magnitude of that which it has to encounter. The truth is, they were
scandalous hypocrites; for with the most prodigious capacity for food,
they were spare as philosophers, and fitted evidently more for the chase
than the sty; rather to run down a buck or a hare for the larder, than
to have a place in it themselves. If you starved them, they defied you
to diminish their flesh; and if you stuffed them like aldermen, they
took all they got, but disdained to carry a single ounce more than
if you gave them whey thickened with water. In short, they gloried in
maceration and liberty; were good Irish scholars, sometimes acquainted
with Latin; and their flesh, after the trouble of separating it from a
superfluity of tough skin, was excellent venison so far as it went.

Now Phil Purcel, whom we will introduce more intimately to the reader by
and by, was the son of a man who always kept a pig.

His father's house had a small loft, to which the ascent was by a
step-ladder through a door in the inside gable. The first good thing
ever Phil was noticed for he said upon the following occasion. His
father happened to be called upon, one morning before breakfast, by his
landlord, who it seems occasionally visited his tenantry to encourage,
direct, stimulate, or reprove them, as the case might require. Phil was
a boy then, and sat on the hob in the corner, eyeing the landlord and
his father during their conversation. In the mean time the pig came in,
and deliberately began to ascend the ladder with an air of authority
that marked him as one in the exercise of an established right. The
landlord was astonished at seeing the animal enter the best room in the
house and could not help expressing his surprise to old Purcel:

"Why, Purcel, is your pig in the habit of treating himself to the
comforts of your best room?"