"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."
"All right, old man," said Aubrey. "Come along. We'll think 'em up
now, and have the launching this afternoon, and invite some people to
the ceremony."
So he and Billy and Jimmie took leave of us, and strolled away
together, Billy with his hands in his trousers' pockets and striving to
take just as long steps as they did. He would have given his kingdom
for a pipe!
We got up quite a little party, and worked very hard over it. Bee and
Captain Featherstone delivered the invitations, and people thought it
was a most delicious joke, and came in a mood of the utmost hilarity.
At first Billy wanted to break the bottle himself, but upon being told
that girls always did it, he invited a bewitching little maid of seven,
Kathleen Van Osdel, to christen them, while Billy valiantly sat in the
goat-carriage, waiting for Aubrey and Amos to let go of the goats'
horns.
The names were kept a profound secret, but Jimmie had a fashion of
going purple in the face, and pretending he was only going to sneeze.
He walked around among the guests trying to appear unconcerned--which
made me watch him closely.
He had appointed himself master of ceremonies. He it was who put the
Apollinaris bottle into Kathleen's hands, and held her in his arms
while she leaned down and broke the bottle over the horns of the
gentler goat.
Then her childish treble shrilled out:
"I christen thee, Roosevelt and Congress!" she cried out.
"Let go!" shouted Billy, standing up in the goat carriage, his cheeks
like scarlet flowers.
Amos and Aubrey released their hold, Kathleen screamed with excitement,
and away bounded the goats down the driveway, with Sir Wemyss after
them on horseback, for fear anything might happen.
But nothing did happen, and in ten minutes back they came to receive
congratulations from everybody.
"Are they all right, Billy?" I cried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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