I did look with interest at the ostrich farms, and had visions of great profits from feathers, eggs, and egg-shells.

But it takes a small fortune to get started in that business, as eggs are twenty dollars each, and the birds are sometimes five hundred dollars apiece.

And they are subject to rheumatism and a dozen other diseases, and a blow from a kicking bird will kill one.

I concluded to let that dream be unrealized.

Did you ever hear of the nervous invalid who was told by his physician to buy a Barbary ostrich and imitate him exactly for three months?
It was a capital story.