CHAPTER I


The primary need of a woman's nature is always supposed to be love, but
very suddenly I discovered that in my case it was money, a lot of it and
quick. That is, I thought I needed a lot and in a very great hurry; but if
I had known what I know now, I might have been contented feeding upon the
bread of some kind of charity, for instance, like being married to Matthew
Berry the very next day after I discovered my poverty. But at that period
of my life I was a very ignorant girl, and in the most noble spirit of a
desperate adventure I embarked upon the quest of the Golden Bird, which in
one short year has landed me--I am now the richest woman in the world.

"But, Ann Craddock, you know nothing at all about a chicken in any more
natural state than in a croquette," stormed Matthew at me as he savagely
speared one of those inoffensive articles of banquet diet with a sharp
silver fork while he squared himself with equal determination between me
and any possible partner for the delicious one-step that the band in the
ball-room was beginning to send out in inviting waves of sound to round the
dancers in from loitering over their midnight food.

"The little I do _not_ know about the chicken business, after one week
spent in pursuit of that knowledge through every weird magazine and state
agricultural bulletin in the public library, even you could learn, Matthew
Berry, with your lack of sympathy with the great American wealth producer,
the humble female chicken known in farmer patois as a hen. Did you know
that it only costs about two dollars and thirteen cents to feed a hen a
whole year and that she will produce twenty-seven dollars and a half for