MY FRIEND THE PIG 301 
So I scratched him vigorously with my stick, 
and made him wriggle his body and wink and 
blink and smile delightedly all over his face. Then 
I said to myself: “ Now what the juice can I do 
more to please him?” For though under sentence 
of death, he had done no wrong, but was a good, 
honest-hearted fellow-mortal, so that I felt bound 
to do something to make the miry remnant of his 
existence a little less miserable. 
I think it was the word juice I had just used— 
for that was how I pronounced it to make it less 
like a swear-word—that gave me an inspiration. 
In the garden, a few yards back from the pen, 
there was a large clump of old elder-trees, now 
overloaded with ripening fruit—the biggest clusters 
I had ever seen. Going to the trees I selected and 
cut the finest bunch I could find, as big round as 
my cap, and weighing over a pound. This I de- 
posited in his trough and invited him to try it. 
He sniffed at it a little doubtfully, and looked at 
me and made a remark or two, then nibbled at the 
edge of the cluster, taking a few berries into his 
mouth, and holding them some time before he 
ventured to crush them. At length he did venture, 
then looked at me again and made more remarks, 
“Queer fruit this! Never tasted anything quite 
like it before, but I really can’t say yet whether I 
like it or not.” 
Then he took another bite, then more bites, 
looking up at me and saying something between 
the bites, till, little by little, he had consumed the 
