ving, and the men crowded round him. Dicky and I could
not see properly because of the other men. But the foreman, the one who
had given Oswald the hinges, said:

'Better get a doctor.'

It always takes a long time for a workman to understand what you want
him to do, and long before these had, Oswald had shouted 'I'll go!' and
was off like an arrow from a bow, and Dicky with him.

They found the doctor at home, and he came that minute. Oswald and Dicky
were told to go away, but they could not bear to, though they knew their
dinner-bell must have been already rung for them many times in vain, and
it was now ringing with fury. They just lurked round the corner of the
greenhouse till the doctor said it was a broken arm, and nothing else
hurt; and when the poor man was sent home in a cab, Oswald and Dicky got
the cabman, who is a friend of theirs, to let them come on the box with
him. And thus they saw where the man lived, and saw his poor wife greet
the sufferer. She only said:

'Gracious, Gus, whatever have you been up to now? You always was an
unlucky chap.'

But we could see her loving heart was full to overflowing.

When she had taken him in and shut the door we went away. The wretched
sufferer, whose name transpired to be Augustus Victor Plunkett, was
lucky enough to live in a mews. Noel made a poem about it afterwards:

'O Muse of Poetry, do not refuse
To tell about a man who loves the Mews.
It is his humble home so poor,
And the cabman who drove him home lives next door
But two: and when his arm was broke
His loving wife with tears spoke.'

And so on. It went on for two hundred and twenty-four lines, and he
could not print it, because it took far too much type for the
printing-press. It was as we went out of the mews that we first saw the
Goat. I gave him a piece of cocoanut ice, and he liked it awfully. He
was tied to a ring in the wall, and he was black and white, with horns
and a beard; and when the man he belonged to saw us looking at him, he
said we could have that Goat a bargain. And when we asked, out of
politeness and not because we had any money, except twopence halfpenny
of Dicky's, how much he wanted for the Goat, he said:

'Seven and sixpence is the lowest, so I won't deceive you, young gents.
And so help me if he ain't worth thribble the money.'

Oswald did the sum in his head, which told him the Goat was worth one
pound two shillings and sixpence, and he went away sadly, for he