They came by express, and were
injured while being transferred at Chicago. No one has travelled over
that line of railroad since.

I do not say that the eggs were bad, but I say that their instincts and
their inner life wasn't what they ort to have been.

In early May I bought one of these inkybaters that does the work of ten
setting hens. I hoped to head off the hen so far as possible, simply
purchasing her literary efforts and editing them to suit myself. I
cannot endure the society of a low-bred hen, and a refined hen seems to
look down on me, and so I thought if I could get one of those ottymatic
inkybaters I could have the whole process under my own control, and if
the blooded hens wanted to go to the sanitarium and sit around there
with their hands in their pockets while the great hungry world of
traffic clamored for more spring chickens fried in butter they might do
so and be doggoned.

Thereupon I bought one of the medium size, two story hatchers and loaded
it with eggs. In my dreams I could see a long procession of fuzzy little
chickens marching out of my little inkybater arm in arm, every day or
two, while my bank account swelled up like a deceased horse.

I was dreaming one of these dreams night before last at midnight's holy
hour when I was rudely awakened by a gallon of cold water in one of my
ears. I arose in the darkness and received a squirt of cold water
through the window from our ever-watchful and courageous fire
department. I opened the casement for the purpose of thanking them for
this little demonstration, wholly unsolicited on my part, when I
discovered the hennery was in flames.

I went down to assist the department, forgetting to put on my pantaloons
as is my custom out of deference to the usages of good society. We saved
the other buildings, but the hatchery is a mass of smoldering ruins. So
am I.

It seems that the kerosene lamp which I kept burning in the inkybater
for the purpose of maintaining an even temperature, and also for the
purpose of showing the chickens the way to the elevator in case they
should hatch out in the night, had torched up and ignited the hatchery,
so to speak.

I see by my paper that we are importing 200,000,000 of hens' eggs from
Europe every year. It'll be 300,000,000 next year so far as I'm
concerned, Henry, and you can bet your little pleated jacket on it, too,
if you want to.

To-day I send P. O. order No. 143,876 for $3.50. I agree with the bible
that