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Danny turned his back on Darn and the latter exclaimed: "What's that blue pants leg for, hangin' down from your coat tail?" "Why why that's the el'funt's tail," Danny replied reluctantly. "My gorry!" cried Darn, giving way to shrieks of laughter so that he had to sit down on the ground and double up with the paroxysms of mirth. "An el'funt's tail!
He fastened it with a string to the visor of the cap. Danny was stuffing the leg of an old pair of blue trousers with straw, flattening it out until it bore a faint resemblance to the paddle-shaped tail of a beaver. "What is that you're making?" Jerry asked. "Why, that's the el'funt's tail!" said Danny. "Anybody could tell that." He held it proudly up, displaying it in all its blue glory.
Then Danny picked up a board and, flanked by Chris, advanced to the fence, whereat Darn took to his heels, shouting, "Blue-eyed beauty! Ole Danny dumb-head!" as loud as he could. At the end of the alley he turned and shouted, "A pants' leg for an el'funt's tail! Oh, my gorry!" When he disappeared from sight, the three boys surveyed the elephant's skin lying on the ground.
"El'funts' tails are small like a rope," Jerry remarked. Danny laughed derisively. "Much you know about it! I guess a el'funt's about the biggest animal in the world and it wouldn't have a little ole tail like a rope." "They are little, like a rope," Jerry insisted. "How do you know they are?" asked Danny. "Just tell me how you know anything about it."
"A el'funt's a hundred times as big as a cow, I guess," interposed Danny, "an' it wouldn't have a little tail like a cow. I guess I know more about it than you do. I'm older, ain't I?" "Yes," Jerry admitted, "but they are little." Nora now interposed. "Why don't you go see the picture of the elephant jumpin' the fence and find out?" she asked. "Of course," said Chris.
"We can't have a circus with just a el'funt," said Celia Jane. "Of course, we can't," said Danny decisively and turned to Jerry. "What else'll we have?" "Couldn't we have more'n one el'funt?" Jerry asked hopefully. "What'd we want with more'n one el'funt?" Danny queried in scorn. "I guess one el'funt's enough for one circus. Anyway, we want something besides el'funts." "What?" asked Jerry.
"The el'funt I play is goin' to have a tail all right," Danny informed the children collectively. "I ain't goin' to all the work of makin' a tail and then not wear it. I guess a el'funt's got some kind of a tail, anyway." The first and, as it turned out, the last performance of their circus took place that afternoon. Jerry felt a thrill of expectancy as they began to don their costumes.
"You just just play it," he answered. "'Maginary you're an el'funt jumpin' a fence and all." "I'll be the el'funt!" cried Danny. "I want to be the el'funt," objected Chris. "The el'funt's mine," Jerry asserted and he closed his lips tightly. Danny didn't have any right to that elephant. "I saw it first," he added. "I said 'I'll be the el'funt' first, didn't I?" asked Danny.
Findin' your father and mother an' being lifted up in a el'funt's trunk an' your father a clown in the circus and all?" "Yes," smiled Jerry with satisfaction. "He's the greatest clown ever lived." "I guess that's so," Danny stated judicially and also apologetically, for he wished to make up with Jerry for getting his circus ticket away from him. "It is so!" cried Jerry emphatically.
"That's so," Danny reluctantly admitted. "A el'funt's so big that when you stand right in front of it, its tail might not show at all, no matter how big it was." "A little tail wouldn't," Jerry said quickly. "A big one wouldn't either," Celia Jane asserted, taking sides against Jerry. "A el'funt's enough bigger to hide its tail." "If it was very big it would show," said Jerry.
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