The narrator is a widower with two daughters, living happily into a rather troubling middle age and pushing away his daughter's suitors so that his daughters would live with him a little longer. A younger neighbor persuades him to buy a pig and then bets that the boredom of life has so eclipsed his intelligence that he won't be smart enough to stop someone from stealing it. If the narrator loses the bet, he will jump out of his rut by going to Paris.