“And I was caught as I was swimming in the river with my mother,” said the other hippo, which was named Gimpy by Chunky and Short Tooth. Gimpy walked a little lame from having stepped on a sharp stone when he was a baby, cutting his foot.
So the three hippos were kept in cages close together, and were carried through the jungle, down toward the seacoast, with the other wild animals. Chunky made friends with them all, for he was a happy chap, and tried to look on the bright side of everything—as much as any animal can.
“We might be a good deal worse off,” he said to a young lion who was grumbling because he had been caught and put in a cage. “Just think, here we have all we want to eat without ever going after it.”
“Burr-r-r-r-r!” growled the lion. “I don’t like it at all! I want to get out of here!” and he leaped about, scratching and clawing at the wooden bars of his cage until the black hunters cried in fright and ran away. But one of the white men came and stood near the lion’s cage and spoke to the lion, which was a small cub.
“Be quiet!” said the white man, though of course the lion could not tell what the man was saying. “Be quiet, little King of Beasts! You shall have good meat to eat, clean water to drink and you need never hunt for food again. Besides, you are going to be in a circus! Be quiet!”
And the man spoke in such a kind way that the lion was quiet.
Then the white man, who was the head, or chief, of the others out looking for live wild animals, came over to where the hippos were in their cages.
“Three of you, eh?” he said, though of course Chunky could not understand what he said. “Three nice hippos! Well, you will be worth a lot of money if I can get you across the ocean safely and to the big city. There I can sell you to a circus or a menagerie in the park.
“Ha! You are a fat, chunky chap!” the man went on, looking at our hippo. “And you seem quite contented. I should even say you were happy by the way you smile,” continued the white man, for, just then, Chunky opened his mouth as wide as he could. Perhaps he was only yawning, sleepy-like, but it looked like a big laugh.