"Billy Whiskers, you are the most determined goat I ever heard of," said Nanny. "If you want anything you are going to have it, no matter how you have to get it."
"I guess you are right, Nan. But if you had ever tasted salted and buttered pop-corn you, too, would have it if you had to hook all five of those boys into the lake to get it. Come along, and we will go over near the lake so when they go into the water we can go through their clothes and I will give you your first taste of a town delicacy in the shape of pop-corn."
Billy and Nanny soon arrived at the bank of the lake where the boys had gone in swimming, and behind a clump of bushes they found the boys' clothes.
Billy lost no time in smelling out the bag of pop-corn but alas! when found, it was empty. Billy's disappointment knew no bounds and he began to vent his spleen on the clothes that were lying around by hooking and stamping on them. When throwing a coat up in the air on his horns two nice red apples rolled out of one of the pockets. After eating one of these and allowing Nanny to eat the other, he felt a little less angry and commenced to smell around for something else equally as good.
All this time they could hear the boys shouting and splashing in the water, oblivious of the mischief that was being done to their clothes, for they could not see the goats through the bushes.
"Oh, Billy, come here!" called Nanny, "and see what I have found. It smells awfully good but I don't know what it can be."
Billy went and after smelling the coat pronounced the good smell to come from a piece of gingerbread in one of the pockets.
"How do you know?" asked Nanny.
"Well, I guess if you had eaten as many pieces of gingerbread as I have you would not forget the name. When I lived at Mr. Wagner's, his boys used to give it to me often."
But the trouble was to get it out of the pocket now that it was found. Billy threw the coat up in the air, shook it in his mouth and did everything else he could think of, but the gingerbread would not fall out, so when the coat turned wrong side out and the pocket lay exposed he ate pocket and all, forgetting to save any for Nanny.