said Silas Foster, giving my hand a mighty squeeze. “I shall have these fat fellows hanging up by the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, I tell you!”

“O cruel Silas, what a horrible idea!” cried I. “All the rest of us, men, women, and livestock, save only these four porkers, are bedevilled with one grief or another; they alone are happy, — and you mean to cut their throats and eat them!

It would be more for the general comfort to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels we should be!”