All the same, though, I couldn't help admiring the way Harry ran up to the great brute, and did what none of us could manage. I quite hated him, I know, but yet I was proud of my mate, as he went up and says something to _Nabob_, and the elephant stands still. "Put him down," says Harry, pointing to the ground; and the great flesh-mountain puts the little fellow down. "Now then," says Harry, to the honour of the ladies, "pick him up again;" and in a twinkling the great thing whips the boy up once more. "Now, bring him up to the colonel's lady." Well, if you'll believe me, if the great thing didn't follow Harry like a lamb, and carry the child up to where, half fainting, knelt poor Mrs Maine. "Now, put him down," says Harry; and the next moment little Clive Maine--Cock Robin, as we called him--was being hugged to his mother's breast. "Now go down on your knees, and beg the ladies' pardon," says Harry laughing. Down goes the elephant, and stops there, making a queer chuntering noise the while. "Says he's very sorry, ma'am, and won't do so no more," says Harry, serious as a judge; and in a moment, half laughing, half crying, Mrs Maine caught hold of Harry's hand, and kissed it, and then held it for a moment to her breast sobbing hysterically as she did so. "God bless you! You're a good man," she cried; and then she broke down altogether; and Miss Ross, and Mrs Bantem, and Lizzy got round her, and helped her in. I could see that Harry was touched, for one of his lips shook; but he tried to keep up the fun of the thing; and turning to the elephant, he says out loud: "Now, get up, and go back to the hay; and don't you come no more of those games, that's all." The elephant got up directly, making a grunting noise as he did so. "Why not?" says Harry, making-believe that that was what the great beast said. "Because, if you do, I'll smash you. There!" Officers and men, they all burst out laughing, to see little Harry Lant--a chap so little that he wouldn't have been in the regiment only that men were scarce, and the standard was very low when he listed--to see him standing shaking his fist at the great monster, one of whose legs was bigger than Harry altogether--stand shaking his fist in its face, and then take hold of the soft trunk and lead him away. Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't, but I thought I caught sight of a glance passing between Lizzy Green, now at one window, and Harry, leading off the elephant; but all the same I felt that jealous of him, and to hate him so that I could have quarrelled with him about nothing. It seemed as if he was always to come before me.