“Yes. And I’d like to do a story on it for the Chronicle, if you don’t mind, Mr. Tubbs. A pig that drinks beer, that’ll make a nice little item, half a column maybe, and it’d be quite a scoop for me. I’ve just started the job, you see.”
“Who told you about this?” asked the farmer. “The police?”
“The police? No, I heard it in the Bull. What’s the pig’s name, by the way?”
“The Ace of Clubs.”
The reporter looked at the mark on the pig’s side.
“Oh, yes, I can see why,” he said. “If I write about it, it would be good publicity for you, Mr. Tubbs. You should get a really good price for him then.”
“I will never sell him,” said Farmer Tubbs. “He’s a pet. A house pig, that’s what he is.”
“That reminds me,” said the reporter. “You must have left your TV set running. No one answered the bell, so I went in through a side door and the pig was watching TV along with your dog and cat.”
“He enjoys a bit of telly,” said the farmer.
“That’ll make the story even better. You’ll be telling me next that he selects the channels and switches it on himself, ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha!” said Farmer Tubbs.
“By the way,” said the reporter, “the pig was sitting in an armchair, your armchair, I daresay.”
“Ah, now that explains something,” said the farmer. “Lately I said to myself, ‘Ted Tubbs, you must be putting on weight something cruel—the springs in this chair have gone flat. You’ll have to go on a diet,’ I said. Ah, well, that’s a relief.”
By now Ace had finished his supper. He stood and looked up at the two men with bright eyes that had in them a look of great intelligence, and when Farmer Tubbs said, “Did you enjoy that, old chap?” he grunted twice.
“Anyone would think he could understand what you were saying!” said the reporter.
If only you knew, thought the farmer, but you ain’t going to. You can write a piece about him having a drink or watching the telly, but nobody except me is ever going to know that my Ace do know every word that I do say to him. Folk would never believe it, anyway. They’d take me away from here and put me in the funny farm.
“You write your piece, young man,” he said, “and mind and let us have a copy.”
And sure enough, the very next day a copy of The Dummerset Chronicle was delivered to the farm.
A PIG IN A MILLION
Of all the pigs in England’s green and pleasant land, surely none can compare with the Ace of Clubs, belonging to local farmer Ted Tubbs.
Not only does Ace have the freedom of Mr. Tubbs’s picturesque old farmhouse, he also enjoys watching television, sitting at his ease in the farmer’s armchair.
The Ace of Clubs has been to market, but only as a passenger in Farmer Tubbs’s truck. Not only does his unusual pet enjoy the outing, he also savors a refreshing drink of beer at the market’s popular hostelry, the Bull Inn. But not for Ace the pint mug. He drinks his beer by the bucket.
“I’ll never part with him,” Farmer Tubbs told our reporter. “He’s a pig in a million.”
At lunchtime that day Ted Tubbs read this to Ace, who later translated it for Clarence and Megan and, that evening, for Nanny.
“I shall have to have that framed,” said the farmer, “and put on the wall alongside Megan’s prize cards. Pity they never done a photograph. I’d like to have a good one of you.”
The very next day farmer Tubbs’s wish was granted, for a phone call came from one of the national newspapers, wanting to send an interviewer and a photographer, and in due course a large section of the British public opened their copies of the Daily Reflector at breakfast time to see a fine picture of Ace, carefully positioned in profile to show his distinguishing mark to best advantage. The picture was accompanied by a generous if somewhat inaccurate piece which stated that Ace drank a gallon of beer with every meal, that he not only sat in an armchair but slept in the spare bed, and that his favorite programs were University Challenge and Mastermind.
But this was not all.
A week later the BBC called.
“Mr. Ted Tubbs?” said a voice.
“Speaking,” said the farmer.
“This is the producer of That’s the Way It Goes.”
“Oh, yes.”
“You have heard of the program, of course.”
“Can’t say I have.”
“You haven’t heard of That’s the Way It Goes, presented by Hester Jantzen on Sunday evenings at nine thirty?”
