"Good gracious!" exclaims the old gent.
"Fact, by gravy! Sech squealin', kickin' and goin' on; sech cussin' and hollerin', by the fellers pokin' 'em in at one eend of the lot and punchin' on 'em aout at t'other! Sech a smell of hogs and fat, brissels and hot water, I swan teu pucker, I never did cal'late on, afore!
"Wall, as fast as they driv' 'em in by droves, the fellers kept a craowdin' 'em daown towards the Pork-haouse; there two fellers kept a shootin' on 'em daown, and a hull gang of the all-firedest dirty, greasy-looking fellers aout—stuck 'em, hauled 'em daown, and afore yeou could say Sam Patch! them hogs were yanked aout of the lot—killed—scalded and scraped."
"Mighty quick work, I guess," says the old gent.
"Quick work? Yeou ought to see 'em. Haow many hogs deu yeou cal'late them fellers killed and scraped a day?"
"Couldn't possibly say—hundreds, I expect."
"Hundreds! Grea-a-at King! Why, I see 'em kill thirteen hundred in teu hours;—did, by golly!"
"Yeou don't say so?"
"Yes, sir. And a feller with grease enough abaout him to make a barrel of saft soap, said that when they hurried 'em up some they killed, scalded and scraped ten thousand hogs in a day; and when they put on the steam, twenty thousand porkers were killed off and cut up in a single day!"
"I want to know!"