when all of us on the pagoda clung to pa, and we all slid right off into
the big basin of water. The fountain played on us, and pa was under
water, with the four Circassian beauties, and when we rolled or slid
down over the elephant's head, he looked at us and seemed to chuckle:
"What you getting off here for, the show ain't half out."

Well, the parade went on and left the elephant and the rest of us at the
fountain, and to show that animals understand each other, and can
appreciate a joke, every animal that passed us gave us the laugh, even
the hippopotamus, which opened his mouth as big as a tunnel, and showed
his teeth and acted as though he would like to exchange tanks with us.

The circus people that could be spared from the wagons came to help us,
and the citizens helped out the Circassian beauties who were praying to
Allah, and wringing out their clothes, and I crawled up on the neck of a
cast-iron swan in the fountain. Pa yelled and talked profane, and told
'em to bring a cannon and kill the elephant, which kept ducking him with
his trunk, and swabbing out the bottom of the fountain basin with pa. It
seemed as though he never would get through using pa for a mop, but
finally the people got a rope around pa, and a keeper got an iron hook
in the elephant's ear, and they pulled pa out on one side, and got the
elephant away on the other side, and just then the callipoe, that ends
the parade, came by us and played the "Blue Danube," and the elephant
got on his hind feet and waltzed on the pavement. They put pa and the
Circassian beauties in a patrol wagon and took them to the show lot, and
I sat by the driver, and he let me drive the team.

[Illustration: The Elephant Kept Ducking Pa and Swabbing Out the Bottom
of the Fountain.]