CHAPTER VI
A CELEBRATION WITH FIREWORKS
he next morning, bright and early, the porter came down to Billy's room with a queer looking box made of heavy slats. One side of the box was off and the porter carried it in his hand. Setting the box down with the open side towards Billy, the porter put an extra bunch of carrots in it, and Billy, never having seen anything like this before, walked right in and began to eat his breakfast, upon which the porter quickly slapped on the side of the box and nailed it tight. Billy did not realize that he was trapped until the porter and another man whom he called lifted the box and began to carry it up the stairs. Then Billy was angry in earnest. He jumped and jerked as much as he could and nearly threw the men down-stairs by his bouncing. As soon as they got up on the level ground, however, the porter and the other man began to shake the crate as hard as they could, so that, in place of Billy doing the bouncing, he was being bounced until he had plenty of it and was glad to lie down on the floor of the crate and hold still, while he was being carried to a big dray that stood in waiting.
While it was being loaded on the dray, Mr. Brown and Frank came out in the courtyard to see him.
"Isn't he a beauty, papa?" said Frank. "And he behaves himself so nicely, too. I've been down to see him every other day and he's just as nice and quiet as he can be."
"I don't know," said his father, shaking his head. "I don't believe that a goat able to stir up as much trouble as he did back in the village where we bought him will be anything but a scamp goat to the end of his days. I'm really sorry that I bought him. It's going to cost a lot of money, too, to send him by express from here to Havre and to pay his passage over to America. I have a big notion to turn him loose."
When Billy heard that he was frightened, and, turning his solemn eyes around to Mr. Brown, he "baahed" as pitifully as he could.
"Just hear that, papa," said Frank, "he wants to go with us. He likes us."
"Oh, very well," said Mr. Brown. "But come, we must hurry up. We have only a few minutes to make our train."
As soon as Mr. Brown and Frank had walked away, the driver of the wagon cracked his whip, the horses started up, and Billy was rapidly taken to the depot. Here he was loaded into an express car, and in a few moments more was headed toward France at as swift a pace as the engine could pull the train. The express messenger in the car, as soon as his work was done, lit a short black pipe and commenced teasing Billy. Reaching his hand between the slats, he suddenly poked Billy in the ribs, and Billy, already nervous from the rapid motion, jumped straight up off his forefeet. Of course his horns hit the top of the box and pained him. The man laughed at the funny motion and poked the goat again. This time, Billy, afraid to jump up, merely danced, and the man laughed aloud. Again and again he repeated his trick until the goat was nearly frantic. Billy tried to burst out the side of his cage so that he could get at the man, but the crate was too stout for him to do it any damage and he only hurt himself by trying, so after a while he gave it up.
At the next stop they made, however, the express agent, while he was taking on the parcels, slammed a heavy box on top of the crate. Billy heard the timbers crack and felt the box giving end-wise a trifle. For a moment he was afraid that the heavy box would break down his crate and squeeze him flat underneath it, but as soon as the train had started again the messenger moved the box into the far end of the car and Billy was delighted to find that at last the boards on one side of his prison were loosened. The messenger had laid aside his glowing pipe at this stop, but now he took it up again, although smoking was against the rules, and came over to tease Billy. He had no more than thrust his hand through than Billy lurched his body sideways as hard as he could against the boards, and out he tumbled.
He was on his feet as quick as a cat and made a jump at the man. The express agent dodged him and ran to the far end of the car, hunting wildly for something with which he might strike the angry goat. Billy was up to him before he had time to find anything, however, and chased him from one end of the car to the other. At last the man stopped in front of the big box that he had taken on at the last station, and waited for Billy to jump for him. When Billy jumped, he sprang aside and let the goat plunge head first into the side of the box, breaking open one of the boards and hurting his head considerably. By this time the man was at the other end of the car and laughing. Billy ran after him again, but this time he knew the man's ways. When he started to dodge back from the other end of the car, Billy also turned like a flash and was right after him. This time he got him and gave him a bump that sent the man sprawling headlong on the floor. As the man went down, his arm gave a jerk and his lighted pipe went through the hole that Billy had butted in the big box.
