The big mayor took his head between his hands and stared moodily at the floor.     

       “Go awn away!” he said after a while. “Ye have done for me an' th' byes, Toole. Ye have soaked us out of office, wan an' all of us. I want t' be alone. It is all over with us. Go awn away.”      

       Toole and the Keeper of the Water Goats stole silently from the room and out into the street. Fagan was the first to speak.     

       “How was we t' know thim dongolas would soak in wather that way, Toole?”        he said defensively. “How was we t' know they was not th' wather-proof kind of dongolas?”      

       The little alderman from the Fourth Ward walked silently by the Keeper's side. His head was downcast and his hands were clasped beneath the tails of his coat. Suddenly he looked Fagan full in the face.     

       “'Twas our fault, Fagan,” he said. “'Twas all our fault. If we didn't know thim dongolas was wather-proof we should have varnished thim before we put thim in th' lake t' soak. I don't blame you, Fagan, for ye did not know anny better, but I blame mesilf. For I call t' mind now that me father always varnished th' dongolas before he soaked thim overnight. 'Take no chances, Mike,' he used t' say t' me, 'always varnish thim firrst. Some of thim is rubbery an' will not soak up wather, but some is spongy, an' 'tis best t' varnish one an' all of thim.”'     

       “Think of that now!” exclaimed Fagan with admiration. “Sure, but this natural history is a wonderful science, Toole! To think that thim animals was th' spongyhided dongola water goats of foreign lands, an' used t'       bein' varnished before each an' every bath! An' t' me they looked no different from th' goats of me byehood! I was never cut out for a goat keeper, Mike. An' me job on th' dump-cart is gone, too. 'Twill be hard times for Fagan.”      

       “'Twill be hard times for Toole, too,” said the little alderman, and they walked on without speaking until Fagan reached his gate.     

       “Well, anny how,” he said with cheerful philosophy, “'tis better t' be us than to be thim dongola water goats—dead or alive. 'Tis not too often I take a bath, Mike, but if I was wan of thim spongy-hided dongolas an' had t' be varnished each time I got in me bath tub, 

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