hat was of much more
importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in
number, perished.

China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East, from the
remotest periods that we read of. 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. What could it proceed
from?--not from the burned 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. He next stooped down to feel
the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned 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.

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 new-born 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 retributory cudgel, and
finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's
shoulders, as thick as hail stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more
than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure which he
experienced in his lower regions had rendered him quite callous to any
inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. 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