Phil Robinson

“ Liberty, my dear Jingo, isn't all beer and skittles, when lions and rhinoceroses are going about, and the only men you see try to kill you. Your life here is a safe one, and certainly not dreary, and after all, carrying children up and down is not so bad when you get fed at the end of each trip with cakes and fruit.”
“Oh, yes. It's very well: a trifle monotonous but not hard work. And on Mondays and Saturdays especially I get as much to eat as I can hold. On Bank Holiday I actually had to stop eating. I refused a bun. You needn't shake your head. ”

“ But you are not a Jumbo yet, though I hope you will be some day. Jumbo was two feet higher than you are and weighed about a ton more. But you are only a child yet. Your proper age to live is about a century and a half. If you only keep alive you'll see some strange things, Jingo, before you go to the place where all good elephants go. There was an artillery elephant the other day fighting for the Queen in Burmah who had fought for George III. just a hundred years before. And he was the finest elephant in the army then—that was in 1790. ”

“ Same as last time, I think, eh?”
“No. That was a sponge cake. There's really no pleasure in giving you nice things if you don't taste them. I might just as well feed you on that Food for the Animals, twopence a bag, that they sell here.” ”