Robert the Researcher was soon puzzled by how fifty hens were capable of laying a grand total of four or five eggs a night. Being of a scientific bent he spent some considerable time checking out the hen house, the hens and anything else that he could think of. He was stopped cold. No matter how hard he tried, he could not come up with an answer.
Who could have been doing it? Surely it was not Hard Boiled; he was generous to a fault. Every third or fourth day he would stop by with a watermelon, a basket of papaya, or a slab of fresh-smoked home-made bacon.
To this day Robert might not have learned the answer,if hadn't been for a full moon one cloudless insomniac night. At about four a.m. on the night in question, Robert gave up and got out of bed. He went into the kitchen and plugged in his coffee maker. While he was waiting for the coffee to perk. He sat at the kitchen table and scanned his field notes. If it hadn't been for the full moon and the fact that he happened to glance up at the precise moment that a stealthy figure was making its way through the hen house, we still wouldn't be in on the cause of the meagre egg production
Robert looked up from his research notes in time. He knew that it wasn't a mongoose. There was not a single mongoose on the island. It was somebody or something that the hens knew and trusted for there was not a squawk from the hen house.
The next evening, Robert decided that he would confront the culprit but then thought better of it. He set the alarm for two o'clock and had no trouble getting out of bed. He grabbed a torch, a battery-operated device termed a flashlight in certain parts of the world, and stole out to the henhouse. In about ten minutes, he had a gallon of eggs. He put the eggs in a canning pot and put the lot on the stove. He soon had enough hard-boiled eggs to last him for a month.
A little later that morning, the stealthy figure stole through the hen house and apparently left satisfied.
Robert the Researcher had gone back to bed by this time so he wasn't in a position to see the figure stealing through the hen house. The alarm went off, as usual at fifteen minutes before six. Robert, as usual got up, showered, dressed and was about to make himself some breakfast when a sixth sense suggested that he look in his day timer.
"Oh nuts!" he said to no one in particular. "How could I have forgotten that this morning, I have to have breakfast with the planters at Soqulu Plantation. How could I have been so stupid?"
On the ten minute drive to Soqulu Planation, Robert's mind went full tilt but try as he might there was no solution to the dilemma he had created for himself. The meeting came to order smartly. Platters of home-cured ham and bacon were soon on the table, along with stacks of pancakes.
"Hey Harold, what happened to the eggs? Don't tell me that your hens have quit laying," one of the planters said.
"It isn't that at all," Hard Boiled said glancing over at Robert and giving him an embarrassed smile.
Robert wondered what he could do to save the day. After considerable effort, inspiration struck him.
"Actually, I've been using the eggs in an experiment that I've been conducting. I've been hard boiling the eggs and taking them out to the field in order to use them as bait in my rhinoceros beetle traps."
"By the way Harold," he added did you get the leftover eggs?"