"This beautiful but terrible creature," continued Nix, "is exquisitely marked by nature. His, however, are not good-conduct marks, for, in his native wilds, his behavior is anything but proper. He will devour anything that comes in his way, having been known, when pressed by hunger, to eat even an alderman. Such being the nature of the beast, I will now proceed to show you a more amiable specimen of this moral exhibition. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the largest of all animals. It belongs to Asia and Africa. We have no elephants, naturally, in America, any more than we have Irishmen. They are all imported at great expense, two ships being required to bring over each creature, one for himself, and one for his trunk, I believe."
"The elephant lives chiefly on ginger-snaps, sugar, rice, and cayenne pepper, which, at the present price of groceries, makes his board come rather heavy. You have all heard of the sagacity of the elephant--how he squirted the dirty water over that injudicious tailor who ran his needle into the elephant's trunk. But, ladies and gentlemen, I was witness to a more singular instance of intelligence on the part of this elephant here, which is, perhaps, the largest of its kind ever imported to this country. While passing through the streets of one of our inland towns during the late election, this very anumile seized a slip of paper from one of the crowd, rushed up to the polls, and actually voted the Union ticket before we knew what he was about."
[Illustration: HOW TO MAKE AN ELEPHANT. _See page 126._]
In this strain Nix continued for some time, while the elephant walked round the room. Little boys were mounted on his back for a ride, and enjoyed the fun hugely.
The scientific gentleman with gold spectacles threw a temporary damper on the merriment by asking, in a sombre voice, whether we knew how many times round the elephant's foot was equal to his height, and then equally solemnly informing us that it was "Twice." Having said "twice!" very emphatically, he became silent, and the fun went on.
Now comes the question--How was the elephant made? A glance at the annexed picture will throw considerable light on the subject at once.
Here we have the usual human substratum. Two gentlemen, wearing rubbers, place themselves in the position represented, while the foremost one holds something in his hands. This is a grey shawl or table-cover, rolled up to represent the elephant's trunk, which the performer swings about to produce a life-like effect. All that now remains to be done is to procure another grey shawl and spread it over the united operators, fastening two pieces of round paper, with black dots on them, in the proper places, for eyes, and a couple of rags or old gloves for ears. The elephant is now complete, save the tusks. These can be made out of long pieces of twisted white paper, pinned to the inside of the shawl, and there you have a first-rate elephant for a small tea-party. Dish, and serve up with lots of _sass_, as the cookery books say. But let us listen to Nix; he is spouting some more nonsense: