"PIGS IS PIGS."

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 3, 20 January 1909, Page 42

"PIGS IS PIGS."

By

ELLIS PARKER BUTLER.

XJT fKE FLANNEKV - tIH - Westeote /r ■ agent of th< Interurban Express I 1 Company, leaned over the coun--1 Ji 1' 1 of the express office, and W shook his fist. Mr. Morehouse, angry and red, stood on the other side of the •imiiter, trembling with rage. The argument hail been Jong and heated, amt at last Mr. Morehouse had talked himself speechless. The cause of the trouble stood on the counter between the two men. It was a soap box? across the top of which were nailed a number of strips, forming a rough but serviceable cage. In it two spotted guinea-pigs were greedily eating lettuce leaves. “ Do as you loike, then! ” shouted Flannery, “pay lor thim an' take thini, or don’t pay lor thini and leave thim be. Kuhs is rules. Misther Morehouse, an’ Mike Flannery’s not goin’ to he called down for breakin* of thini.’ “ But. you everlastingly stupid idiot!” Fboutqd Mr. Morehouse, madly shaking a flimsy printed book beneath the agent's nose, “ can't you read it here—in your own printed rates? * Pets, domestic, Franklin to Woodi-otc. if properly boxed, twenty-live cents each.’’’ He threw the book on the counter in disgust. “ What more do you want? Aren’t they pets? Arne't they domestic? Aren’t they properly boxed? What?’’ lie turned and walked back and forth rapidly; frowning ferociously. Sudenly be tinned to Flannery, and forcing his voice’ Io an artificial calmness spoke slowly with intense sarcasm. “ Peds,’ he said. “ P-e-t-s! Twentyfive cents each. There are two u! them. Oh! Two! Two times twenty-five are fifty! tan you understand that? 1 oiler you fifty ce nts.’’ Flannery reached for the hook. He ran Lis hand through the pages and stopped at page sixty four. “An’ I don't take fifty cents!’’ he whispered in mockery. “Here’s the rule for lit. ‘Whin the agint be in any doubt regardin’ which of two rates applies to a shipmini, he shall charge the larger. The consign-ey may file a. claim for the overcharge.’ In this case, Misther Morehouse, I be in doubt. Pets thim animals may be, an’ domestic they be, but pigs, I'm blame sure they do be. an* me rules says plain as the nose on yer face, ‘Pigs. Franklin to W estcote. thirty cints each? An' Misther Morehouse, by mo arithmetical knowledge, two times thirty comes to sixty cints.” Mr. Morehouse shook his head savagely. “ Nonsense! ” he shouted, “ confounded nonsense. 1 tell you! Why, you poor ignorant foreigner, that rule means common pigs, domestic pigs, not guinea pigs!” Flannery was stubborn. “Pigs is pigs,” he declared firmly. “Guinea-pigs, or dago pigs or Irish pigs is all the same to the Interurban Express Company an’ to Mike Flannery. Th’ nationality of the pig creates no differentia I ity of the rate. Misther Moorhouse! ’Twould be the same was they Dutch pigs or Rooshun pigs. Mike Flannery,*’ he added, “is here to find to the expriss business an' not to hould conversation ■wid dago pigs in sivintccn languages fer io discover be I hey Chinese or 'Tipperary by birth an' nativity." Mr. Moorhouse hesitated, lie hit his li| and then Hung out his arms wildly. ’Very well!” he shouted, you shall bear of thi-! Your president shall hear of this’ |(, is an outrage! I haw offered you fifty cents. You refuse it! Keep i he pigs until you are ready Io take, the fifty cents, hut. by George. sir. if« one hair of pigs’ heads is harmed I will have the law on you!” He turned and stalked out, slamming the door. Flannery carefully lifted the soap box from tin l counter and placed it in a corner. He was not worried. He felt the peace that comes to a faithful servant who has done his dntv and done It well. Mr. Moorhouse went homo raging. His boy, who had been awaiting the guineapigs, knew belter than to ask him for them. He was a normal boy and therefore always had a guilty conscience when hie father was angry. So the boy slipped quietly around the house. There is no*

thing so soothing to a guilty conscience as to be out of the path of the avenger. Mr. Moorhouse stormed into the house. “Where's the ink?*’ he shouted at his wife as soon as his foot was across the door-sill. Airs. Moorhouse jumped, guiltily. She never used ink. She had not seen the ink, nor moved the ink. nor thought of the ink, but her husband’s tone convicted her of the guilt of having borne and reared a boy. and she knew that whenever her husband wanted anything in a hmd voice the boy had been at it. “I’ll find Sammy,” she said meekly. When the ink was found. Mr Moorhouse wrote rapidly, and he read the completed letter and smiler! a triumphant smile. “Flannery -is right, pigs is pigs.” < “That will settle that crazy Irishman!” he exclaimed. “When they get that letter he will hunt another job, all Tight!” A week later Mr. Moorhouse received a long official envelope with the card of the Interurban Express Company in the up-

