say.--We'll come out and speak to him.--I'll come, boys, because
you may want to refer to me."

The little party followed the waiter out into the hall, where Ramball
was standing, hat in one hand, yellow handkerchief in the other, dabbing
his bald head and looking very much excited.

"Hah!" he cried. "There you are, gentlemen!" And he put his
handkerchief on the top of his head and made a movement as if to thrust
his hat into his pocket, but recollected himself and put the
handkerchief into the hat instead. "I have been up to the school,
gentlemen--Your servant, sir. I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I
have been up to the school to ask for the young gentlemen there, and I
saw Mr Wrench the Doctor's man, and he said that you had come on here
to dinner.--Pray, pray, gentlemen, come and help me, or I am a ruined
man."

"Why, what's the matter?" cried Singh and Glyn in a breath.

"Didn't you hear, gentlemen? He's got away again--pulled the iron
picket out of the ground, and gone off with the chain and all
chinkupping from his leg. I have got men out all over scouring the
country, and as soon as they have found out where he is I'd take it
kindly, gentlemen, if you'd come and bring him home."

"Come, come, my man," said the Colonel good-humouredly, "isn't this
rather cool?"

"Cool, sir! It's too hot to be borne. That great beast will be the
death of me before he's done. Do say a kind word for me, sir, to the
young gents. They have got a power over that beast as beats miracles.
I wouldn't ask, sir, but I'm about done. I should have shot him the
other day if these 'ere young gents hadn't stopped me and showed me, a
man of fifty, as has handled poisonous snakes and gone after lions
before now when they'd got out--showed me, I say, that I didn't
understand my work."

"Oh, well," said the Colonel, "I--I--"

At that moment the elephant's keeper and another man, a driver of one of
the caravans, hurried excitedly into the hotel hall, dragging between
them a miserable-looking object, drenched with mud and water, and
trembling in every limb.

"Mr Ramball, sir!" cried the keeper.

"What, have you found him?" cried the proprietor.

"No, sir; but we've come across this chap, as has got a cock-and-bull
story about something, and I think it means that he's seen him."

"Yes--what? Where? How?" cried Ramball, catching hold of the man by
the shoulders and letting go again directly, to dive into his hat for
his