turkey.

Mr. Penricarde, a little stunned and shaken, and suffering from a bruised
knee and some minor damages, good-naturedly ascribed the accident to his
own inexperience with horses and country roads, and allowed Jessie to
nurse him back into complete recovery and golf-fitness within something
less than a week.

In the list of wedding presents which the local newspaper published a
fortnight or so later appeared the following item:

"Brown saddle-horse, 'The Brogue,' bridegroom's gift to bride."

"Which shows," said Toby Mullet, "that he knew nothing."

"Or else," said Clovis, "that he has a very pleasing wit."

THE HEN

"Dora Bittholz is coming on Thursday," said Mrs. Sangrail.

"This next Thursday?" asked Clovis

His mother nodded.

"You've rather done it, haven't you?" he chuckled; "Jane Martlet has only
been here five days, and she never stays less than a fortnight, even when
she's asked definitely for a week. You'll never get her out of the house
by Thursday."

"Why should I?" asked Mrs. Sangrail; "she and Dora are good friends,
aren't they? They used to be, as far as I remember."

"They used to be; that's what makes them all the more bitter now. Each
feels that she has nursed a viper in her bosom. Nothing fans the flame
of human resentment so much as the discovery that one's bosom has been
utilised as a snake sanatorium."

"But what has happened? Has some one been making mischief?"

"Not exactly," said Clovis; "a hen came between them."

"A hen? What hen?"

"It was a bronze Leghorn or some such exotic breed, and Dora sold it to
Jane at a rather exotic price. They both go in for prize poultry, you
know, and Jane thought she was going to get her money back in a large
family of pedigree chickens. The bird turned out to be an abstainer from
the egg habit, and I'm told that the letters which passed between the two
women were a revelation as to how much invective could be got on to a
sheet of notepaper."

"How ridiculous!" said Mrs. Sangrail. "Couldn't some of their friends
compose the quarrel?"

"People tried," said Clovis, "but it must have been rather like composing
the storm music of the 'Fliegende Hollander.' Jane was willing to take
back some of her most libellous remarks if Dora would take back the hen,
but Dora said that would be owning herself in the wrong, and you know
she'd as soon think of owning slum property in Whitechapel as do that."

"It's a most awkward situa