Dodged him and ran to the far end of the car.
The man was just scrambling to his feet when a big, blue ball of fire shot out of the side of the box and scooted along his back. Billy had wheeled to give the man another dose of his medicine, but just then a big ball of red fire hit him in the side and he, too, tried to hunt a corner. The box was full of fireworks that was being shipped for a lawn fete, and for the next few minutes there was the most exciting time that ever happened inside of an express car going at full speed.
Skyrockets and Roman candles, whistling bombs and silver fountains, flower-pots and pin-wheels filled the air, spitting and spluttering, popping about from one end of the car to the other, bouncing first off of the man and then off the goat. No place was safe. The side of the box was soon burst open by the force of the explosions, and the fireworks came tumbling out at greater speed than ever.
Both Billy and the express agent were hit until they were bruised and burned and sore all over. Billy had a great deal of his hair singed off and the express agent's face was as black as a coal-miner's. The smoke became so thick that they could scarcely see, and it smarted and blinded their eyes until the express agent thought to open the side doors when the rapidly rushing wind swept in and carried away most of the smoke.
Luckily the car did not catch fire, though some of the goods that were being expressed did. The agent had a pail of drinking water in the car and as soon as the fireworks were nearly burned out he ran around from one place to another using his water sparingly and beating out the fire wherever he could.
Billy, too, seemed to know that burning things were dangerous, for when a bundle of rugs began to smoulder he jumped on the burning places and stamped them with his feet until the fire was beaten out. The express agent saw him at this and he at once forgot his anger at the goat. Billy went scampering around after that, stamping out fire wherever he could find a coal. After all danger was passed and the express man had tidied up his car, he sat down puffing and looked at Billy.
"Well, Mr. Goat," said he, "we've had a busy time of it and I guess we'd better be friends. Don't you tell on me and I won't tell on you. I don't want to let anybody know that I was smoking a pipe anyhow. It's against the rules of the company."
"Baah!" said Billy, and that's all the talk they had about it. After that they had no further trouble except that the express agent tried to coax Billy back into his crate, but had to give it up as a bad job.
It was night when the train bearing Billy Mischief drew into Paris. Billy could not be coaxed or driven back into his cage, so, when the train stopped, the express messenger had another man come in to help him. Between them they managed, after a hard struggle, to get Billy in the crate, but as they were trying to fasten the lid on he burst out of it, jumped out of the car door, ran as hard as he could and soon was safe from pursuit and alone in the streets of Paris.
With a natural instinct to hide from the men who wanted to put him in that close, uncomfortable box, he turned into the alley-ways and dark, narrow streets and for a long time ran on without meeting anyone. But this sort of thing was not very much to Billy's liking. He wanted to see all the excitement that there was, so by-and-by he turned into one of the broad, brilliantly lighted streets, where he trotted along sedately, minding his own business and looking around him curiously at the gayly dressed throngs. A great many people turned round to look after him and laugh, he trotted along so solemnly.
All this time there was great excitement at the railroad station. Mr. Brown had left word that his goat was to be held until the next night's train to Havre as he intended to spend a day in Paris, but the express department had no goat to hold, so the matter was reported to the police department, and within a few moments all the red-trousered gendarmes of Paris were looking for a mischievous white goat with freshly singed spots on his shiny coat.
One of these gendarmes, soon after he had received his instructions, found Billy and a big stray Tom cat eyeing each other with every intention of immediate war. Billy had never spoken to a cat before and so when he saw this strange animal on the street he walked straight up to it and said "baah!" He intended to mean something like our "Good evening. It's pleasant weather, isn't it?" but Billy's voice at best was not a very gentle one and his long horns looked threatening, so the big cat arched his back and bristled his hair and stuck his tail straight up. Billy did not know much about cats but he could easily see that this one meant fight, so he shook his head angrily. They were standing in front of one of the pleasant Paris sidewalk cafés and a great many ladies and gentlemen were seated at little round tables under the broad awning.
