Paddy and Jack had a great friend near by in the person of one Patrick O’Grady, who farmed a small farm with an Irishman’s dilatoriness, helped therein by the two playmates. Paddy had sown seed for him, ploughed, harrowed, and dug potatoes—Jack likewise—both considering it their due, in return, to be consulted on all matters pertaining to the farm. This was how it came about that Paddy was mixed up in the sale of the pigs. She was at the farm when the disposal of those forty-five young pigs was discussed, and naturally took an active part in the impending decision. It was finally decided they should be sold by auction at the next market, and Paddy should mingle with the crowd—Jack also, if procurable,—to run up the prices. She also undertook to turn up the previous afternoon, bringing Jack with her, to help to catch the forty-five little pigs and put them in a wagon. When they arrived on the day in question they were first of all regaled with tea by Patrick O’Grady’s housekeeper, who was commonly called Dan’el, though whether from her transparent fearlessness of all things living, or because her enormous bulk was supported on feet that could only, under ordinary circumstances, belong to a big man, remains a mystery. Paddy had once remarked that if you were out in a storm with Dan’el it didn’t matter about having no umbrella, because if you got to the leeward side you were sheltered same as if you were up against a house, but that, of course, was a little of Paddy’s Irish exaggeration. Howbeit, having finished tea, the farmer piloted them all to the big barn into which he had driven the pigs ready for catching. “I thought we’d have ’em all together here,” he remarked, “but ’tis a pity there’s no door to close the entrance.” “Never mind,” said Paddy slyly, “Perhaps if there had been you couldn’t have got them in.” At which Patrick scratched his head and looked thoughtful a moment before he replied: “Why, no, begorra! I’d never thought o’ that; but how’s we goin’ to keep ’em in whiles we catches ’em?” “We must have Dan’el,” said Paddy promptly. “She shall be Horatio and keep the bridge,” whereupon poor Dan’el was duly installed to fill up the doorway with her accommodating bulk. Then began a rare scrimmage. Bound, and over, and through dashed those young pigs, with Paddy and Jack and Patrick after them—shrieking with laughter—till Paddy finally leaned up against the wall on the verge of hysterics and begged for a halt. “Don’t let me see Dan’el for a few minutes,” she prayed Jack. “Come and stand in front of me. When I see Dan’el rolling about in that doorway, like a German sausage on a pivot, it makes me feel as if I should burst.”