d 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 hailstones, which
Bo-bo headed 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 that he might feel in those remote
quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig
till he had made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of
his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued:

"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."

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed
himself that ever he should beget 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--O Lord!" with suchlike barbarous
ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing,
wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young
monster, when the crackling scorched his fingers, as it had done his
son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of
its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved
not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion, both father and s