“I hope all my conversation was not on that level,� he replied. And indeed he would have been surprised if he had known how exactly she remembered all such dull details he had ever mentioned about himself, and how little she knew in comparison about his theories and fancies, which he thought so much more important.
“Well,� he said with engaging frankness, “it would be an exaggeration to say I am going into a bank; though of course there are banks and banks. Why, I know a bank whereon the wild thyme—I beg your pardon, I mean I know a lot of more rural and romantic occupations that are really quite as safe as the bank. The truth is, I think of going into the bacon trade. I think I see an opening for a brisk young man in the ham and pork business. When you see me next I shall be travelling in pork; an impenetrable disguise.�
“You mustn’t come here, then,� she answered. “It won’t be allowed here by that time. The neighbours would——�
“Fear not,� he said, “I should be a commercial traveller. Oh, such a very commercial traveller. And as for not coming here, the thing seems quite unthinkable. You must at least let me write to you every hour or so. You must let me send you a few presents every morning.�
“I’m sure my father wouldn’t like you to send me presents,� she said gravely.
“Ask your father to wait,� said Pierce earnestly. “Ask him to wait till he’s seen the presents. You see, mine will be rather curious presents. I don’t think he’ll disapprove of them. I think he’ll approve of them. I think he’ll congratulate me on my simple tastes and sound business principles. The truth is, dear Joan, I’ve committed myself to a rather important enterprise. You needn’t be frightened; I promise I won’t trouble you again till it succeeds. I will be content that you know it is for you I do it; and shall continue to do it, if I defy the world.� He sprang up on the wall again and stood there staring down at her almost indignantly.
“That anybody should forbid you to keep pigs,� he cried. “That anybody should forbid you to do anything. That anybody should dispute your right to keep pet crocodiles if you like! That is the unpardonable sin; that is the supreme blasphemy and crime against the nature of things, which shall not go unavenged. You shall have pigs, I say, if the skies fall and the whole world is whelmed in war.�
He disappeared like a flash behind the high bank and the wall, and Joan went back in silence to the inn.
The first incident of the war did not seem superficially encouraging, though the hero of it seemed by no means discouraged by it. As reported in the police news of various papers, Hilary Patrick Pierce, formerly of the Flying Corps, was arrested for driving pigs into the county of Bluntshire, in contravention of the regulations made for the public health. He seemed to have had almost as much trouble with the pigs as with the police; but he made a witty and eloquent speech on being arrested, to which the police and the pigs appeared to be equally unresponsive. The incident was considered trivial and his punishment was trifling; but the occasion was valued by some of the authorities as giving an opportunity for the final elucidation and establishment of the new rule.
For this purpose it was fortunate that the principal magistrate of the bench was no less a person than the celebrated hygienist, Sir Horace Hunter, O.B.E., M.D., who had begun life, as some may remember, as a successful suburban doctor and had likewise distinguished himself as an officer of health in the Thames Valley. To him indeed had been largely due the logical extension of the existing precautions against infection from the pig; though he was fully supported by his fellow magistrates, one being Mr. Rosenbaum Low, millionaire and formerly manager of Bliss and Co., and the other the young Socialist, Mr. Amyas Minns, famous for his exposition of Shaw on the Simple Life, who sat on the bench as a Labour alderman. All concurred in the argument of Sir Horace, that just as all the difficulties and doubtful cases raised by the practice of moderate drinking had been simplified by the solution of Prohibition, so the various quarrels and evasions about swine-fever were best met by a straightforward and simple regulation against swine. In the very improper remarks which he offered after the trial, the prisoner appears to have said that as his three judges were a Jew, a vegetarian and a quack doctor on the make, he was not surprised that they did not appreciate pork.