"It's my opinion," he said, "that you've already gone too stale to take care of your own pig."
Even years of intimacy scarcely justified this.
"When the day comes," said I, "that I find myself no longer competent to look after my own affairs, I'll take your advice and get out of Long Island."
He looked up with a smile. "Suppose somebody stole that pig, for instance."
"They couldn't."
"Suppose they did, under your very nose."
"If anything happens to that pig," I said—"anything untoward, due to any negligence or stupidity of mine, I'll admit that I need waking up.... Now get that pig if you can!"
"Will you promise to go to Paris for a jolly little jaunt if anything does happen to your pig?" he asked.
"Why the devil do you want me to go to Paris?"
"Do you good, intellectually."