'But,' objected the rector, 'that was the white's first
litter, and the black's second. Why shouldn't the white do
as well as the black next time?'
'And better, your reverence,' chimed in the gardener. 'The
number don't allays depend on the sow, do it?'
'That is neither here nor there,' returned the rector.
'Well,' said the gardener, who stood to his guns, 'if your
reverence is right, as no doubt you will be, that'll make
just twenty little pigs for the butcher, come Michaelmas.'
'We can't kill 'em before they are born,' said the rector.
'That's true, your reverence. But it comes to the same
thing.'
'Not to the pigs,' retorted the rector.
'To your reverence, I means.'
'A pig at the butcher's,' I suggested, 'is worth a dozen
unborn.'
'No one can deny it,' said the rector, as he fingered the
small change in his breeches pocket; and pointing with the
other hand to the broad back of the black sow, exclaimed,
'This is the one, DUPLEX AGITUR PER LUMBOS SPINA! She's got
a back like an alderman's chin.'
'EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS,' I assented, and the fate of the
black sow was sealed.
