Читать книгу The Four-Masted Cat-Boat, and Other Truthful Tales онлайн

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I was shocked. “You surely don’t believe in desecrating nature! Sermons in stones, if you will, but not sermons on stones. You wouldn’t letter the Palisades if you had a chance, would you?”

He edged away from me, and said:

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t letter the Palisades, although I dare say my man of affairs would be glad to.”

Then I gave up. His man of affairs! He must be a gentleman of leisure to have a man of affairs.

And then up came Ticknor Fields, the dramatic critic, and said: “How do you do, Mr. Cavendish? Let me congratulate you upon your success as Richelieu. At last a successor to Booth has been found.”

I went and drank a glass of iced water. My throat was dry.

A company has just been formed in New Jersey for the purpose of supplying instinct to hens. Such well-known farmers as Frank R. Stockton, Russell Sage, and Bishop Potter are stockholders in it, and if filling a long-felt want is all that is needed, the success of the company is already assured.

No one who has ever dabbled in hens needs to be told that the gallinaceous birds have no instinct whatever. Some have blind luck, but a hen with instincts in good working order would be an anomaly.