‘A fine morning for the hounds,’ said a passing rustic by way of salutation, but Samuel Chumney responded only with a sulky nod. He did not care for the hounds. He looked upon all field sports as waste and foolishness, and considered it man’s proper avocation all over the world to sit upon a high stool in a counting-house and add up columns of figures. He felt a half-scornful tolerance for soldiers and sailors, as needed to protect commerce, and defend the rights of the men who sat in counting-houses. But for all other grades of humanity he had only contempt. Even for Mr. Chumney’s long legs it was a two hours’ walk from the town to the village, so, although he had started directly after his breakfast, it was nearly eleven o’clock when he arrived at the Park. Mr. Piper was walking up and down the lawn in front of his drawing-room windows, smoking his morning cigar. ‘Holloa, Chum,’ he exclaimed, ‘what wind blows you this way? Come over to have a look at the farm, have you? The pigs are doing beautifully. I feel pretty sure of a prize for some of ’em. It’s as much as they can do to stand already. Take anything after your walk? No? Well, I know what a sober old file you are. Come round and have a look at the pigs.’ Mr. Piper put his arm through Chumney’s, and led him towards the farm, which was shut off from the park and gardens by shrubberies and a fir plantation. ‘Hang your pigs!’ cried Chumney. ‘To my eye a prize pig is the most hideous object in creation. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ought to interfere. They’re down upon a costermonger for over-driving his donkey, but they don’t say a word against a nobleman for making an animal’s existence a slow martyrdom, by gorging it with oil-cake until its legs refuse to carry the weight of its overfed carcass.’ Mr. Piper, elated with the anticipation of a prize at the Christmas Cattle Show, was in no humour to give ear to the voice of humanity on the lips of his old cashier. ‘Come and have a look at the pigs, Chum, and don’t you take to preaching sermons in your old age. It ain’t oil-cake either, old boy. It’s milk and meal, and the pork will eat as tender as a chicken and as mellow as a William pear. Do you suppose the animals are unhappy? Not a bit of it. They’re no more unhappy than an alderman who over-eats himself with turtle and venison. And as to their not being able to stand, why, I’ve seen Porkman and Timperley many a time after dinner when they’ve not been able to stand, and they were as happy as lords.’ They had arrived at the pigsties by this time, and Mr. Chumney was regaled with the sight of various mountains of pinky flesh, out of whose tremulous bulk issued smothered gruntings as a sole indication of life. Here and there something like an ear was to be seen pendent from a hillock of bristly pinkness, but Mr. Chumney looked in vain for an eye. The organs of sight had disappeared under pendulous ridges of fat.