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 GIBSON &KING PUBLISHERS 
 
 221 PEARL STREET.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT 
 
 BY CHARLES READE
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT 
 
 A STORY 
 
 CHARLES R BAD E 
 
 AUTHOR OF " A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION," " FOUL PLAY," " GRIFFITH GAUNT,' 
 " HARD CASH," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GIBSON & KING 
 221 Pearl Street
 
 Copyright, 1884, 
 BY GIBSON & KING.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN the month of April, 1828, Mr. Yates, theatrical man- 
 ager, found his nightly receipts fall below his nightly 
 expenses. In this situation, a manager falls upon one of two 
 things, a spectacle or a star. Mr. Yates preferred the latter, 
 and went over to Paris and engaged Mademoiselle Djek. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek was a White Elephant of great size 
 and unparalleled sagacity. She had been for some time per- 
 forming in a play at Franconi's, and created a great sensation 
 in Paris. 
 
 Of her previous history little is known. But she was first 
 landed from the East in England, and was shown about 
 merely as an elephant by her proprietor, an Italian called 
 Polito. The Frenchmen first found out her talent. Her 
 present owner was a M. Huguet, and with him Mr. Yates 
 treated. She joined the Adelphi company at a salary of 
 ^40 a week and her grub. 
 
 There was great expectation in the theatre for some days. 
 The play in which she was to perform, " The White Elephant 
 of the King of Siam," was cast and rehearsed several times; 
 a wooden house was built for her at the back of the stage, 
 and one fine afternoon, sure enough, she arrived with all her 
 train, one or two of each nation, viz., her owner, M. Huguet
 
 io THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 (French); her principal keeper, Tom Elliot (English); her 
 subordinates, Bernard (French), and an Italian nicknamed 
 Pippin. She arrived at the stage door in Maiden Lane, and 
 soon after the messenger was sent to Mr. Yates' house. 
 
 "White Elephant's come, sir." 
 
 "Well, let them put her in the place built for her, and I'll 
 come and see her." 
 
 " They can't do that, sir." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " La ! bless you, sir, she might get her foot into the theatre, 
 but how is her body to come through the stage door ? Why, 
 she is almost as big as the house." 
 
 Down comes Mr. Yates, and there was the White Elephant 
 standing all across Maiden Lane, all traffic interrupted ex- 
 cept what could pass under her belly, and such a crowd, 
 my eye! 
 
 Mr. Yates put his hands in his pockets and took a quiet 
 look at the state of affairs. 
 
 " You must make a hole in the wall," said he. 
 
 Pickaxes went to work, and made a hole, or rather a fright- 
 ful chasm, in the theatre, and when it looked about two-thirds 
 her size, Elliot said, " Stop ! " He then gave her a sharp 
 order, and the first specimen we saw of her cleverness was 
 her doubling herself together and creeping in through that 
 hole, bending her fore knees, and afterward rising and drag- 
 ging her hind legs horizontally, and she disappeared like an 
 enormous mole burrowing into the theatre. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek's bills were posted all over the town, 
 and everything done to make her take, and on the following
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. n 
 
 Tuesday the theatre was pretty well filled by the public; the 
 manager also took care to have a strong party in the pit. In 
 short, she was nursed as other stars are upon their cttbdt. 
 
 Night came; all was anxiety behind the lights and expec- 
 tation in front. 
 
 The green curtain drew up, and Mr. Yates walked on in 
 black dress-coat and white kid gloves, like a private gentle- 
 man just landed out of a bandbox at the Queen's ball. He 
 was the boy to talk to the public; soft sawder, dignified re- 
 proach, friendly intercourse, he had them all at his fingers' 
 ends. This time it was the easy tone of refined conversation 
 upon the intelligent creature he was privileged to introduce 
 to them. I remember his discourse as well as if it was 
 yesterday. 
 
 " The White Elephant," said Mr. Yates, " is a marvel of 
 Nature. We are now to have the pleasure of showing her 
 to you as taking her place in art." Then he praised the 
 wisdom and beneficence of creation. "Among the small 
 animals, such as cats and men, there is to be found such a 
 thing as spite; treachery ditto, and love of mischief, and 
 even cruelty at odd times; but here is a creature with the 
 power to pull down our houses about our ears like Samson, 
 but with a heart that will not let her hurt a fly. Properly to 
 appreciate her moral character, consider what a thing power 
 is; see how it tries us, how often in history it has turned 
 men to demons. The elephant," added he, " is the friend 
 of man by choice, not by necessity or instinct; it is born as 
 wild as a lion or buffalo; but the moment an opportunity ar- 
 rives, its kindred intelligence allies it to man, its only superior
 
 12 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 or equal in reasoning power. We are about," said Mr. Yates, 
 " to present a play in which an elephant will act a part, and 
 yet act but herself, for the intelligence and affectionate dis- 
 position she will display on these boards as an actress are 
 merely her own private and domestic qualities. Not every 
 one of us actors, gentlemen, can say as much." 
 
 Then there was a laugh, in which Mr. Yates joined. In 
 short, Mr. Yates, who could play upon the public ear better 
 than some fiddles (I name no names), made his debutante 
 popular before ever she stepped upon the scene. He then 
 bowed with intense gratitude to the audience for the atten- 
 tion they had honored him with, retired to the prompter's 
 side, and, as he reached it, the act drop flew up and the play 
 began. It commenced on two legs; the White Elephant did 
 not come on until the second scene of the act. 
 
 The drama was a good specimen of its kind. It was a 
 story of some interest, and length, and variety, and the 
 writer had been sharp enough not to make the White Ele- 
 phant too common in it. She came on only three or four 
 times, and always at a nick of time, and to do good business, 
 as theatricals say, f. e., for some important purpose in the 
 story. 
 
 A king of Siam had lately died, and the White Elephant 
 was seen taking her part in the funeral obsequies. She de- 
 posited his sceptre, etc., in the tomb of his fathers, and was 
 seen no more in that act. The rightful heir to this throne 
 was a young prince, to whom the^ White Elephant belonged. 
 A usurper opposed him, and a battle took place; the rightful 
 heir was worsted and taken prisoner; the usurper condemned
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 13 
 
 him to be thrown into the sea. In the next act, this 
 sentence was being executed; four men were discovered 
 passing through a wood carrying a box. Suddenly a 
 terrific roar was heard; the men put down the box rather 
 more carefully than they would in real life, and fled, and the 
 White Elephant walked on to the scene alone like any other 
 actress. She smelt about the box, and presently tore it open 
 with her proboscis, and there was her master, the rightful 
 heir, but in a sad exhausted state. When the good soul sees 
 this, what does she do but walk to the other side and tear 
 down the bough of a fruit-tree- and hand it to the sufferer ? 
 He sucked it, and it had the effect of stout on him; it made 
 a man of him, and they marched away together, the White 
 Elephant trumpeting to show her satisfaction. 
 
 In the next act the rightful heir's friends were discovered 
 behind the bars of a prison at a height from the ground. 
 The order for their execution arrived, and they were down 
 upon their luck terribly. In marched the White Elephant, 
 tore out the iron bars, and squeezed herself against the wall, 
 half squatting in the shape of a triangle; so then the prison- 
 ers glided down her to the ground slantendicular one after 
 another. 
 
 When the civil war had lasted long enough to sicken both 
 sides, and enough widows and orphans had been made, the 
 Siamese began to ask themselves, " But what is it all about ?" 
 The next thing was, they said, "What asses we have been! 
 Was there no other way of deciding between two men but 
 bleeding the whole tribe ?" Then they reflected and said, 
 " We are asses, that is clear; but we hear there is one animal
 
 14 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 in the nation that is not an ass; why, of course, then she is 
 the one to decide our dispute." Accordingly, a grand assem- 
 bly was held, the rival claimants were compelled to attend, 
 and the White Elephant was led in. Then the high priest, 
 or some such article, having first implored Heaven to speak 
 through the quadruped, bade her decide according to justice. 
 No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the White 
 Elephant stretched out her proboscis, seized a little crown 
 that glittered on the usurper's head, and waving it gracefully 
 in the air, deposited it gently and carefully on the brows of 
 the rightful heir. So then there was a rush made on the 
 wrongful heir. He was taken out guarded, and warned off 
 the premises; the rightful heir mounted the throne, and 
 grinned and bowed all round, the White Elephant trum- 
 peted, Siam hurrahed, Djek's party in the house echoed 
 the sound, and down came the curtain in thunders of ap- 
 plause. Though the curtain was down, the applause con- 
 tinued most vehemently, and after a while a cry arose at the 
 back of the pit, "White Elephant ! White Elephant ! " That 
 part of the audience that had paid at the door laughed at 
 this, but their laughter was turned to curiosity when, in an- 
 swer to the cry, the curtain was raised, and the stage discov- 
 ered empty. Curiosity in turn gave way to surprise, for the 
 White Elephant walked on from the third grooves alone, and 
 came slap down to the float. At this, the astonished public 
 literally roared at her. But how can I describe the effect, 
 the amazement, when in return for the compliment, the cttbu- 
 tantes\ovf\y bent her knees and courtesied twice to the British 
 public, and then retired backwards as the curtain once more
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 15 
 
 fell ? People looked at one another, and seemed to need 
 to read in their neighbors' eyes whether such a thing was 
 real; and then followed that buzz which tells the knowing 
 ones behind the curtain that the nail has gone home; that 
 the theatre will be crammed to the ceiling to-morrow night, 
 and perhaps for eighty nights after. 
 
 Mr. Yates fed Mademoiselle Djek with his own hand that 
 night, crying, "O you duck! " 
 
 The fortunes of the Adelphi rose from that hour, full 
 houses without intermission. 
 
 Mr. Yates shortened his introductory address, and used 
 to make it a brief, neat, and, I think, elegant eulogy of her 
 gentleness and affectionate disposition ; her talent " the 
 public are here to judge for themselves," said Mr. Yates, 
 and exit P. S. 
 
 A theatre is a little world, and Djek soon became the hero 
 of ours. Everybody must have a passing peep at the star 
 that was keeping the theatre open all summer, and pro- 
 viding bread for a score or two of families connected with 
 it. Of course, a mind like mine was not among the least 
 inquisitive. But her head-keeper, Tom Elliot, a surly 
 fellow, repulsed our attempts to scrape acquaintance. " Mind 
 your business, and I'll mind mine," was his chant. He 
 seemed to be wonderfully jealous of her. He could not 
 forbid Mr. Yates to visit her, as he did us, but he always 
 insisted on being one of the party even then. He puzzled 
 us; but the strongest impression he gave us was that he 
 was jealous of her, afraid that she would get as fond of 
 some others as of him, and so another man might be able
 
 16 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 to work her, and his own nose lose a joint, as the saying is. 
 Later on we learned to put a different interpretation on his 
 conduct. Pippin the Italian, and Bernard the Frenchman, 
 used to serve her with straw and water, etc., but it was quite 
 a different thing from Elliot. They were like a fine lady's 
 grooms and running footmen, but Elliot was her body-ser- 
 vant, groom of the bed-chamber, or what not. He used 
 always to sleep in the straw close to her. Sometimes, when 
 he was drunk, he would roll in between her legs; and if she 
 had not been more careful of him than any other animal 
 ever was (especially himself), she must have crushed him to 
 death three nights in the week. Next to Elliot, but a 
 long way below him, M. Huguet seemed her favorite. He 
 used to come into her box, and caress her, and feed her, and 
 make much of her; but she never went on the stage without 
 Elliot in sight; and, in point of fact, all she did upon our 
 stage was done at a word of command given then and there 
 at the side by this man and no other, going down to the 
 float, courtesying, and all. 
 
 Being mightily curious to know how he had gained such 
 influence with her, I made several attempts to sound him; 
 but, drunk or sober, he was equally unfathomable on this 
 point. 
 
 I then endeavored to slake my curiosity at No. 2. I made 
 bold to ask Mr. Huguet how he had won her affections. 
 The Frenchman was as communicative as the native was 
 reserved. He broke plenty of English over me. It came 
 to this, that the strongest feeling of a White Elephant was 
 gratitude, and that he had worked on this for years; was
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 17 
 
 always kind to her, and seldom approached her without 
 giving her lumps of sugar, carried a pocketful on purpose. 
 This tallied with what I had heard and read of an elephant; 
 still the problem remained: Why is she fonder still of this 
 Tom Elliot, whose manner is not ingratiating, and who 
 never speaks to her but in a harsh, severe voice ? 
 
 She stood my friend, any way. A good many new supers 
 were engaged to play with her, and I was set over these, 
 looked out their dresses, and went on with them and her as 
 a slave ; nine shillings a week for this was added to my 
 other nine which I drew for dressing an actor or two of the 
 higher class. 
 
 The more I was about her, the more I felt that we were 
 not at the bottom of this quadruped, not even of her bipeds. 
 There were gestures and glances and shrugs always passing 
 to and fro among them. 
 
 One day at the rehearsal of a farce there was no Mr. 
 Yates. Sombody inquired loudly for him. 
 
 " Hush! " says another; " haven't you heard?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You mustn't talk of it out of doors." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Half killed by the White Elephant this morning." 
 
 It seems he was feeding and coaxing her, as he had often 
 done before, when all in "a momemt she laid hold of him 
 with her trunk and gave him a squeeze. He lay in bed six 
 weeks with it, and there was nobody to deliver her eulogy at 
 night. Elliot was at the other end of the stage when the 
 accident happened. He heard Mr. Yates cry out, and ran
 
 i8 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 in, and tne White Elephant let Mr. Yates go the moment 
 she saw him. 
 
 We questioned Elliot. We might as well have cross- 
 examined the Monument. Then I inquired of M. Huguet 
 what this meant. Thai gentleman explained to me that 
 Djek had miscalculated her strength; that she wanted to 
 caress so kind a manager, who was always feeding and 
 courting her, and had embraced him too warmly. 
 
 The play went on, and the White Elephant's reputation 
 increased. But her popularity was destined to receive a 
 shock, as far as we little ones behind the curtain were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 One day while Pippin was spreading her straw, she 
 knocked him down with her trunk, and pressing her tooth 
 against him, bored two frightful holes in his skull before 
 Elliot could interfere. Pippin was carried to St. George's 
 Hospital, and we began to look in one another's faces. 
 
 Pippin's situation was in the market. 
 
 One or two declined it. It came down to me. I reflected, 
 and accepted it: another nine shillings; total, twenty-seven 
 shillings. 
 
