The gooseherd faced him in silence.

‘Well,’ said Mr. Curtenty again, his eyes twinkling, ’how much for the lot?’

The gooseherd gloomily and suspiciously named a sum.

Mr. Curtenty named a sum startlingly less, ending in sixpence.

‘I’ll tak’ it,’ said the gooseherd, in a tone that closed on the bargain like a vice.

The Deputy-Mayor perceived himself the owner of twelve geese and two ganders—­one Brent, one Barnacle.  It was a shock, but he sustained it.  Involuntarily he looked at Mr. Gordon.

’How are you going to get ’em home, Curtenty?’ asked Gordon, with coarse sarcasm; ’drive ’em?’

Nettled, Mr. Curtenty retorted: 

‘Now, then, Gas Gordon!’

The barmaid laughed aloud at this sobriquet, which that same evening was all over the town, and which has stuck ever since to the Chairman of the Gas and Lighting Committee.  Mr. Gordon wished, and has never ceased to wish, either that he had been elected to some other committee, or that his name had begun with some other letter.

The gooseherd received the purchase-money like an affront, but when Mr. Curtenty, full of private mirth, said, ‘Chuck us your stick in,’ he give him the stick, and smiled under reservation.  Jos Curtenty had no use for the geese; he could conceive no purpose which they might be made to serve, no smallest corner for them in his universe.  Nevertheless, since he had rashly stumbled into a ditch, he determined to emerge from it grandly, impressively, magnificently.  He instantaneously formed a plan by which he would snatch victory out of defeat.  He would take Gordon’s suggestion, and himself drive the geese up to his residence in Hillport, that lofty and aristocratic suburb.  It would be an immense, an unparalleled farce; a wonder, a topic for years, the crown of his reputation as a card.

He announced his intention with that misleading sobriety and ordinariness of tone which it has been the foible of many great humorists to assume.  Mr. Gordon lifted his head several times very quickly, as if to say, ‘What next?’ and then actually departed, which was a clear proof that the man had no imagination and no soul.

The gooseherd winked.

‘You be rightly called “Curtenty,” mester,’ said he, and passed into the Tiger.

‘That’s the best joke I ever heard,’ Jos said to himself ’I wonder whether he saw it.’

Then the procession of the geese and the Deputy-Mayor commenced.  Now, it is not to be assumed that Mr. Curtenty was necessarily bound to look foolish in the driving of geese.  He was no nincompoop.  On the contrary, he was one of those men who, bringing common-sense and presence of mind to every action of their lives, do nothing badly, and always escape the ridiculous.  He marshalled his geese with notable gumption, adopted towards them exactly the correct stress of persuasion, and presently he smiled to see them preceding him in the direction of Hillport.