d, and yet he was young and newly cast, but steady and sedate. He
had been "born old," and did not at all resemble the birds that fly
beneath the vault of heaven, such as the sparrows and the swallows. He
despised those, considering them piping birds of trifling
stature--ordinary song birds. The pigeons, he allowed, were big and
shining, and gleamed like mother-o'-pearl, and looked like a kind of
weathercocks; but then they were fat and stupid, and their whole
endeavour was to fill themselves with food. "Moreover, they are
tedious things to converse with," said the Weathercock.

The birds of passage had also paid a visit to the Weathercock, and
told him tales of foreign lands, of airy caravans, and exciting robber
stories; of encounters with birds of prey; and that was interesting
for the first time, but the Weathercock knew that afterwards they
always repeated themselves, and that was tedious. "They are tedious,
and all is tedious," he said. "No one is fit to associate with, and
one and all of them are wearisome and stupid."

"The world is worth nothing," he cried. "The whole thing is a
stupidity."

The Weathercock was what is called "used up;" and that quality would
certainly have made him interesting in the eyes of the Cucumber if she
had known it; but she had only eyes for the Yard Cock, who had now
actually come into her own yard.

The wind had blown down the plank, but the storm had passed over.

[Illustration: THE WEATHERCOCK.]

"What do you think of _that_ crowing?" the Yard Cock inquired of his
hens and chickens. "It was a little rough--the elegance was wanting."

And hens and chickens stepped upon the muck-heap, and the Cock
strutted to and fro on it like a knight.

"Garden plant!" he cried out to the Cucumber; and in this one word she
understood his deep feeling, and forgot that he was pecking at her and
eating her up--a happy death!

And the hens came, and the chickens came, and when one of them runs
the rest run also; and they clucked and chirped, and looked at the
Cock, and were proud that he was of their kind.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" he crowed. "The chickens will grow up large fowls
if I make a noise in the poultry-yard of the world."

And hens and chickens clucked and chirped, and the Cock told them a
great piece of news:

"A cock can lay an egg; and do you know what there is in that egg? In
that egg lies a basilisk. No one can stand the sight of a basilisk.
Men know that, and now you know i