was quite a different thing from Elliot. They were like a fine lady's grooms and running footmen; but Elliot was her body-servant, groom of the bedchamber, or what not. He used always to sleep in the straw close to her. Sometimes, when he was drunk, he would roll in between her legs; and if she had not been more careful of him than any other animal ever was (especially himself), she must have crushed him to death three nights in the week. She never went on the stage without Elliot in sight; and, in point of fact, all she did upon our stage was done at a word of command given then and there at the side by this man and no other.

10. Being mightily curious to know how he had gained such influence with her, I made several attempts to sound him; but drunk or sober, he was equally unfathomable on this point. I made bold to ask Huguet, her owner, how he had won her affections. The Frenchman was as communicative as the native was reserved. It came to this, that the strongest feeling of an elephant was gratitude, and that he had worked on this for years; was always kind to her, and seldom approached her without giving her lumps of sugar, carried a pocketful on purpose. This tallied with. what I had heard and read of an elephant. Still the problem remained, Why is she fonder still of this Tom Elliot, whose manner is not ingratiating, and who never speaks to her but in a harsh, severe voice? The more I was about her, the more I felt that we did not know this quadruped.

11. One day, while Pippin was spreading her straw, she knocked him down with her trunk, and, pressing her tooth against him, bored two frightful holes in his skull before Elliot could interfere. Pippin was carried to St. George's Hospital, and we began to look in one another's faces.

Pippin's situation was in the market.

One or two de

clined it. It came down to me. I reflected, and accepted it.

12. Nothing lasts for ever in this world, and the time came that Djek ceased to fill the house. Then Mr. Yates re-engaged her for the provinces, and, having agreed with the country managers, sent her down to Bath and Bristol first. He had a good opinion of me, and asked me to go with her and watch his interests. We started: Djek, Elliot, Bernard, I, and Pippin (he was just out of hospital), on foot; Huguet and Yates rolled in their carriage to meet us at the principal towns where we played.

13. One afternoon in walks a young gentleman dressed in the height of Parisian fashion,-glossy hat, satin tie, and trowsers puckered at the haunches. And who was it but Bernard come to take leave? We endeavored to dissuade him. He smiled and shook his head, flattered us, and showed us his preparations for France. All that day and the next he sauntered about us dressed like a gentleman, with his hands in his pockets, and an ostentatious neglect of his late affectionate charge. Before he left he was good enough to say I was what he most regretted leaving.

"Then why go?" said I.

14. "I will tell you," said Bernard. "We old hands have all got our orders to say she is a duck. Ah! you have found that out of yourself. Well, now, as I have done with her, I will tell you a part of her character, for I know her well. Once she injures you she can never forgive you. So long as she has never hurt you, there's a fair chance she never will. I have been about her for years, and she never molested me till yesterday. But if she once attacks

a inan, that man's death-warrant is signed. I can't altogether account for it, but, trust my experience, it is so. I would have stayed with you all my life if she had not shown me my fate, but not now. I have a wife and two children in France. I have saved some money out of her. I return to the bosom of my family; and if Pippin stays with her after the hint she gave him in London, why, you will see the death of Pippin, my lad,—that is, if you don't go first."

15. The next day he left us, and left me sad for one. The quiet determination with which he acted upon positive experience of her was enough to make a man thoughtful. Some ten years before this, a fine, stout, young English rustic entered the service of Mademoiselle Djek. He was a model for bone and muscle, and had two cheeks like roses. When he first went to Paris he was looked on as a curiosity there. People used to come to Djek's stable to see her, and Elliot, the young English Samson. Just ten years after this young Elliot had got to be called "old Elliot." His face was not only pale, it was colorless. I have often asked people to guess the man's age, and they always guessed sixty, sixty-five, or seventy,—oftenest the latter. He was thirty-five, not a day more.

16. This man's mind had come down along with his body. He understood nothing but elephant; he seldom talked, and then nothing but elephant. He was an elephant-man.

Djek's heart seemed inaccessible except to this brute Elliot; and he, drunk or sober, guarded the secret of his fascination by some instinct, for reason he possessed in a very small degree. I played the spy on quadruped and biped, and I found out the fact, but the reason beat me. I saw that she was more tenderly careful of him than a

mother of her child.

But why she was a mother to him. and a stepmother to the rest of us, that I could not learn. 17. One day, between Plymouth and Liverpool, having left Elliot and her together, I happened to return, and I found the elephant alone and in a state of excitement, and looking in, I observed some blood upon the straw. His turn has come at last, was my first notion; but, looking round, there was Elliot behind me.

“I was afraid she had tried it on with you,” I said. "Who?"

"The elephant."

18. Elliot's face was not generally expressive, but the look of silent scorn he gave me at the idea of the elephant attacking him was worth seeing.

"I will fathom this," said I, "if I die for it."

My plan was now to feed Djek every day with my own hand, but never to go near her without Elliot at my very side and in front of the elephant. This was my first step.

19. I also determined on a new move which I had long meditated. Elliot, I reflected, always slept with the elephant. None of the other men had ever done this. Now, might there not be some magic in this unbroken familiarity between the two animals? Accordingly, at Morpeth, I pretended there was no bed vacant at the inn, and asked Elliot to let me lie beside him. He grunted an ungracious assent. Not to overdo it at first, I got Elliot between me and Djek, so that, if she was offended at my intrusion, she must pass over her darling to resent it. We had tramped a good many miles, and were soon fast asleep

1. ABOUT two in the morning I was awakened by a shout and a crunching, and felt myself dropping into the straw out of the elephant's mouth. She had stretched her proboscis over him,- had taken me up so delicately that I felt nothing, and when Elliot shouted I was in her mouth. At his voice she dropped me like a hot potato. I rolled out of the straw, and ran out of the shed. I had no sooner got to the inn than I felt a sickening pain in my shoulder and fainted away. Her huge tooth had gone into my shoulder like a wedge. It was myself I had heard being crunched.

2. They did what they could for me, and I soon came to. When I recovered my senses I was seized with vomiting; but at last all violent symptoms abated, and I began to suffer great pain in the injured part, and did suffer for six weeks. And so I scraped clear. For a wonder, Elliot, who was a heavy sleeper, woke at the very slight noise she made eating me. A moment later, and nothing could have saved me. They told Mr. Yates at breakfast, and he sent for me, and advised me to lie quiet till the fever of the wound should be off me. But I refused. She was to start at ten, and I told him I should start with her. 3. Running from grim death like that, I had left my shoes behind in the shed, and Huguet sent his servant