"I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King Street. He blew his
whistle and started after me. A man sprang out from a doorway in College
Street and tried to stop me. I tied him up with a butt in the stomach,
and cut through the Crescent, doubling back into the Camden Road by Batt
Street.

"At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see no one. I dropped
the goose over the parapet, and it fell with a splash into the water.

"Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into Randolph Street, and
there a constable collared me. I was arguing with him when the first
fool came up breathless. They told me I had better explain the matter to
the Inspector, and I thought so too.

"The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the other constable
wanted to take me in charge. I replied that it was because I did not
desire to spend my Christmas holidays in the lock-up, which he evidently
regarded as a singularly weak argument. He asked me what I had thrown
into the canal. I told him a goose. He asked me why I had thrown a
goose into the canal. I told him because I was sick and tired of the
animal.

"At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had succeeded in
recovering the parcel. They opened it on the Inspector's table. It
contained a dead baby.

"I pointed out to them that it wasn't my parcel, and that it wasn't my
baby, but they hardly took the trouble to disguise the fact that they did
not believe me.

"The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, which, seeing that
I did not know a soul in London, was somewhat immaterial. I got them to
send a telegram to my young lady to say that I was unavoidably detained
in town, and passed as quiet and uneventful a Christmas Day and Boxing
Day as I ever wish to spend.

"In the end the evidence against me was held to be insufficient to
justify a conviction, and I got off on the minor charge of drunk and
disorderly. But I lost my situation and I lost my young lady, and I
don't care if I never see a goose again."

We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his luggage, and taking
up his hat made an attempt to put it on his head. But in consequence of
the swelling caused by the horseshoe it would not go anywhere near him,
and he laid it sadly back upon the seat.

"No," he said quietly, "I can't say that I believe very much in luck."

DICK DUNKERMAN'S CAT

Richard Dunkerman and I had been old school-fellows, if a gentleman
b