THE GUINEA-HEN Will spread his tail for us! He has expressed his amiable willingness so far to favour us.

[_The company falls into groups of spectators, the outlandish_ c.o.c.kS _forming a wreath around their patron._]

THE PEAc.o.c.k [_Preparing to spread his tail._] I am, by precious natural gift, in addition to my multifarious accomplishments something of a--shall I say artist in firework?

THE GUINEA-HEN [_Effervescently._] Yes!

THE PEAc.o.c.k No. Pyrotechnist. For the choicest piece in urban gardens, where Catharine-wheels on festival nights spurt sidereal spray, and rockets shot into gold-riddled skies fall back in prismatic showers, is less sapphirine, smaragdine, cuprine--

CHANTECLER Zounds!

THE PEAc.o.c.k --than, I venture to say, ladies, am I--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Oh, I understood that last word!

THE PEAc.o.c.k --when I unfurl the union of fan, jewel-case, and screen, upon which I offer to the self-same sunbeams that redden the reed all the joyous gems you now may contemplate!

CHANTECLER What a silly bill!

[_The_ PEAc.o.c.k _has spread his tail._]

A c.o.c.k [_To the_ PEAc.o.c.k.] Master, which of us will you make the fashion?

THE PADUA c.o.c.k [_Quickly coming forward._] Me! I look like a palm-tree!

A CHINA c.o.c.k [_Pushing the_ PADUA c.o.c.k _aside._] I look like a paG.o.da!

A BIG FEATHER-FOOTED c.o.c.k [_Pushing the_ CHINA c.o.c.k _aside._] Me! I have cauliflowers sprouting at my heels!

CHANTECLER Each is in one the show and Mr. Barnum!

ALL [_Parading and filing past the_ PEAc.o.c.k.] See my beak! See my feet! See my feathers!

CHANTECLER [_Suddenly shouting at them._] Lo! While you hold your costume contest, a Scarecrow gives you his blessing!

[_Behind them, in fact, the wind has lifted the arms of the_ SCARECROW, _which loosely wave above the pageant._]

ALL [_Starting back._] What?

CHANTECLER Behold this dummy talking to that lay-figure! [_While the wind blows through the flapping rags._] What say the trousers, dancing their limp fandango? They say, "We were once the fashion!" And, terror of the t.i.tlark, what says the old hat which a beggar would none of? "I was the fashion!" And the coat? "I was the fashion!" And the tattered sleeves, that no one has care to mend, try to clasp the Wind, whom they take for the Fashion, and drop back empty--The Wind has pa.s.sed, the Wind is far!

THE PEAc.o.c.k [_To the animals slightly dismayed by this address._] You poor-spirited creatures, that thing cannot talk!

CHANTECLER Man says the same of us.

THE PEAc.o.c.k [_To the birds nearest to him._] He is vexed because of those c.o.c.ks whom I introduced. [_To_ CHANTECLER, _ironically._] What, my dear sir, do you say to these resplendent gentlemen?

CHANTECLER I say, my dear sir, that these resplendent gentlemen are manufactured wares, the work of merchants with highly complex brains, who to fashion a ridiculous Chicken have taken a wing from that one, a topknot from this. I say that in such c.o.c.ks nothing remains of the true c.o.c.k. They are c.o.c.ks of shreds and patches, idle bric-a-brac, fit to figure in a catalogue, not in a barnyard with its decent dunghill and its dog. I say that those befrizzled, beruffled, bedeviled c.o.c.ks were never stroked and cherished by Nature's maternal hand. I say that it's all Aviculture, and Aviculture is flapdoodle! And I say that those preposterous parrots, without style, without beauty, without form, whose bodies have not even kept the pleasing oval of the egg they were hatched from, look like so many desperate fowls escaped from some hen-coop of the Apocalypse!

A c.o.c.k My dear sir--

CHANTECLER [_With rising spirit._] And I add that the whole duty of a c.o.c.k is to be an embodied crimson cry! And when a c.o.c.k is not that, it matters little that his comb be shaped like a toadstool, or his quills twisted like a screw, he will soon vanish and be heard of no more, having been nothing but a variety of a variety!

A c.o.c.k I protest--

CHANTECLER [_Going from one to the other._] Yes, c.o.c.ks affecting incongruous forms, c.o.c.ks crowned with cocoa-palm coiffures--Hear me talk like the Peac.o.c.k!

I lapse into alliteration! [_Finding his fun in bewildering them with cackling guttural volubility._] Yes, c.o.c.kerels c.o.c.kaded with c.o.c.kles, c.o.c.katrice-headed c.o.c.kasters, c.o.c.k-eyed c.o.c.katoos! Not content to be common c.o.c.ks, your crotchet it was to be what but crack c.o.c.ks? Yes, Fashion, to be accounted of thy flock, these chuckle-headed c.o.c.ks craved to be Super-c.o.c.ks. But know ye not, ye crazy c.o.c.ks, one cannot be so queer a c.o.c.k, but there may occur a queerer c.o.c.k? Let some c.o.c.k come whose coccyx boasts a more flamboyant shock, and you pa.s.s like childish measles, croup or chicken-pox! Consider that to-morrow, high c.o.c.kalorums, fancy c.o.c.ks, consider that day after to-morrow, cheese-capped goblet-crested c.o.c.ks, in spite of curly hackle and cauliflowered hocks, a more fantastic c.o.c.k than ever may creep out of a--box! For the c.o.c.k-fancier, to diversify his stock, may more fantastically still combine his Cutcutdaycuts and his c.o.c.ks, and you will be no more--sad Cuckoos made a mock!--but old rococo c.o.c.ks beside this more coquettish c.o.c.k!

A c.o.c.k And how, may one learn from you, can a c.o.c.k secure himself against becoming rococo?

CHANTECLER One royal way there is: to think only of crowing like a right and proper c.o.c.k!

A c.o.c.k [_Haughtily._] We are well known, I beg to state, for our exceptionally fine crowing!

CHANTECLER Known to whom?

SCENE FIFTH

THE SAME, _three_ CHICKENS, _noticeable among the rest for a certain jaunty pertness of gait and demeanour, who for a minute or so have been moving among the artificial_ c.o.c.kS.

FIRST CHICKEN To us, of course!

SECOND CHICKEN To us!

THIRD CHICKEN To us!

ALL THREE [_Bowing at once._] Good morning!

FIRST CHICKEN Your voice?

SECOND CHICKEN Tenor?

THIRD CHICKEN Ba.s.s?

SECOND CHICKEN Robusto?

THIRD CHICKEN Di cortesia?

CHANTECLER [_Bewildered, looking toward the_ PHEASANT-HEN.] What is this? An interlude?

THE PHEASANT-HEN An interview.

SECOND CHICKEN Do you take it in your chest?

THIRD CHICKEN Or in your head?