"That's all right, my boy," the man responded. "No, it wasn't your mother I wanted; it was you—I come to do a little business."
"Oh," said Harvey, glancing hopefully towards the window.
"'Tain't exactly shop business," David said, a little nervously, "I come to—to buy a hen," he blurted out. Harvey's hand went like lightning into the glass case. Withdrawn, it produced a candy creature of many colours, its comb showing the damage that vandal tongues had done. "Totty Moore licked at it once or twice when we wasn't lookin'," he explained apologetically; "it used to be in the window—it's a settin' hen," he enlarged, indicating with his finger a pasty pedestal on which the creative process was being carried on.
David grinned broadly. "'Tain't that kind of a hen I'm wantin'," he said. "I want the real article—a real live two-legged hen."
"Oh," said Harvey, staring hard.
"Where's your chicken-house?" enquired David, coming to business direct.
"It's outside," the boy replied instructively—"but there ain't very many."
"Let's go and see them," said the man.
The boy led the way, David ducking his head several times en route, bowing profoundly at the last as they entered the little house.
"This your hennery?" he asked, surveying the inmates amid a storm of cackling; "sounds like you had hundreds of 'em."