he road-roller or the noisy lawn-mower made
his eyes redden savagely. And he hated with peculiar zest the roguish
little trick elephant, Bong, who would sometimes, his inquisitive
trunk swinging from side to side, go lurching lazily by with a load of
squealing children on his back.

Bong, who was a favored character, amiable and trustworthy, was
allowed the freedom of the Park in the early morning, before visitors
began to arrive who might be alarmed at seeing an elephant at large.
He was addicted to minding his own business, and never paid the
slightest attention to any occupants of cage or enclosure. He was
quite unaware of the hostility which he had aroused in the perverse
and brooding heart of Last Bull.

One crisp morning in late November, when all the grass in the Park had
been blackened by frost, and the pools were edged with silver rims of
ice, and mists were white and saffron about the scarce-risen sun, and
that autumn thrill was in the air which gives one such an appetite,
Bong chanced to be strolling past the front of Last Bull's range. He
did not see Last Bull, who was nothing to him. But, being just as
hungry as he ought to be on so stimulating a morning, he did see, and
note with interest, some bundles of fresh hay on the other side of the
fence.

Now, Bong was no thief. But hay had always seemed to him a free
largess, like grass and water, and this looked like very good hay. So
clear a conscience had he on the subject that he never thought of
glancing around to see if any of the attendants were looking.
Innocently he lurched up to the fence, reached his lithe trunk
through, gathered a neat wisp of the hay, and stuffed it happily into
his curious, narrow, pointed mouth. Yes, he had not been mistaken. It
was good hay. With great satisfaction he reached in for another
mouthful.

Last Bull, as it happened, was standing close by, but a little to one
side. He had been ignoring, so far, his morning ration. He was not
hungry. And, moreover, he rather disapproved of the hay because it had
the hostile man-smell strong upon it. Nevertheless, he recognized it
very clearly as his property, to be eaten when he should feel inclined
to eat it. His wrath, then, was only equalled by his amazement when he
saw the little elephant's presumptuous gray trunk reach in and coolly
help itself. For a moment he forgot to do anything whatever about it.
But when, a few seconds later, that long, curling trunk of Bong's
insinuated