he officer's heels, and had I not caught him, he
would have come souse on the deck. Even as it was, he indulged in a
growl, and muttered out,--

"You see, sir, what your yielding to such whims brings upon us."

I said nothing, and only took care in future to caution my friends to
mind their footing when Jean was summoned aft, which, I allow, was
very often; for there was no resisting the exhibition to all strangers
of such a patent pet as this. To the Chinese in particular our comical
favourite became an object of the highest admiration, for the natives
of the celestial empire soon recognized in this happiest of swine the
celebrated breed of their own country. Many a broad hint I got as to
the acceptable nature of such a present, but I was deaf to them all;
for I felt that Jean now belonged more to the ship's company than to
myself, and that there was a sort of obligation upon me neither to eat
her nor to give her away.

Under this tacit guarantee she gained so rapidly in size, fat, and
other accomplishments, that, on our return to China, after visiting
Loo Choo and other islands of the Japan Sea, the gentlemen of the
factory would hardly credit me that this huge monster was the same
animal. In talking of Jean's accomplishments, I must not be understood
to describe her as a learned pig; for she could neither play cards,
solve quadratic equations, nor perform any of those feats which
enchant and astonish the eyes of the citizens of London and elsewhere,
where many dogs and hogs are devoutly believed to be vested with a
degree of intelligence rather above than below the average range of
human intellect. Far from this, honest Jean could do little or nothing
more than eat, drink, sleep, and grunt; in which respects she was
totally unrivalled, and the effect of her proficiency in these
characteristic qualities became daily more manifest. At first, as I
have mentioned, when her name was called from any part of the ship,
she would caper along, and dash impetuously up to the group by whom
she was summoned. But after a time she became so excessively fat and
lazy that it required many a call to get her to move, and the offer of
a slice of pine-apple, or a handful of lychees, or even the delicious
mangosteen, was now hardly enough to make her open her eyes, though in
the early stages of the voyage she had been but too thankful for a
potato, or the skin of an apple. As she advanced in fatness, she lost
altogether the power of wa