per left corner. He tore it open eagerly and drew out a sheet of paper. At the top it bore the number A 6754. The letter was short. “Subject—Rate on guinea-pigs,” it said, “Dr. Sir—We are in receipt of your letter regarding rate on guinea-pigs btwen Franklin and Westcote,’ addressed *o the president of this company. All claims for overcharge should bp addressed to the Claims Department.” Mr. Moorhouse wrote to the Claim* Department. He wrote six pages of t l.oice sarcasm, vituperation and argument, and sent them to the Claims Department. A few weeks later he received a reply from the Claims Department. Attached to it wa- his last letter. “Dr. Sir.’’ said the reply. “Your letter of the 16th inst.. addressed to this Department, subject rate on guinea-pigs from Franklin Io Westeote. roc'd. We have taken up tlie matter with our agent, at Westeote. and his reply is attached herewith. He informs us that you refused t«> receive the consignment or to pay lhe charges. You have therefore no claim against, this company, and your lettejr regarding the proper rate on the consignment should be addressed Io our Tari|F Depratmenf.” My. Moorhouse wrote io the Tariff Department. He dated his rase clearly, am! gave his arguments in full, quoting a page or two from the encyclopedia to prove that guinea pigs were not common With the care that characterises corporations when they are syst.em.Wtvally conducted, Mr. Moorhouse’s letter was

numbered O. K'd, and started through Ihe regular channels. Duplicate copies of the bill of lading, manifest, Flannery’s receipt for the package and several other pertinent papers were pinned to the letter, and they were passed to the head of the Tariff Department. The head of the Tariff Department put his feet on his desk and yawned, lie looked through the papers carelessly. , “Miss Kane,*’ he said to his stenographer, “ta«<euthis letter. ‘Agent, Westcote, N.J. Please advise why consignment referred to in attached papers was refused domestic pets rates.’ ” Miss’ Kane made a series of curves and angles on her note book and waited with pencil poised. The head of the department looked at the papers again. “Huh! guinea-pigs!” he said. “Probably starved to death by this time? Add this to that letter: ‘Give condition of consignment at present.’" He tossed the papers on to the stenographer's desk, took his feet from his own desk and went out to lunch. When Mike Flannery recieved the letter he scratched his head. “Give prisint condition,” he repeated thought fully. “Now w hat do thim clerks be wantin' to know. I wonder! ‘Prisint condition,’ is ut? Thim pig*-, prai-e St. Patrick, do be in good health, so far as I know, but I niver was no veterinairy surgeon to dago pigs. Alebby thim clerks wants me to call in the pig doheter an’ have their pulses look. Wan thing I do know, howiver. which is they’re glorious appytites for pigs of their s*oize. Ate? They'd ate the brass padlocks off of a barn door! If the paddy pig. by the

same token, ate as hearty as these-xlago pigs do, there’d be a famine in Ireland.” To assure himself that his report would be up to' date, Flannery went to the rear of the office, and looked into the cage. The pigs had been transferred to a larger box—a dry goods box. “Wan, two. t'ree, four, foive, six, sivin, eight!” lie counted. “JSivin spotted an' .wan all black. All well an’ hearty, an’ all catin’ loike rogin’ hippy-potty-musses.” He went back to his desk, and wrote. “Mr. Morgan, Head of Tariff Department,” he wrote. “Why do I say dago pigs is pigs because they is pigs, and will be til you ay they ain't, which is what the rule book says stop your jollying me. you know it as well us I do. As to health, they are all well, and hoping you are the same. P.B. —There are <ight now; the family increased; all good eaters. PS.— I paid out so far two dollars for cabbage, which they like. Shall I put in bill for same what?*’ Morgan, head of the 'Tariff Department, w hen he received this letter, laugncd. He read it again, and Iwcame sen* ous. “By George!” lie said, “Flannery fa right. ‘Pigs is pig*.’ I*ll have. to| get authority on this thing. Meanwhile, Miss Kane, take this letter: “Agent, Westeote, N.J. Regarding shipment guinea-pigs, File No. A 0754. Rule 1 83, General Instruction to Agents, rlqarly states that agents shal (collect Trom consignee all costs of provender, etc., required for live stock while in transit or storage. You will proceed to collect same from consignee.”

