"That'd be three coppers, sir, wouldn't it?" bargained that mercenary young scamp.
"Oh! Come," returned the artist; "you're too sharp by half for a country boy. I daresay some one else will come along who will think it an honour to be put in a picture and hung in the Academy. If it ever attains to that honour," he added to himself, as Bill anxious not to lose all by his grasping, declared himself ready and willing to stand on any terms.
"Very well, then," concluded the artist, who had taken rather a fancy to the boy's shaggy appearance. "In an hour or two, I shall expect you back."
And Bill went off up the field towards the river.
Truth to tell, those two goose eggs were beginning to weigh very heavy in Bill's pockets. It was quite a chance when he might meet with Dick Crozier; but it was plain he could not carry an egg about in his pocket until he did. One, of course, he intended to suck as soon as he was at a safe distance from the farm; but meantime the other must be hidden somewhere. Bill wandered on; but the fine day had brought a good many people out, and he kept meeting first one, then another, until at length he arrived at the riverbank without having had a chance of tasting his stolen sweets.
The geese had reached the bank too, and were standing about in various attitudes of burlesque dignity, some snapping the grass with their great, broad bills, others with their awkward necks upstretched, always ready to scream. They numbered ten or a dozen.
"Ah! Mrs. Geese," Bill thought to himself as he approached, "I wonder which of you these eggs belong to. You'll just have the trouble of laying a couple more, unless you choose to go short of eggs to sit on."
He had often been that way before, and laughed at the idea of being afraid of geese; but somehow this time, as he drew near, every head in the flock seemed turned to look upon him, and when they commenced their usual "Ya-hi!—Ya-hi!" he stopped short, to consider the advisability of going on.
Of course it was nonsense to suppose that they could know anything about the theft. But the thief knew, which was the same thing with a difference; it is so true, that wise old saying that "conscience makes cowards of us all."
If Bill had looked behind, he would have seen Dick Crozier coming along from the opposite direction.