Part 33 (2/2)
They are of a rare kind, and interesting from a scientific point of view.”
”I do not know about scientific fowls,” replied the gipsy, ”but I want to buy a few old hens to put into my pot.”
”Eh?” cried Mr. Leeson in a tone of interrogation. ”Have you a recipe for boiling down old fowls?”
”Have not I, your honor! And soon they are done, too-in a jiffy, so to speak. But let me look at them, your honor, and I will pay you far more than any one else would give for them.”
”You won't get them unless you give a very good sum. You gipsies, if the truth were known, are all enormously rich.”
He walked round to the hen-house, accompanied by the supposed gipsy and Pilot. The fowls, about a dozen in number, were strutting up and down their run. They were hungry, poor creatures, for they had had but a slight meal that morning. The gipsy pretended to bargain for them, keeping a sharp eye all the time on Mr. Leeson.
”This one,” she said, catching the most disreputable-looking of the birds, ”is the one I want for the gipsies' stew. There, I will give you ninepence for this bird.”
”Ninepence!” cried Mr. Leeson, almost shrieking out the word. ”Do you think I would sell a valuable hen like that for ninepence? And you say it can be boiled down to eat tender!”
”Boiled down to eat tender!” said the supposed gipsy. ”Why, it can be made delicious. There is broth in it, soup in it, and meat in it. There is dinner for four, and supper for four, and soup for four in this old hen!”
”And you offer me ninepence for such a valuable bird! I tell you what: I wish you would show me that recipe. I will give you sixpence for it. I do not know how to make an old hen tender.”
”Give me a quarter of an hour, your honor, and you will not know that you are not eating the youngest chicken in the land.”
”But how are you to cook it?”
”I will make a bit of fire in the shrubbery, and do it by a recipe of my own.”
”You are sure you will not go near the house?”
”No, your honor.”
”But how can a fowl that is now alive be fit to eat in a quarter of an hour?”
”It is a recipe of my grandmother's, your honor, and I am not going to give it until you taste what the bird is like. Now, if you will go away I will get it ready for you.”
Mr. Leeson really felt interested.
”What a sensible woman!” he said to himself. ”I shall try and get that recipe out of her for threepence; it will be valuable for my little book of cheap recipes; it would probably sell the book. How to make four dinners, four lunches, and four plates of soup out of an old hen. A most taking recipe-most taking!”
He walked up and down while the pretended gipsy heated up the stew she had already made out of a really tender chicken. The poor old hen was tied up so that she could not cackle or make any sound, and put into the bottom of the supposed gipsy's basket; and presently Jasper appeared carrying the stew in a cracked basin.
”Here, your honor, eat it up before me, and tell me afterwards if a better or a more tender fowl ever existed.”
It was in this way that Mr. Leeson made an excellent repast. He was highly pleased, for decidedly the boniest and most scraggy of the fowls had been selected, and nothing could be more delicious than this stew.
He fetched a plate and knife and fork from his sitting-room, where he always kept a certain amount of useful kitchen utensils, ate his dinner, p.r.o.nounced it to be the best of the best, and desired the gipsy to leave the balance in the porch.
”Thank you,” he said; ”it is admirable. And so you really made that out of my old hen in a few minutes? I will give you threepence if you will give me the recipe.”
”I could not sell it for threepence, sir-no, not for sixpence; no, not for a s.h.i.+lling. But I should like to make a bargain for the rest of the fowls.”
”How much will you give for each?”
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