“Is that all?” remarked Miss Smiler, smiling broadly. “And who is the lucky person?”
“The Clerk of the Weather told me it was a creature called ‘Smiler’!” cried the East Wind, tearing down the palm trees as he spoke, and whirling them about like straws. “SMILER!” he bellowed, “who has dared to use my Best Beloved as an air cushion!” he roared, blind with rage.
And Smiler smiled no more.
She looked hastily round at the ruined Taj Mahal, and she wept an inward tear of remorse. She glanced down at the little White Elephant struggling beneath her, and she blushed with shame at the way she had treated her.
Now, all this made Miss Smiler feel very small. And, feeling small, she quickly became so!
The White Elephant, feeling the weight on her back grow less—as Miss Smiler grew smaller—scrambled to her feet, and made off into the jungle, trumpeting joyfully.
As for Coppertop, the first rush of the East Wind blew her off the Camel’s back and whirled her up into a tall palm tree. And there she hung—by the leg of her pyjamas—in mid air.
Of course, such an undignified position made her feel very “small,” and she quickly became so in fact.
Then Kiddiwee, left all alone on the ruined Taj Mahal, shrinking with fear, grew so small that he was carried off by the Clerk of the Weather, who was hiding close by, and thrown into the den of an Elderly Spinster Spider, in a crevice of the ruined building.
As for the East Wind, being changeable, as most winds are, he forgot his rage as soon as he caught sight of his beloved White Elephant. Sighing deeply, he made off into the jungle after her.