5.  Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs.  While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils unlike any scent which he had before experienced.

6.  What, could it proceed from?  Not from the burnt cottage,—­he had smelt that smell before,—­indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand.  Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower.  A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip.  He knew not what to think.

7.  He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it.  He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth.  Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world’s life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted—­crackling!  Again he felt and fumbled at the pig.  It did not burn him so much now; still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit.

8.  The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with a retributory cudgel, and, finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue’s shoulders as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies.

9.  His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue eusued: 

“You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring?  Is it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your dog’s tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what?  What have you got there, I say?”

“O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats!”

10.  The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror.  He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that he should ever have a son that should eat burnt pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and, fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, “Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father! only taste!  Oh!” with such like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.