 That night two supers turned tail. An actress also, whose 
 name I have forgotten, refused to go on with her. " I was 
 not engaged to play with a brute," said this lady, "and I 
 won't." Others went on as usual, but were not so sweet on 
 it as before. The rightful heir lost all relish for his part, 
 and above all, when his turn came to be preserved from 
 harm by her, I used to hear him crying out of the box to 
 Elliot: "Are you there? are you sure you are there?"
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 19 
 
 and when she tore open his box, Garrick never acted better 
 than this one used to now, for you see his cue was to exhibit 
 fear and exhaustion, and he did both to the life, because for 
 the last five minutes he had been thinking, " O dear ! O dear ! 
 suppose she should do the foot business on my box instead 
 of the proboscis business." 
 
 These, however, were vain fears. She made no mistake 
 before the public. 
 
 Nothing lasts forever in this world, and the time came 
 that she ceased to fill the house. Then Mr. Yates re- 
 engaged her for the provinces, and having agreed with the 
 country managers, sent her down to Bath and Bristol first. 
 
 He had a good opinion of me, and asked me to go with 
 her and watch his interests. I should certainly not have ap- 
 plied for the place, but it was not easy to say no to Mr. 
 Yates. 
 
 In short, we started, Djek, Elliot, Bernard, I, and Pippin, 
 on foot (he was just out of St. George's). Messrs. Huguet 
 and Yates rolled in their carriage to meet us at the principal 
 towns where we played. 
 
 As we could not afford to make her common, our walking 
 was all night-work, and introduced me to a rough life. 
 
 The average of night weather is wetter and windier than 
 day, and many a vile night we tramped through when wise 
 men were abed; and we never knew for certain where we 
 should pass the night, for it depended on Djek. She was so 
 enormous that half the inns could not find us a place big 
 enough for her. Our first evening stroll was to Bath and 
 Bristol; thence we crossed to Dublin, thence we returned to
 
 20 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 Plymouth. We walked from Plymouth to Liverpool, playing 
 with good success at all these places. At Liverpool she laid 
 hold of Bernard and would have settled his hash, but Elliot 
 came between them. 
 
 That same afternoon in walks a young gentleman dressed 
 in the height of Parisian fashion, glossy hat, satin tie, 
 trousers puckered at the haunches, sprucer than any poor 
 Englishman will be while the world lasts, and who was it but 
 Mons. Bernard come to take leave ? We endeavored to dis- 
 suade him. He smiled and shook his head, treated us, 
 flattered us, and showed us his preparations for France. 
 
 All that day and the next he sauntered about us dressed 
 like a gentleman, with his hands in his pockets, and an 
 ostentatious neglect of his late affectionate charge. Before 
 he left he invited me to drink something at his expense, and 
 was good enough to say I was what he most regretted leaving. 
 
 " Then why go ? " said I. 
 
 " I will tell you, mon pauvre garcon," said Mons. Bernard. 
 " We old hands have all got our orders to say she is a duck. 
 Ah! you have found that out of yourself. Well, now, as I 
 have done with her, I will tell you a part of her character, 
 for I know her well. Once she injures you she can never 
 forgive you. So long as she has never hurt you there's a 
 fair chance she never will. I have been about her for years, 
 and she never molested me till yesterday. But, if she once 
 attacks a man, that man's death-warrant is signed. I can't 
 altogether account for it, but trust my experience, it is so. 
 I would have stayed with you all my life if she had not 
 shown me my fate, but not now. Merci! I have a wife and
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 21 
 
 two children in France. I have saved some money out of 
 her. I return to the bosom of my family; and if Pippin 
 stays with her after the hint she gave him in London, why, 
 you will see the death of Pippin, my lad, voila tout, that is 
 if you don't go first. Qu'est que ?a te fait a la fin? tu es 
 garcon toi buvons! " 
 
 The next day he left us, and left me sad for one. The 
 quiet determination with which he acted upon positive ex- 
 perience of her was enough to make a man thoughtful; and 
 then Bernard was the flower of us: he was the drop of mirth 
 and gayety in our iron cup. He was a pure, unadulterated 
 Frenchman; and, to be just, where can you find anything so 
 delightful as a Frenchman of the right sort? 
 
 He fluttered home singing, 
 
 " Les doux yeux de ma brunet te, 
 Tout e mignonett e tout e gentillett e, " 
 
 and left us all in black. 
 
 God bless you, my merry fellow. I hope you found your 
 children healthy, and your brunette true, and your friends 
 alive, and that the world is just to you, and smiles on you, 
 as you do on it, and did on us. 
 
 From Liverpool we walked to Glasgow, from Glasgow to 
 Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh, on a cold, starry midnight, 
 we started for Newcastle. 
 
 In this interval of business let me paint you my compan- 
 ions, Pippin and Elliot. The reader is entitled to this, for 
 there must have been something out of the common in their 
 looks, since I was within an ace of being killed along of the
 
 22 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 Italian's face, and was imprisoned four days through the 
 Englishman's mug. 
 
 The Italian whom we know by the nickname of Pippin 
 was a man of immense stature and athletic mould. His face, 
 once seen, would never be forgotten. His skin, almost as 
 swarthy as Othello's, was set off by dazzling ivory teeth, and 
 lighted by two glorious large eyes, black as jet, brilliant as 
 diamonds; the orbs of black lightning gleamed from beneath 
 eyebrows that many a dandy would have bought for mus- 
 taches at a high valuation. A nose like a reaping-hook 
 completed him. Perch him on a tolerable-sized rock, and 
 there you had a black eagle. 
 
 As if this was not enough, Pippin would always wear a 
 conical hat; and had he but stepped upon the stage in 
 " Masaniello " or the like, all the other brigands would have 
 sunk down to a rural police by the side of our man. But 
 now comes the absurdity. His inside was not different from 
 his out; it was the exact opposite. You might turn over 
 twenty thousand bullet heads and bolus eyes before you 
 could find one man so thoroughly harmless as this thunder- 
 ing brigand. He was just a pet, a universal pet of all the 
 men and women that came near him. He had the disposi- 
 tion of a dove and the heart of a hare. He was a lamb in 
 wolf's clothing. 
 
 My next portrait is not so pleasing. 
 
 A MAN TURNED BRUTE. 
 
 Some ten years before this, a fine stout young English 
 rustic entered the service of Mademoiselle Djek. He was 
 a model for bone and muscle, and had two cheeks like roses.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 23 
 
 When he first went to Paris he was looked on as a curiosity 
 there. People used to come to Djek's stable to see her, and 
 Elliot, the young English Samson. Just ten years after this 
 young Elliot had got to be called " old Elliot." His face was 
 not only pale, it was colorless; it was the face of a walking 
 corpse. This came of ten year's brandy and brute. I have 
 often asked people to guess the man's age, and they always 
 guessed sixty, sixty-five, or seventy, oftenest the latter. 
 
 He was thirty-five, not a day more. 
 
 This man's mind had come down along with his body. 
 He understood nothing but White Elephant; he seldom 
 talked, and then nothing but White Elephant. He was a 
 White Elephant man. I will give you an instance which I 
 always thought curious. 
 
 A White Elephant, you may have observed, cannot stand 
 quite still. The great weight of its head causes a nodding 
 movement, which is perpetual when the creature stands 
 erect. Well, this Tom Elliot when he stood up, used always 
 to have one foot advanced, and his eyes half closed, and his 
 head niddle-nodding like a White Elephant all the time; and, 
 with it all, such a presence of brute and absence of soul in 
 his mug, enough to give a thoughtful man some very queer 
 ideas about man and beast.
 
 24 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY office in this trip was merely to contract for the White 
 Elephant's food at the various places; but I was getting 
 older and shrewder, and more designing than I used to be, 
 and I was quite keen enough to see in this White Elephant 
 the means of bettering my fortunes, if I could but make 
 friends with her. But how to do this ? She was like a co- 
 quette: strange admirers welcome; but when you had courted 
 her awhile she got tired of you, and then nothing short of 
 your demise satisfied her caprice. Her heart seemed inacces- 
 sible except to this brute Elliot, and he, drunk or sober, 
 guarded the secret of his fascination by some instinct, for 
 reason he possessed in a very small degree. 
 
 I played the spy on quadruped and biped, and I found out 
 the fact, but the reason beat me. I saw that she was more 
 tenderly careful of him than a mother of her child. I saw 
 him roll down stupid drunk under her belly, and I saw her 
 lift first one foot and then the other, and draw them slowly 
 and carefully back, trembling with fear lest she might make 
 a mistake and hurt him. 
 
 But why she was a mother to him and a step-mother to 
 the rest of us, that I could not learn. 
 
 One day, between Plymouth and Liverpool, having left 
 Elliot and her together, I happened to return, and I found 
 the White Elephant alone and in a state of excitement, and 
 looking in I observed some blood on the straw. 
 
 His turn has come at last, was my first notion; but, look- 
 ing round, there was Elliot behind me.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 25 
 
 " I was afraid she had tried it on with you," I said. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " The White Elephant. 
 
 Elliot's face was not generally expressive, but the look of 
 silent scorn he gave me at the idea of the Elephant attacking 
 him was worth seeing. The brute knew something I did not 
 know, and could not find out; and from this one piece of 
 knowledge he looked down upon me with a sort of contempt 
 that set all the Seven Dials' blood on fire. 
 
 " I will bottom this," said I, "if I die for it.' 
 
 My plan was now to feed Djek every day with my own 
 hand, but never to go near her without Elliot at my very 
 side and in front of the White Elephant. 
 
 This was my first step. 
 
 We were now drawing toward Newcastle, and had to lie at 
 Morpeth, where we arrived late, and found Mr. Yates and 
 M. Huguet, who had come out from Newcastle to meet us; 
 and at this place I determined on a new move which I had 
 long meditated. 
 
 Elliot, I reflected, always slept with the White Elephant. 
 None of the other men had ever done this. Now might 
 there not be some magic in this unbroken familiarity between 
 the two animals ? 
 
 Accordingly, at Morpeth, I pretended that there was no 
 bed vacant in the inn, and asked Elliot to let me lie beside 
 him: he grunted an ungracious assent. 
 
 Not to overdo it at first, I got Elliot between me and Djek, 
 so that if she was offended at my intrusion she must pass 
 over her darling to resent it. We had tramped a good
 
 26 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 many miles, and were soon fast asleep. About two in the 
 morning I was awoke by a shout and a crunching, and felt 
 myself dropping into the straw out of the elephant's mouth. 
 She had stretched her proboscis over him, had taken me 
 up so delicately that I felt nothing, and when Elliot shouted 
 I was in her mouth. At his voice, that rung in my ears like 
 the last trumpet, she dropped me like a hot potato. I rolled 
 out of the straw, giving tongue a good one, and ran out 
 of the shed. I had no sooner got to the inn than I felt a 
 sickening pain in my shoulder and fainted away. 
 
 Her huge tooth had gone into my shoulder like a wedge. 
 It was myself I had heard being crunched. 
 
 They did what they could for me, and I soon came to. 
 When I recovered my senses I was seized with vomiting; but 
 at last all violent symptoms abated, and I began to suffer 
 great pain in the injured part, and did suffer for six weeks. 
 
 And so I scraped clear. Somehow or other, Elliott was 
 not drunk, or nothing could have saved me. For a 
 second wonder, he, who was a heavy sleeper, woke at the 
 very slight noise she made eating me: a moment later and 
 nothing could have saved me. I use too many words, 
 suppose she had eaten me, what then ? 
 
 They told Mr. Yates at breakfast, and he sent for me, and 
 advised me to lie quiet at Morpeth till the fever of the wound 
 should be off me; but I refused. She was to start at ten, 
 and I told him I should start with her. 
 
 Running from grim death like that, I had left my shoes 
 behind in the shed, and M. Huguet sent his servant Baptiste, 
 an Italian, for them.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 27 
 
 Mr. Yates then asked me for all the particulars, and while 
 I was telling him and M. Huguet, we heard a commotion in 
 the street, and saw people running, and presently one of the 
 waiters ran in and cried: 
 
 " The White Elephant has killed a man, or near it." 
 
 Mr. Yates laughed and said: 
 
 " Not quite so bad as that; for here is the man." 
 
 " No, no," cried the waiter, " it is not him; it is one of the 
 foreigners." 
 
 Mr. Yates started up all trembling. He ran to the stable. 
 I followed him as I was, and there we saw a sight to make 
 our blood run cold. On the corn-bin lay poor Baptiste 
 crushed into a mummy. How it happened there was no 
 means of knowing; but, no doubt, while he was groping in 
 the straw for my wretched shoes, she struck him with her 
 trunk, perhaps more than once; his breast bones were broken 
 to chips, and every time he breathed, which by God's mercy 
 was not many minutes, the man's whole chest-frame puffed 
 out like a bladder with the action of his lungs; it was too 
 horrible to look at. 
 
 Elliott had run at Baptiste's cry, but too late to save his 
 life this time. He had drawn the man out of the straw as 
 she was about to pound him to a jelly, and there the poor 
 soul lay on the corn-bin, and by his side lay the things he 
 had died for, two old shoes. Elliot had found them in 
 the straw, and put them there of all places in the world. 
 
 By this time all Morpeth was out. They besieged the 
 doors and vowed death to the White Elephant. M. Huguet 
 became greatly alarmed. He could spare Baptiste, but he
 
 28 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 could not spare Djek. He got Mr. Yates to pacify the peo- 
 ple. " Tell them something," said he. 
 
 " What on earth can I say for her over that man's bleeding 
 body ?" said Mr. Yates. " Curse her ! Would to God I had 
 never seen her ! " 
 
 " Tell them he used her cruel," said M. Huguet. " I have 
 brought her off with that before now." 
 
 Well, my sickness came on again, partly, no doubt, by the 
 sight and the remorse, and I was got to bed, and lay there 
 some days; so I did not see all that passed, but I heard 
 some, and I know the rest by instinct now. 
 
 Half an hour after breakfast time Baptiste died. On this 
 the White Elephant was detained by the authorities, and a 
 coroner's inquest was summoned, and sat in the shambles on 
 the victim, with the butcheress looking on at the proceedings. 
 
 Pippin told me she took off a juryman's hat during the 
 investigation, waved it triumphantly in the air, and placed it 
 cleverly on her favorite's head, old Tom. 
 
 At this inquest two or three persons deposed on oath that 
 the deceased had ill used her more than once in France; in 
 particular, that he had run a pitchfork into her two years 
 ago; that he had been remonstrated with, but in vain; un- 
 fortunately, she had recognized him at once, and killed him 
 out of revenge for past cruelty, or to save herself from fresh 
 outrages. 
 
 This cooled the ardor against her. Some even took part 
 with her against the man. 
 
 "Run a pitchfork into a White Elephant! O, for shame! 
 no wonder she killed him at last. How good of her not to
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 29 
 
 kill him then and there, what forbearance, forgave it for 
 two years, ye see." 
 
