"Vou don't know Crippy, or you wouldn't say that," replied Dan, gravely. "I would walk seventeen times as far if it would keep him from gettin' killed."
" Well, I tell yer wot it is," and the boy spoke like one thoroughly conversant with geese and their ways, "he's got ter be a good deal better'n he looks, ter 'mount to anything."
"An' he is," replied Dan; and then he gave the stranger a full account of Crippy's sagacity and wisdom, with such success that, when he had finished, the goose evidently stood high in the city boy's estimation.
"He's prob'ly a mighty nice kind of a goose," said the boy; "but it seems to me if I had a pet I'd want one that could sleep with me, an' you know you couldn't take this goose to bed."
"I could if mother would let me, an' I don't see why she won't, for I know Crippy would just snuggle right down as good as anybody could."
For some time the two discussed the question of pets in general, and Crippy in particular, and then the city boy remembered that his mother had sent him on an errand which should have been done an hour before.
Dan felt more lonely than ever after this new-made friend had gone, and, with Crippy in his arms, he started wearily out in search of uncle Robert, hardly knowing where he was going. In his bewilderment he had walked entirely around the same block four times, and an observant policeman asked him where he was going.
Under the circumstances, Dan did not require much urging to induce him to tell the man his story.
"Do you know your uncle's name?" asked the officer.
"Uncle Robert Hardy."