“Oh! oh! I protest!” cried the captain vehemently.
“Protest as much as you like, but listen to me. Sanderson adds that in the elephant the organ of obedience is phrenologically developed to an extraordinary degree—any one may see the protuberance of his skull. Besides he lets himself be taken in traps which are perfectly childish in their simplicity, such as holes covered over with sticks and branches, from which he never contrives to escape. He is easily decoyed into enclosures which no other wild animal would go near. And if he escapes from captivity he is retaken with a facility which is very little credit to his good sense. Even experience does not teach him prudence.”
“Poor beggars!” interposed Hood in a comic tone, “what a character this engineer is giving you, to be sure!”
“I wil
