Jimmie, however, who always spoils things, winked at Aubrey. But
Billy's next remark threw us all into fits of laughter.
"Oh, Uncle Aubrey, can't we have a ceremony of launching the goats, and mayn't I break a bottle of champagne over their horns?"
Jimmie fairly yelled. Billy looked distressed.
"Their horns are very strong!" he urged. "I don't believe it would hurt them one bit. And you might give me one of those little bottles I saw Mr. Jimmie open—you remember the little one you had after the two big ones, don't you, Mr. Jimmie?"
"Oh, yes, Billy," I said. "Mr. Jimmie remembers. (You'd be ashamed not to, wouldn't you, Jimmie?)"
"You think you're funny," growled Jimmie, witheringly, as Sir Wemyss and Captain Featherstone broke out afresh, and even Artie Beg left off looking at Cary long enough to smile at Jimmie's scarlet face and Mrs. Jimmie's anxious one. She moved quietly over to where Jimmie was standing with his hands in his pockets, and slipped her arm through his. She did not know quite what it was all about, but she felt that they were laughing at her Jimmie, and, as usual, she looked reproachfully at me.
Billy's plaintive voice recalled us.
"Yes, dearie," I hastened to say. "You may have a small bottle of champagne—or perhaps Apollinaris water would be better, it sparkles just the same, and if it flew in the goats' eyes it wouldn't make them smart, and the champagne would."
Billy beamingly acquiesced.
"Now I must just think up some good names for them," he said, with an air of importance, "and perhaps I'll have to ask Uncle Aubrey and Mr. Jimmie to help me. It's awful hard to think up suitable names for goats."