Alderman Toole thoughtfully changed his wet clothes for dry ones before he went to Casey's that evening, for he thought Dugan might be there, and he was. He was there when Toole arrived, and his brow was black. He had had a bad day of it. Everything had gone wrong with him and his affairs. A large lump of his adherents had sloughed off from his party and had affiliated with his opponents, and the evening opposition paper had come out with a red-hot article condemning the administration for reckless extravagance. It had especially condemned Dugan for burdening the city with new bonds to create an unneeded park, and the whole thing had ended with a screech of ironic laughter over the--so the editor called it--fitting capstone of the whole business, the purchase of two dongola goats at perfectly extravagant prices.
"Mike," said the big mayor severely, when the little alderman had offered his greetings, "there is the divil an' all t' pay about thim dongolas. Th' News is full of thim. 'Twill be th' ind of us all if they do not pan out well. Have ye tried thim in th' water yet?"
"Sure!" exclaimed the little alderman with a heartiness he did not feel. "What has me an' Fagan been doin' all day but tryin' thim? Have no fear of th' wather goats, Dugan."
"Do they swim well, Mike?" asked the big mayor kindly, but with a weary heaviness he did not try to conceal.
"Swim!" exclaimed Toole. "Did ye say swim, Dugan? Swim is no name for th' way they rip thro' the wather! 'Twas marvellous t' see thim. Ah, thim dongolas is wonderful animals! Do ye think we could persuade thim t' come out whin we wanted t' come home? Not thim, Dugan! 'Twas all me an' Fagan could do t' pull thim out by main force, an' th' minute we let go of thim, back they wint into th' wather. 'Twas pitiful t' hear th' way they bleated t' be let back into th' wather agin, Dugan, so we let thim stay in for th' night."
"Ye did not let thim loose in th' lake, Mike?" exclaimed the big mayor. "Ye did not let thim be so they could git away?"
"No," said Toole. "No! They'll not git away, Dugan. We anchored thim fast."
"Ye done good, Mike," said the big mayor.
The next morning Keeper of the Water Goats Fagan was down sufficiently early to drag the bodies of the goats out of the lake long before even the first citizen was admitted to the park.
Alone, and hastily he hid them in the little tool house, and locked the door on them. Then he went to find Alderman Toole. He found him in the mayor's office, and beckoned him to one side. In hot, quick accents he told him the untimely fate of the dongola water goats, and the mayor--with an eye for everything on that important day--saw the red face of Alderman Toole grow longer and redder; saw the look of pain and horror that overspread it. A chilling fear gripped his own heart.
"Mike," he said. "What's th' matter with th' dongolas?"
It was Fagan who spoke, while the little alderman from the Fourth Ward stood bereft of speech in this awful moment.
"Dugan," he said, "I have not had much ixperience with th' dongola wather goat, an' th' ways an' habits of thim is strange t' me, but if I was t' say what I think, I would say they was over-soaked."
"Over-soaked, Fagan?" said the mayor crossly. "Talk sense, will ye?"
"Sure!" said Fagan. "An' over-soaked is what I say. Thim water goats has all th' looks of bein' soaked too long. I would not say positive, Yer Honour, but that is th' looks of thim. If me own mother was t' ask me I would say th' same, Dugan. 'Soakin' too long done it,' is what I would say."
"You are a fool, Fagan!" exclaimed the big mayor.
