Waldo wondered dreamily as he stared why they were pleasant to look at.
Taken singly they were not beautiful; taken together they were. Was it not
because there was a certain harmony about them? The old sow was suited to
the little pigs, and the little pigs to their mother, the old boar to the
rotten pumpkin, and all to the mud. They suggested the thought of nothing
that should be added, of nothing that should be taken away. And, he
wondered on vaguely, was not that the secret of all beauty, that you who
look on-- So he stood dreaming, and leaned further and further over the
sod wall, and looked at the pigs.
All this time Bonaparte Blenkins was sloping down from the house in an
aimless sort of way; but he kept one eye fixed on the pigsty, and each
gyration brought him nearer to it. Waldo stood like a thing asleep when
Bonaparte came close up to him.
In old days, when a small boy, playing in an Irish street-gutter, he,
Bonaparte, had been familiarly known among his comrades under the title of
Tripping Ben; this, from the rare ease and dexterity with which, by merely
projecting his foot, he could precipitate any unfortunate companion on to
the crown of his head. Years had elapsed, and Tripping Ben had become
Bonaparte; but the old gift was in him still. He came close to the pigsty.
All the defunct memories of his boyhood returned on him in a flood, as,
with an adroit movement, he inserted his leg between Waldo and the wall and
sent him over into the pigsty.
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