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[BRIFFAUT _appears above the wall. Long hanging ears and quivering chops._]
PATOU [_To_ BRIFFAUT, _affecting unconcern._] Good afternoon!
BRIFFAUT [_Snuffing._] Humph, what a good smell!
PATOU [_Pointing to his bowl._] My poor dinner! Soup with seasonable vegetables.
BRIFFAUT [_Hurriedly._] Have you seen a pheasant-hen go by?
PATOU [_In astonishment, reflecting._] A pheasant-hen,--?
CHANTECLER [_Walking about, with an a.s.sumption of gaiety._] Impressive, isn't he, Briffaut there? with his look of a thoroughbred old Englishman!
PATOU No, but I saw a pheasant.
BRIFFAUT That was she!
PATOU A pheasant-hen wears dun. This was a golden pheasant He went off towards the meadow.
BRIFFAUT It is she!
CHANTECLER [_Going towards him, incredulous._] A pheasant-hen with golden plumage?
BRIFFAUT Ah, you do not know what sometimes happens?
CHANTECLER _and_ PATOU No.
THE BLACKBIRD We are in for a hunting yarn!--Give me chloroform!
BRIFFAUT It sometimes happens--the thing is exceptional, of course--My master knows because he has read about it.--It sometimes happens--An extraordinary phenomenon to be sure! which is likewise observed among moor-fowl.--It happens--
PATOU What happens?
BRIFFAUT That the pheasant-hen--Ah, my dear fellows--!
CHANTECLER [_Stamping with impatience._] The pheasant-hen what?--what?
BRIFFAUT Makes up her mind one day that the c.o.c.k-pheasant goes altogether too fine. When the male in springtime puts on his holiday feathers, she sees that he is handsomer than she--
THE BLACKBIRD And it makes her sore!
BRIFFAUT She leaves off laying and hatching eggs. Nature then gives her back her purple and her gold, and the pheasant-hen proud and magnificent Amazon, preferring to put on her back blue, green, yellow, all the colours of the prism, rather than under a sober grey wing to shelter a brood of young pheasants, flies freely forth--Light-mindedly she sheds the virtues of her s.e.x, and having done it--sees life! [_He sketches with his paw a slightly disrespectful gesture._]
CHANTECLER [_Dryly._] Pray, what do you know about it?
BRIFFAUT [_Astonished._] Is he annoyed?
PATOU [_Aside._] Already!
CHANTECLER In short, the pheasant your master missed--
BRIFFAUT Was a she!--[_He stops and scents the air._] Oh but!--
PATOU [_Quickly, showing his dish._] You know, it's my dinner you smell!
BRIFFAUT It smells very unusually good.
CHANTECLER [_Aside._] I don't like that way his nose has of twitching.
BRIFFAUT [_Starting upon another story._] Fancy such an instance as the following--
THE BLACKBIRD Holy Smoke! Here comes another!--Oh, I say, hire a hall!
[_A distant whistle is heard._]
CHANTECLER [_Quickly._] You are whistled for!
BRIFFAUT The deuce! Good evening! [_Disappears._]
PATOU Good evening.
CHANTECLER Gone, at last!
BLACKBIRD [_Calling._] Briffaut!
CHANTECLER Great Glory, what are you doing?
THE BLACKBIRD [_Calling._] I have something to tell you!
BRIFFAUT [_His head reappears above the wall._] Well--?
THE BLACKBIRD Look out, Briffaut!
CHANTECLER [_Low to the_ BLACKBIRD.] Do you make sport of our fears?
THE BLACKBIRD You are losing something!
BRIFFAUT What?
THE BLACKBIRD Time!
BRIFFAUT [_Disappearing with a snort of fury._] Wow!
SCENE SIXTH
