“Don’t stir, any of you,” said Scapin, under his breath, and I will endeavour to capture this splendid prize”—with which the clever scamp crept softly round behind his companions, who were still seated in a circle on the rug, so lightly that he made not the slightest sound; and while the gander—who with his two followers had stopped short at sight of the intruders—was intently examining them, with some curiosity mingled with his angry defiance, and apparently wondering in his stupid way how these mysterious figures came to be in that usually deserted spot, Scapin succeeded, by making a wide detour, in getting behind the three geese unseen, and noiselessly advancing upon them, with one rapid, dexterous movement, threw his large heavy cloak over the coveted prize. In another instant he had the struggling gander, still enveloped in the cloak, in his arms, and, by compressing his neck tightly, quickly put an end to his resistance—and his existence at the same time; while his two wives, or rather widows, rushed back into the thick underbrush to avoid a like fate, making a great cackling and ado over the terrible catastrophe that had befallen their quondam lord and master. “Bravo, Scapin! that was a clever trick indeed,” cried Hérode; “it throws those you are so often applauded for on the stage quite into the shade—a masterpiece of strategy, friend Scapin!—for, as is well known, geese are by nature very vigilant, and never caught off their guard—of which history gives us a notable instance, in the watchfulness of the sacred geese of the Capitol, whose loud cackling in the dead of night at the stealthy approach of the Gauls woke the sleeping soldiers to a sense of their danger just in time to save Rome. This splendid big fellow here saves us—after another fashion it is true, but one which is no less providential.”