Hep Hardy's goat belongs to the chamois branch of that famous family.
When it gets out it wants to leap from crag to crag.
Hep's chamois got loose recently and, believe me, I never saw a goat perform to better advantage.
For a long time Hep has been in love with Clarissa Goober, the daughter of Pop Goober, who made millions out of the Flower-pot Trust. Of late, however, Hep's course of true love has been running for Sweeney, and my old pal has been staring at the furniture and conversing with himself a great deal.
On our way home night before last Hep and I dropped into the Saint Astormore for a cocktail, and at a table near us sat Pop Goober and something else which afterwards turned out to be a Prussian nobleman—the Count Cheese von Cheese.
When Hep got a flash of these two his goat kicked down the door of its box-stall and began cavorting all over the Western Hemisphere.
"Pipe!" he whispered hoarsely, "pipe Pop Goober and the human germ with him! It's a titled foreigner—honest it is! It can walk and say, 'Papa!' And it is trained to pick out a millionaire father-in-law at fifty paces!"
"Why, what's the matter, Hep?" I inquired after the waiter had vamped.