An Offer He Couldn't Refuse

After shopping downtown, I went to the corner of Abbot and Costello where I had parked my car. There I saw my neighbor, Emory, waiting for the city bus. He often takes the bus from his farm to the city park downtown to sit and read the paper and feed the birds. But now he looked rather beat up with torn shirt and blood marks on his arms and face.

"Emory," I shouted, "what the heck happened to you?"

"Damn pigeons," Emory answered. "Six or seven attacked me while I was on the bench in the park. They made it clear that if I didn't return next time with thirty- or forty-pound bags of peanuts or seed instead of the usual five-ounce bag, I would be visited by two-dozen more of their kind."

Emory isn't the crispiest ear of corn in the field.