This summer of my fifteenth year was truly a memorable time. For I must new pass on quickly to an event that occurred just two or three days after my glorious joust with Alice. We were enjoying a quiet breakfast when my father suddenly broke off from reading The Times to say: 'Ada, boys, listen to me. There is a most interesting item in the newspaper this morning.' 'What is it, Father?' enquired Cecil, who I should mention was now seventeen and a lordly sixth former at Cockshall Manor Academy. 'Do you remember that Swedish gentleman, Mr. Karl Andersson? You will doubtless have recalled that we met him at Sir Douglas Walker's reception in aid of the West London Home for Unmarried Fathers. Well, he has written a letter to The Times from East Africa about his experiences with elephants. You will be fascinated by what he has to say.' 'Who cares a shit about that boring old fart?' muttered Cecil under his breath. Fortunately Father did not quite catch what was said and registered his disapproval only by a glare. 'Oh, do read the letter to us,' said Mother placatingly, though I am sure that she had no real desire to listen to my Father. Actually, I was rather interested, not having met the gentleman concerned and I had just finished reading an exciting adventure about explorers in the Dark Continent. 'Very well, my dear,' said Father. 'Pay attention, boys. The letter begins: “I address you now from the wilds of unexplored country about a hundred and fifty miles from Nairobi. During my travels I encountered a very considerable number of elephants but unfortunately chiefly cows with their young which are both dangerous and unprofitable. I have had some perilous adventures with these animals and have been taught some severe lessons which I am not likely ever to forget. If I have not obtained a great deal of ivory I have gained a great deal of experience and some interesting insights into the natural history of the African elephant. '“Nothing gives a person a better idea of the elephants' stupendous powers than a day's walk through one of their favourite haunts. There may be seen whole tracts of forest laid prostrate and such trees sometimes! The trees, which for the main part are of a brittle nature, are usually broken off short by the beasts; but when they meet with a tree that seems to them too tough to snap at once, up it goes, root and all. '“The other day, after many hours of fatiguing tracking, I was closing with a very large troop of elephants, consisting chiefly of females, when to my left I suddenly espied another troop of what I took to be males. I at once left the first troop to attack the second. I stalked unperceived to within twenty-five paces of the herd when to my annoyance, I discovered that they were also mostly cows and calves. There were however, a couple of fine bulls among them, one evidently acting as paterfamilias to the herd. This beast's position was unfavourable and I was waiting for him to present a better mark when to my astonishment they all made off.
' “As they were disappearing into the brushwood I fired at one of the hindermost-a male, as I imagined. In an instant the herd wheeled about, and with a terrific rush came crashing through the bushes nearly in a direct line towards me. But after running for about sixty or seventy paces they stopped short, evidently annoyed at not finding the enemy. '“I felt very much inclined to take to my heels, but a moment's reflection convinced me that safety lay only in keeping close; and it was as well I did so for in a few moments the paterfamilias made an oblique rush through the jungle with such force as to actually send a whole tree that he had uprooted in his headlong course spinning in the air. A huge branch remained fixed to one of his tusks. His head he carried aloft, his huge ears were spread to the full, while with his trunk he sniffed the air impatiently. In this position, and when within less than a dozen paces of me he remained, I should say, for about half a minute. I think it was the most striking and thrilling sporting scene that I ever saw… '“I have shot many giraffes, gnus, hartebeests besides elephants but I make a point of not destroying unless absolutely in want of meat to feed either my party or the hundreds of poor devils constantly following my track.'”
“Well, that sounds very exciting, doesn't it, lads? said Father, folding the newspaper and putting it down on the table. 'I don't like the idea of killing for sport,' I said. 'Neither do I,' said Cecil. 'I am glad that Mr. Andersson only shot those poor animals for food and not simply wantonly as do so many hunters.' 'I am in agreement with you, boys,' said Mother. 'Your sentiments certainly do you proud.' 'Yes, I would not disagree with that,' said Father.
'Anyhow, the reason that I read that passage to you is that Jumbo the elephant is at the London Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park just now and I thought that we would take a train up to town and see him. Would you like to go? What a splendid treat lay in store, I thought, as Cecil and I chorused our assent. But Mother declined the invitation as she was due to take tea that afternoon with the squire's wife, Lady Le Baique, and felt it would be impolite to cancel the arrangement at such short notice. 'But you three men must go!' said Mother kindly. 'I will go another time and anyhow, your Papa and I saw Jumbo last year when we went up to town for Lord Bourne's Autumn Ball.'
'Very well, my dear, I will call young Owen to take us to the railway station so as we can catch the noon train. It so happens that I want to see my old friend Sir Lionel Trapes who lives nearby in St John's Wood so I shall be able, if you will forgive the perhaps inappropriate colloquialism, to kill two birds with one stone.'
We travelled up to town on the good old London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the train pulled into Victoria Station within a minute of its scheduled time of arrival. We disembarked and strode up the station platform to the cab rank. We were waiting in a fairly long queue when Father suddenly snapped his fingers and grimaced.
'Boys, I have just remembered that I promised to undertake a chore for Sir Lionel which will necessitate my leaving you to visit the Zoo by yourselves,' said Father. 'I promised to pick up a book for him, some learned text or other that has been ordered especially for him from the Continent. The bookseller promised it would be ready for collection today so I wrote to my friend and said that I would collect it and save him a journey or the cost of postage.
'So here are two sovereigns, Cecil. You and Teddy can take a cab directly to the Zoo. I think it best if you meet me at Sir Lionel's this afternoon. In case you have forgotten his address, here is his card. Be there by five o'clock. I will have to see Jumbo another time.
And perhaps I will be able to take your mother with me,' he concluded.
The day was turning into a great adventure indeed. We waited with Father for our separate cabs and he warned us of the dangers of pickpockets who lurk round railway stations and any large gathering of people. 'You can sometimes tell the thieves by an unrest about them, for they seldom journey on a train,' explained Father. 'They hang around the ticket offices or queues like this. When they see people engaged in conversation they go up to them and plant themselves by their side while the others cover their movements. Then one might pretend to bump into the victim and extract his wallet, for these thieves have very quick fingers. So be warned, and keep an eye out for your money and your pocket-watch.' With those words, Father climbed into a cab and fortunately a second cab soon appeared and Cecil and I were off to the Zoo. 'I say, Cecil, what sort of book is Father getting for Sir Lionel? 'Something he'd never let us see, like French postcards or a copy of the Cremorne?' said Cecil.
'Did you know that Sir Lionel's nephew is in my form at school? And from what young Daley tells me, old Sir Lionel's a bit of a sportsman.