Pigs is Pigs Read online

He read it again and became serious.

  "By George!" he said, "Flannery is right, 'pigs is pigs.' I'll have toget authority on this thing. Meanwhile, Miss Kane, take this letter:Agent, Westcote, N. J. Regarding shipment guinea-pigs, File No. A6754.Rule 83, General Instruction to Agents, clearly states that agentsshall collect from consignee all costs of provender, etc., etc.,required for live stock while in transit or storage. You will proceed tocollect same from consignee."

  Flannery received this letter next morning, and when he read it hegrinned.

  "Proceed to collect," he said softly. "How thim clerks do loike to betalkin'! Me proceed to collect two dollars and twinty-foive cints offMisther Morehouse! I wonder do thim clerks know Misther Morehouse?I'll git it! Oh, yes! 'Misther Morehouse, two an' a quarter, plaze.''Cert'nly, me dear frind Flannery. Delighted!' Not!"

  Flannery drove the express wagon to Mr. Morehouse's door. Mr. Morehouseanswered the bell.

  "Ah, ha!" he cried as soon as he saw it was Flannery. "So you've come toyour senses at last, have you? I thought you would! Bring the box in."

  "I hev no box," said Flannery coldly. "I hev a bill agin Misther JohnC. Morehouse for two dollars and twinty-foive cints for kebbages aten byhis dago pigs. Wud you wish to pay ut?"

  "Pay--Cabbages--!" gasped Mr. Morehouse. "Do you mean to say that twolittle guinea-pigs--"

  "Eight!" said Flannery. "Papa an' mamma an' the six childer. Eight!"

  For answer Mr. Morehouse slammed the door in Flannery's face. Flannerylooked at the door reproachfully.

  "I take ut the con-sign-y don't want to pay for thim kebbages," he said."If I know signs of refusal, the con-sign-y refuses to pay for wan dangkebbage leaf an' be hanged to me!"

  Mr. Morgan, the head of the Tariff Department, consulted the presidentof the Interurban Express Company regarding guinea-pigs, as to whetherthey were pigs or not pigs. The president was inclined to treat thematter lightly.

  "What is the rate on pigs and on pets?" he asked.

  "Pigs thirty cents, pets twenty-five," said Morgan.

  "Then of course guinea-pigs are pigs," said the president.

  "Yes," agreed Morgan, "I look at it that way, too. A thing that can comeunder two rates is naturally due to be classed as the higher. But areguinea-pigs, pigs? Aren't they rabbits?"

  "Come to think of it," said the president, "I believe they are more likerabbits. Sort of half-way station between pig and rabbit. I think thequestion is this--are guinea-pigs of the domestic pig family? I'll askprofessor Gordon. He is authority on such things. Leave the papers withme."

  The president put the papers on his desk and wrote a letter to ProfessorGordon. Unfortunately the Professor was in South America collectingzoological specimens, and the letter was forwarded to him by his wife.As the Professor was in the highest Andes, where no white man had everpenetrated, the letter was many months in reaching him. The presidentforgot the guinea-pigs, Morgan forgot them, Mr. Morehouse forgot them,but Flannery did not. One-half of his time he gave to the duties ofhis agency; the other half was devoted to the guinea-pigs. Long beforeProfessor Gordon received the president's letter Morgan received onefrom Flannery.

  "About them dago pigs," it said, "what shall I do they are great infamily life, no race suicide for them, there are thirty-two now shallI sell them do you take this express office for a menagerie, answerquick."

  Morgan reached for a telegraph blank and wrote:

  "Agent, Westcote. Don't sell pigs."

  He then wrote Flannery a letter calling his attention to the fact thatthe pigs were not the property of the company but were merely being heldduring a settlement of a dispute regarding rates. He advised Flannery totake the best possible care of them.

  Flannery, letter in hand, looked at the pigs and sighed. The dry-goodsbox cage had become too small. He boarded up twenty feet of the rearof the express office to make a large and airy home for them, and wentabout his business. He worked with feverish intensity when out on hisrounds, for the pigs required attention and took most of his time. Somemonths later, in desperation, he seized a sheet of paper and wrote"160" across it and mailed it to Morgan. Morgan returned it asking forexplanation. Flannery replied:

  "There be now one hundred sixty of them dago pigs, for heavens sake letme sell off some, do you want me to go crazy, what."

