"I think," said Jericho Bob, "we'd better ketch 'im; to-morrow's Thanksgiving. Yum!"

And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.

"Butcher Tham 'th goin' ter kill 'im for uth," Julius Cæsar hastened to say, "an' I kin cook 'im."

"No, you ain't. I'm goin' to cook 'im," Jericho Bob cried, resentfully. "He's mine."

"He ain'th; he'th mine."

"He was my egg," and Jericho Bob danced defiance at his friend.

The turkey looked on with some surprise, and he became alarmed when he saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.

"I'll eat 'im all alone!" Jericho Bob cried.

"No, yer sha'n't!" the other shouted.

The turkey fled in a circle about the yard.