“Oh,” he said. “Hullo, hullo⁠—yes, they know me all right. Especially that red and white hen. She’s got a lame wing since yesterday, and if I don’t watch, the others would drive her off. The pouter brute yonder, for instance. He’s a regular pirate. Wants all the wheat himself. Don’t ever seem to get enough.”

“Well,” observed the newcomer, laconically, “there are others.”

The man who spoke was about forty years of age. His name was Calvin Hardy Crookes. He was very small and very slim. His hair was yet dark, and his face⁠—smooth-shaven and triangulated in shape, like a cat’s⁠—was dark as well. The eyebrows were thin and black, and the lips too were thin and were puckered a little, like the mouth of a tight-shut sack. The face was secretive, impassive, and cold.