  "Sell no pigs," Morgan wired.

  Not long after this the president of the express company received aletter from Professor Gordon. It was a long and scholarly letter, butthe point was that the guinea-pig was the Cava aparoea while the commonpig was the genius Sus of the family Suidae. He remarked that they wereprolific and multiplied rapidly.

  "They are not pigs," said the president, decidedly, to Morgan. "Thetwenty-five cent rate applies."

  Morgan made the proper notation on the papers that had accumulated inFile A6754, and turned them over to the Audit Department. The AuditDepartment took some time to look the matter up, and after the usualdelay wrote Flannery that as he had on hand one hundred and sixtyguinea-pigs, the property of consignee, he should deliver them andcollect charges at the rate of twenty-five cents each.

  Flannery spent a day herding his charges through a narrow opening intheir cage so that he might count them.

  "Audit Dept." he wrote, when he had finished the count, "you are way offthere may be was one hundred and sixty dago pigs once, but wake up don'tbe a back number. I've got even eight hundred, now shall I collectfor eight hundred or what, how about sixty-four dollars I paid out forcabbages."

  It required a great many letters back and forth before the AuditDepartment was able to understand why the error had been made of billingone hundred and sixty instead of eight hundred, and still more time forit to get the meaning of the "cabbages."

  Flannery was crowded into a few feet at the extreme front of theoffice. The pigs had all the rest of the room and two boys were employedconstantly attending to them. The day after Flannery had counted theguinea-pigs there were eight more added to his drove, and by the timethe Audit Department gave him authority to collect for eight hundredFlannery had given up all attempts to attend to the receipt or thedelivery of goods. He was hastily building galleries around the expressoffice, tier above tier. He had four thousand and sixty-four guinea-pigsto care for! More were arriving daily.

  Immediately following its authorization the Audit Department sentanother letter, but Flannery was too busy to open it. They wrote anotherand then they telegraphed:

  "Error in guinea-pig bill. Collect for two guinea-pigs, fifty cents.Deliver all to consignee."

  Flannery read the telegram and cheered up. He wrote out a bill asrapidly as his pencil could travel over paper and ran all the way to theMorehouse home. At the gate he stopped suddenly. The house stared athim with vacant eyes. The windows were bare of curtains and he could seeinto the empty rooms. A sign on the porch said, "To Let." Mr. Morehousehad moved! Flannery ran all the way back to the express office.Sixty-nine guinea-pigs had been born during his absence. He ran outagain and made feverish inquiries in the village. Mr. Morehouse had notonly moved, but he had left Westcote. Flannery returned to the expressoffice and found that two hundred and six guinea-pigs had entered theworld since he left it. He wrote a telegram to the Audit Department.

  "Can't collect fifty cents for two dago pigs consignee has left townaddress unknown what shall I do? Flannery."

  The telegram was handed to one of the clerks in the Audit Department,and as he read it he laughed.

  "Flannery must be crazy. He ought to know that the thing to do is toreturn the consignment here," said the clerk. He telegraphed Flannery tosend the pigs to the main office of the company at Franklin.

  When Flannery received the telegram he set to work. The six boys hehad engaged to help him also set to work. They worked with the haste ofdesperate men, making cages out of soap boxes, cracker boxes, and allkinds of boxes, and as fast as the cages were completed they filled themwith guinea-pigs and expressed them to Franklin. Day after day the cagesof guineapigs flowed in
a steady stream from Westcote to Franklin,and still Flannery and his six helpers ripped and nailed andpacked--relentlessly and feverishly. At the end of the week they hadshipped two hundred and eighty cases of guinea-pigs, and there were inthe express office seven hundred and four more pigs than when they beganpacking them.

  "Stop sending pigs. Warehouse full," came a telegram to Flannery. Hestopped packing only long enough to wire back, "Can't stop," and kepton sending them. On the next train up from Franklin came one ofthe company's inspectors. He had instructions to stop the stream ofguinea-pigs at all hazards. As his train drew up at Westcote stationhe saw a cattle car standing on the