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Crocodile let go of the Elephant's Child's nose with a plop that
you could hear all up and down the Limpopo.

Then the Elephant's Child sat down most hard and sudden; but
first he was careful to say 'Thank you' to the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake; and next he was kind to his poor
pulled nose, and wrapped it all up in cool banana
leaves, and hung it in the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo to
cool.

'What are you doing that for?' said the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but my nose is badly out
of shape, and I am waiting for it to shrink.

'Then you will have to wait a long time, said the
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake. 'Some people do not know what is
good for them.'

The Elephant's Child sat there for three days waiting for his
nose to shrink. But it never grew any shorter, and, besides, it
made him squint. For, O Best Beloved, you will see and
understand that the Crocodile had pulled it out into a really
truly trunk same as all Elephants have to-day.

At the end of the third day a fly came and stung him on the
shoulder, and before he knew what he was doing he lifted up his
trunk and hit that fly dead with the end of it.

''Vantage number one!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.
'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Try and eat
a little now.'

Before he thought what he was doing the Elephant's Child put out
his trunk and plucked a large bundle of grass, dusted it clean
against his fore-legs, and stuffed it into his own mouth.

'Vantage number two!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.
'You couldn't have done that with a mear-smear nose. Don't you
think the sun is very hot here?'

'It is,' said the Elephant's Child, and before he thought what he
was doing he schlooped up a schloop of mud from the banks of the
great grey-green, greasy Limpopo, and slapped it on his head,
where it made a cool schloopy-sloshy mud-cap all trickly behind
his ears.

'Vantage number three!' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.
'You couldn't have done that with a mere-smear nose. Now how do
you feel about being spanked again?'

''Scuse me,' said the Elephant's Child, 'but I should not like it
at all.'

'How would you like to spank somebody?' said the Bi-
Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

'I should like it very much indeed,' said the Elephant's Child.

'Well,' said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake, 'you will find
that new nose of yours very useful to spank people with.'

'Thank you,' said the Elephant's Child, 'I'll remember that; and
now I think I'll go home to all my dear families and try.'

So the Elephant's Child went home across Africa frisking and
whisking his trunk. When he wanted fruit to eat he pulled fruit
down from a tree, instead of waiting for it to fall as he used to
do. When he wanted grass he plucked grass up from the ground,

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