Scene FOURTH

PATOU. [Barking inside his kennel.] I! I! I!

CHANTECLER. [Retreating.] Is it you, Patou, good shaggy head starting out of the dark, with straws caught among your eyelashes?

PATOU. Which do not prevent my seeing what is plain as that hen-house rrrroof!

CHANTECLER. Cross?

PATOU. Grrrrrrr-

CHANTECLER. When he rolls his r's like that he is very cross indeed.

PATOU. It's my devotion to you, Cock, makes me roll my R's. Guardian of the house, the orchard and the fields, more than all else I am bound to protect your song. And I growl at the dangers I suspect lurking. Such is my humour.

CHANTECLER. Your humour? Your dogma, suspicion is! Call it your Dogma!

PATOU. You can stoop to a pun? From bad to worse! I'm enough of a psychologist to feel the evil spreading, and I've the scent of a rat-terrier.

CHANTECLER. But you are no rat-terrier!

PATOU. [Shaking his head.] Chantecler, how do we know?

CHANTECLER. [Considering him.] Your appearance is in fact peculiar. What actually is your breed?

PATOU. I am a horrible mixture, issue of every passer-by! I can feel barking within me the voice of every blood. Retriever, mastiff, pointer, poodle, hound — my soul is a whole pack, sitting in circle, musing. Cock, I am all dogs, I have been every dog!

CHANTECLER. Then what a sum of goodness must be stored in you!

PATOU. Brother, we are framed to understand each other. You sing to the sun and scratch up the earth. I, when I wish to do myself a good and a pleasure——

CHANTECLER. You lie on the earth and sleep in the sun!

PATOU. [With a pleased yap.] Aye!

CHANTECLER. We have ever had in common our love for those two things.

PATOU. I am so fond of the sun that I howl at the moon. And so fond of the earth that I dig great holes and shove my nose in it!

CHANTECLER. I know! The gardener's wife has her opinion of those holes. — But what are the dangers you discern? All lies quiet beneath the quiet sky. Nothing appears to be threatening my humble sunlit dominions.

THE OLD HEN. [Lifting the basket-lid with her head] The egg looks like marble until it gets smashed![The lid, drops]

CHANTECLER. [To PATOU.] What dangers, friend?

PATOU. There are two. First, in yonder cage——

CHANTECLER. Well?

PATOU. That satirical whistling.

CHANTECLER. What about it?

PATOU. Pernicious.

CHANTECLER. In what way?

PATOU. In every way!

CHANTECLER. [Ironical.] Bad as all that, is it?[The PEACOCK'S squall is heard in the distance: "Ee—yong!"]

PATOU. And then that cry, the Peacock's![The PEACOCK, further off: "Ee—yong!"]

PATOU. More out of tune all by itself than a whole village singing society!

CHANTECLER. Come, what have they done to you, that whistler and that posturer?

PATOU. [Grumbling.] They have done to me — that I know not what they may do to you! They have done to me — that among us simple, kindly folk they have introduced new fashions, the Blackbird of being funny, the Peacock of putting on airs! Fashions which the latter in his grotesque bad taste picked up parading on the marble terraces of the vulgar rich, and the former —Heaven knows where! along with his cynicism and his slang. Now the one, travelling salesman of blighting, corrosive laughter, and the other, brainless ambassador of Fashion, their mission to kill among us love and labour, the first by persiflage, the second by display, — they have brought to us, even here in our peaceful sunny corner, the two pests, the saddest in the world, the jest which insists on being funny at any cost, and the cry which insists on being the latest scream![The BLACKBIRD is heard tentatively whistling, "How sweet to/are afield"] You, Cock, who had the sense to prefer the grain of true wheat to the pearl, how can you allow yourself to be taken in by that villainous Blackbird! A bird who practises a tune!

CHANTECLER. [Indulgently.] Come, he whistles his tune like many another!

PATOU. [Unwillingly agreeing, in a drawling growl.] Ye-e-es, but he never whistles it to the end!

CHANTECLER. [Watching the BLACKBIRD hopping about] A lighthearted fellow!

PATOU. [Same business.] Ye-e-es, but he lies heavy on our hearts. A bird who takes his exercise indoors!

CHANTECLER. You must own he is intelligent!

PATOU. [In a longer, more hesitant growl.] Ye-e-e-es! But not so very! For his eye never brightens with wonder and admiration. He preserves before the flower — of whose stalk he sees more than of its chalice — the glance which deflowers, the tone which depreciates!

CHANTECLER. Taste, my dear fellow, he unmistakably has!

PATOU. Ye-e-e-es! But not much taste! To wear black is too easy a way of having taste! One should have the courage of colours on his wing.

