The chicken question was exhausted.

It dropped dead.

Charles left his sentence unfinished, and, turning to his brother, the conversation became general.
* * * * * In the evening, when the others had said good-night, Charles and Ralph went out into the cool half-darkness to smoke, and paced up and down on the lawn in the soft summer night.

The two brothers had not met for some time, and in an undemonstrative way they had a genuine affection for each other, which showed itself on this occasion in walking about together without exchanging a word.
At last Charles broke the silence.

"I thought, when I settled to come down here, you said you would be alone!" There was a shade of annoyance in his tone.
"Well, now, that is just what I said at the time," said Ralph, sleepily, with a yawn that would have accommodated a Jonah, "only I was told I did not understand.