“Who shot off that rooster?”

“Monsieur le docteur, the hens of you began this affray,” explained Schmetz, politely.  “They are fowls abandoned in their morals, horrible in their habits, and shameless in their behavior.  And the husband of these wretches, Monsieur, is a bandit, a brigand, an assassin, fit only to be guillotined.  Observe, Monsieur, it happened thus—­”

“Schmetz,” snapped the doctor, “shut up!—­Now then, I want to know who fired off that rooster.”

“I did!” I said valiantly.  “Look at my bulbs!  Just look at my bulbs!”

“Look at my stomach!” roared the doctor.  “Just look at my stomach!”

“Mon Dieu!  O mon Dieu!” cried Schmetz, dancing up and down.  “Monsieur, again I implore that you will remain calm and listen to the voice of reason!  Your hens, creatures malicious and accursed—­”

“Why should I look at your horrid stomach?” said I, outraged.  “I think you had better get down off that ladder and go away!”

“Why should you?  Because, you jade, you’ve all but driven a twenty-pound rooster clean through it—­beak, spurs and tail feathers—­that’s why!” bawled the doctor.  “Gad!  I shall be black and blue for a fortnight!  I’m colicky now:  I need a mustard-plaster!”

“Two mustard-plasters,” I insisted severely:  “one on your tongue and the other on your temper!”

“Temper?” flared the doctor, and flung up his arms. “Temper? Here’s a minx that’s all but murdered me, and yet has the stark effrontery to blather about temper!  You’ve a bad one yourself, let me tell you!  You’ve the worst, outside of your late aunt—­”

“Grand-aunt-in-law; your own cousin-by-blood, whom you greatly resemble in that same matter of family temper, I am given to understand.”

“Gatchell told you that!” cried the doctor, wrathfully.  “Fish-blooded old mummy! His place is in a Canopic jar!  Gatchell hasn’t had a thought since 1845.”

“Well, if he satisfied himself so long ago as 1845 that you have a frightful temper and that your hens are unutterable nuisances, I see no reason why he should change his mind,” I said, frigidly.  “You have; and your hens are; and your rooster is a demon!”

“Straight out of the pit; undoubtedly they were hatched under Satan’s wings.  Monsieur, believe me, Schmetz, when I tell you so.”

“Didn’t you ask me,” I demanded, “to throw them over into your yard when they invaded my premises?  Very well:  I threw one over and you caught it.  Why, then, should you complain?”

“Oh, yes, I caught it!” A horrible sneer twisted his countenance.

Schmetz fell to praying aloud.  But he couldn’t remember anything save the grace before meat, so he prayed that, in a sonorous voice.  For he is a pious man.

The doctor’s nose wrinkled and his lips stretched:  “Sophronisba!” he hissed, and, having hurled this hand-grenade, scuttled down the ladder like a boy of ten.