'
'How very mournful!' murmured Mrs. Worm.
'Ay, poor thing, 'a did! As clean out of his mind as the cleverest
Christian could go. In early life 'a was very melancholy, and
never seemed a hopeful pig by no means. 'Twas Andrew Stainer's
pig--that's whose pig 'twas.'
'I can mind the pig well enough,' attested John Smith.
'And a pretty little porker 'a was. And you all know Farmer
Buckle's sort? Every jack o' em suffer from the rheumatism to this
day, owing to a damp sty they lived in when they were striplings,
as 'twere.'
'Well, now we'll weigh,' said John.
'If so be he were not so fine, we'd weigh en whole: but as he is,
we'll take a side at a time. John, you can mind my old joke, ey?'
'I do so; though 'twas a good few years ago I first heard en.'
'Yes,' said Lickpan, 'that there old familiar joke have been in
our family for generations, I may say. My father used that joke
regular at pig-killings for more than five and forty years--the
time he followed the calling. And 'a told me that 'a had it from
his father when he was quite a chiel, who made use o' en just the
same at every killing more or less; and pig-killings were pig-
killings in those days.'
'Trewly they were.'
'I've never heard the joke,' said Mrs. Smith tentatively.
'Nor I,' chimed in Mrs. Worm, who, being the only other lady in
the room, felt bound by the laws of courtesy to feel like Mrs.
Smith in everything.
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