of this disaster: one discovered it at once
in the person of a mongrel terrier with pointed ears and a squirrel's
tail. The landlord rushed out from another door, and attempted to kick
him out of the room. Instead, he kicked one of the pigs, the fatter of
the two. It was a vigorous, well-planted kick, and the pig got the whole
of it; none of it was wasted. One felt sorry for the poor animal; but no
amount of sorrow anyone else might feel for him could compare with the
sorrow he felt for himself. He stopped running about; he sat down in the
middle of the room, and appealed to the solar system generally to observe
this unjust thing that had come upon him. They must have heard his
complaint in the valleys round about, and have wondered what upheaval of
nature was taking place among the hills.

As for the hen it scuttled, screaming, every way at once. It was a
marvellous bird: it seemed to be able to run up a straight wall quite
easily; and it and the cat between them fetched down mostly everything
that was not already on the floor. In less than forty seconds there were
nine people in that room, all trying to kick one dog. Possibly, now and
again, one or another may have succeeded, for occasionally the dog would
stop barking in order to howl. But it did not discourage him. Everything
has to be paid for, he evidently argued, even a pig and chicken hunt;
and, on the whole, the game was worth it.

Besides, he had the satisfaction of observing that, for every kick he
received, most other living things in the room got two. As for the
unfortunate pig--the stationary one, the one that still sat lamenting in
the centre of the room--he must have averaged a steady four. Trying to
kick this dog was like playing football with a ball that was never
there--not when you went to kick it, but after you had started to kick
it, and had gone too far to stop yourself, so that the kick had to go on
in any case, your only hope being that your foot would find something or
another solid to stop it, and so save you from sitting down on the floor
noisily and completely. When anybody did kick the dog it was by pure
accident, when they were not expecting to kick him; and, generally
speaking, this took them so unawares that, after kicking him, they fell
over him. And everybody, every half-minute, would be certain to fall
over the pig the sitting pig, the one incapable of getting out of
anybody's way.

How long the scrimmage might have