath."
I took several and felt better.
"I must apologize for this intrusion," I said successfully. "Unwarrantable" would have rounded off the sentence nicely, but instinct told me not to risk it. It would have been mere bravado to have attempted unnecessary words of five syllables at that juncture.
I paused.
"Say on," said the man with the hen encouragingly, "I'm a human being just like yourself."
"The fact is," I said, "I didn't—didn't know there was a private garden beyond the hedge. If you will give me my hen—"
"It's hard to say good-by," said the man, stroking the bird's head with the first finger of his disengaged hand. "She and I are just beginning to know and appreciate each other. However, if it must be—"
He extended the hand which held the bird, and at this point a hitch occurred. He did his part of the business—the letting go. It was in my department—the taking hold—that the thing was bungled. The hen slipped from my grasp like an eel, stood for a moment overcome by the surprise of being at liberty once more, then fled and intrenched itself in some bushes at the farther end of the lawn.
There are times when the most resolute man feels that he can battle no longer with fate; when everything seems against him and the only course left is a dignified retreat. But there is one thing essential to a dignified retreat. One must know the way out. It was that fact which kept me standing there, looking more foolish than anyone has ever looked since the world began. I could hardly ask to be conducted off the premises like the honored guest. Nor would it do to retire by the way I had come. If I could have leaped the hedge with a single bound, that would have made a sufficiently dashing and debonair exit. But the hedge was high, and I was incapable at the moment of achieving a debonair leap over a footstool.