[Illustration: "I got nearer and nearer my haven of safety, the bellowing beasts snorting with rage as they followed." _Chapter IV._]
Here the Baron paused and pulled vigourously on his cigar, which had almost gone out.
"What a narrow escape it was for you, Uncle Munch," said Diavolo.
"Very true," said the great soldier rising, as a signal that his story was done. "In fact you might say that I had sixty-three narrow escapes, one for each elephant."
"But what became of the ivory?" asked Angelica.
"Oh, as for that!" said the Baron, with a sigh, "I was disappointed in that. They turned out to be all young elephants, and they had lost their first teeth. Their second teeth hadn't grown yet. I got only enough ivory to make one paper cutter, which is the one I gave your father for Christmas last year."
Which may account for the extraordinary interest the Twins have taken in their father's paper cutter ever since.
"Did you ever own a dog, Baron Munchausen?" asked the reporter of the _Gehenna Gazette_, calling to interview the eminent nobleman during Dog Show Week in Cimmeria.
"Yes, indeed I have," said the Baron, "I fancy I must have owned as many as a hundred dogs in my life. To be sure some of the dogs were iron and brass, but I was just as fond of them as if they had been made of plush or lamb's wool. They were so quiet, those iron dogs were; and the brass dogs never barked or snapped at any one."
"I never saw a brass dog," said the reporter. "What good are they?"
"Oh they are likely to be very useful in winter," the Baron replied. "My brass dogs used to guard my fire-place and keep the blazing logs from rolling out into my room and setting fire to the rug the Khan of Tartary gave me for saving his life from a herd of Antipodes he and I were hunting in the Himalaya Mountains."
"I don't see what you needed dogs to do that for," said the reporter. "A fender would have done just as well, or a pair of andirons," he added.
"That's what these dogs were," said the Baron. "They were fire dogs and fire dogs are andirons."
Ananias pressed his lips tightly together, and into his eyes came a troubled look. It was evident that, revolting as the idea was to him, he thought the Baron was trying to deceive him. Noting his displeasure, the Baron inwardly resolving to be careful how he handled the truth, hastened on with his story.