 How curiously things happen ! Last year, /. e. more than 
 twenty years after this event, my little girl went for a pound 
 of butter to Newport Street. She brought it wrapped up in 
 a scrap of very old newspaper; in unrolling it, my eye, by 
 mere accident, fell upon these words : "An inquest." I had 
 no sooner read the paragraph than I put the scrap of paper 
 away in my desk ; it lies before me now, and I am copy- 
 ing it: 
 
 "An inquest was held at the Phoenix Inn, Morpeth, on 
 the 27th ultimo, on view of the body of an Italian named 
 Baptiste Bernard, who was one of the attendants on the 
 White Elephant which lately performed at the Adelphi. It 
 appeared from the evidence that the man had stabbed the 
 elephant in the trunk with a pitchfork, about two years ago, 
 while in a state of intoxication, and that on the Tuesday 
 previous to the inquest the animal caught hold of him with 
 her trunk and did him so much injury that he died in a few 
 hours. Verdict: died from the wounds and bruises received 
 from the trunk of a White Elephant. Deodand, 55." 
 
 Business is business. As soon as we had got the inquest 
 over and stamped the lie current, hid the truth and buried 
 the man, we marched south and played our little play at 
 Newcastle. 
 
 Deodand for a human soul sent by murder to its account, 
 five bob. 
 
 After Newcastle we walked to York, and thence to Man- 
 chester. I crept along thoroughly crestfallen. Months and
 
 30 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 months I had watched, and spied, and tried to pluck out the 
 heart of this Tom Elliot's mystery; I had failed. Months 
 and months I had tried to gain some influence over Djek; I 
 had failed. But for Elliot, it was clear I should not live a single 
 day within reach of her trunk; this brute was my superior. 
 I was compelled to look up to him, and I did look up to him. 
 
 As I tramped sulkily along, my smarting shoulder re- 
 minded me that in White Elephant, as in everything else I 
 had tried, I was Jack, not master. 
 
 The proprietors had their cause of discontent too. We 
 had silenced the law, but we could not silence opinion. 
 Somehow suspicion hung about her in the very air wherever 
 she went. She never throve in the English provinces after 
 the Morpeth job, and finding this, Mr. Yates said: "O, hang 
 her, she has lost her character here; send her to America." 
 So he and M. Huguet joined partnership and took this new 
 speculation on their shoulders. America was even in that 
 day a great card if you went with an English or French 
 reputation. 
 
 I had been thinking of leaving her and her old Tom in 
 despair; but, now that other dangers and inconveniences 
 were to be endured besides her and her trunk, by some 
 strange freak of human nature, or by fate, I began to cling 
 to her like a limpet to a rock the more you pull at him. 
 
 Mr. Yates dissuaded me. " Have nothing to do with her, 
 Jack; she will serve you like all the rest. Stay at home, 
 and I'll find something for you in the theatre." 
 
 I thought a great deal of Mr. Yates for this, for he was 
 speaking against his own interest. I was a faithful servant
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 31 
 
 to him, and he needed one about her. Many a five-pound 
 note I had saved him already, and well he deserved it at my 
 hands. 
 
 "No sir," I said, "I shall be of use, and I can't bear to 
 be nonplussed by two brutes like Elliot and her. I have 
 begun to study her, and I must go on to the word 'finis'! " 
 
 Messrs. Yates and Huguet insured the White Elephant 
 for ^20,000, and sent us all to sea together in the middle of 
 November a pretty month to cross the Atlantic in. 
 
 This was what betters call a hedge, and not a bad one. 
 
 Our party was Queen Djek; Mr. Stevenson, her financier; 
 Mr. Gallott, her stage manager and wrongful heir; Elliot, 
 her keeper, her lord, her king; Pippin, her slave, always 
 trembling for his head; myself, her- commissariat; and 
 one George Hynde, from Wombwell's, her man-of-all-work. 
 
 She had a stout cabin built upon deck for her. It cost 
 40 to make; what she paid for the accommodation Heaven 
 knows, but I should think a good, round sum, for it was the 
 curse of the sailors and passengers, and added fresh terrors 
 to navigation. The steersman could not see the ship's head 
 until the sea took the mariner's part and knocked it into 
 toothpicks. 
 
 Captain Sebor had such a passage with us as he never en- 
 countered before. He told us so, and no wonder; he 
 never had such a wholesale murderess on board before, 
 contrary winds forever, and stiff gales too. At last it blew 
 great guns; and one night as the sun went down crimson in 
 the gulf of Florida, the. sea running mountains high, I saw 
 Captain Sebor himself was fidgety. He had cause. That
 
 32 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 night a tempest came on; the "Ontario" rolled fearfully 
 and groaned like a dying man; about two in the morning a 
 sea struck her, smashed Djek's cabin to atoms, and left her 
 exposed and reeling; another such would now have swept 
 her overboard, but her wits never left her for a moment. 
 She threw herself down flatter than any man could have 
 conceived possible; out went all her four legs, and she glued 
 her belly to the deck; the sailors passed a chain from the 
 weather to the lee bulwarks, and she seized it with her pro- 
 boscis, and held on like grim death. Poor thing, her coat 
 never got not to say dry; she was like a great water-rat all 
 the rest of the voyage. 
 
 The passage was twelve weeks of foul weather. The 
 White Elephant began to be suspected of being the cause of 
 this, and the sailors often looked askant at her, and said we 
 should never see port till she walked the plank into the At- 
 lantic. If her underwriters saved their twenty thousand 
 pounds, it was touch and go more than once or twice. More- 
 over, she ate so little all the voyage that it was a wonder to 
 Elliot and me how she came not to die of sickness and 
 hunger. I suppose she survived it all because she had more 
 mischief to do. 
 
 As the pretty little witches sing in Mr. Locke's opera of 
 Macbeth: "She must, she must, she must, she must, she 
 must shed much more blood."
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OUR preposterous long voyage deranged all the calcula- 
 tions that had been made for us in England, and we reached 
 New York just at the wrong time. We found Master Burke 
 laying at the Park Theatre, and we were forced to treat 
 with an inferior house, the Bowery Theatre. We played 
 there with but small success compared with what we had 
 been used to in Europe. Master Burke filled the house, 
 we did not fill ours, so that at last she was actually eclipsed 
 by a human actor; to be sure it was a boy, not a man, and 
 child's play is sometimes preferred by the theatre-going 
 world even to horseplay. 
 
 The statesmen were cold to us; they had not at this time 
 learned to form an opinion of their own at sight on such 
 matters, and we did not bring them an overpowering Euro- 
 pean verdict to which they had nothing to do but sign their 
 names. There was no groove cut for the mind to run in, 
 and while they hesitated the speculation halted. I think she 
 would succeed there now; but at this time they were not 
 ripe for a White Elephant. 
 
 We left New York, and away to Philadelphia on foot and 
 steamboat. 
 
 There is a place on the Delaware where the boat draws 
 up to a small pier. Down this we marched, and about ten 
 yards from the end the floor gave way under her weight, and 
 Djek and her train fell into the sea. I was awoke from a 
 reverie, and found myself sitting right at top of her, with my 
 knees in Chesapeake Bay. Elliot had a rough Benjamin on,
 
 34 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 and as he was coming thundering down with the rest of the 
 rubbish, alive and dead, it caught in a nail, and he hung 
 over the bay by the shoulder like an Indian fakir, cursing 
 and swearing for all the world like a dog barking. I never 
 saw such a posture, and O, the language! 
 
 I swam out, but Djek was caught in a trap between the 
 two sets of piles. The water was about two feet over her 
 head, so that every now and then she disappeared, and then 
 striking the bottom she came up again, plunging, and rolling, 
 and making waves like a steamboat. Her trunk she kept 
 vertical, like the hose of a diving-bell, and O, the noises that 
 came up from the bottom of the sea through that flesh-pipe! 
 For about four hours she went up and down the gamut of 
 "O Lord, what shall I do?" More than a thousand times, 
 I think. We brought ropes to her aid, and boats and men, 
 and tried all we knew to move her, but in vain; and when 
 we had exhausted our sagacity she drew upon a better bank, 
 her own. Talk of brutes not being able to reason, gam- 
 mon. Djek could reason like Solomon; for each fresh diffi- 
 culty she found a fresh resource. On this occasion she did 
 what I never saw her do before or since: she took her enor- 
 mous skull, and used it as a battering-ram against the piles; 
 two of them resisted no wonder they were about eight 
 inches in diameter; the third snapped like glass, and she 
 plunged through and waddled on shore. I met her with a 
 bucket of brandy and hot water stiff 
 
 Ladies, who are said to sip this compound in your bou* 
 doirs while your husbands are smoking at the clubs but I 
 don't believe it of you learn how this lady disposed of her
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 35 
 
 wooden tumbler full. She thrust her proboscis into it. Whis 
 s s s p! now it is all in her trunk. Whis s s sh! 
 now it is all in her abdomen; one breath drawn and exhaled 
 sent it from the bucket home. This done, her eye twinkled, 
 and she trumpeted to the tune of "All is well that ends 
 well." 
 
 I should weary the reader were I to relate at length all 
 the small incidents that befell us in the United States. 
 
 The general result was failure, loss of money, our salaries 
 not paid up, and fearful embarrassments staring us in the 
 face. We scraped through without pawning the White 
 Elephant, but we were often on the verge of it. All this did 
 not choke my ambition. Warned by the past, I never ven- 
 tured near her (unless Elliot was there) for twelve months 
 after our landing; but I was always watching Elliot and her 
 to find the secret of his influence. 
 
 A fearful annoyance to the leaders of the speculation was 
 the drunkenness of Old Tom and George Hinde; these two 
 encouraged one another and defied us, and of course they 
 were our masters, because no one but Elliot could move 
 the White Elephant from place to place, or work her on the 
 stage. 
 
 One night Elliot was so drunk that he fell down senseless 
 at the door of her shed on his way to repose. I was not 
 near, but Mr. Gallott it seems was, and he told us she put 
 out her proboscis, drew him tenderly in, laid him on the 
 straw, and flung some straw over him or partly over him. 
 
 Mr. Gallott is alive, and a public character; you can ask 
 him whether this is true: I tell this one thing on hearsay.
 
 36 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 Not long after this, in one of the American towns, I for- 
 get which, passing by Djek's shed, I heard a tremendous 
 row. I was about to call Elliot, thinking it was the old 
 story, somebody getting butchered; but, I don't know how 
 it was, something stopped me, and I looked cautiously in 
 instead, and saw Tom Elliot walking into her with a pitch- 
 fork, she trembling like a school-boy with her head in a 
 corner, and the blood streaming from her sides. As soon 
 as he caught sight of me he left off and muttered unintel- 
 ligibly. I said nothing. I thought the more. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE had to go by water to a place called City Point, and 
 thence to Pittsville. I made a mistake as to the hour the 
 boat started, and Djek and Co. went on board without me. 
 
 Well, you will say I could follow by the next boat. But 
 how about the tin to pay the passage? My pocket was dry, 
 and the treasurer gone on. But I had a good set of black- 
 ing-brushes; so sold them, and followed on with the pro- 
 ceeds got to City Point. White Elephant gone on to 
 Pittsville; that I expected. Twenty miles or so I had to 
 tramp on an empty stomach. And now doesn't the Devil 
 send me a fellow who shows me a short cut through a wood 
 to Pittsville; into the wood I go. I thought it was to be 
 like an English wood, out of the sun into a pleasant shade, 
 and, by then you are cool, into the world again. Instead of 
 that, "the deeper, the deeper you are in it," as the song of
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 37 
 
 the bottle says; the farther you were from getting out of it. 
 Presently two roads instead of one, and then I knew I was 
 done. I took one road; it twisted like a serpent. I had 
 not been half an hour on it before I lost all the points of the 
 compass. Says I, I don't know whether I ever shall see 
 daylight again; but if I do, City Point will be the first thing 
 I shall see. You mark my words, said I. 
 
 So here was I lost in what they call a wood out there, but 
 we should call a forest at home. And now, being in the 
 heart of it, I got among the devilishest noises, and nothing 
 to be seen to account for them; little feet suddenly pattering 
 and scurrying along the ground, wings flapping out of trees; 
 but what struck most awe into a chap from the Seven Dials 
 was the rattle, the everlasting rattle, and nothing to show. 
 Often I have puzzled myself what this rattle could be. It 
 was like a thousand rattlesnakes, and didn't I wish I was 
 in the Seven Dials, though some get lost in them for that 
 matter. After all, I think it was only insects, but insects by 
 billions; you never heard anything like it in an English wood. 
 
 Just as I was losing heart in this enchanted wood, I heard 
 an earthly sound, the tramp of a horse's foot. It was music. 
 
 But the leaves were so thick I could not see where the 
 horse was; he seemed to get farther off, and then nearer. 
 At last the sound came so close I made a run, burst through 
 a lot of green leaves, and came out plump on a man riding 
 a gray cob. He up with the but-end of his whip to fell me, 
 but seeing I was respectable, " Halloo ! stranger," says he, 
 "guess you sort o' startled me." "Beg pardon, sir," says I, 
 "but I have lost my way." "I see you are a stranger," said he.
 
 38 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 So then he asked me where I was bound for, and I told 
 him Pittsville. 
 
 I won't insult the reader by telling him what he said about 
 the course I had been taking through the wood. I might as 
 well tell him his A B C, or which side his bread and butter 
 falls in the dust on. Then he asked me who I was. So I 
 told him I was one of the White Elephant's domestics, least- 
 ways I did not word it so candid: "I was in charge of the 
 White Elephant, and had taken a short cut." 
 
 Now he had heard of Djek, and seen her bills up, so he 
 knew it was all right. " How am I to find my way out, sir?" 
 said I. " Find your way out ?" said he. " You will never 
 find your way out." Good news, that. 
 
 He thought a bit; then he said: "The best thing you can 
 do is to come with me, and to-morrow I will send you on." 
 
 I could have hugged him. 
 
 "You had better walk behind me," says he; "my pony 
 bites." So I tramped astern; and on we went, patter, patter, 
 patter through the wood. At first I felt as jolly as a sand- 
 boy marching behind the pony; but when we had pattered 
 best part of an hour, I began to have my misgivings. In all 
 the enchanted woods ever I had read of, there was a small 
 trifle of a wizard or ogre that took you home and settled 
 your hash. Fee faw fum, I smell the blood of an English- 
 man, etc. 
 
 And still on we pattered, and the sun began to decline, 
 and the wood to darken, and still we pattered on. I was 
 just thinking of turning tail and slipping back among the 
 panthers, and mosquitoes, and rattlesnakes, when, O be joy-
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 39 
 
 ful, we burst on a clearing, and there was a nice house in the 
 middle of it, and out came the dogs jumping to welcome us, 
 and niggers no end with white eyeballs and grinders like 
 snow. 
 
