e
used to do. When the flies bit him he broke off the branch of a tree and
used it as a fly-whisk; and he made himself a new, cool, slushy-squshy
mud-cap whenever the sun was hot. When he felt lonely walking through
Africa he sang to himself down his trunk, and the noise was louder than
several brass bands. He went especially out of his way to find a broad
Hippopotamus (she was no relation of his), and he spanked her very hard,
to make sure that the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake had spoken the truth
about his new trunk. The rest of the time he picked up the melon rinds
that he had dropped on his way to the Limpopo--for he was a Tidy
Pachyderm.

One dark evening he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up
his trunk and said, 'How do you do?' They were very glad to see him, and
immediately said, 'Come here and be spanked for your 'satiable
curtiosity.'

'Pooh,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I don't think you peoples know
anything about spanking; but _I_ do, and I'll show you.'

Then he uncurled his trunk and knocked two of his dear brothers head
over heels.

'O Bananas!' said they, 'where did you learn that trick, and what have
you done to your nose?'

'I got a new one from the Crocodile on the banks of the great
grey-green, greasy Limpopo River,' said the Elephant's Child. 'I asked
him what he had for dinner, and he gave me this to keep.'

[Illustration: THIS is just a picture of the Elephant's Child going
to pull bananas off a banana-tree after he had got his fine new long
trunk. I don't think it is a very nice picture; but I couldn't make it
any better, because elephants and bananas are hard to draw. The streaky
things behind the Elephant's Child mean squoggy marshy country somewhere
in Africa. The Elephant's Child made most of his mud-cakes out of the
mud that he found there. I think it would look better if you painted the
banana-tree green and the Elephant's Child red.]

'It looks very ugly,' said his hairy uncle, the Baboon.

'It does,' said the Elephant's Child. 'But it's very useful,' and he
picked up his hairy uncle, the Baboon, by one hairy leg, and hove him
into a hornet's nest.

Then that bad Elephant's Child spanked all his dear families for a long
time, till they were very warm and greatly astonished. He pulled out his
tall Ostrich aunt's tail-feathers; and he caught his tall uncle, the
Giraffe, by the hind-leg, and dragged him through a thorn-bush; and he
shouted at his broad aunt, the