CHANTECLER. You will admit at least that he has an original fancy. No denying that he is amusing.

PATOU. Ye-e-es—No! Why is it amusing to adopt a few stock phrases and make them do service at every turn? Why amusing to miscall, exaggerate, and vulgarise?

CHANTECLER. His mind has a diverting, unexpected turn——

PATOU. Ready but cheap! I cannot think it particularly brilliant to remark, with a knowing wink, at sight of an innocent cow at pasture, "The simple cow knows her way to the hay!" Nor do I regard it as evidence of notable mental gifts to answer the greeting of the inoffensive duck, "The quack shoots off his mouth!" No, the extravagances of that Blackbird, who makes me bristle, no more constitute wit than his slang achieves style!

CHANTECLER. He is not altogether to blame. He wears the modern garb. See him there in correct evening dress. He looks, in his neat black coat——

PATOU. Like a beastly little undertaker who, after burying Faith, hops with relief and glee!

CHANTECLER. There, there! You make him blacker than he is!

PATOU. I do believe a blackbird is just a misfit crow!

CHANTECLER. His diminutive size, however——

PATOU. [Vigorously shaking his ears.] Oh, be not deceived by his size! Evil makes his models first on a tiny scale. The soul of a cutlass dwells in the pocket-knife; blackbird and crow are of the selfsame crape, and the striped wasp is a tiger in miniature!

CHANTECLER. [Amused at PATOU'S violence.] The blackbird in short is wicked, stupid, ugly——

PATOU. The chief thing about the Blackbird is — that you can't tell what he is! Is there thought in that head? feeling in that breast? Hear him! "Tew-tew-tew-tew tew——"

CHANTECLER. But what harm does he do?

PATOU. He tew-tew-tews! And nothing is so mortal to thought and sentiment as that same derisive tew-tewing, disingenuous and non-committal! Day by day, and that is why I roll my rs, I must witness this debasing of language and ideals. It's enough to produce rabies!

CHANTECLER. Come, Patou!

PATOU. In their objectionable jargon, they have the ha-ha on all of us! I am no fastidious King Charles, but I dislike, I tell you, being referred to as His Whiskers! — Oh, to be gone, escape, follow the heels of some poor shepherd without a crust in his wallet, but at least, at evening drinking from the glassy pond, to have — oh, better than all marrow-bones! —the fresh illusion of lapping up the stars!

CHANTECLER. [Surprised at PATOU'S having lowered his voice to utter the last words] Why do you drop your voice?

PATOU. You see? — If we speak of stars nowadays we must do it in a whisper![Be lays his head on his paws in deep dejection]

CHANTECLER. [Comforting him.] Be not downcast!

PATOU. [Lifting his head again.] No, it is too silly and too weak! I'll shout it if I please![He howls with the whole power of his lungs.] Stars! —[Then in a tone of relief] There, I feel better!

CHICKENS. [Passing at the back, mocking] Stars!—Ho! Stars for ours! Stars![They go off, fooling and giggling.]

PATOU. Hear them! Our pullets will be whistling soon like blackbirds!

CHANTECLER. [Proudly strutting up and down.] What care I ? I sing, and have on my side the Hens.

PATOU. Trust not to the hearts of Hens — or of crowds. You are too willing to take the price of your singing in lip- service.

CHANTECLER. But love — love is glory awarded in kisses!

PATOU. Ah! I, too, was young once, I had my wilding devil's beauty, — an inflammatory eye, an inflam- mable heart. Well, I was deceived. For a handsomer dog? — No, they deceived me for a miserable cur!—[Roaring in sudden wraih.] For whom? — For whom, do you suppose?

CHANTECLER. [Retreating.] You alarm me!

PATOU. For a low-down dachshund who trod on his own ears!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Who has overheard PATOU'S last words, sticking his head between the bars of his cage.] Still harping on the dachshund, is he? What's the odds, old chappie? You were the goat!—How does being the goat matter?

PATOU. But you up there, scoffing at everything, who are you, may one ask?

BLACKBIRD. I'm the pet of the poultry yard!

PATOU. Bad luck is what you'll bring them!

BLACKBIRD. A prophecy-sharp? — Say, wistaria, we are twisted up with laughter![He comes out of his cage and hops to the ground.]

PATOU. [As he approaches.] Grrrrrrr——

CHANTECLER. Hush! He's a friend!

PATOU. A false one.

CHANTECLER. [To BLACKBIRD.] Fine things we learn when the talk is of you!

THE OLD HEN. [Her head protruding from the basket.] Strike rotten wood, and see the wood-lice scatter![The basket-lid drops.]

PATOU. [To CHANTECLER.] He laughs at you behind your back!

