When he knew what had happened he was in as great a taking as herself, and he walked up and down, flapping his wings distractedly and making the most heartrending noises in his throat.
“I must go for Alfonso,” he said at last.
Alfonso was the gamecock.
I can tell you there was a to-do when the birds got at the bottom of the affair! They stood, one on either side of their poor friend, begging her not to cry; and Alfonso was anxious to fight everybody, from the bantam up to the great bubbly-jock who scraped his wings along the ground and turned blue about the neck if you whistled to him. All the fowls knew that something terrible had happened.
“But what is the use of your fighting, dear Alfonso?” said Maggie. “It would do me no good, and the poultry are all innocent. They have done me no harm.”
“I am not so sure about those sly fat huzzies of ducks. What business have they to look after themselves so badly? I have a good mind to go down and have a few words with the drake.”
“No, no—pray don’t,” said Maggie. “The best thing I can do is to go away and be done with it.”
The Cochin-Chinaman was weeping hoarsely: he had no dignity.
“I never thought to leave my family,” he cried, “but this is the last they’ll see of me. I shall go with you.”
Alfonso was rather shocked, for he had very proper ideas.