ONE day a parish priest had invited a relative to luncheon and wished to give him something nice to eat. He ordered two tender young chickens to be killed and plucked.

In the morning, before celebrating Mass, he said to his servant:

“Cook the two chickens for lunch and prepare them as nicely as possible, as my cousin is very fond of his food.”

“All right, your Reverence,” replied the servant.

When the chickens were roasted, wanting to know if they were done to a turn, she cut off a piece of the wing.

“It wants another five minutes,” she thought; she then took another little piece. That so whetted her appetite that she continued to take pickings until nearly all the chicken had disappeared.

“One is worse than useless,” she thought, so the second chicken disappeared after the other.

Crying bitterly she went to find the cousin.

“Oh, sir! oh, sir!” she cried.

“What is the matter, Catherine, a misfortune? Has his Reverence caught measles?” he asked.

“Worse than that, sir,” sighed Catherine. “I must tell you everything. The vicar has been so strange lately. Sometimes when he returns from the church and finds a visitor awaiting him, without saying a word he begins to sharpen his knife and then cuts off both his ears. You must be on your guard if he seizes his knife when he comes in.”

“He will not catch me napping,” replied the cousin.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the priest appeared. The first thing he did was to take up his knife. He was very hungry and wanted his luncheon at once.

“I will be off,” thought the cousin, and he ran like a hare.

“Can you tell me why the wretched man has run away?” the priest asked the servant.

“He has stolen the two fat chickens and thought it wiser to disappear.”

“What! stolen my chickens!” cried the priest.

“Hallo! Hallo!” he shouted as loud as ever he could, “at least leave me one.”

Of course the priest meant one chicken, but his cousin, thinking that it was a question of his ears, shouted back:

“No, no, I prefer to keep them both.”