"True again," said Uncle Pumblechook. "You've hit it, sir! Plenty of
subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their
tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject,
if he's ready with his salt-box." Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short
interval of reflection, "Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you
want a subject, look at Pork!"
"True, sir. Many a moral for the young," returned Mr. Wopsle,--and I
knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; "might be deduced
from that text."
("You listen to this," said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.) Joe gave me some more gravy.
"Swine," pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork
at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,--"swine were
the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us,
as an example to the young." (I thought this pretty well in him who
had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) "What is
detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy."
"Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble.
"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably,
"but there is no girl present."
"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, "think what you've
got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker--"
"He was, if ever a child was," said my sister, most emphatically.
Joe gave me some more gravy.
"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you
had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you--"
"Unless in that form," said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.
"But I don't mean in that form, sir," returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had
an objection to being interrupted; "I mean, enjoying himself with his
elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and
rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he
wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?" turning on me
again. "You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according
to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have
come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you
under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock
to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have
shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a
bit of it!"