“What’s it got to do with you?” almost shrieked his master.
“Oh, I aren’t going to lose nothing, guv’nor, only a bit of a chum. He’s knocked me about a bit, and tried to squeeze all the wind out of me two or three times; but that was only his fun. I shouldn’t like to see him hurt.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to go and fetch him out of that there urcherd?” cried his master.
“He aren’t in,” said the man sturdily; “and if he were, no, thank you, to-day. To-morrow morning perhaps I shouldn’t mind; but I do say that it’d be a burning shame to shoot the finest elephant there is in England. The one at the Slogical Gardens in London is nothing to him, and you know, master, that that’s the truth.”
“You fetch my rifle.”
“I wouldn’t talk quite so loud, guv’nor, if I was you,” replied the man. “Elephants is what they call ’telligent beasts, and you don’t know but what that there annymile is a-hearing every word you say and only waiting till I’m gone to make a roosh, knock you down, and do his war-dance all over you.”
“Hah! The same as they trample the life out of the tigers at home.”
Every one turned sharply upon the speaker, whose voice sounded clear and ringing, as he stood there frowning angrily at the elephant’s master.
“Bah! Stuff!” cried the man in his high-pitched voice. “I have read anecdotes about animals, and I know all them stories by heart. They look as if they could; but them beasts can’t think, and the stories are all lies.—You be off and fetch that rifle before I send somebody else; and look here, Jem, if you don’t obey my orders you take a fortnight’s notice to quit from next Saturday, when you are paid.”
“Then you are going to shoot the elephant,” cried Glyn, “because you don’t know how to manage him?”