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Updated: June 11, 2025
There may have been other causes of offence; the horse was the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was very angry; but Pinecoffin laughed and said that he had never guaranteed the beast's manners. Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that he would write off his fall against Pinecoffin if he waited five years.
Pinecoffin being a Civilian and wishing to do things thoroughly, began with an essay on the Primitive Pig, the Mythology of the Pig, and the Dravidian Pig. Nafferton filed that information twenty-seven foolscap sheets and wanted to know about the distribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and how it stood the Plains in the hot weather.
Nafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent it, with the essay on the Dravidian Pig, to a down-country paper, which printed both in full. Many friends cut out these remarks and sent them to Pinecoffin. I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of a soft stock. This last stroke frightened and shook him.
Nafferton watched him, and thought about the horse. Nafferton said: "See me chase that boy till he drops!" I said: "You can't get your knife into an Assistant Commissioner." Nafferton told me that I did not understand the administration of the Province. Our Government is rather peculiar.
A very fair imitation can be manufactured by neglecting to dress decently, by mooning about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by taking office-work home after staying in office till seven, and by receiving crowds of native gentlemen on Sundays. That is one sort of "earnestness." Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang his earnestness, and for a string that would communicate with Pinecoffin.
From this point onwards, remember that I am giving you only the barest outlines of the affair the guy-ropes, as it were, of the web that Nafferton spun round Pinecoffin. Nafferton filed that, and asked what sort of people looked after Pig. This started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, and drew from Pinecoffin long tables showing the proportion per thousand of the caste in the Derajat.
Between those spades and Nafferton's Pig, Pinecoffin was rather heavily burdened. Pinecoffin replied exhaustively that the exotic Pig would become merged in the indigenous type; and quoted horse-breeding statistics to prove this. The side-issue was debated, at great length on Pinecoffin's side, till Nafferton owned that he had been in the wrong, and moved the previous question.
He could not understand it; but he felt he had been, somehow, shamelessly betrayed by Nafferton. He realized that he had wrapped himself up in the Pigskin without need, and that he could not well set himself right with his Government. All his acquaintances asked after his "nebulous discursiveness" or his "blatant self-sufficiency," and this made him miserable.
So the Government wrote on the back of the letter: "Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin to furnish Mr. Nafferton with any information in his power." Government is very prone to writing things on the backs of letters which, later, lead to trouble and confusion. Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap.
Pinecoffin wrote that pomegranate-seed was the best cure for hog-skin, and suggested for the past fourteen months had wearied him that Nafferton should "raise his pigs before he tanned them." Nafferton went back to the second section of his fifth question.
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