“Thank you,” said Archie, with a faint scintillation of his old ideas of fun.
“They are wild beasts, and big ’uns, too, at that.”
“Yes, yes; but this all sounds nonsensical.”
“Course it do, sir. That’s the best of it. You can’t grarsp it because you have been lying there onsensible and don’t know what’s happened. I didn’t believe it myself at first; but you remember about the review and the big Rajah’s helephants?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, when I was off duty for a bit I goes and makes friends with one of the swell mahouts—him as drove the Rajah’s own helephant. The mahout let me feed him, and the big beast was quite chummy with me—took me up in his trunk, and set me up astride on him.”
“Well, suppose he did,” said Archie peevishly; “what’s that got to do with our position here? Where is your chummy friend?”
“That’s what I want to tell you, sir. He found me out here, and he comes and shoves his trunk through that hole as you can’t see now because it’s dark. ‘How are you, old man?’ he says. ‘Who’d have thought of seeing you here? Tuck one or two of them bananas in the end of my trunk and see me eat them, and I will show you;’ and I did. Then he says, ‘Give us a drink of water;’ and so I did, and he played it into himself just as if he was a portable fire-engine. What do you think of that?”
“I think,” said Archie faintly, “that if I was like I was in the old days, Peter, I’d punch your great, stupid head. What do you mean? Do you think I’m as weak as a child, and that you must try and please me by telling me all that flam?”
“Haw, haw!” laughed Peter Pegg softly. “I knowed you’d say that. But it’s all as true as true. I don’t mean to say that he talked to me like that in plain English, but he chuntered and grunted and squealed, and ate nearly all the bananas and bread, and drank up the water before he went away, and come again for more.”