“I’ve got a glass,” he announced. “Gev’ three pun’ ten for it, but there’s a barrowmeter in my bones that’s worth a dozen o’ them things. I’ll back rheumatiz an’ a side o’ bacon any day to beat the best glass ever invented.”
All unknowing, here was the touch of genius that makes men listen. Warden showed his interest.
“A side of bacon!” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. Nothing to ekal it. I was in the trade, so I know wot I’m talkin’ about. And, when you come to think of it, why not? Pig skin an’ salt—one of ‘em won’t have any truck wi’ damp—doesn’t want it an’ shows it—an’ t’other sucks it up like a calf drinkin’ milk. I’ve handled bacon in tons, every brand in the market, an’ you can’t smoke any of ‘em on a muggy day.”
“Does your theory account for the old–fashioned notion that pigs can see the wind?”
The stout man considered the point. It was new to him, and he was a Conservative.
“I’m better acquent wi’ bacon,” he said stubbornly.
“So I gather. I was only developing your very original idea, on the principle that
“‘You may break, you may shatter, the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.’”
The ex–bacon–factor rapped an emphatic stick on the pavement. Though he hoped some of his friends would see him hob–nobbing “with a swell,” he refused to be made game of.