That afternoon I went and took a good look at my pig. Later, as I was walking on the main street of Oyster Bay, a man touched his hat and asked me for a job. Instantly it occurred to me to hire him as night watchman for the pig. He had excellent references, and his countenance expressed a capacity for honest and faithful service. That night before I went to bed, I walked around to the sty. My man was there on duty.
"That," thought I, "will hold Van Dieman for a while."
When my daughters had retired and all the servants were abed, I did a thing I have not done in years not since I was a freshman at Harvard: I sat up with my pipe and an unexpurged translation of Henry James until nearly eleven o'clock. However, by midnight I was asleep.
It was full starlight when I awoke and jumped softly out of bed. Somebody was tapping at the front door. I put on a dressing-gown and slippers and waited; but no servants were aroused by the persistent rapping.
After a moment I went to the window, raised it gently and looked out. A farmer with a lantern stood below.
"Say, squire," he said, when he beheld my head, "I guess I'll have to ask for help. I'm on my way to market and my pig broke loose and I can't ketch him nohow."
"Hush!" I whispered; "I'll come down."
Very cautiously I unbarred the front door and stepped out into the lovely April starlight. In the road beyond my hedge stood a farm-wagon containing an empty crate. Near it moved the farmer, and just beyond his outstretched hands sported a playful pig. He was a black pig. Mine was white. Besides I went around to the pen and saw, in the darkness, my Oyster Bay retainer still on guard. So, it being a genuine case, I returned to the road.
The farmer's dilemma touched me. What in the world was so utterly hopeless to pursue, unaided, as a coy pig at midnight.
"If you will just stand there, squire, and sorter spread out your skirts, I'll git him in a jiffy," said the panting farmer.
I did as I was bidden. The farmer approached; the pig pranced between his legs.
"By gum!" exclaimed the protected of Ceres.
But, after half an hour, the pig became over-confident, and the tiller of phosphites seized him and bore him, shrieking, to the wooden crate in the wagon, there depositing him, fastening the door, and climbing into his seat with warm thanks to me for my aid.
I told the Brother to the Ox that he was welcome. Then, with heart serenely warmed by brotherly love and a knowledge of my own condescension, I retired to sleep soundly until Higgins came to shave me at eight o'clock next morning.
"Beg pardon, sir," said Higgins, stirring his lather as I returned from the bath to submit my chin to his razor "beg pardon, sir, but but the pig, sir "
"What pig?" I asked sharply. Had Higgins beheld me pursuing that midnight porker? And if he had, was he going to tell about it?
"What pig, sir? Why, the pig, sir."
"I do not understand you, Higgins," I said coldly.
"Beg pardon, sir, but Miss Alida asked me to tell you, that the pig "
"What pig?" I repeated exasperated.
"Why why ours, sir."
I turned to stare at him. "My pig?" I asked.
"Yes, sir he's gone, sir "
"Gone!" I thundered.
"Stolen, sir, out o' the pen last night."
Stunned, I could only stare at Higgins. Stolen? My pig? Last night?
"Some one," said Higgins, "went and opened that lovely fancy sty, sir; and the pig he bolted. It takes a handy thief to stop and steal a pig, sir. There must ha' been two on 'em to catch that pig!"
"Where's that miserable ruffian I hired to watch the sty?" I demanded hotly.
"He has gone back to work for Mr. Van Dieman, sir. His hands was all over black paint, and I see him a-wipin' of 'em onto your white picket fence."
The calmness of despair came over me. I saw it, now. I had been called out of bed to help catch my own pig. For nearly half an hour I had dodged about there in front of my own house, too stupid to suspect, too stupid even to recognize my own pig in the disguised and capricious porker shying and caracolling about in the moonlight. Good heavens! Van Dieman was right. A man who helps to steal his own pig is fit for nothing but Paris or a sanitarium.
"Shave me speedily, Higgins," I said. "I am not very well, and it is difficult for me to preserve sufficient composure to sit still. And, Higgins, it is not at all necessary for you to refer to that pig hereafter. You understand? Very well. Go to the telephone and call up the Cunard office."
Presently I was in communication with Bowling Green.
That morning in the breakfast-room, when I had kissed my daughter Alida, aged eighteen, and my daughter Dulcima, aged nineteen, the younger said: "Papa, do you know that our pig has been stolen?"
"Alida," I replied, "I myself disposed of him" which was the dreadful truth.
"You sold him?" asked Dulcima in surprise.
"N not exactly. These grape-fruit are too sour!"
"You gave him away?" inquired Alida.
"Yes after a fashion. Is this the same coffee we have been using? It has a peculiar "
"Who did you give him to?" persisted my younger child.
"A man."
"What man?"
"Nobody you know, child."
"But "
"Stop!" said I firmly. "It is a subject too complicated to discuss."
"Oh, pooh!" said Dulcima; "everybody discusses everything in Oyster Bay. And besides I want to know "
"About the pig!" broke in Alida.
"And that man to whom you gave the pig "
"Alida," said I, with misleading mildness, "how would you like to go to Paris?"
"Oh! papa "
"And you, Dulcima?"
"Darling papa!"
"When?" cried Alida.
"Wednesday," I replied with false urbanity.
"Oh! The darling!" they cried in rapture, and made toward me.
"Wait!" I said with a hideous smile. "We have not yet left Sandy Hook! And I solemnly promise you both that if either of you ever again ask me one question concerning that pig nay, if you so much as look askance at me over the breakfast bacon neither you nor I will ever leave Sandy Hook alive!"
They have kept their promises or I should never have trodden the deck of the S. S. Cambodia, the pride of the great Cunard Line, with my daughter Dulcima on one side and my daughter Alida on the other side of me, and my old friend Van Dieman waving me adieu from a crowded pier, where hundreds of handkerchiefs flutter in the breeze.
"Au revoir et bon voyage!" he called up to me.
"Toujours la politesse," I muttered, nodding sagely.
"That was a funny reply to make, papa," said Dulcima.
"Not at all," I replied, with animation; "to know a language is to know when to use its idioms." They both looked a little blank, but continued to wave their handkerchiefs.
"À bien-tôt!" called Alida softly, as the towering black sides of the steamer slipped along the wooden wharf.
Van Dieman raised his hat on the pier below, and answered: "À bien-tôt? C'est la mort, jusqu'à bien-tôt! Donc, vîve la vie, Mademoiselle!"
"There is no necessity in chattering like a Frenchman when you talk French," I observed to Alida. "Could you make out what Van Dieman said to you?"
"Y yes," she admitted, with a slight blush.
I glanced at Dulcima. There was a mischievous light in her blue eyes.
"Pooh!" I thought; "Van Dieman is forty if he's a day."
While the ship slid on past Castle William and poked her nose toward the forts at the Narrows, I watched the distant pier which we had left. It was still black with people, moving like ants. And, as I looked, I muttered ever: "Pooh! Van Dieman's forty. There's nothing in it, nothing in it, nothing whatever."