“So I heard,” said Chunky, and then he told more of the things that had happened to him.
“You’ll have a book written about you before you know it,” said one of the monkeys. “You’ve had as many adventures already as Mappo, who was one of us once.”
“Yes, I met friends of his in the jungle,” said Chunky.
Then he and the circus animals talked for some time, discussing together how the show moved from place to place and how the animal cages were put on railroad cars and hauled many miles, from one big city to another.
Out in the other tent there was music, as Chunky could hear. It was not like the music the black Africans of the jungle made, and which Chunky had heard when he and the other hippos ate at night near the jungle towns. But it was music that Chunky liked.
“Well, it is time for us to go into the rings and do our tricks,” said one of the elephants, as the men came in to lead them away.
“I wish I could do tricks outside my cage,” said Chunky.
“Can you do any tricks at all?” asked Dido, the dancing bear.
“Yes, I can open my mouth wide, and eat carrots,” said the happy hippo. “See!” and he did his one and only trick.