Flannery received this letter next jiroining, and when he read it he grinned, “1 roceed to collect,” he said softly. “How thim clerks do loike to be talkin’!. Me proceed to collect two dollars and twiniy-foive cints off Misther More* house! 1 wonder do thim clerks know, Misther Morehouse? I’ll git it! Oh, yes! ‘Misther -Morehouse, two an’ a quarter, plaze.’ ‘Cert’nly, me dear frind Flannery. Delighted!’ Not!” Flannery drove th© express wagon td Mr. Morehouse’s door. Air. Alorchouse. answered the bell. “Ah, ha!” he cried, as soon as he saw. it was Flannery. “So you've come to your senses at last, have you? I thought you would! Bring the box in.” • “I hev no box,’’ said Flannery, coldly. “1 hev a bill agin Alisther John C. Morehouse for two dollars and twintyfoive tints for kebbages aten by his dago pigs. Wild you wish to pay ut?” “Pay— f’abbages—!” gasped Air. Morehouse. “Do you mean to say that two little guinea-pigs ” “Eight!” said Flannery. “Pupa an’ mamma, an’ the six childer. Eight!” For answer, Mr. Morehouse slammed the door in Flannery’s face. Flannery} looked at the door reproachfully. “1 take ut the con-sign-y don't want io pay for thim kebbages,” he said. “If 1 know signs of refusal, the con-sign-y refuses to pay for wan dang kebbaga leaf an' be hanged to me!” Mr. Morgan, the head of the Tariff De* partment, consulted the pre-ident of the Intel urban Express Company regarding guinea-pigs, as to whether they -were pig*» or not pigs. 'The president was inclined to treat the matter lightly. “What is the rate on pigs and on. pots?” lie asked. “Pigs thirty cents, pets twenty-five,”-said Morgan. ‘Then, of course, guinea-pigs are pigs,” said the president. “Yes,” agreed Morgan, “I look at it that way, too. A thing that can come under two rates is naturally due to be classed as the higher. But are. guineapigs, pigs? Aren’t they rabbits?” “t?ome to think of it,” said the president, “I believe they are more like rabbits. Sort of half-way station between pig and rabbit. I think the question is this—are guinea-pigs of the domestic family? I’ll ask Professor Gordon. Ho is authority on such things. Leave th© papers with me.” The president put the papers on hfa desk, and wrote a letter to Professor Giordorf. Un f <?r tun a teilyi, the 'professor, was in South America colecting zoological specimens, and the letter was forwarded to him by his wife. As the professor was in the highest Andes, where no white man had ever penetrated, the letter was many months in reaching him, 'The president forgot the guinea-pigs;' Air. Morgan forgot them; Air. Aforeliouse forgot them; but Flannery did not. One-hralf of his time ho gave to tno duties of his agency; the other half was devoted to the guinea-pigs. Long before Professor Gordon revived the president’s letter, Morgan received one from Flannery. “About them dago pigs.” it said;’ “what shall I do; thev are great in family life: no race suicide for them; there are thirty two now. Shall I sell them? Do you take this express office for ai menagerie? Answer quick.”

Morgan reached for a telegraph blank, and wrote: “Agent, Westeote. Don’t sell pigs?j lie then wrote Flannm’y a letter calling l>i« attention to the fact tliat the pigs were not the property of the company,

but were merely being held during a settlement of a dispute regarding rates, lie ad vised Flannery to take the best possible care of them. Flannery, letter in hand, looked at the pigs, and sighed. The dry-goods Ik»x cage had become too small, lie boarded up twenty feet of the rear of the express office to make «a large and airy home for them, and went about his business. lie worked with feverish intensity when out on his rounds, for the pigs required attention, and took most of his time. Some months later, in desperation, he seized a sheet of paper, and wrote “160” across it, and mailed it to Morgan. Morgan returned it asking for explanation. Flannery replied: “There be now one hundred sixty of them dago pigs, for heaven’s sake let me sell of some, do von want me to go crazy, what.” “.Sell no pigs,’* Morgan wired. Not long after this the president of the express company received a letter from Professor (Jordon. It was a long and scholarly letter, but the pciirH was that the guinea-pig was the Cavina aparoea, while the common pig was the genius Sus of the family Suidae. He remarked that they were prolific, and multiplied rapidly. “They are not pigs,” said the president, decidedly, to Morgdn. The twenty-five cent rate applies.” Morgan made the proper notation on the papers lh.at had accumulated in File AG754, and turned them over to thft Audit Department. The Audit Department took some time to look the matter up, and after the usual delay wrote Flannery that he- has on hand one hundred ami sixty guinea-pigs, the property of consignee, he should deliver them and collect charges at the rate of twentyfive cents each. Flannery spent a day herding his charges through a narrow opening in their cage, so that he might count them. “Audit Dept.” he wrote, when ho had finished the count, “'you are way off there may be was one hundred and sixty dago pigs once, but wake up, don’t be a back number. I’ve got even eight hundred, now shall I collect for eight hundred or what, how about sixty-four dollars I paid out for cabbages.” It required a great many, letters back and forth before the Audit Department was able to understand why the error

