On the other side of the courtyard was Mrs. MacLaggan's laundry. The
door was wide open and the place was in darkness, and no one took any
notice when presently Tom sauntered out of the ballroom, picked up a
large plateful of tipsy-cake, and, being kind to animals, gave a piece
to William, who followed him into the laundry for the rest; then Hayes
came in with a quart bottle of champagne, shut the door and struck a
light. Then he opened the bottle of fizz and poured it out into a deep,
enamelled starching-dish, and Billy MacLaggan drank thereof, and then
raised his head, with his immoral-looking beard hanging in a sodden
point like a wet deck-swab, and asked for more. That is, he asked as
well as any Christian and civilised goat could ask, by standing up on
his hind legs like a circus-horse and making strange, unearthly noises.
Then he rammed his wicked old nose into the dish again, and pushed it
all round the room, trying to sop up more liquor, which wasn't there,
and trod on Denison's canvas-slippered foot, and knocked over the little
tin kerosene oil lamp which was standing on the floor, and when Hayes,
with loud and blasphemous remarks grabbed at the ironing-blanket of the
laundry-table to extinguish the flames, he pulled the table down on the
top of Denison and himself and the goat and everything, for the blanket
was nailed on at the four corners, and when he was down on his hands and
knees, the goat being exceedingly alarmed and half-drunk, and smelling
his own hair burning, put his head down and charged at the universe in
general, or anything else he could hit, and he hit Hayes fair on the
temple with a noise like a ship's mainmast going by the board; then the
people outside burst in the door, and the creature, with a bull-like
bellow, charged out among them, and landed his bony head into the
stomach of Mataiasi, who was carrying the bucket of milk, and was afraid
to put it down when he saw him coming; then in some way the handle of
the iron bucket got on Billy MacLaggan's horns, which simply made him
thirst for gore, for he thought he was being made fun of because he was