me a matter of tremendous wonder
that a harmless biscuit-tin, a common or garden firework, and a
"domestic" pig could possibly combine to cause such intense excitement.

With very great difficulty I managed to pass the various pickets
stationed along the streets, being detained by each one for
cross-examination; and ere I reached my hotel I was overtaken by half a
company of _soldados_ returning to barracks with a prisoner. Then my
conscience began to prick me.

"This has gone rather too far," I thought. "I did not intend to do any
one an injury, but only desired to teach that wretched porker a lesson."
In fact, I felt distinctly uncomfortable as I trudged along, and
somewhat alarmed at this new turn of events; and I resolved that in the
future I would look ahead before attempting even the commonest practical
joke.

When I reached the spot where the next picket was stationed, I was
surprised to find that the men failed to challenge me. I was getting
quite used to the "Who goes there?" which had met me at every street
corner, and the absence of it in this case made me somewhat suspicious.
The explanation was not long in coming. I found them all in fits of
laughter; and, availing myself of the opportunity which their mirth
afforded me, I made inquiries as to the name of the prisoner who had
been marched past me a few minutes ago. My question provoked more
mirth, but I eventually secured the information, which had the effect of
adding my mirth to theirs, for I learned that the prisoner was--_a pig
with a tin tied to his leg_.

This pig, I was informed, was the cause of the whole alarm. There was no
attack--in fact, there was no enemy near enough to the town, as yet, to
indulge in an assault. All was a practical joke--some one had let this
pig loose with a biscuit-tin tied to his leg, and this had started the
alarm. The porker had been run down and lassoed by the military on the
outskirts of the town, so that it was all over now--_excepting that the
authorities were looking for the perpetrator_, or the originator of the
scare.

Realising now the extent of my folly, I, who hitherto had been laughing
up my sleeve at the discomfiture and alarm of others, was in my turn
genuinely alarmed, and all the way back to my hotel I was wondering as
to what would be my best course of action--foreseeing, whichever way I
turned for a solution, visions of heavy fines, probable imprisonment,
and possible banishment from the country al