BLACKBIRD. [To PATOU.] Ha, retriever, you retrieve?

PATOU. When you pour forth your heart in your ardent cry, giving it over and over, he calls it the same old saw that your jag-toothed red crest stands for!

CHANTECLER. So that's what you say?

BLACKBIRD. [Affecting simplicity.] You surely don't mind? How can it affect you? And a joke about you ia always so sure of success!

PATOU. [To the BLACKBIRD.] Point-blank, do you admire or despise the Cock?

BLACKBIRD. I make fun of him in spots, but admire him in lump!

PATOU. You always peck two kinds of seed.

THE BLACKBIRD. My cage has two seed-cups, you see.

PATOU. I am single-minded and downright!

THE BLACKBIRD. You — are an old poodle of the year 48! I am an up-to-date bird!

PATOU. [Gruffly.] Out of my way! lest I give your black coat red tails![The BLACKBIRD nimbly gets out of the way, PATOU goes into his kennel grumbling.] I'll show him some up-to-date jaws!

CHANTECLER. Be quiet! It's his way. The truth is that if once he stood in the presence of beauty, this very Blackbird would applaud!

PATOU. Not with both wings! What can you expect of a bird who, with woodbine and juniper full in sight, prefers to go inside and peck at a musty biscuit?

BLACKBIRD. He never seems to suspect that the poacher is a blackguardly sort of brute!

PATOU. What I know is that the underbrush is all a delicate golden gloom——

THE BLACKBIRD. Yes, but leaden shot can cleave your delicate gold. The quail is such a canny bird, that he lies low lest he make his last appearance on toast. And so, in lack of quail——

PATOU. Does the great stag delight any the less in his green forest for turning over among the grass at evening some bit of a rusty cartridge?

THE BLACKBIRD. No, old chap — but the stag, you see, is just another kind of a hat-rack!

PATOU. Oh, but freedom, freedom, with violets looking on! Love!——

THE BLACKBIRD. Antediluvian pastimes! not nearly such good fun as my nice new wooden trapeze. Oh, my cage, let us sign a joyful three-six-nine years' lease! I live like a Duke, I have filtered drinking-water——[At PATOU'S significant start and growl, he springs aside, finishing.] You can sling mud upon me, I have a porcelain bath!

CHANTECLER. [Slightly out of patience.] Why not make a practice of talking simply and to the point?

THE BLACKBIRD. I like to make you sit up, and watch you blinking.

PATOU. Grrrrr — in the plain interest of public decency, I say it behooves us——

THE BLACKBIRD. Don't say behooves, say it's up to you, old chap!

CHANTECLER. What's all this juggling with words?

THE BLACKBIRD. The thing, Chantecler, quite the thing! I knew a city sparrow once, and it's the way they talk in fashionable circles.

CHANTECLER. I was well acquainted with a little red-breast, who lived beneath a city poet's eaves; he did not talk like you.

THE BLACKBIRD. I belong to my time. Every chap that's a bit of a swell nowadays must be a bit of a tough. It's smart, you know.

PATOU. I froth at the mouth! Smart, — there's the Peacock's password!

CHANTECLER. Oh, the Peacock, by the way, what is he doing these days?

THE BLACKBIRD. Ogling with his tail-feathers!

PATOU. Baneful his example has been to many an humble heart.

CHANTECLER. What signs do you see of his influence?

PATOU. A thousand nothings.

THE OLD HEN. [Appearing.] Bubbles floating down the stream tell of laundresses up stream![The lid drops.]

CHANTECLER. I am sure I have not seen the smallest bubble from which——

PATOU. [Indicating a GUINEA-PIG, who is passing.] See there, that Guinea-pig——

CHANTECLER. [Considering him.] What about him? He is just a yellow Guinea-pig!

GUINEA-PIG. [Snippily correcting] Khaki, if you please!

CHANTECLER. [To PATOU.] Kha —— ?

PATOU. A bubble! — And yonder waddling duck ——

CHANTECLER. [Looking at him] He is going to take his bath——

THE DUCK. [Drily] My tub!

CHANTECLER. His—?

PATOU. A bubble!

[A long grating noise is heard within the house Crrrrrrr, then.]

THE CLOCK. Cuckoo!

THE GREY HEN. [Leaving her hiding-place and running towards the cat- hole.] His voice! — Now through the kitty's little door I finally shall see him![She thrusts her head into the hole. The CUCKOO'S call is not repeated.] Oh, deary, deary me! I am too late![Calling.] His! Encore!

CHANTECLER. [Turning around at the noise.] Eh?

THE GREY HEN. [Desperately, with her head in the cat-hole.] He has stopped!

