in the town, and lets them to people driving out across the lines;
but of course he has nothing to do, now, and I should think that he
would be glad enough to arrange to look after the fowls and the
things up here.

"The garden is a good size. I don't think anything could get out
through that prickly pear hedge but, anyhow, any gaps there are can
be stopped up with stakes. I think it is a really good idea and, if
I can get a couple of hundred fowls, I will. I should think there
was plenty of room for them, in the garden. I will set up as a
poultry merchant."

"You might do worse, Gerald. I will bet you a gallon of whisky they
will be selling at ten shillings a couple, before this business is
over; and there is no reason in the world why you should not turn
an honest penny--it will be a novelty to you."

"Well, I will go down the town, at once," Gerald said, "and get the
seeds and the extra stores you advise, Teddy; and tomorrow I will
go to the commissariat sale, and buy a ton or two of those damaged
biscuits. We will take another room from them, downstairs, as a
storeroom for that and the eggs; and I will get a carpenter to come
up and put a fence, and make some runs and a bit of a shelter for
the sitting hens, and the chickens. Bob shall do the purchasing.

"You had better get a boy with a big basket to go with you, Bob;
and go round to the cottages, to buy up fowls. Mind, don't let them
sell you nothing but cocks--one to every seven or eight hens is
quite enough; and don't let them foist off old hens on you--the
younger they are, the better. I should say that, at first, you had
better take Manola with you, if Carrie can spare her; then you
won't get taken in, and you will soon learn to tell the difference
between an old hen and a young chicken."

"When you are buying the seed, O'Halloran," said Dr. Burke, "you
would do well to get a few cucumbers, and melons, and pumpkins.
They will grow on the roof, splendidly. And you can plant them near
the parapet, where they will grow down over the sides, so they
won't take up much room; and you can pick them with a ladder. The
pumpkin is a good vegetable, and the fowls will thank you for a bit
to pick, when you can spare one. They will all want manure, but you
get plenty of that, from the fowl yard."

"Why, Teddy, there seems no end to your knowledge," Mrs. O'Halloran
said. "First of all, you turn out to be a schoolmaster; and now you
are a gardener, and poultry raiser.