The Food of the Gods / Пища богов. Книга для чтения на английском языке

) Между прочим],” he said, “you don’t give those little chicks meat?”

“Oh! no, Thir,” said Skinner, “I can athure you, Thir, we know far too much about the management of fowlth of all dethcriptionth to do anything of that thort.”

“Quite sure you don’t throw your dinner refuse – I thought I noticed the bones of a rabbit scattered about the far corner of the run —”

But when they came to look at them they found they were the larger bones of a cat picked very clean and dry.

III

“That’s no chick,” said Mr. Bensington’s cousin Jane.

“Well, I should think I knew a chick when I saw it,” said Mr. Bensington’s cousin Jane hotly.

“It’s too big for a chick, for one thing, and besides you can see perfectly well it isn’t a chick.”

“It’s more like a bustard than a chick.”

“For my part,” said Redwood, reluctantly allowing Bensington to drag him into the argument, “I must confess that, considering all the evidence —”

“Oh I if you do that,” said Mr.

“Well, but really, Miss Bensington —!”

“Oh! Go on!” said Cousin Jane. “You men are all alike.”

“Considering all the evidence, this certainly falls within the definition – no doubt it’s abnormal and hypertrophied, but still – especially since it was hatched from the egg of a normal hen – Yes, I think, Miss Bensington, I must admit – this, so far as one can call it anything, is a sort of chick.

“You mean it’s a chick?” said cousin Jane.

“I think it’s a chick,” said Redwood.

“What NONSENSE!” said Mr. Bensington’s cousin Jane, and “Oh!” directed at Redwood’s head, “I haven’t patience with you,” and then suddenly she turned about and went out of the room with a slam[21 - with a slam – (разг.

“And it’s a very great relief for me to see it too, Bensington,” said Redwood, when the reverberation of the slam had died away. “In spite of its being so big.”

Without any urgency from Mr. Bensington he sat down in the low arm-chair by the fire and confessed to proceedings that even in an unscientific man would have been indiscreet.