No More Learning

How could the exotic Pig be brought to give as much pork as it did in
the West and yet "assume the essentially hirsute characteristics of its
oriental congener? " Pinecoffin felt dazed, for he had forgotten what
he had written sixteen month's before, and fancied that he was about
to reopen the entire question. He was too far involved in the hideous
tangle to retreat, and, in a weak moment, he wrote:--"Consult my first
letter. " Which related to the Dravidian Pig. As a matter of fact,
Pinecoffin had still to reach the acclimatization stage; having gone off
on a side-issue on the merging of types.

THEN Nafferton really unmasked his batteries! He complained to the
Government, in stately language, of "the paucity of help accorded to me
in my earnest attempts to start a potentially remunerative industry, and
the flippancy with which my requests for information are treated by a
gentleman whose pseudo-scholarly attainments should at lest have taught
him the primary differences between the Dravidian and the Berkshire
variety of the genus Sus. If I am to understand that the letter to which
he refers me contains his serious views on the acclimatization of a
valuable, though possibly uncleanly, animal, I am reluctantly compelled
to believe," etc. , etc.

There was a new man at the head of the Department of Castigation.

The wretched Pinecoffin was told that the Service was made for the
Country, and not the Country for the Service, and that he had better
begin to supply information about Pigs.

Pinecoffin answered insanely that he had written everything that could
be written about Pig, and that some furlough was due to him.

Nafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent it, with the essay on the
Dravidian Pig, to a down-country paper, which printed both in full. The
essay was rather highflown; but if the Editor had seen the stacks of
paper, in Pinecoffin's handwriting, on Nafferton's table, he would not
have been so sarcastic about the "nebulous discursiveness and blatant
self-sufficiency of the modern Competition-wallah, and his utter
inability to grasp the practical issues of a practical question. " Many
friends cut out these remarks and sent them to Pinecoffin.
I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of a soft stock. This last
stroke frightened and shook him. He could not understand it; but he felt
he had been, somehow, shamelessly betrayed by Nafferton.

He realized that he had wrapped himself up in the Pigskin without need,
and that he could not well set himself right with his Government. All
his acquaintances asked after his "nebulous discursiveness" or his
"blatant self-sufficiency," and this made him miserable.

He took a train and went to Nafferton, whom he had not seen since
the Pig business began. He also took the cutting from the paper, and
blustered feebly and called Nafferton names, and then died down to a
watery, weak protest of the "I-say-it's-too-bad-you-know" order.

Nafferton was very sympathetic.

"I'm afraid I've given you a good deal of trouble, haven't I? " said he.

"Trouble! " whimpered Pinecoffin; "I don't mind the trouble so much,
though that was bad enough; but what I resent is this showing up in
print. It will stick to me like a burr all through my service. And I DID
do my best for your interminable swine. It's too bad of you, on my soul
it is! "

"I don't know," said Nafferton; "have you ever been stuck with a horse?