Joe grinned and began to look jocular too.  His friend’s last assertion pleased him better than the wild flights of a little time before.

“That’s it,” said Joe.  “Ho, ho!  Reet!”

“He’d never go for to call ony lady out o’ their name,” pursued Ted, placing his hat yet a little more aslant; “never did that in’s life.  He’s quite a lady’s mon, Joe is.  Haw! haw!”

“Coom!” said Joe, grinning still more broadly.

At this juncture the invalid gander made a frantic struggle, and, freeing one wing from Ted’s encircling coat, began to flap it wildly.

“Ye’ve no need to stan’ grinnin’ an’ makkin’ merry theer when th’ poor dumb thing’s goin’ to dee, as like as not,” cried Margaret indignantly.  “Hand him over to me this minute—­theer, my beauty, theer—­missus’ll see to thee.”

“Well, an’ ye ought to be very thankful to me,” asserted Ted; “didn’t I pick him out o’ th’ road, an’ put my own coat o’er him an’ fondle him mich same’s if he was a babby?  Why, he ’ud noan be wick now if it hadn’t ha’ been for me.  Theer, my boy, howd up!  Theer, we’se tuck in thy wing for thee, and cover thee up warm an’ gradely—­’tisn’t everybody as ‘ud be dressin’ up a gander i’ their own clooes.  Do you know what ’ud do this ‘ere bird rale good?  Just a drop o’ sperrits to warm his in’ards for him—­that’s what he wants.  See here, I’ll carry him awhoam for ye, and ye mun jest fotch him a glass o’ whisky, and in a two three minutes he’ll be as merry as a layrock.”

Margaret looked doubtfully at him.

“Do ye raly think it ’ud do the poor thing good?” she asked dolefully.

“I’m sure on’t,” returned Ted, firmly pinioning the gander’s struggling legs, and setting off at a brisk pace towards Margaret’s cottage.  “Theer’s nought as is wick as wouldn’t feel the benefit of a drop o’ sperrits now an’ again.”

Joe considered this a very proper sentiment, and gave a grunt by way of endorsing it; he, too, followed Ted and the gander, being as much amused at the transaction as it was in his nature to be at anything.

Margaret kept pace with Ted, every now and then uttering lamentations over her favourite.

“He were as good a gander as a body need wish for; wonderful good breed he were, an’ as knowin’!  Eh, dear, I never wanted for coompany when Victoria were theer.”

“Victoria!” ejaculated Ted, stopping short and facing her; “why, that’s a female name!”

“It’s the Queen’s name,” rejoined Margaret, with a certain melancholy triumph.

“I thought it had been a gander; it is a gander, surely?”

“Oh, it’s a gander reet ’nough.  But I thought it were a goose to begin wi’.  It were the biggest o’ th’ clutch, an’ the prattiest, an’ so I called it Victoria, an’ it geet to know th’ name, an’ to coom when I called it—­eh, it ‘ud coom runnin’ up an’ croodle down aside o’ me, turnin’ its yead o’ one side that knowin’!  Eh, dear, theer never was