Now the happy hippo happened to be hungry; so he opened his mouth as wide as he could, as he saw the loaf of bread coming his way, and right in it went. And Chunky chewed it with his big teeth, and it tasted very well.
“Ha!” cried Chunky’s keeper, who had seen what happened. “If he could do that every day it would make a good trick. I’ll try it.”
Chunky learned this trick very easily. Whenever he saw his friend, the keeper, standing in front of the cage with a loaf of bread in his hand, Chunky knew what was going to happen.
“Catch this now!” the keeper would cry, and, as he tossed the loaf, the happy hippo would open his mouth as wide as ever he could, and down it would go. Then the boys and girls in the circus tent would laugh and clap their hands, and even the big folks would smile, for the loaf of bread looked so small in Chunky’s big mouth.
“Now my hippo can do two tricks!” the keeper cried. “Maybe I can teach him some others.”
But if you have ever looked at a hippo in a circus or in a menagerie, you can easily see that they can not do very many tricks—not as many as an elephant or a horse. But, in time, Chunky learned to lie down and roll over outside his tank, and that was something to do. He also learned to stand on three legs, and raise the other toward his keeper when told to do so. Thus Chunky had four tricks he could do, and one day the man said:
“My hippo is getting so smart I think I can take him out in the big tent where the music is, and have him do his tricks there.”
This the man did, and Chunky was quite proud and happy. He opened his mouth wide when his master told him to.
[“Now he is smiling at you!”] the keeper would say to the circus crowds, and then the boys and girls would laugh. It seemed funny for a hippo to smile, but that is what Chunky meant it for. He was very happy now, and quite jolly among the other animals.