en addressed the Officer in a slow voice and ponderous
manner.

"I feel inclined to trample on you," he remarked.

The Officer closed his eyes with terror; then, half-opening them, he
endeavored to look defiantly and speak boldly.

"Pre-pre-sump-tu-tu-ous b-b-b-beast!" he faltered.

The Elephant looked at him threateningly.

"It was on-on-ly my f-f-un!" stammered the Officer, trembling with fear,
and all the crimson fading from his cheeks.

"Do you wish me to spare your life?" asked the Elephant.

"It is very valuable," the Officer replied more calmly as he regained
courage, and unable to forget his foolish pride even in that awful
moment.

"The world can do without it," said the great beast threateningly.

"Spare me!" cried the coward and bully.

The Elephant paused.

"Very good," he answered, "but only upon my own conditions."

"Certainly, certainly," the Officer said in a fawning voice. "Many
thanks; any conditions that you may think proper."

After this the Elephant thought for a long while. Then he said:

"These are my conditions. You must submit to let me carry you up and
down the counter, stopping before such Toys as I shall see fit. And
whenever I stop, you are to announce yourself in these words:
'Good-evening. Have you kicked the coward and the bully? The real
genuine article, no imitation. If you have not kicked him already, kick
him without delay.'"

"It is too bad of you to require me to say this," the Officer cried, his
anger for the moment overcoming his fear. "But then you are not a
gentleman. You are--"

"When you have done," interrupted the Elephant, "I will begin."

So saying, and amidst the intense excitement of the other Toys, the
Elephant, with his trunk, slowly picked up his fallen foe by the back of
the coat and began his ponderous march--so triumphant for himself, so
humiliating for the Officer.

The programme was carried out exactly as the Elephant had said it should
be, for the great gray beast was a beast of his word. He never made up
his mind in a foolish hurry, but having made it up he rarely altered it.

And so it was upon this occasion. After every few steps the huge
creature stopped before one or another of the Toys, when the former
tyrant was obliged to announce himself as a coward and a bully, and
invite a kicking, an invitation which was always accepted, and acted
upon with much heartiness.

Finally the avenger laid the Officer on the platform, from which the