← MR. JONES, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen−houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. 🔊
← It had been agreed that they should all meet in the big barn as soon as Mr. Jones was safely out of the way. 🔊
← Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. 🔊
← When Mr. Jones got back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing−room sofa with the News of the World over his face, so that when evening came, the animals were still unfed. 🔊
← It was just then that Mr. Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four men were in the store−shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all directions. 🔊
← The harness−room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the nose−rings, the dog−chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well. 🔊
← In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that reminded them of Mr. Jones. 🔊
← Most of this time Mr. Jones had spent sitting in the taproom of the Red Lion at Willingdon, complaining to anyone who would listen of the monstrous injustice he had suffered in being turned out of his property by a pack of good−for−nothing animals. 🔊
← Mr. Jones's gun had been found lying in the mud, and it was known that there was a supply of cartridges in the farmhouse. 🔊
← One of Mr. Pilkington's men was standing on the other side of the hedge. 🔊
← It was fully realised that though the human beings had been defeated in the Battle of the Cowshed they might make another and more determined attempt to recapture the farm and reinstate Mr. Jones. 🔊
← They kept close to Napoleon. It was noticed that they wagged their tails to him in the same way as the other dogs had been used to do to Mr. Jones. 🔊
← Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make use of Mr. Whymper to spread a contrary impression. 🔊
← It was well seasoned, and Whymper had advised Napoleon to sell it; both Mr. Pilkington and Mr. Frederick were anxious to buy it. 🔊
← Without any further prompting they confessed that they had been secretly in touch with Snowball ever since his expulsion, that they had collaborated with him in destroying the windmill, and that they had entered into an agreement with him to hand over Animal Farm to Mr. Frederick. 🔊
← At about the same time it was given out that Napoleon had arranged to sell the pile of timber to Mr. Pilkington; he was also going to enter into a regular agreement for the exchange of certain products between Animal Farm and Foxwood. 🔊
← The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. 🔊
← Mr. Pilkington, of Foxwood, had stood up, his mug in his hand. In a moment, he said, he would ask the present company to drink a toast. 🔊
← This bon mot set the table in a roar; and Mr. Pilkington once again congratulated the pigs on the low rations, the long working hours, and the general absence of pampering which he had observed on Animal Farm. 🔊
← Mr. Pilkington had referred throughout to "Animal Farm." He could not of course know−for he, Napoleon, was only now for the first time announcing it−that the name "Animal Farm" had been abolished. 🔊