[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