 They pulled him off his horse, and in we went. There was 
 his good lady, and his daughter, a beautiful girl, and such 
 a dinner. We sat down, and I maintained a modest tacitur- 
 nity for some minutes: " The silent hog eats the most acorns." 
 After dinner he shows me all manner of ways of mixing 
 the grog, and I show him one way of drinking it, when you 
 can get it. Then he must hear about the White Elephant. 
 So I tell him the jade's history, but bind him to secrecy. 
 
 Then the young lady puts in, " So you are really an Eng- 
 lishman ?" and she looks me all over. 
 
 " That you may take your oath of, miss," says I. 
 
 " Oh ! " says she, and smiles. I did not take it up at first, 
 but I see what it was now. Me standing five feet four, I did 
 not come up to her notion of the Father of all Americans. 
 " Does this great people spring from such a little stock as 
 we have here ?" thinks my young lady. I should have up 
 and told her that pluck makes the man, and not the inches; 
 but I lost that chance. Then, being pressed with questions, 
 I told them all my adventures, and they hung on my words. 
 It was a new leaf to them, I could see that. 
 
 The young lady's eyes glittered like two purple stars at a 
 stranger with the gift of the gab that had seen so much life 
 as I had, and midnight came in on time. Then I was ush- 
 ered to bed. Now up to that time I had always gone to 
 roost without pomp or ceremony; sometimes with a mould
 
 40 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 candle, but oftener a farthing dip, which I have seen it dart 
 its beams out of a bottle instead of a flat candlestick. 
 
 This time a whole cavalcade of us went up the stairs; one 
 blackie marched in my van with two lights, two blackies 
 brought up my rear. They showed me into a beautiful room, 
 and stood in the half-light with eyes and teeth like red-hot 
 silver, glittering and diabolical. I thought, of course, they 
 would go away now. Not they. Presently one imp of dark- 
 ness brings me a chair. 
 
 I sit down, and wonder. Other two lay hold of my boots 
 and whip them off. This done, they buzz about me like 
 black and white fiends, fidgeting, till I longed to punch their 
 heads. They pull my coat off and my trousers; then they 
 hoist me into bed: this done, first one makes a run and tucks 
 me in, and grins over me diabolical; then another comes like 
 a battering-ram, and tucks me in tighter. Fiend 3 looks at 
 the work, and puts the artful touches at the corners, and be- 
 hold me wedged, and then the beneficent fiends mizzled with 
 a hearty grin that seemed to turn them all ivory. I could not 
 believe my senses; I had never been tucked in since my 
 mother's time. 
 
 In the morning, I struggled out, and came down to break- 
 fast. Took leave of the good Samaritan, who appointed two 
 of my niggers to "see me out of the wood; made my bow to 
 the ladies, and away with a grateful heart. The niggers con- 
 ducted me clear of the wood and set me on the broad road. 
 Then came one of the pills a poor fellow has to stomach. 
 I had made friends with the poor darkies, and now I had not 
 even a few pence to give them, and such a little would have
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 41 
 
 gone so far with them ! I have often felt the bitterness of 
 poverty, but never I do think as when I parted with my poor 
 niggers at the edge of the wood, and was forced to see them 
 go slowly home without a farthing. 
 
 I wish these few words could travel across the water, and 
 my good host might read them, and see I have not for- 
 gotten him all these years. But, dear heart ! you may be 
 sure he is not upon the earth now. It is years ago, and a 
 man that had the heart to harbor a stranger and a wanderer, 
 why, he would be one of the first to go. 
 
 We steamed and tramped up and down the United States 
 of America. On our return to Norfolk she broke loose at 
 midnight, slipped into the town, took up the trees on the 
 Boulevard, and strewed them flat, went into the market, 
 broke into a vegetable shop, munched the entire stock, next 
 to a coachmaker's, took off a carriage-wheel, opened the 
 door, stripped the cushions, and we found her eating the 
 stuffing. 
 
 One day at noon we found ourselves fourteen miles from 
 the town, I forget its name, we had to play in that very night. 
 
 Mr. Gallott had gone on to rehearse, etc., and it behooved 
 us to be marching after him. At this juncture, old Tom, 
 being rather drunk, feels a strong desire to be quite drunk, 
 and refuses to stir from his brandy and water. Our exchequer 
 was in no condition to be trifled with thus: if Elliott & Co. 
 became helpless for an hour or two, we should arrive too 
 late for the night's performance, and Djek eating her head 
 off all the while. I coaxed and threatened our two brandy 
 sponges, but in vain; they stuck and sucked. I was in de-
 
 42 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 spair, and being in despair, came to a desperate resolution: 
 I determined to try and master her myself then and there, 
 and to defy these drunkards. 
 
 I told Pippin my project. He started back aghast. He 
 viewed me in the light of a madman. "Are you tired of 
 your life?" said he. But I was inflexible. Seven Dials 
 pluck was up. I was enraged with my drunkards, and I was 
 tired of waiting so many years the slave of a quadruped 
 whose master was a brute. 
 
 White Elephants are driven with a rod of steel sharpened 
 at the end; about a foot from the end of this weapon is a 
 large hook; by sticking this hook into an elephant's ear, and 
 pulling it, you make her sensible which way you want her to 
 go, and persuade her to comply. 
 
 Armed with this tool, I walked up to Djek's shed, and, in 
 the most harsh and brutal voice I could command, bade her 
 come out. She moved in the shed, but hesitated. I re- 
 peated the command still more repulsively, and out she came 
 toward me very slowly. 
 
 With beasts such as lions, tigers and elephants, great 
 promptitude is the thing. Think for them! don't give them 
 time to think, or their thoughts may be evil. I had learned 
 this much, so I introduced myself by driving the steel into 
 Djek's ribs, and then hooking her ear, while Pippin looked 
 down from a first-story window. If Djek had known how 
 my heart was beating she would have killed me then and 
 there; but, observing no hesitation on my part, she took it 
 all as a matter of course, and walked with me like a lamb. 
 I found myself alone with her on the road, and fourteen
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 43 
 
 miles of it before us. It was a serious situation, but I was 
 ripe for it now. All the old women's stories and traditions 
 about an elephant's character had been driven out of me by 
 experience and washed out with blood. I had fathomed 
 Elliot's art. I had got what the French call the riddle-key 
 of Mademoiselle Djek, and that key was "steel ! " 
 
 On we marched, the best of friends. There were a num- 
 ber of little hills on the road, and as we mounted one, a 
 figure used to appear behind us on the crest of the last 
 between us and the sky; this was the gallant Pippin, solici- 
 tous for his friend's fate, but desirous of not partaking it if 
 adverse. And still the worthy Djek and I marched on the 
 best of friends. About a mile out of the town, she put out 
 her trunk and tried to curl it round me in a caressing way. 
 I met this overture by driving the steel into her till the 
 blood squirted out of her. If I had not, the siren would 
 have killed me in the course of the next five minutes. 
 Whenever she relaxed her speed I drove the steel into her. 
 When the afternoon sun smiled gloriously on us, and the 
 poor thing felt nature stir in her heart, and began to frisk 
 in her awful clumsy way, pounding the great globe, I drove 
 the steel into her; if I had not, I should not be here to 
 relate this sprightly narrative. 
 
 Meantime, at , her stage manager and financier were 
 
 in great distress and anxiety; four o'clock, and no White 
 Elephant. At last they got so frightened, they came out to 
 meet us, and presently, to their amazement and delight, 
 Djek strode up with her new general. Their ecstasy was 
 great to think that the whole business was no longer at a
 
 44 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 drunkard's mercy. " But how did you manage ? How ever 
 did ye win her heart? " " With this," said I, and showed them 
 the bloody steel. 
 
 We had not been in the town half an hour before Tom 
 and George came in. They were not so drunk but what 
 they trembled for their situations after my exploit, and rolled 
 and zigzagged after us as fast as they could. 
 
 By these means I rose from Mademoiselle's slave to be 
 her friend and companion. . 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THIS feat kept my two drunkards in better order, and re- 
 vived my own dormant ambition. I used now to visit her 
 by myself, steel in hand, to feed her, etc., and scrape ac- 
 quaintance with her by every means, steel in hand. One 
 day I was feeding her, when suddenly I thought a house had 
 fallen on me. I felt myself crashing against the door, and 
 there I was lying upon it in the passage with all the breath 
 driven clean out of my body. Pippin came and lifted me 
 up and carried me into the air. I thought I should have 
 died before breath could get into my lungs again. She 
 had done this with a push from the thick end of her pro- 
 boscis. After a while I came to. I had no sooner recovered 
 my breath than I ran into the stable, and came back with a 
 pitchfork. Pippin saw my intention and implored me, for 
 heaven's sake, not to. I would not listen to him; he flung 
 his arms round me. I threatened to turn the fork on him if 
 he did not let me go.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 45 
 
 "Hark!" said he; and sure enough, there she was snort- 
 ing and getting up her rage. "I know all about that," said 
 I; my death-warrant is drawn up, and if I don't strike it will 
 be signed. This is how she has felt her way with all of 
 them before she has killed them. I have but one chance of 
 life," said I, "and I won't throw it away without a struggle." 
 I opened the door, and, with a mind full of misgivings, I 
 walked quickly up to her. I did not hesitate to raise the 
 question which of us two was to suffer, I knew that would 
 not do. I sprang upon her like a tiger, and drove the pitch- 
 fork into her trunk. She gave a yell of dismay and turned 
 a little from me; I drove the fork into her ear. 
 
 Then came out her real character. 
 
 She wheeled round, ran her head into a corner, stuck out 
 her great buttocks, and trembled all over like a leaf. I 
 stabbed her with all my force for half an hour till the blood 
 poured out of every square foot of her huge body, and, 
 during the operation, she would have crept into a nutshell 
 if she could. I filled her as full of holes as a cloved 
 orange. 
 
 The blood that trickled out of her saved mine; and, for 
 the first time, I walked out of her shambles her master. 
 
 One year and six months after we had landed at New York 
 to conquer another hemisphere, we turned tail and sailed for 
 England again. We had a prosperous voyage, with the ex- 
 ception of one accident. George Hinde, from incessant 
 brandy, had delirium tremens, and one night, in a fit of it, 
 he had just sense enough to see that he was hardly to be 
 trusted with the care of himself. "John," said he to me,
 
 46 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 "tie me to this mast hand and foot." I demurred; but he 
 begged me for heaven's sake, so I bound him hand and foot 
 as per order. This done, some one called me down below, 
 and while I was there it seems George got very uncomfort- 
 able, and began to halloo and complain. Up comes the 
 captain, sees a man lashed to the mast. " What game is 
 this?" says he. "It is that little blackguard John," says 
 Hinde; "he caught me sleeping against the mast, and took 
 a mean advantage; do loose me, captain!" The captain 
 made sure it was a sea-jest, and loosed him with his own 
 hands. "Thank you, captain," says George, "you are a 
 good fellow. God bless you all!" and with these words he 
 ran aft and jumped into the sea. A Yankee sailor made a 
 grab at him and just touched his coat, but it was too late 
 to save him, and we were going before the wind ten knots an 
 hour. Thus George Hinde fell by brandy; his kindred 
 spirit, old Tom, seemed ready to follow, without the help of 
 water, salt or fresh. This man's face was now a uniform 
 color, white, with a scarce perceptible bluish-yellowish tinge. 
 He was a moving corpse. 
 
 Drink forever! it makes men thieves, murderers, asses 
 and paupers; but what about that? so long as it sends them 
 to an early grave with "beast" for their friends to write over 
 their tombstones, unless they have a mind to tell lies in a 
 churchyard, and that is a common trick. 
 
 We arrived at the mouth of the Thames. 
 
 Some boats boarded us with fresh provisions and deli- 
 cacies; among the rest, one I had not tasted for many a 
 day: it is called soft-tommy at sea, and on land, bread.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 47 
 
 The merchant stood on tiptoe and handed a loaf toward me, 
 and I leaned over the bulwarks and stretched down to him 
 with a shilling in my hand. But as ill luck would have it, 
 the shilling slipped from my ringers and fell. If it had been 
 some men's it would have fallen into the boat, others' into 
 the sea, slap; but it was mine, and so it fell on the boat's 
 very rim, and then danced to its own music into the water. 
 I looked after it in silence; a young lady with whom I had 
 made some little acquaintance during the voyage happened 
 to be at my elbow, and she laughed most merrily as the shil- 
 ling went down. I remember being astonished that she 
 laughed. The man still held out the bread, but I shook my 
 head. "I must go without now," said I; the young lady 
 was quite surprised. "Why, it is worth a guinea," cried she. 
 "Yes, miss," said I, sheepishly, "but we can't always have 
 what we like, you see; I ought to have held my shilling 
 tighter." 
 
 "Your shilling," cries she. "Oh!" and she dashed her 
 hand into her pocket and took out her purse, and I could 
 see her beautiful white fingers tremble with eagerness as 
 they dived among the coin. She soon bought the loaf, and, 
 as she handed it to me, I happened to look in her face, and 
 her cheek was red and her eyes quite brimming. Her quick 
 woman's heart had told her the truth, that it was a well- 
 dressed and tolerably well-behaved man's last shilling, and 
 he returning after years of travel to his native land. 
 
 I am sure until the young lady felt for me, I thought 
 nothing of it; I had been at my last shilling more than once. 
 But when I saw she thought it hard, I began to think it was
 
 48 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 hard, and I remember the water came into my own eyes. 
 Heaven bless her, and may she never want a shilling in her 
 pocket, nor a kind heart near her to show her the world is 
 not all made of stone. 
 
 We had no money to pay our passage, and we found Mr. 
 Yates somewhat embarrassed. We had cost him a thousand 
 or two, and no return; so, while he wrote to Mons. Huguet, 
 that came to pass in England which we had always just con- 
 trived to stave off abroad. 
 
 The White Elephant was pawned. 
 
 And now I became of use to the proprietors. I arranged 
 with the mortgagees, and they made the spout a show-place. 
 I used to exhibit her and her tricks, and with the proceeds I 
 fed her and Elliot and myself. 
 
 We had been three weeks in pledge, when, one fine morn- 
 ing, as I was showing off, seated on the elephant's back, I 
 heard a French exclamation of surprise and joy; I looked 
 down, and there was M. Huguet. I came down to him, and 
 he, whose quick eye saw a way through me out of drunken 
 Elliot, gave loose to his feelings, and embraced me a la 
 Franfaise, "which made the common people very much to 
 admire," as the song has it; also a polite howl of derision 
 greeted our Continental affection. M. Huguet put is hand 
 into his pocket, and we got out of limbo, and were let loose 
 upon suffering humanity once more. 
 
