He hain't handsome no ways, an' I think he'd look a good deal better on
ther table roasted, than he does out here on ther street."

Up to that moment Dan had been disposed to trust this boy who was so
friendly; but when he spoke so slightingly of Crippy, he was
disappointed in him.

"Vou don't know Crippy, or you wouldn't say that," replied Dan,
gravely. "I would walk
seventeen times as far if it would keep him from gettin' killed."

" Well, I tell yer wot it is," and the boy spoke like one thoroughly
conversant with geese and their ways, "he's got ter be a good deal
better'n he looks, ter 'mount to anything."

"An' he is," replied Dan; and then he gave the stranger a full account
of Crippy's sagacity
and wisdom, with such success that, when he had finished, the goose
evidently stood high in the city boy's estimation.

"He's prob'ly a mighty nice kind of a goose," said the boy; "but it
seems to me if I had a pet I'd want one that could sleep with me, an'
you know you couldn't take this goose to bed."

"I could if mother would let me, an' I don't see why she won't, for I
know Crippy would
just snuggle right down as good as anybody could."

For some time the two discussed the question of pets in general, and
Crippy in particular, and then the city boy remembered that his mother