AT THE FARM 



117 



rat : none of your new-fangled sanitary schemes for 

 me ; a reasonable amount of dirt and untidiness 1 

 call comfort — not actually on my coat, for I am 

 rather particular about that, but round about my 

 feet and on the premises generally. I always 

 sympathize with the Irishman who went out to 

 work one day (a very unusual thing for an Irishman 

 to do, I am told) and on his return found that his 

 kindly landlord had insisted on having his cottage 

 swept and garnished, which is also rather improbable 

 on the face of it ; but it is all true. He looked 

 about in a perplexed kind of way, and when his 

 wife assured him that he was really in the right 

 house, he remarked, ' Bedad, thin, and it's glad I'd 

 be to know what thafe has stolen my furniture !' 

 Those being my views about a comfortable amount 

 of dirt, you may be pretty sure that I made my 

 own special run behind the wooden trough out of 

 which the pigs ate their food. I am fond of pigs' 

 food, and I always used to climb into the trough 

 at night to make my supper off the pigs' leavings. 

 They were so well fed, because John and Mrs. liked 

 their bacon to be fat, that there was sure to be 

 plenty of caked barley-meal left sticking to the 

 sides of the trough, and I began to put on flesh 

 myself as the result of good living. But I was 



