is
mother's breast. "Now go down on your knees, and beg the ladies'
pardon," says Harry laughing. Down goes the elephant, and stops there,
making a queer chuntering noise the while. "Says he's very sorry,
ma'am, and won't do so no more," says Harry, serious as a judge; and in
a moment, half laughing, half crying, Mrs Maine caught hold of Harry's
hand, and kissed it, and then held it for a moment to her breast sobbing
hysterically as she did so.

"God bless you! You're a good man," she cried; and then she broke down
altogether; and Miss Ross, and Mrs Bantem, and Lizzy got round her, and
helped her in.

I could see that Harry was touched, for one of his lips shook; but he
tried to keep up the fun of the thing; and turning to the elephant, he
says out loud: "Now, get up, and go back to the hay; and don't you come
no more of those games, that's all."

The elephant got up directly, making a grunting noise as he did so.

"Why not?" says Harry, making-believe that that was what the great beast
said. "Because, if you do, I'll smash you. There!"

Officers and men, they all burst out laughing, to see little Harry
Lant--a chap so little that he wouldn't have been in the regiment only
that men were scarce, and the standard was very low when he listed--to
see him standing shaking his fist at the great monster, one of whose
legs was bigger than Harry altogether--stand shaking his fist in its
face, and then take hold of the soft trunk and lead him away.

Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't, but I thought I caught sight of a
glance passing between Lizzy Green, now at one window, and Harry,
leading off the elephant; but all the same I felt that jealous of him,
and to hate him so that I could have quarrelled with him about nothing.
It seemed as if he was always to come before me.

And I wasn't the only one jealous of Harry, for no sooner was the court
pretty well empty, than he came slowly up towards me, in spite of my
sour black looks, which he wouldn't notice; but before he could get to
me, Chunder Chow, the mahout, goes up to the elephant, muttering and
spiteful-like, with his hook-spear thing, that mahouts use to drive
with; and being, I suppose, put out, and jealous, and annoyed at his
authority being taken away, and another man doing what he couldn't, he
gives the elephant a kick in the leg, and then hits him viciously with
his iron hook thing.

Well! Bless you! it didn't take an instant, and it seemed to me that
the e