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A VISIT
21

“Are they your own goats?” asked Moni.

“Surely, they are ours. I don’t tend strange ones any longer. I am not a goat-boy now.”

Moni was very much surprised at this, for Jörgli had become the goat-boy of Küblis at the same time he had been made goat-boy of Fideris, and Moni did not understand how Jörgli could give it up without a single murmur.

Meanwhile the goat-boys and their flocks had reached the Pulpit-rock. Moni brought out bread and a small piece of dried meat and invited Jörgli to share his midday meal. They both sat down on the Pulpit-rock and ate heartily, for it had grown very late and they had excellent appetites. When everything was eaten and they had drunk a little goat's milk, Jörgli comfortably stretched himself at full length on the ground, and rested his head on both arms, but Moni remained sitting, for he always liked to look down into the deep valley below.

“But what are you now, Jörgli, if you are no longer goat-boy?” began Moni. “You must be something.”

“Surely I am something, and something very good,” replied Jörgli, “I am egg-boy. Every day I carry eggs to all the hotels, as far as I can go; I come up here to the Bath House, too. Yesterday I was there.”