like some supper, I make no doubt, after your wild-goose chase,"
she said. "Sit down at t' table and take a bit o' stew."

The policeman seated himself with alacrity. The stew which Mrs. Gammer
placed before him consisted of a mixture of barley, onions and some
white meat. He ate a hearty supper, and when he stood up he drew his
hands across his mouth.

"Thank you kindly," he said. "I must be off now, and see where that cock
has gone to."

Then it was that Mrs. Gammer gave a short and derisive laugh. She began
to pile up the empty plates and to put the spoons and forks in the basin
by the sink.

"If you go a-chasing of that cock until you are black and blue in the
face," she said, "you'll never find him. And the reason why, is that you
have just helped to eat him up."

"I have eat him up!" he gasped.

"Aye," responded Mrs. Gammer, with brevity. "I made him into soup!"

The policeman remained open-mouthed, staring at the impenitent widow.

"You'd no business ever to do such a thing," he said. "The cock belonged
to the Law."

"I care nowt for your Law," retorted Mrs. Gammer. "Anyway you've helped
to eat him!"

A vague sense of cannibalism was haunting the policeman's mind; he felt
almost as dismayed as if he had made a hearty supper off the
magistrate's clerk himself.

"You're a very wicked woman," he said to Mrs. Gammer. "And--and----"

He broke off, entirely nonplussed by the situation in which he found
himself. Mrs. Gammer continued to wash up the spoons and forks with
utter indifference to his consternation.

"The cock's eat up, and there's an end of it," she said. "You'd best go
and tell the magistrates all about it."

Sheepish and disconcerted, the policeman slunk home. The next morning
the chief asked him if he had served the order on Mrs. Gammer.

"I--served it," said he, scratching his head.

"And did you get the bird given up?" demanded his superior officer.

"No, I can't say as I did," replied the policeman.

"Was it still on the top of the tester-bed?" pursued his awkward
questioner.

"No. It was not on the tester-bed," replied the policeman.

"Then where was it?" insisted the chief.

For several seconds the policeman was silent, then he told a lie.

"I canna say," he answered, "it war gone."

The chief shrugged his shoulders, and sent the man about the business of
the day. The next time that the magistrates met, the question of Bob O'
Tims's cock was again brought into court. The