They began to talk about the elephant, for Nell could speak of nothing else, and she continually expressed her admiration for his huge size, his trunk, and his tusks, which really were enormous. At last she said:
“As wise as Solomon,” replied Stasch. “But how did you find that out?”
“Because, when I asked him to stop drinking, he immediately complied with my request.”
“If he had never taken lessons in the English language before, and understands what you said to him, then indeed it is quite remarkable.”
Nell perceived that Stasch was making fun of her, so she fondled him like a little kitten, and said:
“Say what you like, but I’m certain that he is very wise, and that he can be readily tamed at once.”
“Whether readily and at once I’m not sure, but he can be tamed. The African elephant is wilder than the Asiatic, but I believe that Hannibal, for instance, used African beasts.”
Stasch looked indulgently and pityingly at her.
“Of course,” he said, “at your age you are not expected to know—Hannibal was a great leader of the Carthaginian army, which used elephants in the war with the Romans, and as Carthage was in Africa, he was obliged to use African elephants.”
The conversation was interrupted by a tremendous trumpeting of the elephant, which, after having satisfied his hunger and thirst, began—either from joy or longing to be free—to signal with his trunk. Saba sat up and began to bark, and Stasch said:
“See what you have done? Now he is calling his friends. A nice story if a whole herd were to approach.”
“He will tell the others that we were good to him,” answered Nell hastily.
But Stasch, who really was not at all worried (because he reckoned that, even if several were to come along, the light of the fire would frighten them away), laughed defiantly and said:
“Well, well! But if elephants should appear, you will not cry for fear; oh, no!—your eyes would only perspire as they have done twice before!”
“I’m not crying, only my eyes perspire so!”
When Nell saw that he was joking she concluded that they were in no danger.
“If we tame him,” she said, “then my eyes will not perspire any more, even if ten lions should roar.”
Stasch quieted Saba, who had continued to bark in answer to the elephant’s trumpeting, then thought a while and continued: