Then, as though unlatched by some unseen hand, the door swung open. A gust of wind swept in. And in walked—not a three-headed ghost—but that blamed spotted gander!
“Why—why,” fumbled the old man, acting sort of tickled as he got his eyes on the gander. “It’s jest Mr. Pepper. I mean Mr. Salt an’ Pepper. No, I mean—I mean—Now,” came blankly, as the feeble brain got completely tangled up, “what do I mean, anyway?”
“I guess,” supplied Poppy, staring at the flat-footed newcomer, “you mean Admiral Pepper.”
“Admiral Pepper!” the wrinkled face cleared up. “That’s it. That’s it.”
CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN THE STORM
Admiral Pepper! That was some fancy handle, I thought, for a gander. But I saw right off that it was no ordinary gander. So the name was all right.
White, like most ganders, though peculiarly marked with small purple spots, it was the biggest fowl of its kind that I ever had seen. Standing on its webbed feet, which reminded me of a pair of palm-leaf fans, its tonneau, as we used to call the rear end of an automobile, sort of dragged behind like an overloaded dump cart. Of course, like all big geese, it waddled when it walked. Yet it had dignity in its waddle. A fat king, you know, would waddle much more becomingly than a fat junk peddler! There was further dignity in the way it held its big head—carriage, I guess you’d call it. It seemed to have no fear of us. To the contrary, in its lordly possession of the house, it sort of acted as though we ought to consider ourselves lucky that we weren’t boosted outside along with the other unimportant rubbish!
I’ve seen people act like that. Stuck-ups. They sort of strut around as though they’re the whole cheese, smell and all. The other human beings in the landscape aren’t even presentable scenery. So my conclusion was that Admiral Pepper, as the saying is, belonged to the aristocracy—the gander-land aristocracy, if you please!
Unlike the ordinary barnyard variety of geese, this one didn’t honk its horn at us, nor did it do any long-necked hissing stuff. Its dignity was too strong. And to that point, having already mentioned a king, can you imagine a ruler, on his grand entrance into the official throne room, yipping to his subjects to stand back and not get any shoe blacking on his long velvet train! Hardly! You see what I mean, I guess.
One time we had a rather strange adventure with a performing hen. I told about that in detail in another book, JERRY TODD AND THE WALTZING HEN. Now I wondered if the gander, like Isadora, the waltzing hen, hadn’t been brought up for the most part, and to a purpose, in a circus. Plainly, it was a pet. It showed in its actions that it was used to living with people instead of birds of its kind. Moreover, it expected special attention, which further went to prove that whoever had owned it had been in the habit of making a big fuss over it. Could it do circus tricks? I wondered.