 They talk as if English gold did everything; but it was 
 French gold bought us off, I know that, for I saw it come 
 out of his pocket. 
 
 As soon as we were redeemed, we took an engagement at
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 49 
 
 Astley's, and, during this engagement, cadaverous Tom, 
 finding we could master her, used to attend less and less to 
 her and more and more to brandy. 
 
 A certain baker, who brought her loaves every morning 
 for breakfast, used to ask me to let him feed her himself. 
 He admired her, and took this way of making her fond of 
 him. One day I had left these two friends and their loaves 
 together for a minute, when I heard a fearful cry. I knew 
 the sound too well by this time, and, as I ran back, I had 
 the sense to halloo at her: this saved the man's life. At the 
 sound of my voice she dropped him from a height of about 
 twelve feet, and he rolled away like a ball of worsted. I dashed 
 in, up with the pitchfork, and into her like lightning, and, while 
 the blood was squirting out of her from a hundred little 
 prong-holes, the poor baker limped away. 
 
 Any gentleman or lady who wishes to know how a man 
 feels when seized by a White Elephant, preparatory to being 
 squelched, can consult this person; he is a respectable 
 tradesman; his name is Johns; he lives near Astley's 
 Theatre, or used to, and for obvious reasons can tell you 
 this one anecdote out of many such better than I can; that 
 is if he has not forgotten it, and / dare say he hasn't ask 
 him! 
 
 After Astley's, Drury Lane engaged us to play second to 
 the Lions of Mysore; rather a down-come; but we went. In 
 this theatre we behaved wonderfully. Notwithstanding the 
 number of people continually buzzing about us, we kept our 
 temper, and did not smash a single one of these human 
 gnats, so trying to our little female irritability and feeble
 
 5 o THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 nerves. The only thing we did wrong was, we broke through 
 a granite mountain and fell down on to the plains, and hurt 
 our knees, and broke one super, only one. 
 
 The Lions of Mysore went a starring to Liverpool, and 
 we accompanied them. While we were there the cholera 
 broke out in England, and M. Huguet summoned us hastily 
 to France. We brushed our hats, put on our gloves, and 
 walked at one stretch from Liverpool to Dover. There we 
 embarked for Boulogne: Djek, cadaverous Tom, wolf-skin- 
 lamb Pippin, and myself. I was now in Huguet's service 
 at fifty francs a week as coadjutor and successor of cadaver- 
 ous Tom, whose demise was hourly expected even by us 
 who were hardened by use to his appearance, which was 
 that of the ghost of delirium tremens. We arrived off 
 Boulogne Pier; but there we were boarded by men in uniforms 
 and mustaches, and questions put about the cholera, which 
 disease the civic authorities of Boulogne were determined to 
 keep on the other side of the Channel. The captain's an- 
 swer proving satisfactory, we were allowed to run into the 
 port. 
 
 In landing anywhere Djek and her attendants had always 
 to wait till the other passengers had got clear, and we did so 
 on this occasion. At length our turn came; but we had no 
 sooner crossed the gangway and touched French ground 
 than a movement took place on the quay, and a lot of bayo- 
 nets bristled in our faces, and " Halte la ! " was the word. 
 We begged an explanation; in answer, an officer glared with 
 eyes like saucers, and pointed with his finger at Elliott. The 
 truth flashed on us. The Frenchmen were afraid of cholera
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 51 
 
 coming over from England, and here was a man who looked 
 plague, cholera, or death himself in person. We remon- 
 strated through an interpreter, but Tom's face was not to be 
 refuted by words. Some were for sending us back home to so 
 diseased a country as this article must have come out of; but 
 milder measures prevailed. They set apart for our use a 
 little corner of the quay, and there they roped us in and senti- 
 nelled us. And so for four days, in the polished kingdom of 
 France, we dwelt in a hut ruder far than any on the 
 banks of the Ohio. Drink forever! At last, as Tom Coffin 
 got neither a worse nor a better color, they listened to reason, 
 and let us loose upon the nation at large, and away we tramped 
 for Paris. 
 
 Times were changed with us in one respect: we no longer 
 marched to certain victory; our long ill-success in America 
 had lessened our arrogance, and we crept along toward Paris. 
 But, luckily for us, we had now a presiding head, and a good 
 one. The soul of business is puffing, and no man puffed 
 better than our chief, M. Huguet. Half-way between Bou- 
 logne and Paris we were met by a cavalier carrying our in- 
 structions how we were to enter Paris; and, arrived at St. 
 Denis, instead of going straight on, we skirted the town, and 
 made our formal entry by the Bois de Boulogne and the 
 Arch of Triumph. Huguet had come to terms with Fran- 
 coni, and, to give Djek's engagement more importance, Fran- 
 coni's whole troop were ordered out to meet us and escort us 
 in. They paraded up and down the Champs Elysees first, 
 to excite attention and inquiry, and when the public were 
 fairly agog our cavalcade formed outside the barrier, and
 
 52 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 came glittering and prancing through the arch. A White 
 Elephant has her ups and downs like the rest. Djek, the de- 
 spised of Kentucky and Virginia, burst on Paris the centre 
 of a shining throng. Franconi's bright amazons and exquisite 
 cavaliers rode to and fro our line, carrying sham messages 
 with earnest faces; Djek was bedecked with ribbons, and 
 seemed to tread more majestically, and our own hearts beat 
 higher, as amid grace, and beauty, and pomp, sun shining 
 hats waving feathers bending mob cheering trumpets 
 crowing and flints striking fire, we strode proudly into the 
 great city, the capital of pleasure. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THESE were bright days to me. I was set over old Tom, 
 fancy that; and my salary doubled his. I had fifty francs a 
 week, and cleared as much more by showing her privately in 
 her stable. 
 
 Money melts in London, it evaporates in Paris. Pippin 
 was a great favorite both with men and women behind the 
 scenes at Franconi's. He introduced me to charming com- 
 panions of both sexes; gayety reigned, and tin and morals 
 "made themselves air, into which they vanished." Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 Toward the close of her engagement Djek made one of her 
 mistakes; she up with her rightful heir and broke his ribs 
 against the side scenes. We nearly had to stop her perform- 
 ances; we could not mend our rightful heir by next night, and 
 substitutes did not pour in. "I won't go on with her," "I
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 53 
 
 won't play with her," was the cry that even the humblest and 
 neediest began to raise. I am happy to say that she was not 
 under my superintendence when this rightful heir came to 
 grief. 
 
 And now the cholera came to Paris, and theatricals of all 
 sorts declined, for there was a real tragedy playing in every 
 street. The deaths were very numerous, and awfully sudden; 
 people were struck down in the streets as if by lightning; 
 gloom and terror hung over all. 
 
 When this terrible disease is better known it will be found 
 to be of the nature of strong poison, and its cure, if any, will 
 be strychnine, belladonna, or, likelier still, some quick and 
 deadly mineral poison that kills the healthy with cramps and 
 discoloration. 
 
 In its rapid form cholera is not to be told from quick poi- 
 son, and hence sprung up among the lower order in Paris a 
 notion that wholesale poisoning was on foot. 
 
 Pippin and I were standing at the door of a wine-shop, 
 waiting for our change. His wild appearance attracted first 
 one and then another. Little knots of people collected and 
 eyed us; then they began to talk and murmur, and cast 
 suspicious glances. "Come away," said Pippin, rather 
 hastily. We walked off; they walked after us, increasing 
 like a snow-ball, and they murmured louder and louder. 
 I asked Pippin what the fools were gabbling about. He 
 told me they suspected us of being the poisoners. 
 
 At this I turned round, and being five foot four, and Eng- 
 lish, was for punching some of their heads; but the athletic, 
 pacific Italian would not hear of it, much less co-operate;
 
 54 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 and now they surrounded us just at the corner of one of the 
 bridges, lashing themselves into a fury, and looking first at 
 us, and then at the river below. Pippin was as white as 
 death, and I thought it was all up myself, when by good luck 
 a troop of mounted gendarmes issued from the palace. Pip- 
 pin hailed them; they came up, and, after hearing both sides, 
 took us under their protection, and off we marched between 
 two files of cavalry, followed by the curses of a superficial 
 populace. Extremes don't do. Pippin was the color of ink, 
 Elliot of paper; both their mugs fell under suspicion, and 
 nearly brought us to grief. 
 
 Franconi closed, and, Djek, Huguet and Co. started on a 
 provincial tour. 
 
 They associated themselves on this occasion with Michelet 
 who had some small wild animals such as lions, tigers, and 
 leopards. 
 
 Our first move was to Versailles. Here we built a show- 
 place and exhibited Djek, not as an actress, but as a private 
 White Elephant from Siam in which capacity she did the 
 usual business, besides a trick or two that most them have not 
 brains enough for, whereof anon. 
 
 Michelet was the predecessor of Van Amburgh and Car- 
 ter, and did everything they do a dozen years before they 
 were ever heard of; used to go into the lions' den, pull them 
 about, and put his head down their throats, and their paws 
 round his neck, etc., etc. 
 
 I observed this man, and learned something from him. 
 Besides that general quickness and decision which is neces- 
 sary with wild animals, I noticed that he was always on the
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 55 
 
 lookout for mischief, and always punished it before it came. 
 Another point, he always attacked the offending part, and so 
 met the evil in front; for instance, if one of his darlings curled 
 a lip and showed a tooth, he hit him over the mouth that 
 moment and nowhere else; if one elongated a claw, he hit him 
 over the foot like lightning. He read the whole crew as I 
 had learned to read Djek, and conquered their malice by 
 means of that marvellous cowardice which they all show if 
 they can see no signs of it in you. 
 
 There are no two ways with wild beasts. If there is a single 
 white spot in your heart, leave them, for your life will be in 
 danger every moment. If you can despise them, and keep the 
 rod always in sight, they are your humble servants; nobody 
 more so. 
 
 Our exhibition, successful at first, began to flag; so that 
 the fertile brain of M. Huguet had to work. He proposed 
 to his partner to stand a tiger, and he would stand a bull, 
 and "we will have a joint-stock fight like the King of Oude." 
 Michelet had his misgivings, but Huguet overruled him. 
 That ingenious gentleman then printed bills advertising for 
 a certain day a fight between a real Bengal tiger and a fero- 
 cious bull that had just gored a man to death. This done, 
 he sent me round the villages to find and hire a bull. 
 " Mind you get a mild one, or I shall have to pay for a hole 
 in the tiger's leather." I found one which the owner con- 
 sented to risk for so much money down, and the damage he 
 should sustain from tiger to be valued independently by 
 two farmers after the battle. 
 
 The morning of the fight Pippin and I went for our bull,
 
 56 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 and took him out of the yard towards Versailles; but when 
 we had gone about hundred yards, he became uneasy, looked 
 round, sniffed about, and finally turned round spite of all our 
 efforts, and paced home again. We remonstrated with the 
 proprietor. " O," said he, " I forgot; he won't start without 
 the wench." So the wench in question was sent for (his 
 companion upon amatory excursions). She went with us, 
 and launched us toward Versailles. This done, she returned 
 home, and we marched on; but before we had gone a fur- 
 long Taurus showed symptoms of uneasiness; these in- 
 creased, and at last he turned round and walked tranquilly 
 home. We hung upon him, thrashed him, and bullied him, 
 all to no purpose. His countenance was placid, but his soul 
 resolved, and he walked home, slowly but inevitably; so 
 then, there was nothing for it but to let him have the wench 
 all the way to the tiger, and she would not go to Versailles 
 till she had put on some new finery, short waist, coal- 
 scuttle bonnet, etc. Mort time lost with that; and, when we 
 did arrive in the arena, the spectators were tired of waiting. 
 The bull stood in the middle, confused and stupid. The 
 tiger was in his cage in a corner; we gave him time to ob- 
 serve his prey, and then we opened the door of his cage. 
 
 A shiver ran through the audience (they were all seated 
 in boxes looking down on the arena). 
 
 A moment more, and the furious.animal would spring upon 
 his victim, and his fangs and claws sink deep into its neck, 
 etc., etc. Vide books of travels. 
 
 One moment succeded to another, and nothing occurred. 
 The ferocious animal lay quiet in his cage, and showed no
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 57 
 
 sign; so then we poked the ferocious animal. He snarled, 
 but would not venture out. When this had lasted a long 
 time, the spectators began to doubt its ferocity, and to goose 
 the ferocious animal. So I got a red-hot iron and nagged 
 him behind. He gave a yell of dismay, and went into the 
 arena like a shot. He took no notice of the bull. All he 
 thought of was escape from the horrors that surrounded 
 him. Winged by terror, he gave a tremendous spring, and 
 landed his fore-paws on the boxes, stuck fast, and glared in 
 at the spectators. They rushed out yelling. He dug his 
 hind-claws into the wood-work, and by slow and painful de- 
 grees clambered into the boxes. When he got in, the young 
 and active were gone home, and he ran down the stairs 
 among the old people that could not get clear so quick as 
 the rest. He was so frightened at the people that he 
 skulked and hid himself in a cornfield, and the people were 
 so frightened at him that they ran home and locked their 
 street doors. So one coward made many. 
 
 They thought the poor wretch had attacked them, and the 
 journal next day maintained this view of the transaction, 
 and the town to this day believes it. We netted our striped 
 coward with four shutters, and kicked him into his cage. 
 
 The bull went home with "the wench," and to this day 
 his thick skull has never comprehended what the deuce he 
 went to Versailles for. 
 
 This is how we competed with Oriental monarchs. 
 
 We marched southward, through Orleans, Tours, etc., to 
 Bordeaux, and were pretty well received in all these places 
 except at one small place whose name I forget. Here they
 
 58 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 hissed her out of the town at sight. It turned out she had been 
 there before and pulverized a brushmaker, a popular man 
 among them. 
 
 Soon after Bordeaux she had words with the lions. They, 
 in their infernal conceit, thought themselves more attractive 
 than Djek. It is vice versa, and by a long chalk, said Djek 
 and Co. The parties growled a bit, then parted to meet no 
 more in this world. 
 
 From Bordeaux we returned by another route to Paris; 
 for we were only starring it in the interval of our engage- 
 ment as an actress with Franconi. We started one morning 
 
 from with light hearts, our faces turned toward the gay 
 
 city Elliot, Pippin, and I. Elliot and I walked by the side 
 of the White Elephant, Pippin walking some forty yards in 
 the rear. He never trusted himself nearer to her on a 
 march. 
 
