e discovered what
they're askin' for turkeys in the city markets I has to take it back.

"Oh, well," says I, "if we can fatten 'em up maybe we'll come out
winners, after all."

"Sure!" says Joe. "We maka dem biga fat."

After I'd bought a few bags of feed though, I quit figurin'. I knew that
no matter how they was cooked they'd taste of money. All I was doubtful
of now was whether they was the right breed of turkeys.

"What's all that red flannel stuff on their necks?" I asks Joe. "Ain't
got sore throats, have they!"

"Heem?" says Joe. "No, no. Dey gooda turk. All time data way."

"All right," says I, "if it's the fashion. I don't eat the neck,
anyway."

I couldn't get Leon at all excited over my gobblers, though. All he'll
do is shake his head dubious. "They walk with such pride and still they
behave so foolish," says he.

"It ain't their manners I'm fond of," says I, "so much as it is their
white meat. Even at that, when it comes to foolish notions, they've got
nothing on your ducks."

"Mais non," says Leon, meaning nothing sensible, "you do not understand
the duck perhaps. Me, I raised them as a boy in Perronne. But the
turkey! Pouff! He is what you call silly in the head. One cannot say
what they will do next. Anything may happen to such birds."

He makes such a fuss over the way they hog the grain at feedin' time
that I have to have a separate run built for 'em. You'd almost think he
was jealous. But Joe, on the other hand, treats 'em like pets. I don't
know how many times a day he feeds 'em, and he's always luggin' one up
to me to show how heavy they're gettin'. I was waitin' until they got
into top notch condition before springin' 'em on Basil Pyne. I meant to
get a gasp out of him when I did.

Finally I set a day for the private view and asked the Pynes to come
over special. Basil, he's all prepared to be thrilled as I tows him out.
"But you don't mean to say this is your first venture at turkey
raising?" he demands.

"Ab-so-lutely," says I.

"Strordinary!" says Basil.

At the end of the turkey run though I finds Joe starin' through the wire
with a panicky look on his face. "Well, Joe," says I, "anything wrong
with the flock?"

"I dunno," says he. "Maybe da go bughouse, maybe da got jag on. See!"

Blamed if it don't look like he'd made two close guesses. Honest, every
one of them gobblers was staggerin' 'round, bumpin' against each other
and runnin' into the fence, with their tails spread an