class="pnext">"How much will you take for your goat, my boy?" he asked.

"I don't want to sell him," replied Caspar. "He's my goat and I like him."

Just then Billy tossed his fine head and pranced, daintily lifting his feet.

"See how graceful he is!" exclaimed the boy. "Do buy him, papa!"

"I'll give you ten dollars for him," said the gentleman, pulling out his pocketbook.

Caspar caught his breath. He knew the value of an American dollar, and ten dollars was equal to more than forty German marks. It was a great lot of money, too much for a poor boy to refuse. Caspar drew a long sigh and began to slowly unhitch his goat. The driver of the carriage threw him a strap, and with this he tied Billy to the rear axle of the carriage.

Fleabite, as soon as Billy was safely tied, began to caper with joy and to snap at Billy's heels, but Caspar, when the man had paid him his money, grabbed Fleabite and hitched him to the cart. Then he ran up and patted Billy affectionately on the flanks, and the carriage drove away, with Billy following gladly behind in the dust.

Down the village street the carriage rolled until it came to a quaint little Swiss inn, where it turned through a wide gateway that led into a brick-paved courtyard. Here Billy was unfastened from the carriage by a servant and led back of the inn, where he was tied by the strap to a post, while Mr. Brown and his son Frank went to their mid-day meal. Billy didn't like to be tied; he was not used to it, so he began to chew his strap in two. It was very tough leather but Billy's teeth were very sharp and strong, and he had it about half gnawed through when a little, lean waiter came from the kitchen across the courtyard, carrying, high up over his head, a great big tray piled with dishes of food. The waiter saw Billy gnawing his strap in two and thought that he ought to keep him from it.

"Stop that, you hammer-headed goat!" he cried and gave Billy a kick.

Billy was not going to stand anything like that, so he gave a mighty jump and the strap parted where he had been gnawing upon it. As soon as the lean waiter saw this he started to run, but, with the heavy tray he was carrying, he could not run very fast and he looked most comical with his apron flopping out behind him and his legs going almost straight up and down in his effort to run and to balance the tray at the same time.

When Billy pulled the strap in two, the jerk of it sent him head over heels and by the time he had scrambled to his feet again the waiter was half way to the back door of the inn. The fat cook, who was looking out of the door of the summer kitchen, saw Billy start for the waiter and he started after the goat, but he got there too late, for the goat caught up with the lean waiter in about three leaps and with a loud "baah!" sent him sprawling. The big tray of dishes came down with a crash and a clatter, and meats, vegetables, gravies and relishes, together with broken dishes, were scattered all over the fellow who had kicked Billy, all over the clean scrubbed bricks, spattered up against the walls and into the long rows of geraniums that grew in a wooden trough at the end of the house.

Billy turned and was about to trot back when he saw the fat cook coming just behind him, so he ran right on across the little waiter, through the mess and to the back door. Crossing the winter kitchen he found a big, rosy-cheeked girl standing in his way and made a dive at her. With a scream she jumped and Billy's horns caught in her bright, red-checked apron, which jerked loose. With this streaming along his back, he dashed on into a long hall, and there at the far door whom did he see, just starting into the dining-room, but his old enemy, fat Hans Zug, who had that morning whipped Billy's mother and himself. Billy stood up on his hind feet for a second and shook his head at Hans, and then he started for him. Hans saw him coming.

"Thunder weather!" he cried, and ran on through the door.

He tried to shut the door behind him but he was not in time, for Billy butted against it and threw it open right out of Hans Zug's hand. The long room into which Hans had hurried was the dining-room, and here were seated, around a long table, a number of ladies and gentlemen, among them Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their son Frank, waiting for the dinner that now lay scattered around the courtyard. Everybody looked up, startled, when Hans came bursting through the door closely followed by an angry goat with a red-checked apron streaming from his horns. A great many of the men jumped up and scraped their chairs back, adding to the confusion, and a great many of the ladies screamed. Hans, not knowing what to do, started to run around and around the table with Billy close behind him and the fat cook close after Billy. Billy would easily have caught Hans except that every once in a while Hans would upset a chair in the goat's road and Billy would have to jump over the chair. Sometimes the fat cook would almost catch Billy and finally did succeed in catching the apron. When it came loose in his hand he did not know what to do with it. He started to throw it down, he started to stuff it in his pocket, he started to mop his perspiring face with it, and at last he threw it around his neck and tied the strings in front to get rid of it, then once more he chased after Billy, with the red apron flopping out behind him.

At last he grabbed Billy by the tail just as he was going to jump over the chair, and held on tightly, but Billy's jump had been too strong for him and the fat cook stumbled head over heels. Jumping up the angry cook ran until he again caught the goat, and this time he fell on top of Billy and then both rolled over and over on the floor.

"Ugh!" grunted the fat cook. "Beast animal!"

Billy jumped up in such a hurry that he simply danced on the fat cook's stomach. While Billy was doing this, Hans had stopped for a minute to mop his face and to look wildly around for some way to escape. Around and around, around and around the two raced, poor Hans puffing and blowing and his face getting redder and redder every minute with the chase.

Some men had been calsomining the wooden ceiling of the dining-room, but they had quit during meal time. At one end of the room stood two step-ladders with some long boards resting across them, and on these were a number of buckets of green calsomine. Hans had tried to get out through the doorway, but there were too many people crowded into it and he knew that if he got into that crowd Billy would surely catch him, but now he saw the step-ladders, and running to one of them started to climb up. Billy, however, was through with the cook and had taken after Hans again.

Hans, being so fat, was very slow in climbing a step-ladder, and he had only puffed his way up one step when Billy tried to help him up a little farther with his head and horns after a big running jump. Smash! went the step-ladders. Crash! went the long boards. The buckets of green calsomine flew everywhere. One of them tumbled down right over Hans' head like a hat that was a couple of sizes too large for him, and the green paint ran all over his face, down his neck and over his clothes. Another bucket of it landed in the middle of the dining-room table, splashing and splattering all over the clean cloth and over everybody who sat around it.

Billy, having done more damage than a dozen ordinary goats could hope to do in a lifetime, now made for the door, and the people there scattered very quickly