o of them were caught very cleverly by a
circus proprietor at Tunbridge Wells, who lured them into a cage,
rendered vacant through the death of a widowed dromedary, by scattering
cakes and bread....

VIII.

When the unfortunate Skinner got out of the South-Eastern train at
Urshot that evening it was already nearly dusk. The train was late, but
not inordinately late--and Mr. Skinner remarked as much to the
station-master. Perhaps he saw a certain pregnancy in the
station-master's eye. After the briefest hesitation and with a
confidential movement of his hand to the side of his mouth he asked if
"anything" had happened that day.

"How d'yer _mean_?" said the station-master, a man with a hard, emphatic
voice.

"Thethe 'ere waptheth and thingth."

"We 'aven't 'ad much time to think of _waptheth_," said the
station-master agreeably. "We've been too busy with your brasted 'ens,"
and he broke the news of the pullets to Mr. Skinner as one might break
the window of an adverse politician.

"You ain't 'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner?" asked Skinner, amidst
that missile shower of pithy information and comment.

"No fear!" said the station-master--as though even he drew the line
somewhere in the matter of knowledge.

"I mutht make inquireth bout thith," said Mr. Skinner, edging out of
reach of the station-master's concluding generalisations about the
responsibility attaching to the excessive nurture of hens....

Going through Urshot Mr. Skinner was hailed by a lime-burner from the
pits over by Hankey and asked if he was looking for his hens.

"You ain't 'eard anything of Mithith Thkinner?" he asked.

The lime-burner--his exact phrases need not concern us--expressed his
superior interest in hens....

It was already dark--as dark at least as a clear night in the English
June can be--when Skinner--or his head at any rate--came into the bar of
the Jolly Drovers and said: "Ello! You 'aven't 'eard anything of thith
'ere thtory bout my 'enth, 'ave you?"

"Oh, _'aven't_ we!" said Mr. Fulcher. "Why, part of the story's been and
bust into my stable roof and one chapter smashed a 'ole in Missis
Vicar's green 'ouse--I beg 'er pardon--Conservarratory."

Skinner came in. "I'd like thomething a little comforting," he said,
"'ot gin and water'th about my figure," and everybody began to tell him
things about the pullets.

"_Grathuth_ me!" said Skinner.

"You 'aven't 'eard anything about Mithith Thkinner, 'ave you?" he asked