128 
ALMOST HUMAN 
are twenty-five. Mr. Parsons, her keeper, vouches for her wonderful 
intelligence. Like Mr. Tospell and the giraffe, this pair are inseparables, 
and it is difficult to say whether Queenie is Mr. Parsons’ slave or whether 
it is the other way about. In one illustration she is shown with a 
foreleg held lovingly about him. She is never happy if he is not near 
enough for her to touch him, and usually her trunk is entwined around 
his arm. It is comical to see this devotion in ordinary hours; it becomes 
pathetic when she will leave the food placed before her when her day’s 
work is done, merely for the pleasure of being close beside him for a 
few moments longer. It would probably mean death to anyone who hurt 
Mr. Parsons intentionally or accidentally if Queenie saw the deed. She 
knows his voice so well that if he raises it when she is shut up for the 
night she trumpets forth her distress that she cannot get out in such 
a way as to make the night fearsome. 
As she goes round and round her ring in the daytime, carrying her 
load of children, she has ways of mitigating two nuisances over which 
she has no control — heat and flies. If flies be troublesome, she will 
gather up a pile of dust from her track and shoot it over herself in a 
fine spray, thus sending the small pests off in a second. If the day is 
hot, and, like most heavy creatures, she is suffering from her bulk, she 
carries inside her chest a reservoir of water, from which, by a most 
convenient arrangement of Nature, she can draw at will by thrusting 
her trunk down her throat, and thus she can give herself a delightful 
shower bath when she needs such comforting refreshment. At other 
times she uses this reservoir for other purposes. There are few who 
have not heard of the way the elephant in India punished the tailor who 
stuck needles into his trunk. Queenie has resorted to the same method 
of revenge more than once. It is not long since twelve or fifteen school- 
boys congregated before Queenie’s house one holiday and teased her un- 
mercifully. All had nuts or fruit, and each in turn offered one of the 
dainties, but took every care to hold it just too far away for her to 
reach. Her patience seemed inexhaustible as she moved from one 
tormentor to another, but at last she turned her back on them all and 
left her house in deep disgust. Presently she returned, and then began 
a pretty little comedy. She imitated the boys’ actions to a nicety. She 
stretched out her trunk to one and another, as they had held out their 
hands to her. As each boy tried to touch it she drew it swiftly back, 
and they found she was playing a game with them that was much to 
their liking. At last she had them all clustered in a tight batch near 
her, and then she sprayed a great quantity of dirty water all over them. 
She watched them placidly as they scattered in all directions, dropping 
