- end_line
- 4832
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4768
- text
- possibly I had not mistaken the harmoniously combined crowings of ten
Shanghais in a squad, for the supernatural crow of a single Shanghai by
himself.
‘Sir,’ said I, ‘is there one of your Shanghais which far exceeds all the
others in the lustiness, musicalness, and inspiring effects of his
crow?’
‘They crow pretty much alike, I believe,’ he courteously replied; ‘I
really don’t know that I could tell their crow apart.’
I began to think that after all my noble chanticleer might not be in the
possession of this wealthy gentleman. However, we went into his
fowl-yard, and I saw his Shanghais. Let me say that hitherto I had never
clapped eye on this species of imported fowl. I had heard what enormous
prices were paid for them, and also that they were of an enormous size,
and had somehow fancied they must be of a beauty and brilliancy
proportioned both to size and price. What was my surprise, then, to see
ten carrot-coloured monsters, without the smallest pretension to
effulgence of plumage. Immediately I determined that my royal cock was
neither among these, nor could possibly be a Shanghai at all; if these
gigantic gallows-bird fowl were fair specimens of the true Shanghai.
I walked all day, dining and resting at a farm-house, inspecting various
fowl-yards, interrogating various owners of fowls, hearkening to various
crows, but discovered not the mysterious chanticleer. Indeed, I had
wandered so far and deviously, that I could not hear his crow. I began
to suspect that this cock was a mere visitor in the country, who had
taken his departure by the eleven o’clock train from the south, and was
now crowing and jubilating somewhere on the verdant banks of Long Island
Sound.
But next morning, again I heard the inspiring blast, again felt my blood
bound in me, again felt superior to all the ills of life, again felt
like turning my dun out of doors. But displeased with the reception
given him at his last visit, the dun stayed away, doubtless being in a
huff. Silly fellow that he was, to take a harmless joke in earnest.
Several days passed, during which I made sundry excursions in the
regions round about, but in vain sought the cock. Still, I heard him
from the hill, and sometimes from the house, and sometimes in the
stillness of the night. If at times I would relapse into my doleful
dumps, straightway at the sound of the exultant and defiant crow, my
soul, too, would turn chanticleer, and clap her wings, and throw back
her throat, and breathe forth a cheerful challenge to all the world of
woes.
At last, after some weeks I was necessitated to clap another mortgage on
my estate in order to pay certain debts, and among others the one I owed
the dun, who of late had commenced a civil-process against me. The way
the process was served was a most insulting one. In a private room I had
been enjoying myself in the village tavern over a bottle of Philadelphia
porter, and some Herkimer cheese, and a roll, and having apprised the
landlord, who was a friend of mine, that I would settle with him when I
received my next remittances, stepped to the peg where I had hung my hat
in the bar-room, to get a choice cigar I had left in the hall, when lo!
I found the civil-process enveloping the cigar. When I unrolled the
cigar, I unrolled the civil-process, and the constable standing by
rolled out, with a thick tongue, ‘Take notice!’ and added, in a whisper,
‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it!’
I turned short round upon the gentlemen then and there present in that
bar-room. Said I, ‘Gentlemen, is this an honourable--nay, is this a
lawful way of serving a civil-process? Behold!’
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