I looked at him a while, an' then I sez gently, "Now look here, Mister, I ain't no hero, an' if you happen to have any more college festivities to introduce, why I'll own up to a yellow streak a foot wide; but I don't recollect just what day it was that any livin' man accused me of bein' down-right pale-blooded. If you got any hair-raisin' projec' in your head, don't bother to break it gentle. Just tell it right out, an' I'll lean up against this tree, so as not to hurt myself should I faint." "Well," sez he, chucklin' like a prairie-dog. "I propose we paint up the goat with phosphorus, put him in the barn, an' me an' you get up in the trees to watch." "What's the goat done?" sez I. "The goat ain't done nothin'," sez he, "but he'll scare the Chink to death, an' when he comes out we can shoot him in the leg or something." "No," sez I, "it won't work. The Chink knows the goat better'n we do; an' it'll be the goat that'll come out an' get shot in the leg, while the Chink'll get away." "Oh, rats!" sez Ches. "He won't even know it's a goat. Can't you see that?" "Why won't he know it's a goat?" I sez, gettin' impatient. "A Chinaman's got just as much sense as a human being, an' you'll find it out sometime too." "Yes, but didn't I tell you I was goin' to paint him with phosphorus?" sez Ches, all het up. "I don't know what phosphorus is," sez I, "but you'll have to do a master job of painting to make that William goat look like a pinchin'-bug. Still, this is your projec' an' if you want to play the wheel one whirl, why I'll help stick up the stake." I was busy about the house all afternoon, an' Ches kept himself penned up in his labatory. He had brought out a lot of stuff in cans an' bottles, had turned the woodshed into what he called a labatory, an' spent a good part of his time there, mixin' up peculiar stenches. They used to smell something frightful; but they only exploded about half the time. No matter what they did do, he always claimed that it was just exactly what he intended; but his hands was colored up constant like a fried egg, an' I never took much joy in loafin' about the woodshed. That night as soon as I had my dishes washed an' the kitchen red up, we caught the goat an' took him to the barn. He was considerable of a goat, this one was, with horns on him a foot long an' a fright of a temper. He was one o' these fellers what is always out o' humor, only sometimes farther out than common. Still, me with my rope, an' Ches with his football habits, was one too many for Mr. Goat; an' we soon had him up in the haymow. Then I passed up the can o' paint, an' took a stroll around to see that no one had been givin' us the look-over. The can o' paint did have a pretty fierce smell, but I didn't put much faith in it. I'd been in opium joints, an' I knew that a Chinaman would FATTEN on a smell 'at would suffocate a goat; an' when it comes to vigorous an' able-bodied odors, a billy-goat ain't no tenderfoot himself.