'Well, lad?'

'There's no gander i' this lot.'

'Hast forgotten to count thysen?' Mr. Curtenty answered blithely from
the shelter of the side-door.

But within himself he was a little crest-fallen to think that the
surviving gander should have escaped his vigilance, even in the
darkness. He had set out to drive the geese home, and he had driven them
home, most of them. He had kept his temper, his dignity, his
cheerfulness. He had got a bargain in geese. So much was indisputable
ground for satisfaction. And yet the feeling of an anticlimax would not
be dismissed. Upon the whole, his transit lacked glory. It had begun in
splendour, but it had ended in discomfort and almost ignominy.
Nevertheless, Mr. Curtenty's unconquerable soul asserted itself in a
quite genuine and tuneful whistle as he entered the house.

The fate of the Brent gander was never ascertained.



II

The dining-room of The Firs was a spacious and inviting refectory, which
owed nothing of its charm to William Morris, Regent Street, or the Arts
and Crafts Society. Its triple aim, was richness, solidity, and comfort,
but especially comfort; and this aim was achieved in new oak furniture
of immovable firmness, in a Turkey carpet which swallowed up the feet
like a feather bed, and in large oil-paintings, whose darkly-glinting