“She’s most always talking, and so it’s not strange I don’t even now see any connection.”
“You know,” the Duke explained, “she says she’d much rather feed six men who confessed they were hungry as bears than one who declared he couldn’t eat a bite.”
“Well?” queried the goat, still busy at the manger.
“I’ve begun to think it ought to be a dozen to one when the proverb is applied to goats!”
“You do, eh? Which reminds me of a story.”
“Out with it then,” commanded the Duke.
“There was once a pet calf on the Treat farm, or so I’ve been told, who was such a greedy youngster that Tom, his owner, never dared to set the pail of milk down and leave it for him to drink. If he did, that calf would invariably plunge his nose to the very bottom, and in his unseemly haste would bunt the pail, over it would go and he would lose all.
“One day Tom carried a large wooden pail of rich, sweet milk out to the young apple orchard where the calf was kept with two pet lambs, and he waited until the calf should finish his drinking. Now that calf plunged down and drank deep and long, never stopping until he was compelled to raise his head for air. And then how he spluttered and blew the milk out through his nostrils! In his hurry to recover his breath, some milk went down his wind-pipe and such a fuss! He commenced to choke and cough, and his fat sides began to bloat. Tom raced to the barn for Chris, the hired man, who hurried to the rescue. As soon as he saw the calf’s lolling tongue, wobbly legs and bulging sides, he went for the buggy whip and they ran that down his throat. Then, breaking off an apple branch, Chris used it to urge the calf to keep on the move and around and around that orchard they circled until every bit of the bloating had disappeared. Let—me—see,” pondered the goat, as if racking his brains, “I believe they do say his name was the Duke of Windham. And now that very self-same goat dares to stand up and preach about the wickedness of greediness! Oh me!”
Billy pretended to be boiling over with rage, though really not a whit disturbed, and, taking the very last wisp of hay in his mouth, chewed it slowly, as if it was too good to lose any of the pleasure by hurrying, all the time glowering frightfully at the Duke.
“You’re a heathen! You’ve no glimmering of the first rules of politeness, and deserve just this—”