The Washington herald., 1921-05-29
An Q. Henry Story
THE ETHICS OF PIG.

| ~ N an east-bound tram went
into the smoker and found
~ Jefferson Peters the only
man with a brain west Of the wa
bash River who can use his cere-
brum cerebellum. and medniia oo-
Iongata at the same time.
len is in the line OF uniiie gal
graft. He is not to be dreaded py
| widows and orphans: he Is a re-
Queer Of surplusage. His favorite
disguise il that of a target-bird at
which the spendthrift or the reck-
less investor may shy few incon-
seuuentiaI dollars. He Is readily vo-
caiized by tobacco; so, with the aid
of two thick and easy-burning bre-
vas, / got the story of his latest
Autolycan adventure
'In my line of business" said
JEFF, "the hardest thing is to find an
} upright, trustworthy. strictly hon
orable partner to work graft
with. Some of the best men i ever
worked with In a swindle would re-
sort to trickery at times.
so, last summer, ! thinks ! will
20 over into this section of country
where I hear the serpent has not
yet entered, and see II 1 can nnd a
partner naturally gifted with a tall
ent for crime. but not yet contami-
mated by success.
"I found a village that seemed to
show the right kind of layout.
The inhabitants hadn't found out
that Adam had been dispossessed.
and were going right along naming
the animals and killing snakes just
as IL they were, in the Garden OF
Eden They call this town Mount
Nebo. and it's up near the spot
where Kentucky and West Virginia
and North Carolina corner together.
Them States don't meet? Well. 1t
wigs in that neighborhood, anyway.
AFTER putting in a week proving
/ wasn't a revenue oficer. I went
over to the store where the rude
fourflushers of the hamlet lied. to
see If 1 could get a line on the kind
Of man / wanted.
Gentlemen says /, after we had
rubbed noses and gathered round
the dried-apple barrel. I don't sup
pose there's another community in
the whole world into which sin and
chicanery has less extensively per-
meated than this. Life here. where
all the women are brave and pro-
pitious and all the men honest and
expedient, must, indeed. be an idol.
1t reminds me- says /, of Goldstein's S
beautiful ballad entitled The De-
serted Village" which says:
Ill fares the land. to Fastening Ills
a prey;
What art can drive its charms
away?
The judge rode slowly down the
lane, mother.
For I'm to be Queen OF the May.
why. yes. Mr.. Peters says the
storekeeper. reckon we air about
as moral and torpid a community as
there be on the mounting, according
to censuses of opinion; but reckon
you amt ever met Rufe Tatum.'
why. no. says the town con-
stable, he can't hardly have ever.
That air Rufe is shore the mons
trousest scalawag that has escaped
hsngin' on the galluses- And that
puts me in mind that I ought to
have turned Rufe out of the lookup
day before yesterday. The thirty
days he got for KILN Vance Good
Ioe was up then A day or two more
won't hurt Rufe any, though
'Shucks, now says 1. in the
mountain idiom. don't tell me
there's a man in Mount Nebo as bad
as that
"worse.' says the storekeeper
He steals hogs
'I think 1 will look up this Mr.
| Tatum; so a day or two after the
constable turned him out 1 got ac-
uuainted with him and invited him
out on the edge of town to sit on a
| log and talk business.
What wanted was a partner
with a natural rural makeup to
play a part in some little one-act
outrages that / was going to book
with the Pitfall and Gin circuit in
some of the Western towns; and
this r. Tatum was born for the role
as sure as nature cast Fairbanks
for the stuff that kept Eliza from
| sinking into the river.
He was about the size of first
baseman; and he had ambiguous
blue eyes like the china dog on the
mantelpiece that Aunt Harriet used
| to play with when she was a child.
| His hair waved a little bit like the
statue of the dinkus-thrower In the
| Vacation at Rome, but the color OF
| il reminded you of the Sunset in
the Grand Canyon, by an American
Artist that they hang over the
| stove-pipe holes in the salongs. He
was the Reub, without needing a
| touch. You'd have known him for
one. even if you'd seen him on the
vaudeville stage with one cotton
suspender and a straw over his ear.
II told him what l wanted, and
found him ready to jump at the job.
Overlooking such a trivial little
narcadi1Io the habit of man
slaughter says /, what have you
accomplished in the way of indirect
brigandage or non-actionable thrift
mess that you could point to, with
or without pride, as an evidence of
your qualifications for the position?''
Why says he, in his kind of
Southern system of procrastinated
accents. hain't you heard tell?
There amt any man. black or white.
in the Blue Ridge that can tote of
bein' heard, seen, or cotched. can
pen, from under a porch, at the
trough, in the woods, day or night,
| anywhere or anyhow, and / guar
antee nobody won't hear a squeal.
It's all in the way you grab hold
of 'em and carry 'em afterwards.
Some day goes on this gentle de-
spoiler of pig-pens., I hope to be-
come reckernized as the champion
shoat-stealer of the world
It's proper to be ambitious,
says 1; and hog-stealing will do
very we'll for Mount Nebo; but in
the outside world, Mr.. NTatum, II
would be considered as crude a
/ uiece of businesz as hear roid IN