 We were plodding along in this order, when, all in a 
 moment, without reason or warning of any sort, she spun 
 round between us on one heel like a thing turning on a 
 pivot, and strode back like lightning at Pippin. He screamed 
 and ran; but, before he could take a dozen steps, she was 
 upon him, and struck him down with her trunk and trampled 
 upon him; she then wheeled round and trudged back as if 
 she had merely stopped to brush off a fly or pick up a stone. 
 After the first moment of stupefaction, both Elliot and I had 
 run after her with all the speed we had; but so rapid was 
 her movement, and so instantaneous the work of death, that 
 we only met her on her return from her victim. I will not 
 shock the readers by describing the state in which we found
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 59 
 
 our poor comrade; but he was crushed to death. He never 
 spoke, and I believe and trust he never felt anything for the 
 few minutes that breath lingered in his body. We kneeled 
 down and raised him, and spoke to him, but he could not 
 hear us. When Djek got her will of one of us, all our hope 
 used to be to see the man die; and so it was with poor dear 
 Pippin; mangled, and life impossible, we kneeled down and 
 prayed to God for his death; and, by Heaven's mercy, I 
 think in about four minutes from the time he got his death- 
 blow his spirit passed away, and our well-beloved comrade 
 and friend was nothing now but a lump of clay on our 
 hands. 
 
 We were some miles from any town or village, and did 
 not know what to do, and how to take him to a resting- 
 place. At last we were obliged to tie the body across the 
 proboscis, and cover it as well as we could, and so we made 
 his murderess carry him to the little town of La Palice, 
 yes, La Palice. Here we stopped, and a sort of inquest was 
 held, and M. Huguet attended and told the old story: said the 
 man had been cruel to her, and she had put up with it as 
 long as she could. Verdict: "Served him right;" and so 
 we lied over our poor friend's murdered body, and buried 
 him with many sighs in the little churchyard of La Palice, 
 and then trudged on, sad and downcast, toward the gay 
 capital. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I THINK a lesson is to be learned from this sad story. 
 Too much fear is not prudence. Had poor Pippin walked
 
 60 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 with Elliot and me alongside the elephant, she dared not 
 have attacked him. But through fear he kept forty yards in 
 the rear, and she saw a chance to get him by himself; and, 
 from my knowledge of her, I have little doubt she had 
 meditated this attempt for months before she carried it out. 
 Poor Pippin! 
 
 We arrived in Paris to play with Franconi. Now it hap- 
 pened to be inconvenient to Franconi to fulfill his engage- 
 ment. He accordingly declined us. M. Huguet was angry, 
 threatened legal proceedings. Franconi answered, " Where 
 is Pippin?" Huguet shut up. Then Franconi followed 
 suit; if hard pressed, he threatened to declare in open court 
 that it was out of humanity alone he declined to fulfill his 
 engagement. This stopped M. Huguet's mouth altogether. 
 He took a place on the Boulevard, and we showed her and 
 her tricks at three prices, and did a rattling business. Before 
 we had been a fortnight in Paris, old Tom Elliot died at the 
 Hotel Dubois, and I became her vizier at a salary of one 
 hundred francs per week. 
 
 Having now the sole responsibility, I watched her as you 
 would a powder-magazine lighted by gas. I let nobody but 
 M. Huguet go near her in my absence. This gentleman 
 continued to keep her sweet on him with lumps of sugar, 
 and to act as her showman when she exhibited publicly. 
 
 One day we had a message from the Tuileries, and we got 
 the place extra clean; and the king's children paid her a 
 visit, a lot of little chaps. I did not know their names, 
 but I suppose it was Prince Joinville, Aumale, etc. All I 
 know is that while these little Louis Philippes were coaxing
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 61 
 
 her, and feeding her, and cutting about her, and sliding 
 down her, and I was telling them she was a duck, the per- 
 spiration was running down my back one moment and cold 
 sjiivers the next; and I thanked Heaven devoutly when the 
 young gents went back to there papa and mamma, and 
 no bones broken. The young gentlemen reported her 
 affability and my lies to the king, and he engaged her to 
 perform gratis in the Champs Elysees during the three days' 
 fete. Fifteen hundred francs for this. 
 
 But Huguet was penny-wise and pound-foolish to agree, 
 for it took her gloss off. Showed her gratis to half the 
 city. 
 
 Among Djek's visitors came one day a pretty young lady, 
 a nursery governess to some nobleman's children, whose 
 name I forget, but he was English. The children were 
 highly amused at Djek, and quite loath to go. The young 
 lady, who had a smattering of English as I had of French, 
 put several questions to me. I answered them more polite 
 than usual on account of her being pretty, and I used a 
 privilege I had and gave her an order for free admission 
 some other day. She came, with only one child, which 
 luckily was one of those deeply meditative ones that occur 
 but rarely, and only bring out a word every half-hour; so 
 mademoiselle and I had a chat, which I found so agreeable 
 that I rather neglected the general public for her. I made 
 it my business to learn where she aired the children, and* 
 one vacant morning, dressed in the top of the fashion, I 
 stood before her in the garden of the Tuileries. She gave 
 a half-start and a blush, and seemed very much struck with
 
 62 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 astonishment at this rencounter. She was a little less aston- 
 ished next week when the same thing happened, but still she 
 thought these coincidences remarkable, and said so. In 
 
 short, I paid my addresses to Mademoiselle . She was 
 
 a charming brunette from Geneva, greatly my superior in 
 education and station. I was perfectly conscious of this, 
 and instantly made this calculation: "All the better for me 
 if I can win her." But the reader knows my character by 
 this time, and must have observed how large a portion of it 
 effrontery forms. I wrote to her every day, sometimes in 
 the French language no, not in the French language, in 
 French words. She sometimes answered in English words. 
 She was very pretty and very interesting, and I fancied her. 
 When a man is in love he can hardly see difficulties. I 
 pressed her to marry me, and I believed she would consent. 
 When I came to this point the young lady's gayety declined, 
 and when I was painting her pictures of our conjugal happi- 
 ness, she used to sigh instead of brightening at the picture. 
 At last I pressed her so hard that she consented to write to 
 Geneva and ask her parents' consent to our union. When 
 the letter went I was in towering spirits. I was now in the 
 zenith of my prosperity. The risks I had run with Djek 
 were rewarded by a heavy salary and the post of honor near 
 her, and, now that I was a little weary of roaming the world 
 alone with a White Elephant, fate had thrown in my way a 
 charming companion who would cheer the weary road. 
 
 Dreams. 
 
 The old people at Geneva saw my position with another 
 eye. " He is a servant liable to lose his place at any moment
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 63 
 
 by any one of a hundred accidents, and his profession is a 
 discreditable one why, he is a showman. 
 
 They told her all this in language so plain that she would 
 never show me the letter. I was for defying their advice 
 and authority, but she would not hear of it. I was forced to 
 temporize. "In a month's time," said I to myself, "her 
 scruples will melt away." But in less than a fortnight the 
 order came for us to march into Flanders. I communicated 
 this cruel order to my sweetheart. She turned pale and 
 made no secret of her attachment to me, and of the pain 
 she felt at parting. Every evening before we left Paris I 
 saw her, and implored her to trust herself to me and leave 
 Paris as my wife. She used to smile at my pictures of 
 wedded happiness, and cry the next minute because she 
 dared not give herself and me that happiness; but, with all 
 this, she was firm, and would not fly in her parents' face. 
 
 At last came a sad and bitter hour: hat in hand, as the 
 saying is, I made a last desperate endeavor to persuade her 
 to be mine; and not to let this parting take place at all. She 
 was much agitated, but firm; and, the more I said, the firmer 
 she became. So at last I grew frantic and reproached her. 
 I called her a cold-hearted coquette, and we parted in anger 
 and despair. 
 
 Away into the wide world again, not as I used to start on 
 these pilgrimages, with a stout heart and iron nerves, but 
 cold, and weary, and worn out before the journey had begun. 
 As we left Paris behind us I had but one feeling, that the 
 best of life was at an end for me. My limbs took me along 
 like machinery, but my heart was a lump of ice inside me,
 
 64 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 and I would have thanked any man for knocking me on the 
 head and ending the monotonous farce of my existence; ay, 
 gentlefolks, even a poor mechanic can feel like this when the 
 desire of his heart is balked forever. 
 
 Trudge! trudge! trudge! for ever and ever. 
 
 Tramp! tramp! tramp! for ever and ever. 
 
 A man gets faint and weary of it at last, and there comes 
 a time when he pines for a hearth-stone and a voice he can 
 believe, a part, at least, of what it says, and a Sunday of 
 some sort now and then; and my time was come to long for 
 these things, and for a pretty and honest face about me to 
 stand for the one bit of peace and the one bit of truth in 
 my vagabond charlatan life. 
 
 I lost my appetite and sleep, and was very nearly losing 
 heart altogether. My clothes hung about me like bags, I 
 got so thin. It was my infernal occupation that cured me 
 after all. Djek gave me no time even for despair. The 
 moment I became her sole guardian I had sworn on my 
 knees she would never kill another man; judge whether I 
 had to look sharp after her to keep the biped from perjury 
 and the quadruped from murder. I slept with her rose 
 early fed her walked twenty miles with her, or exhibited 
 her all day, sometimes did both, and at night rolled into the 
 straw beside her, too deadly tired to feel all my unhappiness; 
 and so, after a while, time and toil blunted my sense of 
 disappointment, and I trudged, and tramped, and praised 
 Djek's moral qualities in the old routine. Only now and 
 then, when I saw the country lads in France and Belgium 
 going to church dressed in their best with their sweethearts,
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 65 
 
 and I in prison in the stable with my four-legged hussy, 
 waiting perhaps till dark to steal out and march to some 
 fresh town, I used to feel as heavy as lead and as bitter as 
 wormwood, and wish we were all dead together by way of a 
 change. 
 
 A man needs a stout heart to go through the world at all, 
 but most of all he needs it for a roving life; don't you 
 believe any other, no matter who tells you. 
 
 With this brief notice of my feelings I pass over two 
 months' travel. All through I spare the reader much, 
 though I dare say he doesn't see it. 
 
 Sir, the very names of the places I have visited would fill 
 an old-fashioned map of Europe. 
 
 Talk of Ulysses and his travels! he never saw the tenth 
 part of what I have gone through. 
 
 I have walked with Djek farther than round the world 
 during the eleven years I have trudged beside her; it is only 
 24,000 miles round the world. 
 
 After a year's pilgrimage we found ourselves at Doncheray, 
 near Sedan. 
 
 Here we had an incident. Mons. Huguet was showing 
 her to the public with the air of a prince and in his Marechal 
 of France costume, glittering with his theatrical cross of the 
 Legion of Honor. He was not particular what he put on, 
 so that it shone and looked well. He sent me for something 
 connected with the performance, a pistol, I think. I had 
 hardly ten steps to go, but during the time I was out of her 
 sight I heard a man cry out and the White Elephant snort. 
 I ran back hallooing as I came. As I ran in I found the
 
 66 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 White Elephant feeling for something in the straw with her 
 foot, and the people rushing out of the doors in dismay. 
 The moment she saw me she affected innocence, but trembled 
 from head to foot. I drew out from the straw a thing you 
 would have taken for a scarecrow or a bundle of rags. It 
 was my master, Mr. Huguet, his glossy hat battered, his 
 glossy coat stained and torn, and his arm broken in two 
 places; a moment more and her foot would have been on 
 him, and his soul crushed out of his body. 
 
 The people were surprised when they saw the furious 
 snorting monster creep into a corner to escape a little fellow 
 five feet four, who got to the old weapon, pitchfork, and 
 drove it into every part of her but her head. She hid that 
 in the corner the moment she saw blood in my eye. 
 
 We got poor M. Huguet to bed, and a doctor from the 
 Hospital to him, and a sorrowful time he had of it; and so, 
 after standing good for twelve years, lump sugar fell to the 
 ground. Pitchfork held good. 
 
 At night more than a hundred people came to see whether 
 I was really so hardy as to sleep with this ferocious animal. 
 To show them my sense of her, I lay down between her legs. 
 On this she lifted her four feet singly, and with the utmost 
 care and delicacy drew them back over my body. 
 
 As soon as M. Huguet's arm was set and doing well, he 
 followed us (we had got into France by this time), and came 
 in along with the public to admire us, and, to learn how the 
 White Elephant stood affected toward him now, he cried out, 
 in his most ingratiating way, in sugared tones, " Djek, my 
 boy! Djek!" At this sound Djek rai&ed a roar of the
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 67 
 
 most infernal rage, and Huguet, who knew her real character 
 well enough, though he pretented not to, comprehended that 
 her heart was now set upon his extinction, malgrd twelve 
 years of lump sugar. 
 
 He sent for me, and with many expressions of friendship 
 offered me the invaluable animal for thirty thousand francs. 
 I declined her without thanks. "Then I shall have the 
 pleasure of killing her to-morrow," said the Frenchman, 
 "and what will become of your salary, mon pauvre gargon?" 
 
 In short, he had me in a fix, and used his power. I bought 
 her of him for 20,000 francs, to be paid by installments. I 
 gave him the first installment, a five franc piece, and walked 
 out of the wine-shop her sole proprietor. 
 
 The sense of property is pleasant, even when we have net 
 paid for the article. 
 
 That night I formed my plans. There was no time to 
 lose, because I had only a thousand francs in the world, and 
 she ate a thousand francs a week or nearly. I determined to 
 try Germany, a poor country but one which, being quite in- 
 land, could not have become callous to an elephant, perhaps 
 had never seen one. I shall never forget the fine, clear morning 
 I started on my own account. The sun was just rising, the 
 birds were tuning, and all manner of sweet smells came from 
 the fields and the hedges. Djek seemed to step out more 
 majestically than when she was another man's; my heart 
 beat high. Eleven years ago I had started the meanest of 
 her slaves. I had worked slowly, painfully, but steadily up, 
 and now I was actually her lord and master, and half the 
 world before me with the sun shining on it.
 
 68 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 The first town I showed her at as mine was Verdun, and 
 
 the next day I wrote to Mademoiselle at Paris to tell 
 
 her of the change in my fortunes. This was the only letter 
 I had sent, for we parted bad friends. I received a kinder 
 answer than the abrupt tone of my letter deserved. She con- 
 gratulated me, and thanked me for remembering that what- 
 ever good fortune befell me must give her particular pleas- 
 ure, and in the postscript she told me she was just about to 
 leave Paris and return to her parents in Switzerland. 
 
 Djek crossed into Prussia, tramped that country, and pene- 
 trated into the heart of Germany. As I had hoped, she de- 
 scended on this nation with all the charm of novelty, and 
 used to clear the copper* out of a whole village. I remem- 
 ber early in this trip being at a country inn. I saw rustics, 
 male and female, dressed in their Sunday clothes, coming 
 over the hills from every side to one point. I thought there 
 must be a fair or something. I asked the landlord what 
 they were all coming for. He said: "Why, you, to be sure." 
 They never saw such a thing in their lives, and never will again. 
 
