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288 8. The Elephant's Child's journey home.

9. The Elephant's Child's return home.

10. Conclusion. How all elephants got trunks. Peace.

The characters are unique and interesting. They are usual animals but unusual in what they say. They exhibit animal traits and motives but they also show us a hidden meaning in their actions and words. They seem living, they speak directly; yet they preserve the idea of the fable for they are symbolic. The Elephant's Child typifies human innocence, the inexperience of youth; the Kolokolo Bird, a friend; the Python, experience or wisdom; and the Crocodile, guile or evil. All the animals become very interesting because we are concerned to know their particular reason for spanking the "'satiable Elephant's Child." What they say is so humorous and what they do is consistent, in harmony with their natural animal traits. The Child is the hero. He is a very attractive character because he has that rare charm we call temperament. He is curious, polite, and sweet, and follows his own nose in spite of everything. He wins out with strength, experience, and a new nose; and we are rejoiced at his triumphs. His questions are so funny and yet they seem quite what any elephant with a bump of curiosity might ask. To the Giraffe—"What made his skin spotty?" To the Hippopotamus—"Why her eyes were red?" To the Baboon—"Why melons tasted just so?" And at last, "What does the Crocodile have for dinner?"

The setting of the tale is suggested continually in expressions which show visual imagination of a high order: such as, "And he lived in Africa"; "dragged him through a thorn bush"; "blew bubbles into her ear"; "hove him into a hornet's nest"; and "from Graham's Town to Kimberley and from Kimberley to Khama's Country, and from Khama's Country east by north to the Limpopo."

The tale possesses most delightful humor. A verbal magic which fairly scintillates with the comic spirit, and clinging epithets of which Kipling is a master, suggest the exact picture needed. Humor is secured largely through the use of the unique word; as, "spanked," "precisely as Kolokolo Bird had said," and "for he was a Tidy Pachyderm." Often it is