“There must be a reason; I don’t know what it is, but there is one, for sure.—But yes, I do know it—it’s because the roosters like hens of that color best.”
Monsieur Jarnouillard had taken the hen and was examining it in every part; he even lifted up her feathers, so that the peasant cried:
“I say! do you propose to pluck her?”
“No; but I want to know what I am buying. She’s very thin.”
“Thin! You call that a thin hen! Why, she’s in fine case; and then, good layers are never fat; they’re just like women: when they get very plump—no more children, no more little ones; the fun’s all over.”
“Ah! you know that, do you—and you a gardener?”
“I have heard Doctor Antoine Beaubichon say so often enough.”
“Well! what price do you want for your hen? Madame Jarnouillard’s the one who has taken a whim for having fresh eggs; for, as for me, I don’t care anything about them.”
“If you don’t want a hen, what made you ask me for one?”
“How much do you want for your hen?”