THE BLACKBIRD. It was the half-hour.

CHANTECLER. [Close behind the GREY HEN, abruptly] How does it happen, my love, that we are not in the fields?

THE GREY HEN. [Turning, scared.] Goodness gracious!

CHANTECLER. What are we doing, my love, in the cat-hole?

THE GREY HEN. [Upset.] I was just taking a peep——

CHANTECLER. To see whom?

THE GREY HEN. [More and more upset.] Oh——!

CHANTECLER. [Dramatically.] Who is it?

THE GREY HEN. Oh-

CHANTECLER. Confess!

THE GREY HEN. [In the voice of a woman caught in guilt] The Cuckoo!

CHANTECLER. [Amazed] You love him? — But wherefore?

THE GREY HEN. [Drops her eyes, then with emotion] He is Swiss!

PATOU. A bubble!

THE GREY HEN. He is a thinker. He takes his airing——

CHANTECLER. She loves a clock!

THE GREY HEN. —always takes his airing at the same hour, like Kant.

CHANTECLER. Like what?

THE GREY HEN. Like Kant.

CHANTECLER. Did one ever——! Out of my sight!

THE BLACKBIRD. Trot, Kant you?

[THE GREY HEN hurries off.]

CHANTECLER. Here's a pretty —— Wherever did she learn that Kant—?

PATOU. At the Guinea-hen's.

CHANTECLER. That foolish old party of the crazy cries and the white-plastered beak?

PATOU. She has taken a day.

CHANTECLER. A day off, do you mean?

PATOU. No, a day at home.

CHANTECLER. A day at —— Where does she receive?

THE BLACKBIRD. In a corner of the kitchen-garden.

PATOU. Under the auspices of that strawman with the unsavoury old top-hat.

CHANTECLER. The scarecrow?

THE BLACKBIRD. Yes, his being there makes the affair select.

CHANTECLER. [Bewildered.] How is that?

THE BLACKBIRD. Don't you see? He scares off all the puny fowl—. Poor relations are not wanted at a function.

CHANTECLER. So the Guinea-hen has a day!

PATOU. [Phlegmatically] A bubble!

CHANTECLER. A balloon!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Imitating the GUINEA-HEN.] Mondays, my dear——

CHANTECLER. And what do they do at that feather-brain's parties?

PATOU. Cluck and cackle. The Turkey-cock airs his social gifts, the Chick gets into society.

BLACKBIRD. [Imitating the GUINEA-HEN.] From five to six——

CHANTECLER. Evening?

PATOU. No, morning.

CHANTECLER. What——?

THE BLACKBIRD. You see, she must take advantage of the time when the garden is deserted, and yet have it a five-o'clock tea. So she chose the hour when the old gardener is at his early potations.

CHANTECLER. What nonsense!

THE BLACKBIRD. Quite so.

PATOU. You needn't talk. You go to her teas.

CHANTECLER. He goes——?

THE BLACKBIRD. Yes, I am one of their ornaments.

PATOU. And I am not so sure but that some day——

CHANTECLER. What are you mumbling to your brass-studded collar?

PATOU. —some Hen may get you too to go!

CHANTECLER. Me?

PATOU. You!

CHANTECLER. Me?————

PATOU. Led by the end of your beak.

CHANTECLER. [In high wrath.] Me?——

PATOU. For when a new Hen heaves in sight, you can't help yourself, you know — you lose your balance-wheel——

THE BLACKBIRD. You slowly circumambulate the fair one——[He imi- tates the COCK walking around a HEN.] "Yes, it's me. ——Here I am!" And you say, "Coa——"

CHANTECLER. I never knew a more idiotic bird!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Continuing to mimic him.] You let your wing hang, sentimentally — your foot performs a sort of stately jig—[A shot is heard.] Ha! I don't like that!

PATOU. [Starts up quivering, and scents the air] Poaching Julius is at his tricks again!

THE BLACKBIRD. Dog, it seems to stimulate you agreeably!

PATOU. [With ears up-pricked and shining eyes.] Yes![Suddenly, as if controlling himself, passionately.] No——!

THE BLACKBIRD. What affects you so?

PATOU. Oh, horrible, horrible! A poor little partridge perhaps——

THE BLACKBIRD. Is that streaming eye, my friend, a result of age or rheumatism?

PATOU. Neither! But I have within me several dogs, and there is conflict amidst me. My hunter's nostril twitches at a shot, but, directly, my house-dog's memory raises before me a bleeding wing, the glazing eye of a doe, the pathos of a rabbit's dying look — and I feel the heart of a Saint Bernard waking in my breast![Another shot.]

CHANTECLER. Again?