A week later the firm by whom Josh was employed received a mysterious letter asking all about him. It came from the county seat, and was afterwards ascertained to have been written by one of Sophy’s acquaintances, undoubtedly at her instigation. This was a characteristic and favorite form of strategy with Sophy, and was quite recognizable to Josh when the letter was shown to him. The reply that he suggested was sent by his obliging employers. It contained the assurance that Mr. Varney was a gentleman of high repute. He had sold their goods for several years, and they considered his honesty and ability above question. In due course of time Sophy began to agitate the idea of getting “some of those wonderful white foreign turkeys” that she had “accidentally heard about” into the neighborhood. She thought that the club ought to take the matter up. Bill assured her that “the Perfessor was handin’ out bunk the day that things was bein’ accident’ly overheard inside, an’ anything from ’im ’ud be ’bout like what ’e put over at the Thanksgivin’ shoot.” This spirit of opposition only stimulated Sophy, and the subtle Josh had calculated on it to a nicety. He knew that the seed was now in fertile soil and he calmly awaited the harvest. In a month he came again, and incidentally mentioned that his friend who wrote him about the Himalayan white turkeys had arrived in New York. He had started home with three birds, but two of them had been sickened by the roll of the ship on the way over, and had died just before getting into port. The one that survived the voyage was the remarkable gobbler that was in the picture he had shown on his last trip to the store. “This bird’ll cause a lot of excitement in this country,” he declared. “They call ’im Hyder Ali, an’ ’e’s named after a famous Mohametan general that fought in Asia a good many years ago. This man Hyder Ali pretty nearly cleaned the English out of India once an’ they had a hot time getting ’im canned. There’s been ships an’ perfumery an’ race horses an’ brands o’ cigars an’ lots of other things named after ’im. He was one of the most famous men that ever lived in that part of the world.” By degrees the imaginative and romantic Josh succeeded in creating an atmosphere of avid interest in everything relating to Hyder Ali, the marvellous fowl from beyond the briny seas, and he intended to intensify this atmosphere to the point of precipitation at the proper time. A couple of weeks later Varney told Posey that he had bought the Himalayan gobbler from his friend, but did not know what to do with him for a week or ten days, as the man that was going to take care of it for him was away. It was arranged that the gobbler was to be brought to the store and temporarily installed in the chicken yard near the barn.