Pigs is Pigs | Page 7

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 began packing them.
"Stop sending pigs. Warehouse full," came a telegram to Flannery. He stopped packing only long enough to wire back, "Can't stop," and kept on sending them. On the next train up from Franklin came one of the company's inspectors. He had instructions to stop the stream of guinea-pigs at all hazards. As his train drew up at Westcote station he saw a cattle car standing on the express company's siding. When he reached the express office he saw the express wagon backed up to the door. Six boys were carrying bushel baskets full of guinea- pigs from the office and dumping them into the wagon. Inside the room Flannery, with' his coat and vest off, was shoveling 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 snort of anger.
"Wan wagonload more an, I'll be 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' me. Nixt toime I'll know that pigs of whaiver nationality is domistic pets--an' go at the lowest rate. "
He began shoveling again rapidly, speaking quickly between breaths.
"Rules may be rules, but you can't fool Mike Flannery twice wid the same thrick--whin ut comes 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 cints."
He paused long enough to let one of the boys put an empty basket in the place of the one he had just filled. 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 ut might be. What if thim dago pigs had been elephants!"

End of Project Gutenberg Etext of "Pigs is Pigs," by Ellis Parker Butler

Pigs is Pigs

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