Next morning, just as we had done breakfast, Corporal Fraser entered to announce the men ready, the mules arrived, and all prepared for loading. The captain and I proceeded to the spot, and the loading commenced. Corporal Fraser made himself universally useful; I soon discovered that, in him, we had an acquisition. Leaving the superintendence, for a moment, to the captain and him, I stepped back to the billet, for the purpose of stowing, in my already overcharged portmanteau, a lot of loose dollars, part of my own ready cash, which I found a drag. Just as I had piled them on the table, to the number of forty, and was forcing them in amongst shirts, shaving materials, and portable dictionaries, who should enter but the captain? “Ah!” said he, “don’t trouble yourself; you haven’t room. You’ll ruin your things. Here; my portmanteau is open.” So saying, he laid hands on the dollars, counted thirty, and whipped them into his box. “Thirty,” said he—“there, they’ll go safe. Remember. Thirty.” It was done in the twinkling of an eye. “Rather cool,” thought I; “but of course it’s all right.” We returned together. A few of the soldiers were placed as sentries. The rest had piled their arms, and stood waiting about, ready to fall in and march when the mules were loaded. Something out of the usual course was evidently going on: the men were all on a broad grin. I walked into a sort of court-yard, and at once discovered the cause of the general mirth. On a money-box sat Jones, and before him stood a goat. “Purty creatur!” said Jones. “Purty thing—isn’t she, sir?” He held out a bit of biscuit. She playfully made a show of butting, advanced, and took it—“It’s mine, sir,” said he: “follows me about like a dog, sir.” “No wonder,” said I, “so long as the biscuit lasts.” “No, sir; ’tisn’t that, sir,” replied Jones. “It’s ’cause I speaks to her as goats understands, sir; same as we speaks to ’em in the Principality, sir. Only see, sir.” Jones then knelt down, put his nose close to nanny’s, and, with a coaxing voice and a most affectionate look, gave utterance to a few low guttural sounds, in a language to me unknown. Nanny rose on her hind legs, and again made play with her head; then, just as I expected to see Jones punched and prostrate, arched her neck gracefully on one side, descended on her fore-feet, stepped back, cut a caper, ran up to Jones again in a butting attitude, and, instead of knocking him over, put her nose close to his, and uttered a short bleat. “There, sir,” said Jones; “see that, sir?—understands me every word, sir.” It certainly did look very much as if nanny understood Welch. “Well, what did you say to her?”