rip, boys; this is
the Fourth of July."

The circus men began to come with ropes and clubs, to tie Bolivar and
throw him, but he escaped into a side street and watched the engines put
out the fire, and he swung around with his trunk and tusks and wouldn't
let anyone come near him but pa with the hook, and he seemed to enjoy
the prodding, but I guess that gave him courage to keep on doing things.

The principal proprietor of the show came along, and when he saw pa with
watermelon and bluing water all over him, and perspiration rolling down
his face, he said to pa: "Why don't you take your elephant back to the
lot, 'cause the afternoon performance is about to begin," and that made
pa mad, and he said: "You go on with your afternoon performance, and I
will have Bolivar there all right," and then everybody laughed, but pa
knew what he was about.

Pa dropped his hook and went to a hose cart and took a Babcock
extinguisher and strapped it on his back and went up to Bolivar, who was
tipping over some dummies in front of a clothing store, and pa said:
"Bolivar, you lay down," but Bolivar threw a seven-dollar suit of
clothes at pa, and bellowed, as much as to defy pa. Pa turned the cock
of the extinguisher, and pointed the nozzle at Bolivar's head, and began
to squirt the medicated water all over him. For a moment Bolivar acted
as though he couldn't take a joke, and was going to start off again, but
pa kept squirting, and when the chemical water began to eat into
Bolivar's hide, the big animal weakened, and trumpeted in token of
surrender, and kneeled down in front of pa, and finally got down so pa
could get on his back, and pa took the hook and hooked it in the flap of
Bolivar's ear, where is a tender spot, and he told Bolivar to get up and
go back to the tent, and Bolivar was as meek as a lamb, and he got up,
with pa on his back, and the fire extinguisher on pa's back, and marched
back to the tent, through the hole he had made coming out. Thousands of
people followed, and cheered pa, and when they got in the tent pa said
to the principal owner of the show, who had made fun of him: "Here's
your elephant, and whenever any of your old animals get on the warpath,
and you want 'em rounded up, don't forget my number, 'cause I can knock
the spots out of any animal except a giraffe." The crowd cheered pa
again and he got down off the elephant, took off his fire extinguisher,
and handed Bolivar a piece of rag carpet, and said: "Eat