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
in liquor. With the bucket swinging and clattering and banging around,
he made a dash up on the verandah, among the pretty muslin-clad ladies
and white-duck suited men, creating havoc and destruction, and smelling
of kerosene and burnt hair and ancient goat, and uttering horrible,
blood-curdling _bah-h-h-s_, till he got into the card-table corner, and
mistaking the wide glass window for an open door, he promptly jumped
through it, and fell with a shower of glass outside on to the verandah
again, where Thady O'Brien and the fat German with the spectacles fell
on him, and tried to hold him down, and the spectacles were ground into
dust and otherwise damaged, and some of the ladies endeavouring to
escape out of the hideous _melee_ fell with him, and then the goat
struggled to his feet with the bucket squashed flat against his
forehead, and his horns covered with lace, and tulle, and bits of kid
gloves, and planted one of his cloven forefeet into the shirt-front of a
German officer, and smashed his watch. Then with another roar of
defiance he burst through and disappeared into the wilderness at the
back of Mrs. MacLaggan's garden, where he was followed by Leger, the
drunken carpenter, and his wife,