The waiter was so astonished that he braced himself against the partition while trying to catch his breath. As he stood there staring, he happened to glance up and there clinging to the curtain pole he saw a big, black cat staring back at him with wide open yellow eyes. This was too much for that waiter. He dropped the tray of silver and fled to the kitchen, but as the swinging door flew open to let him through, he bumped into the cook, who was in turn fleeing from the ball of string or worsted that was rolling around his kitchen floor, giving forth yelps like a dog. The two men clung to each other, their hair standing straight on end, and their knees knocking together.
As they stood thus, one of the officers of the dirigible having heard the racket as the silver fell to the floor, came in the saloon from the other end to discover what the trouble might be. Just then the craft gave a lurch which sent the folds of the tablecloth swinging out so that it disclosed Billy hiding underneath. The officer stared, wiped his eyes, and then stared some more. At this moment Billy decided to come out and go through the door the officer was holding open.
When the officer saw a big, white goat rising from under the table he was so frightened that his legs shook together and he pulled the door shut. By this time Billy had up too much speed to slow down, so when his head hit the door he simply went through it as if it had been made of paper.
The noise of the splintering door brought the officer to his senses, and he called for help, but no one heard him. He was about to go to see where everybody was when the swinging door to the kitchen flew open and in rolled a yelping ball of string. At the same moment he spied Button staring down at him. He simply turned and fled to his berth, where he covered up his head so he could not see things, for he was fully convinced he was seeing things not of flesh and blood.
When Stubby in his mad rolling came to the door Billy had butted through, he bounded through the hole as a rubber ball might, and went bounding down the long narrow passage until he came up against a wall in a dark closet, as he supposed. But in reality he had rolled through an open door into the stateroom of the officer who had fled from Button and Billy, and had Stubby only known it at that very moment he was under his berth.
While all this had been taking place, the dirigible was fast descending toward its home hangar and in a few minutes they would be down to the earth again. And it was a good thing for the Chums that they were for when Billy was discovered by the Captain he ordered him thrown overboard with the dog and the cat. But if you think it an easy matter to catch as big and strong a goat as Billy with the fighting propensities he had and two lively animals like Stubby and Button, you are badly mistaken.
