The Pig Slide, which was in one of the less noisy quarters of Luna Park,
consisted of an enclosure in which stood a wooden building of two
storeys, some five yards wide and three high. On the upper storey was a
row of six or eight cages, in each of which dwelt a little live pig, an
infant of a few weeks. In the middle of the row, descending to the
ground, was an inclined board, with raised edges, such as is often
installed in swimming-baths to make diving automatic, and beneath each
cage was a hole a foot in diameter. The spectators and participants
crowded outside the enclosure, and the thing was to throw balls, which
were hired for the purpose, into the holes. Nothing could exceed the
alert and eager interest taken by the little pigs in the efforts of the
ball-throwers. They quivered on their little legs; they pressed their
little noses against the bars of the cages; their little eyes sparkled;
their tails (the only public corkscrews left in America) curled and
uncurled and curled again: and with reason, for whereas if you missed--
as was only too easy--nothing happened: if you threw accurately the fun
began, and the fun was also theirs.
This is what occurred. First a bell rang and then a spring released the
door of the cage immediately over the hole which your ball had entered,
so that it swung open. The little pig within, after watching the
previous infirmity of your aim with dejection, if not contempt, had
pricked up his ears on the sound of the bell, and now smiled a gratified
smile, irresistible in infectiousness, and trotted out, and, with the
smile dissolving into an expression of absolute beatitude, slid
voluptuously down the plank: to be gathered in at the foot by an
attendant and returned to its cage all ready for another such adventure.
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