“You were,” said the elephant, flagging his big ears, “but no matter. You will know better next time you sing. Now I am going to help you out of the mud.”
And with that, the big, kind elephant put his trunk around the sailor’s wooden leg, close to where it was stuck in the mud, and he gave a long, strong pull, that brave elephant did, and up came the wooden leg, not a bit the worse from having been stuck in the mud, and the sailor was able to stump around on it once more as well as ever.
“Ah, thank you very much,” the sailorman said to the elephant. “Now I can go get the Trippertrot children.”
“And I’ll go with you!” exclaimed the elephant. “I will let you ride on my back, and the children can ride there, too.”
“Oh, that will be fine,” cried the jolly sailor. “But how does it happen that you are going about by yourself, and are not in the circus? Especially on Christmas day.”
“That is easily explained,” said the elephant. “You see, I am so well trained that the circus men trust me to go about all alone by myself. I am a trick elephant, you know, and I go to houses and do tricks for the people, and for the children. Shall I do some tricks for you?”
“One or two, if you please,” answered the sailor, “and then we must start after those children, for it is growing late.”
So the elephant did the funny trick of standing on one leg, and waving his trunk in the air, and then he stood up on the end of his trunk and waved his four feet in the air, and that was really very good. Indeed it was!
“Now get up on my back,” the elephant said to the sailor, “and away we’ll go after those children, for I just love children.”
And then, as easily as the baby can cry when it’s hungry, or when a pin sticks in it, which I hope never happens—as easily as that, I say—the elephant lifted the sailor in his trunk, and set him upon his back.