to the jungle, where I
was afraid they might be eaten up by tigers, I sent Kari to bring
them back to the river bank. But Kari got lost himself; so when
the cowherd had recovered entirely, I went to look for his cows
and my lost elephant. Where do you think I found him? He had gone
right into the forest where I had left the saplings and the twigs
and had buried his trunk into the heap and was eating the best of
them, without any concern for the cows, the cowherd or myself.

But I could not punish him that day because he had done his duty
by saving the life of the boy.

Kari was like a baby. He had to be trained to be good and if you
did not tell him when he was naughty, he was up to more mischief
than ever.

For instance, one day somebody gave him some bananas to eat. Very soon
he developed a great love for ripe bananas. We used to keep large
plates of fruit on a table near a window in the dining-room. One day
all the bananas on that table disappeared and my family blamed the
servants for eating all the fruit in the house. A few days later the
fruit disappeared again; this time the blame was put on me, and I knew
I had not done it. It made me very angry with my parents and the
servants, for I was sure they had taken all the fruit. The next time
the fruit disappeared, I found a banana all smashed up in Kari's
pavilion. This surprised me very much, for I had never seen fruit
there, and as you know, he had always lived on twigs.

Next day while I was sitting in the dining-room wondering whether
I should take some fruit from the table without my parents'
permission, a long, black thing, very much like a snake suddenly
came through the window and disappeared with all the bananas. I
was very much frightened because I had never seen snakes eat
bananas and I thought it must be a terrible snake that would
sneak in and take fruit. I crept out of the room and with great
fear in my heart ran out of the house, feeling sure that the
snake would come back into the house, eat all the fruit and kill
all of us.

As I went out, I saw Kari's back disappearing in the direction of
the pavilion and I was so frightened that I wanted his company to
cheer me up. I ran after him into the pavilion and I found him
there eating bananas. I stood still in astonishment; the bananas
were lying strewn all around him. He stretched out his trunk and
reached for one far away from where he was standing. That
instant the trunk looked like a black snak