“Oh, bless you, young man, I don’t watch telly that time of night. I be abed by nine. I has to get up early to milk the cows. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wise if it don’t make him wealthy.”
“Well, this won’t exactly make you wealthy, Mr. Tubbs,” said the producer, “but we can offer you a fee and certainly pay all your expenses for first-class travel and four-star accommodations if you and your pig would be willing to come to London.”
“Whatever for?”
“Why, to appear on That’s the Way It Goes. Hester Jantzen is greatly looking forward to interviewing you both.”
“Well, I never!” said Farmer Tubbs. “Did you ever?”
A Pig on the Stage
A LITTLE LATER there came a letter from the BBC, giving the date and time and various arrangements. Farmer Tubbs told Ace all about it, and afterward Ace told his friends.
“What d’you think!” he said excitedly to Clarence and Megan. “Ted and I are going to London!”
“To see the queen, is it?” cried Megan.
“No, no, we’re going to be on the telly. Just think, you’ll be able to sit here and see us on the box.”
“Except that we can’t switch the thing on,” said Clarence.
“I’ll show you how to do it, Clarence,” said Ace. “Look, just put your paw on this knob—where it says ‘one’—and push. See?”
“How in the world are you going to get to London, Ace?” asked Megan. “It’s a long way, look you.”
“Oh, the BBC is arranging everything,” said Ace. “They’re sending one of the station wagons that their film crews use—Volvos they are, you’ve seen them in commercials. There’ll be loads of room for me in the back—and that will take us straight to the studios. Then when we’ve done the program, they’ve booked a room for Ted for the night, in ever such a posh place.”
“Buckingham Palace?” said Megan.
“No, no, a big hotel near Regent’s Park.”
“Where will you sleep?” asked Clarence.
“Well,” said Ace, “they seemed to think I might not be happy in the hotel, so I will be sleeping in the London Zoo. Remember, you’ve seen pictures of it on the telly? And in the zoo they have what they call Pets’ Corner. That’s where I’m going. And then the next morning we’ll be picked up and driven back home again.”
“That’s all very well,” said Megan with a return of some of her old spirit, “but who’ll be looking after us?” (And by “us,” she meant, of course, herself.)
“One of Ted’s friends is coming in,” said Ace, “to do the milking on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning and feed all the animals. It’ll be a lovely break for Ted.”
Because for many months now the dog and cat had had so much explained to them of what appeared on television, they were able to imagine what Ace would be doing. But trying to explain things to Nanny was not so easy.
“They’re going to put me on the television,” he said to her that evening after supper.
Nanny of course had never in her long life set hoof inside the farmhouse, so that the only idea of the television she had was what Ace had originally told her—that it was a big box with one side nearly all glass, like a window.
“Put you on the television?” she said. “But surely you’ll smash the thing? It’ll never bear your weight.”
Ace tried his best to explain to the old goat all that was going to happen, but many of the words he used—“Volvo,” “London,” “studio,�
� “cameras,” “hotel,” “zoo”—meant nothing to her.
“Oh, well, just as long as you enjoy yourself, Ace dear,” she said, “that’s all that matters.”
And enjoy himself the Ace of Clubs most certainly did when the day came.
—
What a day it was!
First there was the journey. Ace’s trips in Ted Tubbs’s rattle-bang old pickup truck had not prepared him for the luxury of travel in a huge modern warm silent comfortable car speeding eastward along the expressway, and because of his modest ability in reading and numbers and his interest in road-safety programs on the television, there were many signs and billboards that caught his eye. One, though, at a roadworks, puzzled him. DEAD S OW, it said, and the missing L led him to fear the worst.
Oh, but when they reached London—the streets, the houses, all the thousands of buildings! Their numbers filled him with amazement. In all his six months of life he had only been in two houses, a private one—the farmhouse—and a public one—the Bull Inn—and he stared in wonder at the acres of concrete and tar.
