from the plains of Venezuela.

6. Alpine feat of daring. The climbing of the Andes, by Billy, the
well-known acrobatic goat. (We thought we could make the Andes out of
hurdles and things, and so we could have but for what always happens.
(This is the unexpected. (This is a saying Father told me--but I see
I am three deep in brackets so I will close them before I get into any
more).).).

7. The Black but Learned Pig. ('I daresay he knows something,' Alice
said, 'if we can only find out what.' We DID find out all too soon.)

We could not think of anything else, and our things were nearly dry--all
except Dick's brown-paper top-boots, which were mingled with the
gurgling waters of the brook.

We went back to the seat of action--which was the iron trough where the
sheep have their salt put--and began to dress up the creatures.

We had just tied the Union Jack we made out of Daisy's flannel petticoat
and cetera, when we gave the soldiers the baccy, round the waist of the
Black and Learned Pig, when we heard screams from the back part of the
house, and suddenly we saw that Billy, the acrobatic goat, had got loose
from the tree we had tied him to. (He had eaten all the parts of its
bark that he could get at, but we did not notice it until next day, when
led to the spot by a grown-up.)

The gate of the paddock was open. The gate leading to the bridge that
goes over the moat to the back door was open too. We hastily proceeded
in the direction of the screams, and, guided by the sound, threaded
our way into the kitchen. As we went, Noel, ever fertile in melancholy
ideas, said he wondered whether Mrs Pettigrew was being robbed, or only
murdered.

In the kitchen we saw that Noel was wrong as usual. It was neither. Mrs
Pettigrew, screaming like a steam-siren and waving a broom, occupied
the foreground. In the distance the maid was shrieking in a hoarse and
monotonous way, and trying to shut herself up inside a clothes-horse on
which washing was being aired.

On the dresser--which he had ascended by a chair--was Billy, the
acrobatic goat, doing his Alpine daring act. He had found out his Andes
for himself, and even as we gazed he turned and tossed his head in a
way that showed us some mysterious purpose was hidden beneath his calm
exterior. The next moment he put his off-horn neatly behind the end
plate of the next to the bottom row, and ran it along against the wall.
The plates fell crashing on to the soup tureen and veget