The potman had a free chance for superintending the
arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much
against their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out
three and twopence for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had
been snoring in a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and
offered me sevenpence ha'penny for it--why sevenpence ha'penny I
have never been able to understand. He would have taken it away, I
should never have seen it again, and my whole life might have been
different. But Fate has always been against me. I replied, with
perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn't a Christmas dinner fund
for the destitute, and walked out.
"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I
was beginning to wish I had never seen the bird. I estimated its
weight by this time to be thirty-six pounds.
"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a
shop, I found one in Myddleton Street. There wasn't a customer
near it, but by the way the man was shouting you might have thought
that he was doing all the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose
out of the parcel and laid it on the shelf before him.
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