had been made of billing one hundred and sixty instead of eight hundred, and still more time for it to get the meaning of the “cabbages.” Flannery was crowded into a few feet at the extreme front of the office. The pigs had ail the rest of the room and

two boys were employed constantly attending to them. The day 'after Flannery had counted the guinea-pigs, there were eight more* added to his drove, and by the time the Audit Department gave him authority to collect for eight hundred Flannery had

given up all attempts to attend to (lie receipt or the delivery of goods, lie was hastily building galleries around the express office, tier above tier. He had four thousand and sixty-four guinea-pigs to care for! More were arriving daily. Immediately following its authorisa-

tion the Audit Department sent another letter, hut Flannery was too busy to open it. They wrote another, and then they telegraphed: “Error in guinea-pig bill. Collect for two guinea-pigS, fifty cents. Deliver all to consignee.”

Flannerv read the tel.gram and cheered Up. he wrote out a bill as rapidly ae his pencil could travel over paper, and ran all the way to the Morehouse home. At the gate he stopped suddenly. The house stared at him with vacant eyes. 'I he windows were bare of curtains, and he could see into the empty rooms. A sign on the porch said, “To Let.” Mr Morehouse had moved! Flannery ran alt the way back to the express office. Sixtynine guinea-pigs had been born during hist absence. He ran out again and made feverish inquiries in the village. Mr Morehouse had not only moved, but ho thad left Westeote. Flannery returned to the express office, and found that two hundred and six guinea pigs had entered the world since he left it. He wrote a telegram to the Audit Department. •‘Can’t eolleet fitly cents for two dago pigs consignee has left town address unknown what shall I do? Flannery.” 't he telegram was handed to one of the clerks in the Audit Department, and as he read it he laughed. ‘•Flannery must be crazy. He oil'dit to know that, the thing to do is to return the consignment here," said I he clerk. He telegraphed Flannery to send the pigs to the main office of the company at Franklin. When Flannery received I he telegram he set to work. The six boys he had engaged to help him also set to work. They worked with the haste of desperate men, making cages out of soap boxes, and as fast as the cages were completed they tilled them with guinea pigs and expressed them to Franklin. Day after day the cages of guinea-pigs flowed in a steady stream from Westeote to Franklin, and still Flannery and his six helpers ripped ami nailed and packed--relentlessly and feverishly. At the end of the week they had shipped two hundred and eighty cases of guinea-pigs, and there were in the express office seven hundred and four more pigs than when they begun packing them. “Stop sending pigs. Warehouse full," came a telegram to Flannerv. He stopped packing only long enough to wire hack, "Can’t stop," ami kept on sending them. Ou the next train up from Frank lin came one of the company’s inspectors, fie had instructions to slop the stream of guinea-pigs at all hazards. As his train drew up at Westeote station he saw a

tattle car standing on the express comyany’s siding. When he reached the express office hr saw the express wagotf backed up to the door. Six boys were carrying bushel baskets full of guineapigs from the office and dumping them into the wagon. Inside the room Flannery, with his coat ami vest off, was ahovrlling guinea-pigs into bushel baskets with a coal scoop. He was winding up the guinea-pig episode. He looked up at the inspector with a JSnort of anger. "Wan wagonload more an’ I'll l>e quit of thim. an’ niver will ye catch Flannery wid no more foreign pigs on his hands. No, sur! They near was the death o’ >ne. Nixt toime I'll know that pigs of whativer nationality is domi-tic pets-—

an’ go at the lowest rate.” He began shovelling again rapidly, speak ing quickly between breaths. "Rules may be rules, but you can't fool Mike Flannery twice wid the same th rick whin nt conies to live stock, dang the rules. So long as Flannery runs this expriss office pigs is pets.-- an' cows is pets,--an* horses is pets,--an* lions an’ tigers an’ Rocky Mountain goats is pets, - an* the rate on thim is twinty foive tints.*’ lie paused long enough to let one of the boys put an empty basket in the place of the one he had just tilled. There were only a few guinea-pigs left. As he noted their limited number his natural habit of looking on the bright side returned. "Well, annyhow,” he said cheerfully, “ *tis not so bad as lit might be. What if thim <lagn pigs had been elephants’”