"Fie, fie," I exclaimed, "you musn't show your valor by striking one of the weaker sex. You were intended to be her protector, you know." I was here interrupted by a great commotion among the hens and chicks at the farther end of the enclosure. "Only a quarrel, I presume," said he indifferently, "they can settle it among themselves, to-day." "No, it seems to be something rather serious," I responded, and as I spoke a large cat succeeded in squeezing herself through the palings. Wildly ran the fowls about, cackling with fear. "Hubby, hubby!" cried the hens. "Papa, papa!" screamed the chicks. "Run for your lives," admonished that hero, his knees knocking together, his comb and tail drooping, "run for your lives," and suiting the action to the word; away he scurried to the other side, and spreading his wings over the fence he flew, in his blind flight dropping at the feet of his hostile neighbor. "Get out of here," screamed the young Shanghai, whom the handsome hen admired, "How dare you come over in my yard?" "Give me time," meekly said my heroic Rooster, "give me time to gain my breath and I will." "Now is my time," thought the young Shanghai, "the very chance I have been looking for," and straightway into the trembling Mr. Rooster he pitched. From my standpoint I closely viewed the battle. "Lo, the conquered braggart comes," I hummed, as a woebegone-looking object in a very little while dropped wearily over into our enclosure again. "My poor dear," pityingly cried old Jennie. "Come, Sukey, let's lead him to the trough and bathe his wounded head." I was about to depart, my heart wrung with compassion at the sight of his wounds, when, lifting his drooping head, with a ghastly wink of his uninjured eye, he said: "Well!" "Well!" I echoed in some surprise. "Didn't I play that trick cleverly?" he asked with a sickly grin. "Trick?" "Yes, trick, you stupid! Couldn't you see the pretense I made of running away from the cat, just to get a chance of flying over the fence to get at that impudent Shanghai rooster?" "But," I gasped, "you didn't whip him, you know." "Didn't whip him!" he mimicked with brazen effrontery. "Why, how else, I'd like to know, could I have been torn up so? All I want now is a chance at that sneaking cat, and I'll make the fur fly, I warrant you." Here the old deceiver, overcome with weakness and loss of blood, staggered, and would have fallen but for the Support of the faithful Jennie and Sukey. "Go away," hoarsely muttered the rooster, "go away; what do females know about war. They can't crow! Go away!" I bethought me here of one very important question. "I hesitate," I said, "to disturb a suffering creature, but--" "Call to-morrow, Miss Reporter," he muttered wearily, "call to-morrow." "But," I persisted, "you may not be alive to-morrow, and I only desire to know why you roosters invariably crow at midnight?"