Judge — December 3, 1881 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SAFC DEPOSIT VAULTS A TALE OF TO-DAY. tor of Wall street, so flush | There comes a ¢ 't know what 10 do‘with| his dreams, old truism tut 9 The Elastic Elephant. “"TaLKING about proboscidian pachyderms,” said Major Boggs, thoughtfully, the other night at the club, “reminds me-—' “Ifyou dare call me such a nam sir, outside of these precincts,” roared old Mr. Squiffleton, who had just awakened from a stertorous post-prandial apoplectic dres will make you swallow your words, “What's the matter with you, Squiff?” in- terjected young Smith, of the Bank. “You've been asleep. No one was talking about you; we were yarning about ele- phants.”” “Beg pardon—very sorry—thought he meant me,” replied the old gentleman. “Very sorry. Please ring the bell and give your orders, gentlemen ; mine's brandy and water.” We were all sitting in the smoking-roomn after a good dinner, and the Major, who had | been in India and wasgreat on elephants, had been relating how many he had killed, and how he used to cook their feet and trunks in | hot sand. re deuced nice that way,” continued jor, ‘only you mustn't eat the skin. That's beastly indigestible. The cars are pretty good, too, but they require soaking, and that’s about all that’s fit to cat of them “No good steaks on 'em?” queried Joe Tylderson, the great connoisseur of things edible. “Can't say there are,” replied the Major. “Twas once in the Himalayas with a detach- ment of four hundred men, and no meat in camp. The men were getting discontented, so I loaded my partridge gun with buckshot, and went out before breakfast and shot a couple of young elephants—little three-ton fel- lows, you know—tender birds.” "” said Tylderson, his mouth watering. ,” continued the Major, “but they weren't good. I skinned ‘emand cleaned ‘em and took the gizzards out, and made a nice stuffing with two sacks of onions and four hun- dred pounds of flour, and a tablespoonful of y sauce; and we built a fire round a huge iron tank, used for confining soldiers in, and cooked them for eighty-seven hours and | fifty minutes, but they weren't good.” | “T should say not,” said Tylderson; “you cooked them too long, and you should not skinned them. It is the skin that preser the flavor of the meat.” “How did yon carve them?” queried little Bifkins, “Simplest thing in the world,” replied the Major. “I got the largest pitehfork in camp, and plunged it into the middle of the back. We made a dish out of a large empty stone fountain, and I got on a adder and cut the breast, close to the backbone down on each side with my sword.” at's the way,” said Tylderson, ‘but I think the stufling was a mistake. It should have been a barrel of salt and a hogshead of water, with about six hundred cloves of gar- lic, Never mind,” retorted the Major, “we were roughing it, and had to do the best we could, Each slice off the breast was enough for twenty-six men and a drummer-boy; and as fast ax I carved they brought up their can- teens, The greatest difficulty was getting my sword round the joint of the hind leg,” con- tinued the } “But you didn’t take your pitchfork out ?” queried Mr. Tylderson. “Not by a jugful, I didn't. It took me three-quarters of an hour, however, before I finished the first one, and had the skeleton clean. By the way, I forgot tosay I had two ser- geants shoveling out the stuffing with spades. But it looked pretty when I got throught. ‘There was a good deal of meat on the side bones, but I didn’t let the men have it. It's nothealthy. I kept the wish-bone for myself. It was three feet six inches long—splendid pick- ings.” Here there was a general chorus o! “ Wish-bone on an elephant, Major ? “Certainly,” replied the Major, emptying is glass, ‘just the same as a canvasback; akes a splendid Gothic top to a window, too, after it’s cleaned and polished. But, as I was saying, it's not healthy eating—too rich. After the rains in the Himalayas they are better, because there's a certain kind of weed comes up which they like, and which gives the flesh a peculiar flavor, “Tused to shoot ‘em from behind a blind; put out about fourteen dummy clephants in the water, and when the real elephants came to see what they were, I'd knock ’em over right and left sometimes.” “T killed an elephant once,” said Bifkins, “(without intending to, either. It was in England.” ““D—d nonsense!” muttered the Major. “There are no elephants in England, except in menageries, circuses and zoological gar- dens.” ng, ” said Bifkins, quietly. ‘That's how it Mine was acircus elephant, a performing clephant, one of the most tracta- ble, gentle creatures ever created, But I don’t want to tell the story. It makes me feel bad yet, although I was only a boy when it happened, and I don’t believe that I've tentionally killed a fly si “Go on, Bit! “Well, boys, if I must I suppose I'll have to, but I don't want to be interrupted until I'm finished, “ You see, this elephant did not perform in He was a sort of a sideshow ina I supposed he used to draw it himself, but his keeper was so fond of him he wouldn't let him even do that. He could do everything he was told. Swing his trunk sideways, like a pendulum, and tell the time if you showed him a watch; he could wag both ears and play a tune or a mammoth cal- liope, fire a ritle with his trunk, and hit the bull’seye at thirty yards four times out of five. “D—d Major. “ You promised not to interrupt,” said Bi “If you do, I can't tell the story. Yes, he could hit atarget at thirty yards, holding it with his trunk. He left enough of the end hanging down underneath so as to pull the urigger with it. nonsense thi: growled the “Well, I had read all about the tailor who pricked the elephant’s trunk with a needle, and how he got soused from head to foot with dirty water, and I thought mebbe if I pricked his trunk with a pin when he wasn't looking, and then ran away, he might squirt a lot of dirty water over mother’s new bonnet. “‘You sce, she'd spanked me just before I came to the circus, and I felt mean and want- ed revenge, and I was always a bad boy. But I didn’t get a chance for half an hour, for his keeper gave him a battledore and shuttlecock, and he curled his trunk round the battledore, and he never missed the shuttlecock once for ten minutes.” ‘What else did he do?” asked Tylderson. “Oh, lots of things. Played the drum, cooked a beefsteak on a big frying-pan, knew when it was done and turned it over into a dish, picked out any card from the pack that you named—did everything, in fact, except talk.” “D—d nonsense!” interjected the Major. comicbooks.com