“Filthy!” replied Mrs. Purcel, who felt herself called upon to defend the character of the pig, as well as her own, “why, one would think, sir, that any crathur that’s among Christyen childhre, like one o’ themselves, couldn’t be filthy.  I could take it to my dyin’ day, that there’s not a claner or dacenter pig in the kingdom, than the same pig.  It never misbehaves, the crathur, but goes out, as wise an’ riglar, jist by a look, an’ that’s enough for it, any day—­a single look, your haner, the poor crathur!”

“I think,” observed Phil, from the hob, “that nobody has a betther right to the run of the house, whedher up stairs or down stairs, than him that pays the rint.”

“Well said, my lad!” observed the landlord, laughing at the quaint ingenuity of Phil’s defence.  “His payment of the rent is the best defence possible, and no doubt should cover a multitude of his errors.”

“A multitude of his shins, you mane, sir,” said Phil, “for thruth he’s all shin.”

In fact, Phil from his infancy had an uncommon attachment to these animals, and by a mind naturally shrewd and observing, made himself as intimately acquainted with their habits and instincts, and the best modes of managing them, as ever the celebrated Cahir na Cappul* did with those of the horse.  Before he was fifteen, he could drive the most vicious and obstinate pig as quietly before him as a lamb; yet no one knew how, nor by what means he had gained the secret that enabled him to do it.  Whenever he attended a fair, his time was principally spent among the pigs, where he stood handling, and examining, and pretending to buy them, although he seldom had half-a-crown in his pocket.  At length, by hoarding up such small sums as he could possibly lay his hand on, he got together the price of a “slip,” which he bought, reared, and educated in a manner that did his ingenuity great credit.  When this was brought to its ne plus ultra of fatness, he sold it, and purchased two more, which he fed in the same way.  On disposing of these, he made a fresh purchase, and thus proceeded, until, in the course of a few years, he was a well-known pig-jobber.

* I subjoin from Townsend’s Survey of the county of Cork a short but authentic account of this most extraordinary character:—­“James Sullivan was a native of the county of Cork, and an awkward ignorant rustic of the lowest class, generally known by the appellation of the Whisperer, and his profession was horse- breaking.  The credulity of the vulgar bestowed that epithet upon him, from an opinion that he communicated his wishes to the animal by means of a whisper; and the singularity of his method gave some color to the superstitious belief.  As far as the sphere of his control extended, the boast of Veni, Vidi, Vici, was more justly claimed by James Sullivan, than by Caesar, or even Bonaparte himself.  How his art was acquired, or in what it consisted, is likely