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Well, he's only got as far as the elephant, and that's in Brummagem town as sure as I am sitting here." "Do you hear this, Glyn?" cried Singh excitedly. "Oh yes, I hear," was the reply, and the two lads exchanged glances, while Ramball sat shaking and nodding his head like a mandarin image. "It's no use, gentlemen. You threw that chance away.
There was a rushing sound as the wild-beast proprietor suddenly disappeared so suddenly that, moved as by one impulse, the two lads made a dash at the palings, sprang up, and held on to look over, and see Ramball seated on the ground in the act of taking off his hat and extricating his yellow silk handkerchief to dab his bald and dewy head. "Hurt?" cried Glyn anxiously.
"Oh, what's the good of being so waxy? Look at the fun of the thing! Here, I know; let's finish dressing, and then send old Wrench to tell Mr Ramball that we have found his elephant, or that he has found us." "But he won't be up till it's time to ring the six o'clock bell. What time is it now?" "I don't know. About half-past one, I should think," cried Glyn, laughing merrily. "There you go again!
Well, of course I never supposed it was, being a theaytrical kind of property. Still, I don't suppose it was made for less than a five-pun note. Well, gentlemen," cried Ramball, rising slowly and giving his head a final dab, "I must be off.
"Beg pardon, sir, but there's a person, sir, in the hall wants to know if he can see the young gentlemen." "Eh? Who is it?" said the Colonel sharply. "Not one of the masters?" "No, sir. It's the proprietor, sir, of the big wild-beast show, sir, in the field Mr Ramball, sir." "Oh, pooh! pooh!" cried the Colonel. "Tell him the young gentlemen are engaged, and don't care to visit his show to-night."
"But I say, Mr Ramball," cried Singh merrily, "don't you want me to come and ride him in your show?" "Well, no, sir; you chucked your opportunity away. I have got a new keeper now as fits exactly." "What a pity!" said Glyn merrily. "Well, that's what I thought, sir," said Ramball quite seriously, "when the young gent threw away his chance.
I go back to Brummagem again this afternoon, and all the better for seeing you two gents; so if you will shake hands, your sarvint to command, Titus Ramball, of the Imperial Wide World Menagerie."
The hands and Roman numerals of the great church clock had only lately been re-gilded, and they seemed to twinkle and blink and point derisively in the bright morning sunshine. "Oh, I say," cried Glyn, "who could have thought it! Bother old Ramball and his beasts! Feeding his elephant! I wish somebody would feed me! Why, we shall get no breakfast." "Oh yes, we shall," cried Singh confidently.
"But he'll drive us out, sir," said the man in a tone full of remonstrance. "Then we must try again. I am not going to be beaten by a beast like that." "Look here, my man," said Morris, "hadn't you better tie him up to one of the trees and leave him till to-morrow? They do this sort of thing abroad, I hear, by tying the elephant's legs or ankles to the trunks of trees." "What!" shouted Ramball.
Next thing was I come upon your two men, Mr Ramball, sir, and they got asking me questions; but I was too skeart to understand what they meant, and so they brought me here. You don't know, I suppose," he continued, speaking to one of the waiters who had come into the hall, "whether my mate came home safely with the clover cart?" "Bah!" cried Ramball. "With your giant indeed! Which way did he go?"
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