“Dear, dear! This will never do! I’ll have to make a flank movement and come up to the base of supplies before she does,” and with a flirt of his stubby tail, he galloped off in double quick time, taking a roundabout way toward the automobile.
“Now when the attack of the fort is made, I’ll capture that hamper by quick assault and retreat with my prize with all possible speed,” he planned, but alas! as he was about to make the raid, he found the foe already on the ground.
“Well, they say it’s an ill wind that blows no one good,” gloated Billy. “Even if I do lose my dinner, I will have the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Treat find out how I came to attend the Fair. Hope she lifts the lid—oh, my! see her face! Isn’t it lucky for one William Whiskers that he’s a safe distance away? Why, how, what is she doing?” as she began to scatter neat, tissue-wrapped packages right and left.
“It can’t be that she’s throwing all that luscious stuff away! I nibbled just a wee bit at it, to be sure, but plenty was left for their dinner. But here is where I lay in my ammunition for my afternoon campaign,” and with that he made his way to the automobile, arriving on the scene soon after Mrs. Treat, bubbling over with righteous indignation at her untimely discovery of the pilfered feast, hurried away with her ample, but exceedingly light lunch basket.
As you may happen to know, goats are not as fastidious as might be wished about their food, and what appeared the height of luxury to Billy had been scorned by the mistress of the Treat household as unfit to grace their table. The marks of Billy’s depredations were all too plain to be mistaken, and fully half the lunch had been discarded because Billy had poked his inquisitive nose into it.
“My mother taught her kids that extravagance is a sin, and to waste good food like this must be very wicked indeed. If I should leave it here to be tramped under foot, I’d not be able to rest easy for ever and ever so long. My conscience would prick me for not heeding my dear mother’s teaching, and that is about the worst punishment that can come to goat or man,” pondered Billy, as sandwiches, pickles, doughnuts, olives, and other goodies disappeared as if by magic.
“Now for a drink, and I’m ready for the afternoon. Of course, there’ll be many more people here in the afternoon, just as the evening crowds at the circus were always so much greater than those at the matinee performance. Large crowds make you step lively in order to keep up with the procession, and, fortified by forty winks of sleep, I’ll be equal to anything.”
CHAPTER VI
THE FORTUNE TELLER
AFTER Billy had quenched his thirst at a watering trough roughly hewn out of the trunk of an enormous chestnut tree and filled to brimming with cool, sparkling water piped from a bubbling spring not far off, he felt a longing for a nap, for so strong had the habit of an afternoon snooze become that even with all the hubbub of a county fair about him, with all the gay banterings of the jostling people, with the toots of the horns and the squawks of the squawkers, Billy was undeniably sleepy, and a yawn brought him to the realization of how very much he needed a rest.