e. Well, no, I don't think I am; it wasn't pleasant,
though. But my toe might have given me notice that it was coming off
that ledge. Well, how are you? If you'd come over here I'd offer to
shake hands, but I would rather sit still for a few minutes to get my
breath again. It seemed to be all knocked out of me at once."

The two lads glanced across the fields towards the orchard where the
elephant had eaten his fill of apples, and, seeing nobody near, they
both broke bounds by swinging their legs over the palings and dropping
on the other side by the fat little man.

Glyn offered his hand to help him up, and Ramball took it and shook it.

"By-and-by," he said. "I am all right here.--And how are you, my hero?"
he continued, extending his hand to Singh.

"Quite well," said Singh good-humouredly, looking at the showman but in
imagination seeing the great elephant instead.

"That's right," cried Ramball. "You look it--hearty, both of you!"

"Where's the elephant?" said Singh.

"Oh, he's all right, sir. Fine."

"Is he coming into the town?" cried Glyn.

"What, here, sir? Bless you, no! He's in Birmingham, where we are
doing a splendid business; crowded houses--tents, I mean--twice a day."

"And what are you doing here?" cried Singh.

"Oh, killing two birds with one stone," said the man, laughing.

"Where are they?" asked Glyn, laughing in turn.

"Get out! Poking fun at me! It was like this 'ere. The gent
yonder,"--and the man gave his head a jerk backwards--"wrote to me and
said that he'd had to pay a pound for a bit of damage to the fence about
his orchard, and that he thought, as my elephant had done the mischief,
and I had only paid him for the apples he ate, the money ought to come
out of my pocket. Well, young gentlemen, I always pay up directly for
any damage done by my beasts if the claim's made honest. This gent,
your neighbour, sent in a very honest demand, and I set that down as one
of the birds I wanted to kill. T'other was that I wanted to see my farm
and how some of the young stock was getting on. So I nips into the
train yesterday, travelled all night, and been to see the gentleman,
paid up, and he was very civil--give me a bit of breakfast, and when I
said I should like to look round the place again where my elephant went
in for his apples he said I was quite welcome to look about as much as I
liked. Well, we have been lately in the iron country and among the
potteries; and bles