But London, he could see, was not completely built over. There were a number of large grassy spaces with fine trees, and as they passed through one of these parks Farmer Tubbs asked the driver to stop for a moment. It occurred to him that this Hester Jantzen person might not be pleased if Ace had an accident during the interview, so he let Ace out for a little walk.
Then at last they arrived at BBC Studios!
How the onlookers gaped as the pair of them stepped from the staff car to make their entry.
Ted Tubbs was dressed to the nines. Bathed and shaved so closely that his chins bore several little cuts, he had attired himself in his best. Not only was his shirt clean but it had attached to it something he normally never wore—a collar. Moreover, he had put on his one and only tie (a black one, so useful for funerals), and in place of boots he was shod in a pair of old but well-polished black leather dress shoes.
But the crowning glory was his suit. It was his only suit, of a color best described as sky-blue, which he had bought as a young man. There was no hope of buttoning the jacket, though by letting out the backstraps of the vest he had been able to button that up. As to the trousers, most of the buttons were safely in position, and where the top ones refused to meet he wore, concealed beneath the vest, a carefully attached short piece of binder twine.
And if the man was at his smartest, what of the pig?
Ace positively shone. Not only had Farmer Tubbs hosed him down and soaped and scrubbed him all over, but when the soap was rinsed away and Ace had dried in the sunshine, the farmer had produced a big bottle of vegetable oil and greased the pig all over.
Gleamingly clean, the single mark on his left side showing up more blackly than ever under its sheen, Ace marched proudly into the reception area at his master’s heels, and they were conducted to the hospitality room.
Farmer Tubbs was asked what he would like to drink.
“You won’t be on camera for a while yet,” his hosts said. “So can we offer you some refreshment?”
It being Sunday, Ted had had his quart of cider before lunch, as usual, but he felt thirsty after the journey, and anyway it struck him that a drink might lend him courage, for he was nervous.
“Well, thank you,” he said. “I’ll have a half pint of scrumpy.”
“Pardon?” they said.
“Cider,” he said. “Dummerset cider. We come up from Dummerset where the cider apples grow. And the pig’ll have a pint of your best bitter.”
Farmer Tubbs’s cider, when they brought it, was horrid weak sweet stuff, but Ace had no complaints about the beer. They poured it into a bowl for him, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. But he remembered Nanny’s words—“A little of what you like does you good. But you can have too much of a good thing.” And when they offered him another pint, he gave just one grunt.
“He don’t want no more,” said Farmer Tubbs. “And neither do I.”
For a while longer they waited in the hospitality room (whence all but they had fled). Farmer Tubbs grew steadily more nervous. The sweet cider had done him no good. Ace, on the other hand, was on top of the world. The pint of beer had made him feel happy and carefree, and he could not wait to go in front of the cameras. The fact that millions of people would be watching did not worry him, because he didn’t realize that they would be. He was simply thinking of Clarence and Megan at home, hoping that Clarence would remember to turn on the TV, and only sorry that dear old Nanny wouldn’t see him.
So that when they came to the hospitality room to tell Ted Tubbs it was time to go on stage, Ace hurried out ahead of his master. Brushing past the guide who was to take them to the set of That’s the Way It Goes, he heard a woman’s voice saying, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce…”
That’s me, Ace thought, and pushing through some curtains, he arrived onstage just as a woman with her back to him completed her introduction.
“…Farmer Ted Tubbs!”
There was a huge roar of laughter from the studio audience as a large pig appeared.
Hester Jantzen clapped her hand to her mouth in astonished embarrassment, and a second roar of laughter came as Farmer Tubbs, helped on his reluctant way by a push, arrived on the stage looking, apart from his clothes, like the pig’s twin brother.
Hester Jantzen took her hand from her mouth and smiled, revealing, Ace could see, a fine set of teeth. She was dressed in a silk dress of a shade of emerald-green that clashed horribly with the farmer’s sky-blue suit, and for a moment it seemed as though a clash of a different kind might occur, for Farmer Tubbs did not know why everyone was laughing at him, and whatever the reason, he did not like it. Already nervous and uncomfortable in his too-tight clothes, he now felt the heat of the studio lights, and his red face turned redder still.
