Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1881 — How Ha Saw the Elephant. [ARTICLE]

How Ha Saw the Elephant.

Manjf who attempt that kind at Bight-«ei*ig*—whether in metaphor or i u reaUtar-opme out as badly dksatia-ixt-bwswWtos funny experience as follows: Whea the “London -circus exhibited at Salsfamy a cake-vender who hod not sold enough to pay his admission fee persuaded the aoor-keeper to let him go inside with his basket of cakes, promising faithfully to pay his fifty cents as soon as he hod sold out hia stock. * . . ‘ Once inside the tent he strolled around, gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the*cimous inhabitants of the menagerie, until he reached the elephants. Then he sat his basket down upon the ’ground, placed his arms aKimbo-aba looked. 1

While he stood thus, oblivious to his calling, a loud bellow from the sealion’s cage sfqrtled him, and, fearing that some ferocious beast had broken from its cage, the cake-vender proceeded to efletrra masterly retreat towards the entrance. One of the showmen sapped him in, Jais flight, and in calming his Theft the unsophisticated cake-man went back to look at the elephants. He saw something else. - One of the biggest of the elephants had approprfted his stock iff trade, and. wftfe a countenance that Was “child-like and bland,” was just swallaatpf the cakes. * . i The dumbfounded cake-man had sufficient 'presence of mind to cry out to one of me keepers: “Oh.’i save my baakefci” and the keeper <Bp so. With his emptied basket on his arm. the saddened man sauntered around the menagerie, and, was making his way out, when the door-keeper hailed hunwitfi,— ; •'Well, you’ve sold out, I see?” “Sold out?” exclaimed the irate cake-denier, “been told out , you’d bettor aey. Thnt old double-ended grandfather o’ ; spurn has chawed up every cake I had. afl’ es you wantyer money goto him.” * The cake-vender stalked out, leaving the door-keeper to take fifty cents worth of laughing. Which he did.