"Let me see," mused Timothy, "how this turns out for a year."
_s_. _d_. Cost of good, 365 days at ½_d_ per day. . . . . 15 2½ Cost of fowl, say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 0 ________ Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2½
For a moment he forgot the rent, but he remembered it before he went into the credit side, and he reckoned it at a penny a week, which made the total expenses £1 2_s_. 6½_d_.
Timothy was aware that he could not reckon upon an egg a day all through the year, but his reading-up on the subject, and the calculations he had made, convinced him that a fair-laying hen might be depended upon for two hundred and forty eggs during the three hundred and sixty-five days.
"At three-halfpence each," he mused, and set down the figures, "that will bring in thirty shillings. Say it brings in only twenty-eight shillings, and make the total charges one pound four, and there remains a clear profit of four shillings for the year. Then the fowl itself, supposing I sell it at the end of the year, is worth at least a shilling. A profit of five shillings on one hen. On twenty, a profit of five pounds; on a hundred, a profit of twenty-five pounds; on a thousand, a profit of two hundred and fifty pounds."
The figures almost took his breath away. Let it be understood that Timothy's reflections and calculations are here pretty accurately reported. He continued. So large a number of eggs would have to be sold wholesale, and three-halfpence each could not be reckoned upon, but then the rent would be much less, and the cost of food much less; and there were other ideas floating in his mind which he could not formulate, and about which there was no cause for his troubling himself just at present.
"Mr. Loveday," said he to his employer, "if a speculation is entered into in a small way and leaves a small profit, would it not leave a larger profit if entered into in a large way?"
"That," replied Mr. Loveday, "stands to reason. What is your head running on, Timothy?"
Mr. Loveday stared at him for a few moments without speaking.
"That is what you have been studying books on poultry for?" he said, presently.
"Well," said Mr. Loveday, after another pause, "there's something in eggs, I dare say. Some of the peasantry in France make quite an income out of them; our own poor country-folk are not so far-seeing."