hat when I got to the stable door there he was, all eyes and
whiskers, and growling at you like thunder. I knowed what my work was,
sir," continued the proprietor, addressing his conversation entirely to
Morris, "and you can ask my men, sir; they was there."

"Ay, ay, ay!" was growled.

"It warn't the time for showing no white feathers when a lion's got his
monkey up like that. I brought my gun with me--fine old flint-lock
rifle it is, and I got it now--and the next minute that there dead horse
had got a dead lion lying beside him. But I sold his skin to a gent for
a ten-pun note, to have it stuffed, and it's in his front hall now, near
Lungpuddle, in Lancashire.--Well, you, are you going to fetch that there
rifle, or am I to fetch it myself?" he yelled at his man.

"Oh, I wouldn't shoot him, guv'nor," growled the man.

"What's it got to do with you?" almost shrieked his master.

"Oh, I aren't going to lose nothing, guv'nor, only a bit of a chum.
He's knocked me about a bit, and tried to squeeze all the wind out of me
two or three times; but that was only his fun. I shouldn't like to see
him hurt."

"Then perhaps you'd like to go and fetch him out of that there urcherd?"
cried his master.

"He aren't in," said the man sturdily; "and if he were, no, thank you,
to-day. To-morrow morning perhaps I shouldn't mind; but I do say that
it'd be a burning shame to shoot the finest elephant there is in
England. The one at the Slogical Gardens in London is nothing to him,
and you know, master, that that's the truth."

"You fetch my rifle."

"I wouldn't talk quite so loud, guv'nor, if I was you," replied the man.
"Elephants is what they call 'telligent beasts, and you don't know but
what that there annymile is a-hearing every word you say and only
waiting till I'm gone to make a roosh, knock you down, and do his
war-dance all over you."

"Hah! The same as they trample the life out of the tigers at home."

Every one turned sharply upon the speaker, whose voice sounded clear and
ringing, as he stood there frowning angrily at the elephant's master.

"Bah! Stuff!" cried the man in his high-pitched voice. "I have read
anecdotes about animals, and I know all them stories by heart. They
look as if they could; but them beasts can't think, and the stories are
all lies.--You be off and fetch that rifle before I send somebody else;
and look here, Jem, if you don't obey my orders you take a fortnight's
notice to quit fro