ry; but off we chases, and when we drove
up to the Farmers' National half an hour later I has a wicker cage in
each hand and Mr. Ellins has both fists full of poultry literature
displayed prominent. Sure enough too, we finds the door beyond the
teller's window, also the gink in the gray helmet. He's a husky-built
party, with narrow-set, suspicious eyes.

"Up to Mr. Nash's," says I casual, makin' a move to walk right past.

"Back up!" says he, steppin' square across the way. "What Mr. Nash?"

"Whadye mean, what Mr. Nash?" says I. "There ain't clusters of 'em, are
there? Mr. Gedney Nash, of course."

"Wrong street," says he. "Try around on Broadway."

"What a kidder!" says I. "But if you will delay the champion hen expert
of the country," and I nods to Old Hickory, "just send word up to Mr.
Nash that Mr. Skellings has come with that pair of silver-slashed blue
Orpingtons he wanted to see."

"Blue which?" says the guard.

"Ah, take a look!" says I. "Ain't they some birds? Gold medal winners,
both of 'em."

I holds open the paper wrappings while he inspects the cacklers. And,
believe me, they was the fanciest poultry specimens I'd ever seen!
Honest, they looked like they'd been got up for the pullets' annual
costume ball.

"And Mr. Nash," I goes on, "said Mr. Skellings was to bring 'em in this
way."

The guard takes another glance at Old Hickory, and that got him; for in
his high-crowned Panama the boss does look more like a fancy farmer than
he does like the head of the Corrugated.

"I'll see," says he, openin' a little closet and producin' a 'phone. He
was havin' some trouble too, tellin' someone just who we was, when I
cuts in.

"Ah, just describe the birds," says I. "Silver-slashed blue Orpingtons,
you know."

Does it work? Say, in less than two minutes we was being towed through a
windin' passage that fin'lly ends in front of a circular shaft with a
cute little elevator waitin' at the bottom.

"Pass two," says the guard.

Another minute and we're bein' shot up I don't know how many stories,
and are steppin' out into the swellest set of office rooms I was ever
in. A mahogany door opens, and in comes a wispy, yellow-skinned,
dried-up little old party with eyes like a rat. Didn't look much like
the pictures they print of him, but I guessed it was Gedney.

"Some prize Orpingtons, did I understand?" says he, in a soft, purry
voice. "I don't recall having----" Then he gets a good look at Old
Hickory, an