“Oh ho!” barked Don, and he was not so frightened now. “So that is what you call an animal with two tails; an elephant?”
“He hasn’t two tails, I tell you,” answered Squinty, with a pig-laugh. “One is his tail—that’s the short one, and the other is his trunk.”
“It doesn’t look like a trunk,” said Don. “I know what a trunk is. There are some in the attic of the house where I live, and Bob’s mother keeps her clothes in them. I don’t see how Tum Tum could keep any clothes in that trunk that hangs down from his mouth.”
“It isn’t that kind of a trunk,” said the big elephant with a deep, jolly laugh. “My trunk is just a long nose, to breathe through, and squirt water through, and I can curl it around and pick up things with it.”
And to prove how easy it was he just picked up Mappo, the merry monkey, in his trunk, Tum Tum did, and set him on his back.
“Oh ho! So that’s what a trunk is for!” exclaimed Don. “Well, I am glad to know, and I am glad I met you, Mappo and Tum Tum. But now, Squinty, you must come back to your pen with me.”
“I don’t want to go!” squealed the little pig.
“But you must come!” Don said. “I was sent after you and I am going to take you home, even if I have to lead you all the way by the ear.”
“Yes, you had better go,” said Tum Tum. “I have been sent from the circus to bring back Mappo, the merry monkey.”