“Very good!” agreed the manager of the menagerie.
V
That night they brought the elephant to visit the sick girl.
He marched importantly down the very middle of the street, nodding his head and curling up and uncurling his trunk. A great crowd of people came with him, in spite of the late hour. But the elephant paid no attention to the people; he saw hundreds of them every day in the menagerie. Only once did he get a little angry. A street urchin ran up to him under his very legs, and began to make grimaces for the diversion of the sight-seers.
Then the elephant quietly took off the boy’s cap with his trunk and threw it over a wall near by, which was protected at the top by projecting nails.
A policeman came up to the people and tried to persuade them:
“Gentlemen, I beg you to go away. What’s there here unusual? I’m astonished at you! As if you never saw an elephant in the street before.”
They came up to the house. On the staircase, and all the way up to the dining-room where the elephant was to go, every door was opened wide; the latches had all been pushed down with a hammer. It was just the same as had been done once when they brought a large wonder-working ikon into the house.
But when he came to the staircase the elephant stopped in alarm, and refused to go on.
“You must get him some dainty to eat,” said the German.... “A sweet cake or something.... But ... Tommy! ... Oho-ho ... Tommy!”