THE PATRIOT PIG.
Last Spring I was discussing food with our local doctor. Last Spring it was quite a favourite topic.
"Now," I said, "we can manage to scratch along somehow. But next year . . ."
The Doctor, a hearty man, gave me a smashing blow on the shoulder. "I have it!" he trumpeted. "We'll start a Patriot Pig Club."
Before he left I found myself an important pillar of the scheme. Pillars, you know, are the parts of an edifice that bear the weight. Their function is to be sat upon by the arches. In this case the arches were Jones the doctor and Perkins the butcher.
The Committee began sitting. I put five pounds into the preliminary pool and promised them all my pig-swill. I know I did, because the Doctor came straight from the meeting to my house to tell me I had, and to collect the cheque.
The pigs arrived. I myself and a number of other enthusiasts turned out to welcome them. The Doctor, I remember, made a happy little speech, and we all laughed a lot. The Committee were very pleased with themselves. They were dear little chaps—the pigs, I mean—very small, of course, but that gave me the opening for what was undoubtedly the most successful sally of the afternoon. Someone said they weighed five pounds apiece. "One pound per pound," I remarked.
A week later the Doctor called for my second instalment. "Pig going strong," he chattered gaily while I wrote out the cheque; "best of a good litter—bust its pink ribbon yesterday; twice the weight it was when it came."
It was on the tip of my tongue to repeat my witticism, which was still true, but I refrained.
I paid the first dozen five-pound instalments without comment. Up till then I had been fully occupied in studying how FOCH was getting on with the other sort of pig over there. But now I began to think.