"Oh, we elephants live to a good old age," said Umboo. "Why, I am
fifty years old now, and yet I am young! Some of the elephants in the
jungle lived to be a hundred and twenty years old!"

"Oh, my!" cried Chako. "Did they have circuses as long ago as that?"

"Yes, but not the kind that traveled about, and showed in white
tents," said Umboo. "But I have heard my father and mother say that we
elephants live to be very old."

"And can you remember so far back, when you were a baby in the
jungle?" asked Humpo.

"Oh, yes, very easily," answered Umboo. "I am going to tell you a
story about how first I was a little elephant in the great, green
forest, or jungle, and then I'll tell you how I was caught, and worked
in a lumber yard in India, and how I was then sold to a circus."

"Well, then, please begin!" begged Chako. "It is getting hot again in
this monkey cage, and if you haven't any water to squirt on us tell us
your story."

"I will!" promised the elephant. And then, as the afternoon show was
over, and it was not yet time for the night one to begin, the animals
had a little quiet time to themselves. And, as they had done once
before, they got ready to listen to a story.

In the book before this I have written for you the story of Woo-Uff,
the lion. And before that I gave you the story of Snarlie, the tiger.