"Why, Billy, you beat any bad boy I ever heard of for mischief! Now you will have to come into the station and have another wreath tied round your neck, and I bet you won't chew this one for I will tie it so close to your neck you can't reach it with your mouth."
As they went in the station Billy heard a band playing and the rat-ta-tah-tah of the drums, and when they heard the music the engine horses, all decked in rose collars and bridles, with plumes on their heads, started to prance and pull the beautifully draped and polished engine out of the station to join the procession.
And before Billy knew what was up, he was led out and made to march in the procession between the engine and hose-cart. After they had started he rather enjoyed it for from all sides he heard the people say:
"There, look! There goes the goat that saved the baby's life."
"Isn't he a beauty?"
"See what nice, white, silky hair he has!"
"Yes," Billy thought, "if they could have seen the firemen scrubbing me, I expect they would have laughed like the policemen did." But it all tickled his vanity for Billy was as conceited a goat as you could well find.
They had been marching for some time and Billy was getting tired of the slow gait and being made to stay between the engine and hose-cart instead of riding on the hose-cart as he had been in the habit of doing, when he heard the plaintive bleat of a goat and the sound of a whip.
"My!" thought Billy, "how that voice reminds me of Nanny."
Just then a little cart, with a can of milk in it, drawn by a goat came in sight around the corner, and who should be pulling it but Nanny, with the big, clumsy Mike Rooney cracking the whip at her and every once in a while giving her a stinging cut which had caused Nanny to cry out as Billy had heard.