 In fact, at one or two small places we were stopped by the 
 authorities, who had heard that we carried more specie out 
 of little towns than the circulating medium would bear. 
 
 In short, my first coup was successful. After six months' 
 Germany, Bavaria, Prussia, etc., I returned to the Rhine at 
 Strasbourg with eight thousand francs. During all this time 
 she never hurt a soul, I watched her so fearfully close. So, 
 being debarred from murder, she tried arson. 
 
 * Germany is mostly made of copper. A bucketful of farthings was a 
 common thing for me to have in my carriage.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. &9 
 
 At a place in Bavaria her shed was suddenly observed to 
 be in flames, and we saved her with difficulty. 
 
 The cause never transpired until now, but I saw directly 
 how it had been done. I had unwarily left my coat in her 
 way. The pockets were found emptied of all their contents, 
 among which was a lucifer-box, fragments of which I found 
 among the straw. She had played with this in her trunk, 
 hammering it backward and forward against her knee, drop- 
 ping the lighted matches into the straw, when they stung 
 her, and very nearly roasted her own beef the mischievous, 
 uneasy devil. 
 
 My readers will not travel with a White Elephant, but 
 business of some sort will fall to the lot of some of them 
 soon or late, and, as charlatanry is the very soul of modern 
 business, it may not be amiss to show how the humble 
 artisan worked his White Elephant. 
 
 We never allowed ourselves to drop casually upon any 
 place, like a shower of rain. 
 
 A man in bright livery, green and gold, mounted on a 
 showy horse, used to ride into the town or village, and go 
 round to all the inns, making loud inquiries about their 
 means of accommodation for the elephant and her train. 
 Four hours after him, the people being now a little agog, 
 another green and gold man came in on a trained horse, and 
 inquired for No. i. As soon as he had found him, the two 
 rode together round the town, No. 2 blowing a trumpet and 
 proclaiming the W T hite Elephant; the nations she had in- 
 structed in the wonders of nature; the kings she had
 
 70 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 amused; her grandeur, her intelligence, and, above all, her 
 dovelike disposition. 
 
 This was allowed to ferment for some hours, and, when 
 expectation was at its height, the rest of the cavalcade used to 
 heave in sight, Djek bringing up the rear. Arrived, I used 
 to shut her in out of sight, and send all my men and horses 
 round, parading, trumpeting, and pasting bills, so that at 
 last the people were quite ripe for her, and then we went to 
 work; and thus the humble artisan and his White Elephant 
 cut a greater dash than lions, and tigers, and mountebanks, 
 and quacks, and drew more money. 
 
 Here is one of my programmes: only I must remark that 
 I picked up my French where I picked up the sincerity it 
 embodies, in the circuses, coulisses, and cabarets of French 
 towns, so that I can patter French as fast as you like; but, 
 of course, I know no more about it than a pig, not to really 
 
 know it. 
 
 Par permission de M. le Maire, 
 
 Le grand 
 WHITE ELEPHANT 
 
 du Roi de Siam, 
 Du Cirque Olympique Franconi. 
 
 Mile. Djek, 
 
 Elephant colossal, de onze pieds de hauteur et du poids de 
 neuf mille liv., est le plus grand elephant qui Ton ait vu 
 en Europe. 
 
 M. H. B. Lott, naturaliste, pourvoyeur des menageries des 
 diverses cours d'Europe, actionnaire du Circue Olympique 
 et proprietaire de ce magnifique elephant, qu'il a dresse" au
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 71 
 
 point de le presenter au public dans une piece theatrale qui 
 fut cre"ee pour Maddle. Djek il y a trois ans et demi, et qui a 
 eu un si grand succes, sous le nom de 1'Elephant du Roi de 
 Siam. 
 
 Le proprietaire, dans son voyage autour du monde, cut 
 occasion d'acheter cet enorme quadrupede, qui le prit en 
 affection, et qui, depuis onze ans qu'il le possede, ne s'est 
 jamais dementi, se plait a ecouter son maitre et execute avec 
 punctualite tout ce qu'il lui indique de faire. 
 
 Mile. Djek, qui est dans toute la force de sa taille, a main- 
 tenant cent vingt-cinq ans; elle a onze pieds de hauteur et 
 pese neuf mille livres. 
 
 Sa consommation dans les vingt-quatre heures excede 
 deux cent livres quarante livres de pain pour son dejeuner; 
 a midi, du son et de 1'avoine; le soir, des pommes de terre 
 ou du rizcuit: et la nuit du foin et de la paille. 
 
 C'est le meme elephant qui a combattu la lionne de M. 
 Martin. Cette lionne en furie, qu'une imprudence fit sortir 
 de sa cage, s'elance sur M. H. B. Lott qui se trouvait aupres 
 de son elephant; voyant le danger il se refugie derriere une 
 des jambes de ce bon animal, qui releve sa trompe pour le 
 proteger.* La lionne allait saisir M. H. B. Lott; I'eldphant 
 la voit, rabat sa trompe, 1'enveloppe, 1'etouffe, la jette au loin, 
 et 1'aurait ecrasee, si son maitre ne lui cut dit de ne pas con- 
 tinuer. 
 
 Elle a ensuite allonge sa trompe, frappe" du pied, criant et 
 temoignant la satisfaction, qu'elle e"prouvait d'avoir sauve" 
 
 * I am a dull fellow now, as you see. But you must allow I have been 
 a man of imagination.
 
 72 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 son ami d'une mort certaine, comme on a pu voir dans les 
 journaux en fevrier 1832. 
 
 Dans les cours des seances, on lui fera faire tous ses 
 grands exercices qui sont dignes d'admiration, dont le grand 
 nombre ne permet pas d'en donner 1'analyse dans cette 
 affiche, et qu'il faut voir pour Ten faire une idee juste. 
 
 Prix d'entree: Premieres Secondes 
 
 Les militaires et les enfants, moitie. 
 
 I don't think but what my countrymen will understand 
 every word of the above; but, as there are a great number 
 of Frenchmen in London who will read this, I think it would 
 look unkind not to translate it into English for their benefit. 
 
 By permission of the Worshipful the Mayor, 
 
 the great 
 WHITE ELEPHANT 
 
 of the King of Siam, 
 from Franconi's Olympic Circus. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek, 
 
 Colossal Elephant, eleven feet high, and weighs nine thou- 
 sand pounds. 
 The largest elephant ever seen in Europe. 
 
 Mr. H. B. Lott, naturalist, who supplies the menageries 
 of the various courts of Europe, shareholder in the Olympic 
 Circus, and proprietor of this magnificent White Elephant, 
 which he has trained to such a height that he will present 
 her to the public in a dramatic piece which was written for 
 her three years and a half ago, and had a great success 
 under the title of the White Elephant of the King of Siam.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 73 
 
 The proprietor, in his voyage round the globe, was for- 
 tunate enough to purchase this enormous quadruped, which 
 became attached to him, and has been eleven years in his 
 possession, during which time she has never once forgotten 
 herself, and- executes with obedient zeal whatever he bids 
 her. 
 
 Mile. Djek has now arrived at her full growth, being one 
 hundred and twenty-five years of age; she is eleven feet 
 high, and weighs nine thousand pounds. Her daily con- 
 sumption exceeds two hundred pounds. She takes forty 
 pounds of bread for her breakfast, at noon barley and oats, 
 in the evening potatoes or rice cooked, and at night hay and 
 straw. 
 
 This is the same White Elephant that fought with Mr. 
 Martin's lioness. The lioness, whom the carelessness of the 
 attendants allowed to escape from her cage, dashed furiously 
 at Mr. H. B. Lott; fortunately he was near his White Ele- 
 phant, and, seeing the danger, took refuge behind one of the 
 legs of that valuable animal. She raised her trunk in her 
 master's defence. The lioness made to seize him; but the 
 White Elephant lowered her trunk, seized the lioness, choked 
 her, flung her a distance, and would have crushed her to 
 death if Mr. Lott had not commanded her to desist. 
 After that she extended her trunk, stamped with her foot, 
 trumpeting and showing her satisfaction at having saved her 
 friend from certain death, full accounts of which are to be 
 seen in the journals of February, 1832. 
 
 In the course of the exhibition she will go through all her 
 exercises, which are wonderful, and so numerous that it is
 
 74 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 impossible to enumerate them in this bill; they must be seen 
 to form a just idea of them. 
 
 Prices : First places Second . Soldiers and chil- 
 dren half price. 
 
 Djek and I used to make our bow to our audiences in the 
 following fashion: I came on with her, and said, " Otez mon 
 chapeau pour saluer; " then she used to take off my hat, 
 wave it gracefully, and replace it on my head. She then 
 proceeded to pick up twenty five-franc pieces, one after 
 another, and keep them piled in the extremity of her trunk. 
 She also fired pistols, and swept her den with a broom, in a 
 most painstaking and ludicrous way. 
 
 But perhaps her best business in a real judge's eye was 
 drinking a bottle of wine. The reader will better estimate 
 this feat if he will fancy himself a White Elephant, and lay 
 down the book now, and ask himself how he would do it, 
 and read the following afterward. 
 
 The bottle (cork drawn) stood before her. She placed 
 the finger and thumb of her proboscis on the mouth, made 
 a vacuum by suction, and then, suddenly inverting the bottle, 
 she received the contents in her trunk. The difficulty now 
 was to hold the bottle, which she would not have broken for 
 a thousand pounds (my lady thought less of killing ten men 
 than breaking a saucer), and yet not let the liquor run from 
 her flesh-pipe. She rapidly shifted her hold to the centre 
 of the bottle, and worked it by means of the wrinkles in her 
 proboscis to the bend of it. Then she griped it, and at the 
 same time curled round her trunk to a sloping position, and 
 let the wine run down her throat. This done, she resumed
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 75 
 
 the first position of her trunk and worked the bottle back 
 toward her finger, suddenly snapped hold of it by the neck, 
 and handed it gracefully to me. 
 
 With this exception, it was not her public tricks that aston- 
 ished me most. The principle of all these tricks is one. 
 An animal is taught to lay hold of things at command, and 
 to shift them from one place to another. You vary the 
 thing to be laid hold of, but the act is the same. In her 
 drama, which was so effective on the stage, Djek did noth- 
 ing out of the way. She merely went through certain me- 
 chanical acts at a word of command from her keeper, who 
 was unseen or unnoticed; /. <?., he was either at the wing in 
 his fustian jacket, or on the stage with her in gimcrack and 
 gold, as one of a lot of slaves or courtiers, or what not. Be- 
 tween ourselves, a single trick I have several times caught 
 her doing on her own account proved more for her intelli- 
 gence than all these. She used to put her eye to a keyhole. 
 Ay, that she would, and so watch for hours to see what 
 devil's trick she could do with impunity, she would see me 
 out of the way, and then go to work. Where there was no 
 keyhole I have seen her pick the knot out of a deal board, 
 and squint through the little hole she had thus made. 
 
 A dog comes next to an elephant, but he is not up to look- 
 ing through a keyhole or a crack. He can think of nothing 
 better than snuffing under the door. 
 
 At one place, being under a granary, she worked a hole in 
 the ceiling no bigger than a thimble, and sucked down sack- 
 fuls of grain before she was found out. Talk of the half- 
 reasoning elephant; she seldom met a man that could match
 
 76 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 her in reasoning, to a bad end. Her weak points were her 
 cruelty and cowardice, and by this latter Tom Elliot and I 
 governed her with a rod of iron, vulgarly called a pitchfork. 
 If a mouse pattered about the floor in her stable, Djek used 
 to tremble all over, and whine with terror till the little 
 monster was gone. A ton shaken by an ounce. 
 
 I have seen her start back in dismay from a small feather 
 floating in the air. If her heart had been as stout as her 
 will to do mischief was strong, mankind must have risen to 
 put her down. 
 
 Spare the pitchfork, spoil the elephant. 
 
 There is another animal people misconstrue just as bad, 
 the hyena. 
 
 Terrible fierce animal, the hyena, says Buffon and Co., 
 and the world echoes the chant. 
 
 Fierce, are they ? You get a score of them together in a 
 yard, and you shall see me walk into the lot with nothing 
 but a switch, and them try to get between the brick and the 
 mortar with the funk, that is how fierce they are; and they 
 are not only cowardly, but innocent, and affectionate into 
 the bargain, is the fierce hyena of Buffon and Co.; but, indeed, 
 wild animals are sadly misunderstood; it is pitiable; and 
 those that have the best charcter deserve it less than those 
 that have the worst. 
 
