“ ‘Good mornin’, Lanty,’ ses he. ‘You didn’t see nothin’ nowhere of nar’ a big speckled rooster that didn’t belong to nobody, did you?’ ses he.
“ ‘Didn’t I?’ ses I.
“ ‘Come, Lanty,’ ses he, ‘let’s take a nipper,’ ses he; and then I up and tells him all about it.”
“Had Mr. Allen no chickens of his own?” asked the senior.
“Sartin’,” rejoined Lanty; “but there warn’t a rooster in the crowd. They was all layin’ hens!”
“Well,” inquired another of the referees, “how many of these hens had Mr. Allen?”
This question fairly “stump’d” Lanty for a moment, but he quickly answered:
“Why, with what was there, and what wasn’t there, counting little and big, spring chickens and all, there was forty odd, exactly!”
No further questions were put to this witness.