o sight could have been more terrible
to me.

"Oh, here you are, are you? Of course it was you who have got things in
such a condition in the dining-saloon."

I looked at Karsten and Karsten looked at me.

"Yes, the cat upset the bowl," I said faintly.

"Well, it's a pretty business," said the stewardess. "And we are in a
fine fix and no mistake. Dinner spoiled, no more cream for the
multerberries, and they're nothing without it, the whole cabin running
over with cream, the sofa absolutely ruined, glasses broken,--oh, you'll
have a handsome sum to pay! Well, you've got to go to the Captain," and
she swaggered across the deck.

But now Mother had heard about it, and she came towards us with a face I
can't describe,--and the Captain came; and there Karsten and I stood
holding the goat and the cat in our arms.

Oh, it was an awful interview! The Captain wasn't gentle, not he, and
Mother had to pay heaps of money.

"There is no sense in traveling with such a menagerie," said the
Captain.

The passengers who had nothing but dry multerberries for dessert were
certainly angry with us, and Mother was most unhappy. But the cat lay in
my lap and blinked with its yellow eyes and purred like far-away
thunder,--it was so happy; and Billy-goat rubbed its head with that
silky beard against Karsten's jacket and looked up at him with its
trustful black eyes; so neither Karsten nor I had the heart to scold.
And it wouldn't have done any good, anyway.

At the train, trouble began again, for just imagine! No one knew what
the freight charges should be for a kid. The ticket-agent stuck his head
out of his window to stare at the innocent little creature, and the
station-master pulled at his mustache and stared too; and they turned
over page after page in their books and whispered together. At last they
made out that the cost would be the same as for a cow. Mother shook her
head but paid. (I was glad I had my cat in a basket where no one noticed
it, and it slept like a log.)

Since the kid was so very tiny, Karsten was allowed to take it into the
compartment with us, for it was absolutely impossible to let that baby
go alone into the cattle-car.

"Thank goodness!" said Mother when she finally got us all settled. "Now
there are only five hours more of this part of the journey."

Two ladies were in the compartment--one very severe-looking who had a
lorgnette, the other fat and jolly, with awfully pretty red cherries on
her hat.