when the little dukes
and marquises did not come to tea--and when he told her he was almost
sure of the first prize, she clapped her hands and said: "Dear Tom, dear
good, clever Tom, you deserve all the prizes. And I will give you my pet
elephant--and you can keep him till we're married."

The pet elephant was called Fido, and the gardener's son took him away
in his coat pocket. He was the dearest little elephant you ever
saw--about six inches long. But he was very, very wise--he could not
have been wiser if he had been a mile high. He lay down comfortably in
Tom's pocket, and when Tom put in his hand, Fido curled his little trunk
around Tom's fingers with an affectionate confidence that made the boy's
heart warm to his new little pet. What with the elephant, and the
Princess's affection, and the knowledge that the very next day he would
receive the _History of Rotundia_, beautifully bound, with the Royal
arms on the cover, Tom could hardly sleep a wink. And, besides, the dog
did bark so terribly. There was only one dog in Rotundia--the kingdom
could not afford to keep more than one: He was a Mexican lapdog of the
kind that in most parts of the world only measures seven inches from the
end of his dear nose to the tip of his darling tail--but in Rotundia he
was bigger than I can possibly expect you to believe. And when he
barked, his bark was so large that it filled up all the night and left
no room for sleep or dreams or polite conversation, or anything else at
all. He never barked at things that went on in the island--he was too
large-minded for that; but when ships went blundering by in the dark,
tumbling over the rocks at the end of the island, he would bark once or
twice, just to let the ships know that they couldn't come playing about
there just as they liked.

But on this particular night he barked and barked and barked--and the
Princess said, "Oh dear, oh dear, I wish he wouldn't, I am so sleepy."
And Tom said to himself, "I wonder whatever is the matter. As soon as
it's light I'll go and see."

So when it began to be pretty pink-and-yellow daylight, Tom got up and
went out. And all the time the Mexican lapdog barked so that the houses
shook, and the tiles on the roof of the palace rattled like milk cans in
a cart whose horse is frisky.

"I'll go to the pillar," thought Tom, as he went through the town. The
pillar, of course, was the top of the piece of rock that had stuck
itself through Rotundia millions of