"Stampeded the whole business. Do I remember, George? Up in Boston. Bing! bang! over the Common, and the Old Man wild! Well I guess. But, say, George, that wasn't as bad as the stampede in Troy, when those four elephants cleaned out the rolling-mill. Oh, what a night! Let's see. There was Nan and—"
"And Tip."
"Yes, poor old Tip. I strangled him at Bridgeport. You remember, George, he wouldn't take the poison. Oh, he was no fool, Tip wasn't, and I told the Old Man we'd have to put nooses on him and cut off his wind."
"I know, Bill, the Old Man said it wasn't possible to strangle an elephant—"
"And say, George, I had his wind shut off inside of three minutes after the boys began to haul. Oh, you can't beat three sheave-blocks, George, for finishing off a bad tusker. Well, this night in Troy those four elephants went sailing through this rolling-mill, trumpeting like mad, right over the hot iron, scaring those Irishmen blue, and then smashed down a steep refuse bank into the mud. Oh, what looking elephants! Nan had her legs all burned, and—"
"I know, and say, Bill, do you remember where I found Tip? Three miles out of Troy, standing up in a corn-field sound asleep, and two little boys on a rail fence looking at him. He'd knocked over a shanty and smashed open a barrel of whisky—a whole barrel, Bill—and there he was sound asleep. When I saw those little boys I made up my mind I'd found Tip.
"'What ye lookin' at, little boys?' I sung out.
"'El'phunt, mister,' says one of the boys, sort of careless like, just as if it was a common thing in Troy for elephants to be asleep in corn-fields."
"I know, that's the way little boys act," remarked Newman, sagaciously. "Say, George, tell about the time you took that car-load of animals over the Alleghanies."
After some preliminaries, Mr. Arstingstall responded to the invitation, and I heard a story that Victor Hugo might have turned into a masterpiece of description.