"But won't the cock be prevailed upon to join us?" said I. "Yes. Trumpet! hither, boy! hither!" The cock turned round, and strode up to Merrymusk. "Come!" The cock followed us into the shanty. "Crow!" The roof jarred. Oh, noble cock! I turned in silence upon my entertainer. There he sat on an old battered chest, in his old battered gray coat, with patches at his knees and elbows, and a deplorably bunged hat. I glanced round the room. Bare rafters overhead, but solid junks of jerked beef hanging from them. Earth floor, but a heap of potatoes in one corner, and a sack of Indian meal in another. A blanket was strung across the apartment at the further end, from which came a woman's ailing voice and the voices of ailing children. But somehow in the ailing of these voices there seemed no complaint. "Mrs. Merrymusk and children?" "Yes." I looked at the cock. There he stood majestically in the middle of the room. He looked like a Spanish grandee caught in a shower, and standing under some peasant's shed. There was a strange supernatural look of contrast about him. He irradiated the shanty; he glorified its meanness. He glorified the battered chest, and tattered gray coat, and the bunged hat. He glorified the very voices which came in ailing tones from behind the screen. "Oh, father," cried a little sickly voice, "let Trumpet sound again." "Crow," cried Merrymusk. The cock threw himself into a posture. The roof jarred. "Does not this disturb Mrs. Merrymusk and the sick children?" "Crow again, Trumpet." The roof jarred. "It does not disturb them, then?" "Didn't you hear 'em _ask_ for it?" "How is it, that your sick family like this crowing?" said I. "The cock is a glorious cock, with a glorious voice, but not exactly the sort of thing for a sick chamber, one would suppose. Do they really like it?" "Don't _you_ like it? Don't it do _you_ good? Ain't it inspiring? Don't it impart pluck? give stuff against despair?" "All true," said I, removing my hat with profound humility before the brave spirit disguised in the base coat. "But then," said I, still with some misgivings, "so loud, so wonderfully clamorous a crow, methinks might be amiss to invalids, and retard their convalescence." "Crow your best now, Trumpet!" I leaped from my chair. The cock frightened me, like some overpowering angel in the Apocalypse. He seemed crowing over the fall of wicked Babylon, or crowing over the triumph of righteous Joshua in the vale of Askelon. When I regained my composure somewhat, an inquisitive thought occurred to me. I resolved to gratify it. "Merrymusk, will you present me to your wife and children?" "Yes. Wife, the gentleman wants to step in." "He is very welcome," replied a weak voice.