Billy and a big stray Tom cat eyeing each other.
Just as the gendarme recognized Billy by his singed coat, the cat let out an ear-splitting "meow!" and, jumping up, scratched Billy's face with the sharp claws of both his forefeet; then it sprang up on one of the empty tables and down on the other side. Billy, smarting with the pain, jumped after him, upsetting the chairs on the other side with a crash. The express department had offered a good reward to whoever should find Billy, so the gendarme took after the goat, overturning some more chairs. The cat darted here and there and everywhere among the little round tables and Billy right after him. The cat ran under a table at which were sitting two gentlemen and two ladies, and Billy, now so angry that he did not notice where he was going, forced his way right after him, upsetting the table, spilling the glasses and bottles upon it into the laps of the ladies and making a tremendous noise. Table after table they overturned in this way.
Another gendarme, attracted by the hubbub, came up and saw Billy. He, too, gave chase, adding to the confusion. Everybody began to shove back their chairs. All of the people were either talking or laughing or screaming at the top of their voices. Waiters came running, and one of them, a little excitable man with a funny little black mustache, tried to head Billy off. All he got for it was a good bump right in the middle of his big white apron and he landed back against another waiter who was bringing a big tray full of glasses. The two of them went to the floor together in a noisy pile of tables and chairs, and Billy dashed right on over them. This time, the cat, which was bewildered by the crowd and had scarcely known which way to run, found an opening to the street. Having a clear track, he would easily have gotten away from Billy except that just at that moment a third gendarme saw the cat and the goat coming and jumped square in the road of them.
The cat had tried to dart around him but the gendarme's legs came right in his road, so the cat began to climb the gendarme, and Billy, coming up just then, made a dive head first at the cat, catching it just as the animal reached the gendarme's lower vest button. The gendarme sat right down with a grunt to think things over, while the cat sprang for the top of a high fence and was over with a whisk of his tail. Billy could not climb the fence so he ran back a piece and tried to butt it down, but he could not do it. By this time the gendarme he had knocked down was on his feet again, and two others came running up.
There were now five of the red-trousered little police soldiers after him, and things began to look very lively for Billy. They tried to surround him but he ran through them, and all five of them chased after him up the street. At nearly every block they were joined by another gendarme, so that before he had gone very far Billy was heading quite an army of French soldiers. To escape he turned down a dark street. They were digging a wide ditch across this dark street and the lights they had placed there as danger signals had been taken away by some mischievous boys. Billy, who could see well in the dark, perceived this ditch as he came to it and leaped lightly over it, but the excited gendarmes who were following him could not see it, and the whole crowd of them fell headlong in the ditch, which, fortunately, was not yet deep enough to hurt them much.
Billy turned now into another well-lighted street. Here again he found a gendarme who, as soon as he saw and recognized Billy, started out to stop him. He went like a streak between this fellow's legs. Now he began to wonder why all of these little fellows in the red trousers were such enemies of his, and when, at the end of the block, he saw three of them standing in a row, he got angry. Shaking his head, he determined to give the big one in the middle the hardest bump he had ever given to anyone in his life. Lowering his head and shaking it, he went on as if he had been shot out of a cannon, and, as he drew near, gave a mighty jump and butted the big gendarme right in the stomach.
Alas for Billy! In place of the soft human figure that he thought he was butting, it turned out that the gendarme in the middle was printed in glowing colors on paper and pasted against a solid brick wall, as an advertisement for a play then performing at one of the theatres. The two gendarmes who had happened to stand alongside of it were real, however, so when Billy dropped back stunned from his hard jolt the two real gendarmes promptly arrested him, and it was a very sick and sorry goat that was shortly afterwards returned to the Express Department to be held for the Havre train.