The circus happened to stop in the town where Chunky was being kept, and, as they needed a hippo, one of the men who owned the circus bought Chunky.
The circus had been traveling about from place to place, and Chunky’s wagon, of which half was a tank containing water in which he could float around, had been put on the car and hauled with the other circus wagons. At first Chunky was afraid of the train of cars, but he soon grew to like it.
So the hippo really came to the show in the middle of the season, when it was traveling from city to city. At what was the first performance for Chunky, his cage was wheeled into the animal tent, and placed in a ring next to a cage of monkeys on one side and a cage with a rhinoceros in it on the other.
“How do you do,” said Chunky, as politely as he could to the monkeys.
“Who are you?” asked one of the big monkeys.
“They call me Chunky, the happy hippo,” was the answer. “I used to live in the jungle, but I fell into a pit and was caught, put on a ship, and then I fell overboard into the ocean.”
“My! you’ve had a lot of adventures!” said the monkey.
“Did you say you just came from the jungle?” asked the rhinoceros.
“Well, not long ago,” answered Chunky.
“Oh, tell me about it!” begged the rhino. “I used to live in the jungle myself, and I would like to hear about it again, though it is much easier to live here in the circus, where you get all you want to eat. Tell me about the jungle.”