"It will take us too long to fix her up for dinner," said Tim, who was just the least bit afraid that he was not cook enough to serve the hen properly. "We can get enough to eat to-day without havin' so much fuss."
"I don't care how long it takes; what we want is a bang-up dinner, an' I go in for havin' it now," said Bill, decidedly.
Bobby was on the point of throwing the weight of his opinion against the proposed feast, when a bark of triumph was heard from Tip, and the question was settled without further discussion. The dog, which had been struggling to get free from the time he had been tied so near the hen, to which he seemed to think he had a perfect right, finally succeeded in releasing himself. There was a sudden rush on his part, a loud cackling protest from poor Biddy, and then she was tossed in the air a dead chicken.
Bill had presence of mind enough, fortunately for the dinner prospects, to seize his hen before Tip made his lunch from her, and he said, as he handed her to Tim:
"There, you see Tip knew we ought to kill her, an' so he did it for us. Now we can have a good dinner."
Tim made no reply, and perhaps for the first time in his life he was angry with Tip for having meddled in matters which did not concern him. It was necessary now to cook the hen, and as he stood with her in his hand the terrible thought came to him that he did not even know enough to prepare her for cooking.
"Do you think we had better have her roasted or boiled?" he asked, in a low, reckless way, of Bobby.
Now this other cook was quite as perplexed about the matter as Tim was, and he was thoroughly well pleased that he had allowed his partner to take the lead in other matters, so that the latter would now be obliged to take all the responsibility of the hen's appearance at the dinner table.
"I think we had better roast her," he said, in a careless sort of way, as if to him one style of cooking was as easy as another.