“I said, did you ever make a lemon pig?”
“A lemon pig! No, I never did. How do you make it?”
“Oh, they’re the maddest fun! I say, Mrs. Kenerley, mayn’t we have a lemon?”
“Certainly, Mr. Collins.”
“And, oh, I say, Mrs. Kenerley, if it isn’t too much trouble, mayn’t we have a box of matches, and two black pins, and a bit of paper?”
“And a colander and a tack hammer and a bar of soap?” asked Ferris, but Mr. Collins said, gravely: “No, we don’t want those.”
The articles he had asked for were soon provided, and in the slow, grave way in which he did everything, Mr. Collins began to make the strange animal of which he had spoken. The lemon formed the whole pig, with four matches for his legs, two black pins for his eyes, and a narrow strip of paper, first curled round a match, for his tail. It was neither artistic nor realistic, but it was an exceedingly comical pig, and soon it began to squeak in an astonishingly pig-like voice. Then a tap at the window was heard, and a farmer’s gruff voice shouted: “Have you my pig in there? My little Lemmy pig?”
“Yes,” responded Mr. Collins, “we have; and we mean to keep him, too.”
“I’ll have the law of ye,” shouted the farmer. “Me pig escaped from the sty, and I call upon ye to give him up!”
“We won’t do it!” shouted several of the men in chorus.