But he would not allow one of the crowd to touch his umbrellas.
As soon as his eye fell upon Richard, he changed his tone, and said,
"Well, as nobody seems inclined to buy, I think, my dear umbrellas, we
had better be going home." Whereupon the umbrellas got up, with some
difficulty, and began hobbling away. The people stared at each other
with open mouths, for they saw that what they had taken for a lot of
umbrellas, was in reality a flock of black geese. A great turkey-cock
went gobbling behind them, driving them all down a lane towards the
forest. Richard thought with himself, "There is more in this than I can
account for. But an umbrella that could lay eggs would be a very jolly
umbrella." So by the time the people were beginning to laugh at each
other, Richard was half-way down the lane at the heels of the geese.
There he stooped and caught one of them, but instead of a goose he had
a huge hedgehog in his hands, which he dropped in dismay; whereupon it
waddled away a goose as before, and the whole of them began cackling
and hissing in a way that he could not mistake. For the turkey-cock, he
gobbled and gabbled and choked himself and got right again in the most
ridiculous manner. In fact, he seemed sometimes to forget that he was a
turkey, and laughed like a fool. All at once, with a simultaneous
long-necked hiss, they flew into the wood, and the turkey after them.
But Richard soon got up with them again, and found them all hanging by
their feet from the trees, in two rows, one on each side of the path,
while the turkey was walking on.
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