“No one, I guess. This goose was not for breakfast. It was for dinner, but the cook had roasted it so she would not have to watch it so closely when all her other things were on the fire. Then just before they were done she had intended putting this back in the oven and finish browning it. They are having a birthday party there to-day. She had put this on the window sill to cool and I saw it so I just jumped up on the sill, ate my fill and escaped without being seen. Gee, won’t she be mad when she finds what has happened? She will think a rat ate it.”
“My, what Billy and Nannie miss in the way of eating by being vegetarians! I really can’t see how they stand it,” remarked Stubby.
“Well, I have eaten all I can. I wish we had pockets in our skins so we could carry what is left for future use when we have no way of getting a morsel of meat,” said Button. “But as we can’t, don’t you think we better be moving on to find Billy?”
So they left the remains of the steak and continued down the alley. As they emerged, they looked down the street which faced the yard where Billy had feasted in the garden and they saw him running out of the yard, chased by a big fat cook with a dipper of hot water, a gardener with a rope, and a coachman with a long whip. But the Chums could see that Billy had such a good start that there was no likelihood of their catching him.
Then things began to happen. The cook stubbed her toe and fell flat. The gardener ran into a clothes-line which caught him under the chin and threw him back ten or fifteen feet. The coachman on seeing this ran back toward the stable. Then Stubby looked for Billy to come to them in the alley. He saw the three men standing there laughing to see the fat cook try to get on her feet again and the gardener go reeling off, holding his hands to his neck. At this moment the coachman appeared on a bicycle and, spying them, he made straight for them. Before they could get out of his way he was slashing them right and left with his long lashed whip, calling to them in an angry voice: “Take that, will you, you old garden thief!”
But he had a chance to beat each only once for Stubby crawled under the alley fence and Button ran up the fence and jumped down the other side, while Billy ran on, then stopped suddenly so the man would hit him and he would pitch head foremost off his wheel. This is just what happened. The wheel struck Billy, who was braced for it, and over the handle bar flew the coachman.
While he was picking himself up, Billy ran out of the alley and baaed for Stubby and Button. They answered, and soon the Chums were together again, hurrying down the railroad track.
CHAPTER IV
BILLY HAS AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE
