he thickest-skinned animal I ever met," said the Officer to his
men.

But herein he made a mistake. The Elephant never forgot an insult, but
paid it back upon the first opportunity.

The opportunity, in this case, was not long in arriving; it came,
indeed, all too soon for the Officer's taste.

It occurred in this way.

One day a little boy came into the shop and asked to look at some
soldiers, upon which the shopwoman showed him the wooden warriors.

"No, I don't like them," he said; "they have to move all the same way at
once. It is very stupid of them. Have you no others?"

"Not just at the moment," replied the shopwoman. "We are expecting some
more. They should have been here several days ago."

"Then I'll take a train," said the boy. "But it is very funny that you
should have such a poor lot of soldiers as these."

"That silly remark will make the Toys less afraid of us," thought the
Officer to himself with some alarm. "I shall make the men practise
sword-drill in the most open fashion for several hours. This will remind
the world that we are not to be trifled with."

But it is one thing to make a resolution and quite another thing to
carry it into effect. This the Officer was to experience ere the day was
over.

For in putting the Soldiers back into their place the shopwoman happened
to hit the Officer with some force against a dolls' house. Being a very
hard blow it knocked him off the platform, and, unnoticed by her, he
fell on his back upon the counter.

Now came the time for the Elephant's revenge. _The Officer fell just
under the animal's trunk!_

It was, as the Officer at once realized, by no means a pleasant
situation. As his men were some yards away from him, and unable to come
in a body to his rescue till perhaps too late, the Officer was
exceedingly uneasy.

"I had better soothe the monster," he said to himself. Then aloud, and
in a pleasant voice: "What a nice handy trunk that is of yours; you must
be able to carry so much in it? As for me, I have to travel with a
portmanteau, a Gladstone-bag, a hat-box, and a gun-case; it is a
terrible nuisance."

He paused, but the Elephant made no reply.

"This is not very pleasant," said the Officer uneasily to himself. "I
fear the beast is of a sulky temper. What _will_ happen to me?"

And he lay still, trembling and fearful.

At last the day closed in, the Mortals shut up the shop and left, and
the time of the Toys arrived.

The Elephant th