Hester Jantzen, professional to her painted fingertips, took command of the situation. Gliding forward, she shook the farmer’s large sweaty hand and with another flashing smile said, “Welcome to That’s the Way It Goes, Mr. Tubbs. How good of you to come and to bring your famous pig, the Ace of Clubs.”
She turned to the camera. “Many of you watching,” she said, “will have read in the newspapers about Farmer Tubbs’s pet, Ace to his friends. We’ve had some unusual animals on That’s the Way It Goes before, but never one as big, I think.”
She made a half move as though to give Ace a pat as he stood patiently in the middle of the stage, but the sheen of oil on his bristly back deterred her, not to mention his size.
“He’s a whopper, Mr. Tubbs,” she said with a light laugh. “How heavy is he?”
“Ten score,” grunted the farmer.
“Ten score? What does that mean?”
Farmer Tubbs took out a large, polka-dotted handkerchief and mopped his streaming brow. These London folk, he thought angrily, they don’t know nothing.
“Don’t you know what a score is, young woman?” he said.
“Why, yes. Twenty.”
“Well, now we’re getting somewhere,” said Farmer Tubbs. “A score be twenty pound, so ten score be two hundred. Not difficult, is it, really?”
The audience roared.
Now they were laughing at her, not him, and he sensed this. He began to think he might enjoy himself, and Hester Jantzen sensed that.
“Silly me!” she said. “Tell us some more about him. I’m told he likes a drink of beer. Would he like one now?”
“He’s had one, out the back,” said Farmer Tubbs. “That’s enough to be going on with.”
Hester Jantzen put on her most roguish smile.
“Just as well,” she said. “We don’t want this little piggy to go wee-wee-wee all the way home.”
“Don’t you fret, young woman,” said Ted Tubbs. “He’m housebroken, like you and me.”
When Hester Jantzen could speak above the studio audience’s laughter, she said, “I’m told that the Ace of Clubs does a number of remarkable things, apart from beer drinking,
such as sitting in an armchair and watching television.”
“He’s a extraordinary animal,” said the farmer.
“I can see that. People don’t realize how knowing pigs are. I believe it was Sir Winston Churchill who said ‘A dog looks up to man, a cat looks down to man, but a pig will look you in the eye and see his equal.’ ”
“He knowed a thing or two, old Winnie did,” said Farmer Tubbs. “You have a good look in Ace’s eyes, young woman. You’ll see what he meant.”
Gamely Hester Jantzen forced herself to approach the Ace of Clubs. They stared at each other, and it was she who looked away first.
“He has a look of great intelligence,” she said a little shakily. “Tell us, Mr. Tubbs, what else can Ace do?”
“Whatever I wants him to.”
“You mean, like sitting down or lying down or coming when he’s called?”
“Them’s easy things,” said the farmer. “Sit down, Ace,” and Ace sat down.
“Take the weight off your feet, my lad.” And Ace lay down—on his left side, as it happened.
There was loud applause from the studio audience, and Hester Jantzen clapped her hands.
“Roll over, Ace,” said Farmer Tubbs, “and show them how you got your name.”
As Ace obeyed, one of the camera operators quickly zoomed in to show a closeup of that extremely unusual single black marking for all the millions of viewers to see.
“Good boy,” said Farmer Tubbs. “Now, in a minute or two, I want you to go over to Miss Wassername there and say ‘Thank you for having me.” ’
“You’re not going to tell me,” the host said, giggling, “that Ace can speak!”
“No, nor fly neither,” said the farmer, “but he’ll shake hands with you. Go on, Ace, say thank you to the lady.”
And then, before the wondering gaze of the studio audience and all the viewers across the length and breadth of England who were watching That’s the Way It Goes, the Ace of Clubs walked solemnly across the stage and, sitting down on his haunches, raised one forefoot and politely offered his trotter to Hester Jantzen.
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