Dr. Knowles stopped to look at it when he
came, passing her with a surly nod.
"So your master's not forgotten you," he snarled, while the blind old
hen cocked her one eye up at him.
Pike, the manager, had brought in some bills.
"Who's its master?" he said, curiously, stopping by the door.
"Holmes,--he feeds it every morning."
The Doctor drawled out the words with a covert sneer, watching the
quiet, cold face bending over the desk, meantime.
Pike laughed.
"Bah! it's the first thing he ever fed, then, besides himself. Chickens
must lie nearer his heart than men."
Knowles scowled at him; he had no fancy for Pike's scurrilous gossip.
The quiet face was unmoved. When he heard the manager's foot on the
ladder without, he tested it again. He had a vague suspicion which he
was determined to verify.
"Holmes," he said, carelessly, "has an affinity for animals. No wonder.
Adam must have been some such man as he, when the Lord gave him
'dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air.'"
The hand paused courteously a moment, then resumed its quick, cool
movement over the page. He was not baffled.
"If there were such a reality as mastership, that man was born to rule.
Pike will find him harder to cheat than me, when he takes possession
here.
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