Our friend was aroused by the uproar, and rushed out, thinking that a rat or a stray dog had got into the hen house. He said that it was the finest representation of a hilarious "jag" in an old ladies' home that he ever saw. But, of course, he didn't know at the time what was wrong with the young rooster. He thought he was sick, and went out next morning and gave him some bread and milk—or whatever it is one gives sick roosters. But the rooster would have none of it. He didn't want bread and milk. What he wanted was some bromo-seltzer or a "Collins."
Was the young rooster enlightened as to the evil of his ways? Did he take the pledge and climb on the water-bucket? Alas, no! What that young rooster did was to fly right back over the fence that very afternoon and tank up once more. Worse still, he brought the other roosters with him.
That night there was another rough party in the hennery—four times rougher than the other, for there were four roosters in it. They went in for close harmony in their choral work, and also did a little close scrapping. They even tried to whip our friend the owner when he went out to restore order.
Talk about drunkards' homes and temperance lessons!—that hennery would have furnished the W.C.T.U. and the Prohibitionists generally with arguments for a five years' campaign. In a few days every chicken in the place had developed a taste and capacity for beer that would have filled half the population of Bavaria with envy. Life for them became just one big "bust" after another.
Instead of hopping cheerfully from bed at the first peep of dawn, those chickens slept in till noon. They didn't care who got the early worm. Then they piled over the fence to the malt pile, and stayed right there till closing time and after. They stayed, in fact, till our friend went over and carried them back. He said it made him feel like a police van on the Twelfth of July.
Nothing could keep those hens away from the booze. Our friend built the fence higher; but they dug a tunnel under it. When he blocked that up, they flew over into the neighbors' yards and got around that way. They would even go out by his front gate and walk around the block, and come staggering back at all hours of the night in a way that would give any house a bad name.
Finally he sued the brewery for alienating his hens' affections—they only laid one egg in three months, and when our friend tried to eat it it went to his head it was so full of alcohol. But the Judge said that a man who kept hens in town should be shut up somewhere and have his property managed for him.
PORTERS, PULLMANS AND PATIENCE
Porters, Pullmans and Patience