Tiberias. We are his cockers, a man said (he spoke with some slight
authority, the others seemed to be in his charge), and have been far in
search of these birds. He pointed to the baskets and asked Joseph if he
would care to see the cocks, and as if to awaken Joseph's curiosity he
began to tell their pedigrees. That one, he said, is a Cilician and of a
breed that has won thousands of shekels, and a bird in the basket next
him is a Bythinian brown-red, the victor in many a main, and the birds
in the next three baskets are Cappadocian Duns, all of celebrated
ancestry, for our master will have none but the finest birds; and if you
happen to know of any good birds, price will not stand in the way of our
purchasing them. Joseph answered that he had not heard of any, but if he
should--You'll not forget us, said a small meagre woman with black
shining eyes in a colourless face, drab as the long desert road she had
come by. Joseph promised; and then a short thick-set man with matted
hair, and sore eyes that were always fixed on the ground, opened one of
the baskets and took out a long lean bird, which he held in shining
fingers for Joseph's admiration. Listen to him, cried the woman in a
high thin voice. Listen to him, for no one can set a cock a-sparring
like him. The servants consulted among themselves in a language Joseph
did not understand, and then, as if they had come to an agreement among
themselves, the foreman said, approaching Joseph and cringing a little
before him, that if the little master could assure them they would not
be disturbed by dogs, they would like to show him the cocks. A little
exercise, the man said, would be of advantage to the birds--to those
that were not fighting that morning--he added, and the man whom the
woman nicknamed The Heeler, a nickname acquired from the dexterity with
which he fitted the cock's heels with soft leather pads, said: you see,
master, they may fight and buffet one another for a space without
injury.