PATOU
[More and more disgusted.] All that is supposed to be funny!

THE GUINEA-HEN
[Pecking a cabbage leaf from which roll drops of dew.] I have the Dew!

PATOU
[Grimly.] Your witticism for her?

THE BLACKBIRD
[Brightly.] Fresh-water pearls!

THE GUINEA-HEN [Pointing out several CHICKS walking among the crowd.] Have you seen them?  I have several of the A.I.’s Chicks!

THE PHEASANT-HEN
A.I.?

THE GUINEA-HEN
The Acme Incubator.

THE PHEASANT-HEN
Oh, have you?

THE GUINEA-HEN
[Presenting the CHICKS.] All from the topmost compartment!

THE PHEASANT-HEN
Indeed?

ONE OF THE CHICKS
[Nudging his neighbour.] She is dumbfounded!

THE GUINEA-HEN
[Contemptuously.] Eggs hatched by the old vulgar method, fie!

THE BLACKBIRD,
Good Lord, exempt us!

THE MAGPIE
[Announcing.] The Guinea-pig!

THE GUINEA-HEN It’s the famous one, you know!  The Guinea-pig who was inoculated—­surely you remember the case—­very well, that’s the one!  There you see him.  I made a point of getting him to come.  Everybody is here!  I have everybody!  I have—­[To the GUINEA-PIG.] How do you do? [To the PHEASANT-HEN.] I have our great philosopher Tur-Key—­Yes, it should be written with a hyphen—­who will give us a little talk among the currant bushes under the tea-roses—­[To a passing HEN.] How do you do? [To the PHEASANT-HEN.] Educational Tea or Currant Topics! [Whirling from one to the other.] Everyone is here, everyone of the slightest mark or consequence!  The Pheasant-hen is here, in a frock from fairyland.  The Duck is here, who is so good as to say he will recite for us by and by.  The Tortoise is here—­[Noticing that the TORTOISE is not there] I was mistaken, the Tortoise is not here.  She is late.

THE BLACKBIRD [Affecting deep concern.] What is the little talk she seems so regrettably likely to miss?

THE GUINEA-HEN
[Suddenly serious.] The Moral Problem.

THE BLACKBIRD
What a pity!

[The GUINEA-HEN goes to the back, scattering greetings, in ecstasies of sociability.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN
[To the BLACKBIRD.] Who is the Tortoise?

THE BLACKBIRD
A hard old character, impervious, I fear, to moral problems, who goes in
for walking matches in a loud check suit!

[Murmur among the hollyhocks.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN
Listen, a Drone!

THE GUINEA-HEN [Briskly returning.] The Drone is here!  In the bright light overhead, what a stylish figure of a fly!

THE BLACKBIRD
No “at home” complete without it!  Ladies cry for it!  Won’t be happy
until—­

THE GUINEA-HEN [Jumping up in the air toward the DRONE.] How do you do?  How do you do? [She follows his flight with excited leaps and hops.]