THE PIGEON Bravo!  I shall have something to tell my mate.  We shall long talk of this!

CHANTECLER [Seeing him, with noble courtesy.] Young blue-winged stranger, with new-fledged bill, thanks!  Pray lay my duty at her coral feet!

[The PIGEON flies off.]

THE BLACKBIRD
Jolly your admirers, it pays!

CHANTECLER [In a cordial voice, to the whole barnyard.] To work now, all of you, with a will!

[A FLY darts past, buzzing.]

CHANTECLER
Busy and resonant Fly, I love thee!  Behold her!  What is her flight but
the heart-whole gift of herself?

THE TURKEY [Loftily.] Yes.—­She has dropped considerably in my esteem, however, since that matter of the—­

CHANTECLER
Of the what?

THE TURKEY
Of the Fly and the—­

CHANTECLER I never thought much of that story.  Who knows whether the coach would have reached the top of the hill without the Fly?  Do you believe that rude shouts “Gee up!  Ge’ lang!” were more effective than the hymn to the Sun buzzed by the little Fly?  Do you believe in the virtue of a blustering oath?  Really believe it was the Coachman who made the coach to go?  No, I tell you, no!  She did much more than the big whip’s noisy cracking, did the little Fly, with the music straight from her buzzing heart!

THE TURKEY
Yes, but all the same—­

CHANTECLER [Turning his back on him.] Come, let us make of labour a delight!  Come, all of you!—­High time, Ganders my worthies, you escorted your geese to the pond.

A GANDER
[Lazily.] Is it quite necessary, do you think?

CHANTECLER [Going briskly towards him, with a look that forbids discussion.] Quite!  And let there be no idle quacking and paltering! [The GANDERS go off in haste.] You, Chicken, your task, as you know, is to pick off slugs, your full number before evening being thirty-two.—­You, Cockerel, go practise your crow.  Four hundred times cry Cock-a-doodle-doo in hearing of the echo!

THE COCKEREL
[Slightly mortified.] The echo—?

CHANTECLER
That is what I was doing to limber up my glottis before I was rid of the
egg-shell sticking to my tail!

A HEN
[Airily.] None of this is particularly interesting!

CHANTECLER Everything is interesting!  Pray go and sit on the eggs you have been entrusted with! [To another HEN.] You, walk among the roses and verbenas, and gobble every creature threatening them.  Ha, ha!  If the caterpillar thinks we will make him a gift of our flowers he can stroke his belly—­with his back! [To another.] You, hie to the rescue of cabbages in old neglected corners, where the grasshopper lays siege to them with his vigorous battering-ram! [To the remaining HENS.] You—­[Catching sight of the OLD HEN, whose shaking, senile head has lifted the basket-lid.] Ah, there you are, Nursie!  Good day! [She gazes at him admiringly.] Well, have I grown?