"Rufe looked at me astonished.
"'The shoat can't be worth anything like that to you, he says. 'What do you want him for?
"'Viewing me casuistically, says I, with a rare smile, 'you wouldn't think that I've got an artistic side to my temper. But I have. I'm a collector of pigs. I've scoured the world for unusual pigs. Over in the Wabash Valley I've got a hog ranch with most every specimen on it, from a Merino to a Poland China. This looks like a blooded pig to me, Rufe, says I. 'I believe it's a genuine Berkshire. That's why I'd like to have it.
"'I'd shore like to accommodate you, says he, 'but I've got the artistic tenement, too. I don't see why it ain't art when you can steal a shoat better than anybody else can. Shoats is a kind of inspiration and genius with me. Specially this one. I wouldn't take two hundred and fifty for that animal.
"'Now, listen, says I, wiping off my forehead. 'It's not so much a matter of business with me as it is art; and not so much art as it is philanthropy. Being a connoisseur and disseminator of pigs, I wouldn't feel like I'd done my duty to the world unless I added that Berkshire to my collection. Not intrinsically, but according to the ethics of pigs as friends and coadjutors of mankind, I offer you five hundred dollars for the animal.
"'Jeff, says this pork esthete, 'it ain't money; it's sentiment with me.
"'Seven hundred, says I.
"'Make it eight hundred, says Rufe, 'and I'll crush the sentiment out of my heart.
"I went under my clothes for my money-belt, and counted him out forty twenty-dollar gold certificates.
"'I'll just take him into my own room, says I, 'and lock him up till after breakfast.