When the man next to
Robert offered the smallest of them an empty paper-bag it curled its trunk
over his head and opened its pointed mouth and let out a piercing squeal
of protest which alarmed its tormentor, and caused his neighbours to
regard him with nervous disapproval. But the big elephant seemed to
exercise a soothing influence over its companion. It waved its trunk
negligently as though in contemptuous dismissal of a commonplace incident.
"My dear," it said, "that's all you can expect of such people."
There were men seated on the big elephants' necks, their legs tucked
comfortably behind the enormous flapping ears. They looked mysterious and
proud in their position. They wore turbans and carried sticks with
pointed iron spikes at the head, and when they came to the low entrance of
the tent they prodded their huge beasts, which went down on their knees,
painfully yet with a kind of sorrowful pride, and blundered through amidst
the admiring murmur of the crowd.
"The way they manage them big brutes!" declared the lady with the
feathered hat disconsolately. "And there's our George, a proper 'uman
being, and can't be got to do a thing--nohow."
The band inside had stopped, beaten in the hard-fought contest with its
rival at the far end of the procession, which thereupon broke out into
throaty triumphant trumpet blasts and exultant roll of drums. Rufus
clutched wildly at Robert's sleeve.
"Oh, my word, just look at her! Oh, my word!"
Robert craned forward, peering round the embonpoint of the man next him.
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