 In one German town I met with something I should like 
 to tell the sporting gents, for I don't think there is many 
 that ever fell in with such a thing. But it is an old saying 
 that what does happen has happened before and may again, 
 so I tell this to put them on their guard, especially in Ger-
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 77 
 
 many. Well it was a good town for business, and we stayed 
 several days; but before we had been there many hours my 
 horses turned queer. Restless they were, and uneasy. 
 Sweated of their own accord. Stamped eternally. One, in 
 particular, began to lose flesh. We examined the hay. It 
 seemed particularly good, and the oats not amiss. Called 
 the landlord in, and asked him if he could account for it. 
 He stands looking at them; this one, called Dick, was all in 
 a lather. "Well, I think I know now," said he; "they are 
 bewitched. You see there is an old woman in the next 
 street that bewitches cattle, and she rides on your horses' 
 backs all night, you may take your oath." Then he tells us 
 a lot of stories, whose cow died after giving this old wench 
 a rough word, and how she had been often seen to go across 
 the meadows in the shape of a hare. " She has a spite 
 against me, the old sorceress," says he. ' She has been at 
 them; you had better send for the pastor." "Go for the 
 farrier, Jem," says I. So we had in the farrier. He sat on 
 the bin and smoked his pipe in dead silence, looking at them. 
 " They seem a little fidgety," says he, after about half an 
 hour. So I turned him out of the stable. And I was in two 
 minds about punching his head, I was. " Send for the vete- 
 rinary surgeon, No. i." He came. " They have got some 
 disorder," says he, "that is plain; nostrils are clear, too. 
 Let me see them eat." They took their food pretty well. 
 Then he asked where we came from last. I told him. 
 "Well," said he, cheerfully, "this is a murrain, I think. In 
 this country we do invent a new murrain about every twenty 
 years. We are about due now." He spoke English, this
 
 78 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 one, quite a fine gentlemen. One of the grooms put in, " I 
 think the water is poisoned." " Any way," says another. 
 "Dick will die if we stay here." So they both pressed me 
 to leave the town. "You know, governor, we can't afford 
 to lose the horses." Now I was clearing ten pounds a day 
 in the place, and all expenses paid; so I looked blank. So 
 did the veterinary. "I wouldn't go," says he; "wait a day. 
 or two; then the disease will declare itself, and we shall know 
 what we are doing." You see, gents, he did not relish my 
 taking a murrain out of his town; he was a veterinary. 
 "Whatever it is," says he, "you brought it with you." "Well, 
 now," said I, " my opinion is I found it here. Did you notice 
 anything at the last place, Nick ?" " No;" the grooms both 
 bore me out. " Oh ! " says the vet, "you can't go by that; 
 it had not declared itself." Well, if you will believe me (I 
 often laugh when I think of it), it was not two minutes after 
 he said that that it did declare itself, It was Sunday morn- 
 ing, and Nick had got a clean shirt on. Nick was currying 
 the very horse called Dick, when all of a sudden the sleeve 
 of his white shirt looked dirty. "What now?" cries he, and 
 comes to the light. " I do believe it is vermin," says he, 
 "and if it is they are eaten up with it." "Vermin ? What 
 vermin can that be ?" said I; " have we invented a new ver- 
 min, too ?" They were no bigger than pins' points, looked 
 like dust on his shirt. " What do you say, sir is it vermin ?" 
 " Not a doubt of it," says the vet. " These are poultry-lice, 
 unless I am mistaken. Have you any hens anywhere 
 near?" Both the grooms burst out, "Hens? why, there 
 are full a hundred up in the hay-loft." So that was the
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 79 
 
 murrain. The hens had been tumbling in the hay; the 
 hay came down to the rack all alive with their vermin; and 
 the vermin were eating the horses. We stopped that supply 
 of hay; and what with currying, and washing with a solut. 
 the vet. gave us, we cured that murrain chicken-pox, if any. 
 We had a little scene at going away from this place. Land- 
 lord had agreed to charge nothing for the use of stabling, 
 we spent so much in other ways with him. In spite of that, 
 he put it down at the foot of the list. I would not pay. 
 "You must." " I won't." "Then you sha'n't go till you 
 do;" and with that he and his servants closed the great gates. 
 The yard was entered by two great double doors like barn 
 doors, secured outside by a stout beam. So there he had us 
 fast. It got wind, and there was the whole population hoot- 
 ing outside, three thousand strong. Then it was, " Come, 
 don't be a fool." 
 
 "Don't you be a fool." 
 
 "Stand clear," said I to the man; "we will alter our usual 
 line of march this time; I'll take Djek from the rear to the 
 front." So they all formed behind me and Djek, two car- 
 riages, and six horses, all in order. "Now," said I, "land- 
 lord, you have had your joke, open the door and let us part 
 friends; we have been with you a week, you know, and you 
 have had one profit out of us, and another out of the towns- 
 folk we brought to your bar. Open the door." 
 
 Pay me my bill, and I'll open," says he. " If I turned away 
 one traveller from my stable for you, I've turned away twenty." 
 
 " A bargain is a bargain. Will you open before she knocks 
 your door into toothpicks ?"
 
 8o THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 " Oh ! I'll risk my door if you'll risk your beast. No, I 
 won't open till I am paid." 
 
 " Once, will you open ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Twice, will you open ? Thrice ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Djek Go !" 
 
 She walked lazily at the door, as if she did not see it. 
 The moment she touched it both doors were in the road; 
 the beam was in half in the road. Most times one thing 
 stands, another goes; here it all went bodily on all sides like 
 paper on a windy day, and the people went fastest of all. 
 There was the yell of a multitude under our noses, then an 
 empty street under our eyes. We marched on calm, majes- 
 tical, and unruffled beneath the silent night. 
 
 Doors and bolts, indeed, to a lady that had stepped through 
 a brick wall before that day an English brick wall. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FROM Strasbourg I determined to go into Switzerland ; 
 above all, to Geneva. I could not help it. In due course 
 of time and travel I arrived near Geneva, and sent forward 
 my green and gold avant-couriers ; but, alas ! they returned 
 with the doleful news that elephants were not admitted into 
 that ancient city. The last elephant that had been there had 
 done mischief, and, at the request of its proprietor, Madlle. 
 Gamier, a young lady whose conscience smote her, for she
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 8r 
 
 had another elephant that killed one or two people in Venice, 
 was publicly executed in the fortress.* 
 
 Fortunately (as I then thought), I had provided myself 
 with testimonials from the Mayor and Governors of some 
 score of towns, testifying that this was a White Elephant 
 from Siam. I produced these, and made friends in the town, 
 particularly with a Dr. Mayo. At last we were admitted. 
 Djek was proved a dove by such overpowering testimony. 
 I had now paid M. Huguet six thousand francs and found 
 myself possessed of five thousand more. Business was very 
 good in Geneva. Djek was very popular. Her intelligence 
 and amiability became a by-word. I had but one bitter dis- 
 appointment, though. 
 
 Madlle. never came to see us, and I was too sulky 
 
 and too busy to hunt for her. Besides, I said to myself, 
 " All the world can find me, and if she cared a button for me 
 she would come to light." I tried to turn it off with the old 
 song, 
 
 " Now get ye gone, ye scornful dame ; 
 If you are proud, I'll be the same. 
 I make no doubt that I shall find 
 As pretty a girl unto my mind." 
 
 Behold me now at the climax of prosperity, dressed like a 
 gentleman, driving a pair of horses, proprietor of a whole 
 cavalcade and of a White Elephant ; and, after clearing all 
 expenses, making at the rate of full ,600 per annum. 
 There was a certain clergyman of the place used to visit us 
 
 * They gave this elephant an ounce of prussic acid and an ounce of 
 arsenic ; neither of these sedatives producing any effect, they fired a 
 cannon-ball through her neck.
 
 82 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 about every day, and bring her cakes and things to eat, till 
 he got quite fond of her, and believed that she returned his 
 affection. I used to beg him not to go so close to her. On 
 this, his answer was, " Why, you say she is harmless as a 
 chicken ;" so then I had no more to say. Well, one unlucky 
 day I turned my back for a moment; before I could get back 
 there were the old sounds, a snort of rage, and a cry of ter- 
 ror, and there was the poor minister in her trunk. At sight 
 of me she dropped him, but two of his ribs were broken, and 
 he was quite insensible, and the people rushed out in terror. 
 We raised the clergyman and carried him home, and in half 
 an hour a mob was before the door, and stones as big as 
 your fists thrown in at the windows ; this, however, was 
 stopped by the authorities. But the next day my lady was 
 arrested and walked off to the fortress, and there confined. 
 I remonstrated, expostulated, in vain. I had now to feed 
 her and no return from her ; ruin stared me in the face. So 
 I went to law with the authorities. Law is slow, and Djek 
 was eating all the time. Ruin looked nearer still. The law 
 ate my green and gold servants and horses, and still Djek 
 remained in quod. Then I refused to feed her any longer, 
 and her expenses fell upon the town. Her appetite and their 
 poverty soon brought matters to a climax. They held a sort 
 of municipal tribunal, and tried her for an attempt at 
 homicide. I got counsel to defend her, for I distrusted my 
 own temper and French. 
 
 I can't remember half the fine things he said, but there 
 was one piece of common sense I do remember. He said : 
 " The animal, I believe, is unconscious of her great strength,
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 83 
 
 and has committed a fatal error rather than a crime ; still, if 
 you think she is liable to make such errors, let her die rather 
 than kill men. But how do you reconcile to your consciences 
 to punish her proprietor, to rob him of his subsistence ? He 
 has committed no crime, he has been guilty of no want of 
 caution. If, therefore, you take upon yourselves to punish 
 the brute, be honest ! buy her of the man first, and then- 
 assert your sublime office destroy an animal that has 
 offended morality. But a city should be above wronging or 
 robbing an individual." When he sat down I thought my 
 homicide was safe, for I knew Geneva could not afford to 
 buy a White Elephant without it was out of a Noah's ark. 
 
 But, up gets an orator on the other side and attacked me, 
 accused me of false representations, of calling a demon a 
 duck. "We have certain information from France that this 
 White Elephant has been always wounding and killing men 
 up and down Europe these twenty years. Mons. Lott knew 
 this by universal report, and by being an eye-witness of more 
 than one man's destruction." Here there was a sensation, I 
 can tell you. " He has, therefore, forfeited all claims to 
 consideration." Than he thundered out: "Let no man 
 claim to be wiser than Holy Writ ; there we are told that a 
 lie is a crime of the very deepest dye, and here we see how 
 for years falsehood has been murder." Then I mind he 
 took just the opposite line to my defender. Says he : " If 
 I hesitate for a moment, it is not for the man's sake, but for 
 the brute's ; but I do not hesitate. I could wish so majestic 
 a creature might be spared for our instruction," says he, "that 
 so wonderful a specimen of the Creator's skill might still
 
 84 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 walk the earth ; but reason, and justice, and humanity say 
 ' No.' There is an animal far smaller, yet ten times more 
 important, for he has a soul, and this, the king of all the 
 animals, is not safe while she lives ; therefore she ought to 
 die. Weaker far than her in his individual strength, he is a 
 thousand times stronger by combination and science, there- 
 fore she will die." 
 
 When this infernal chatterbox shut up my heart sunk into 
 my shoes. He was a prig, but an eloquent one, and walked into 
 Djek and me till we were not worth an hour's purchase. 
 
 For all that, the council did not come to a decision on the 
 spot, and I believe that if Djek had but been content to kill 
 the laity as heretofore, we should have scraped through with 
 a fine ; but the fool must go and tear black cloth, and dig 
 her own grave. 
 
 Two days after the trial, out came the sentence, Death. 
 
 With that modesty and good feeling which belongs to 
 most foreign governments, they directed me to execute their 
 sentence. 
 
 My answer came in English. " I'll see you d d, and 
 doubled d d first, and then I won't." 
 
 Meantime Huguet was persecuting poor heart-sick me 
 for the remainder of her purchase-money, and, what with the 
 delay, the expense, and the anxiety, I was so down and so at 
 the end of my wits and my patience, that her sentence fell 
 on me like a blow on a chap that is benumbed, produced 
 less effect upon me at the time than it does when I think of it 
 now.
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 85 
 
 Well, curse them ! one fine morning they ran a cannon 
 up to the gate, loaded it and bade me call the elephant, and 
 bring her into a favorable position for being shot. I refused 
 point-blank, in English, as before. They threatened me for 
 my contumacy. I answered they might shoot me if they 
 liked, but I would not be the one to destroy my own liveli- 
 hood. 
 
 So they had to watch their opportunity. 
 
 It was not long of coming. 
 
 She began to walk about, and presently the poor fool 
 marched right up to the cannon's mouth, and squinted down 
 it. Then she turned, and at last crossed right before it. 
 The gunner took the opportunity, applied his linstock, and 
 fired. There was a great tongue of flame, and a cloud of 
 smoke, and through the smoke something as big as a house 
 was seen to go down ; the very earth trembled at the shock. 
 
 The smoke cleared in a moment, and there lay Djek. 
 She never moved. The round shot went clean through her 
 body, and struck the opposite wall with great force. It was 
 wonderful and sad to see so huge a creature robbed of her 
 days in a moment by a spark. There she lay, poor Djek. 
 
 In one moment I forgot all her faults. She was an old 
 companion of mine in many a wet day and dreary night. 
 She was reputation to me, and a clear six hundred a year ; 
 and then she was so clever ! We shall never see her like 
 again ; and there she lay. I mourned over her, right or 
 wrong, and have never been the same man since that shot 
 was fired.
 
 86 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 The butchery done, I was informed by the municipal au- 
 thorities that the carcass was considered, upon the whole, to 
 be my property. The next moment I had two hundred ap- 
 plications for elephant steaks from the pinch-gut natives, 
 who, I believe, knew gravy by tradition and romances that 
 had come all the way from Paris. Knives and scales went 
 to work, and, with the tears running down my cheeks, I sold 
 her beef at four sous per pound for about 40 sterling. 
 
 This done, all my occupation was gone. Geneva was no 
 place for me, and as the worthy Huguet, whose life I had 
 saved, threatened to arrest me, I determined to go back to 
 England and handicraft. Two days after Djek's death I was 
 hanging sorrowfully over the bridge, when some one drew 
 near to me and said, in a low voice, Mons. Lott. I had no 
 need to look up. I knew the voice ; it was my lost sweet- 
 heart. She spoke very kindly, blushed, and welcomed me to 
 her native country. She did more ; she told me she lived 
 five miles from Geneva, and invited me to visit her mother. 
 She took occasion to let me know that her father was dead : 
 "My mother refuses me nothing," she added, with another 
 blush. This was all like a dream to me. The next day I 
 visited her and her mother, and was cordially received ; in 
 short, it was made clear to me that my misfortune had en- 
 deared me to this gem of a girl instead of repelling her. 
 An uncle, too, had died, and left her three hundred 
 pounds, and this made her bolder still ; and she did not con- 
 ceal her regard for me. She told me she had seen me once 
 in Geneva driving two showy horses in a carriage, and look- 
 ing like a nobleman, and so had hesitated to claim the ac-
 
 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 87 
 
 quaintance ; but hearing of the elephant's execution, and 
 guessing that I could no longer be on the high-road to for- 
 tune, she had obeyed her heart, and been the first to remind 
 me I had once esteemed her. 
 
 In short, a Pearl. 
 
 I made her a very bad return for so much goodness. I 
 went and married her. We then compounded with Huguet 
 for three thousand francs, and sailed for England to begin 
 the world again. 
 
 I am, as I have been all my life, sober, watchful, enterpris- 
 ing, energetic and unlucky. 
 
 In early life I played for a great stake, affluence. 
 
 I think I may say I displayed, in the service of Djek, some 
 of those qualities by which, unless books are false, men have 
 won campaigns and battles, and reaped fortunes and reputa- 
 tions : result in my case, a cannon-shot fired in a dirty little 
 village, calling itself a city, in a country that Yorkshire could 
 eat up and spit out again, after all the great kingdoms and 
 repubs. had admired her and forgiven her her one defect 
 a tongue of fire a puff of smoke and all the perils, labor, 
 courage and perseverance of eleven years blown aWay like 
 dust to the four winds of Heaven. 
 
 I am now playing for a smaller stake ; but I am now, as 
 usual, playing my very best. I am bending all my exper- 
 ience of work and trade, all my sobriety, activity, energy and 
 care, all my cunning of eye and hand, to one end, not to 
 die in the workhouse.
 
 88 THE WHITE ELEPHANT. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, the workman has said his say, and 
 I hope the company have been amused. 
 
 THE END.
 
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