good. I've got to see the chickens on the hoof, as I might say."

"On the hoofs?" said Mrs. Gratz. "Such poultry don't have no hoofs."

"Runnin' around," explained the visitor. "Runnin' around in the coop.
I can tell if a chicken has got any disease that my trade wouldn't
like, if I see it runnin' around in the coop. There's a lot in the way
a chicken runs. In the way it h'ists up its leg, for instance. That's
what the trade calls 'on the hoof.' So I'll just go out and have a
look around the coop--"

"For twenty cents a pound anybody could let buyers see their chickens
on the hoof, I guess," said Mrs. Gratz.

"Now, that's the way to talk!" exclaimed the man.

"Only but I ain't got any such chickens," said Mrs. Gratz. "So it
ain't of use to look how they walk. So good-bye."

"Now, say--" said the man, but Mrs. Gratz closed the door in his face.

"I guess such a Santy Claus came back yet," said Mrs. Gratz when she
went into the room where Mrs. Flannery was sitting. "But it ain't any
use. He don't leave many more such presents."

"Th' impidince of him!" exclaimed Mrs. Flannery.

"For nine hundred dollars I could be impudent, too," said Mrs. Gratz
calmly. "But I don't like such nowadays Santy Clauses, coming back all
the time. Once, when I believes in Santy Clauses, they don't come back