Transcriber’s Note: The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. HE FALL OF ULYSSES AN ELEPHANT STORY AN ELEPHANT STORY Charles Dwight Willard Charles Dwight Willard Frank Ver Beck Frank Ver Beck GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY THE FALL OF ULYSSES An Elephant Story An Elephant Story I cannot deny that I was entirely to blame for the calamity that overtook Ulysses; and if I call attention to the high social and literary standing of the gentleman whom I employed as an accomplice in the affair, it is not at all with the hope of thereby lessening my own responsibility. It is certain that I furnished the unfortunate creature the cause for his desperation. I ought also to confess that I felt a sense of profound relief when he accepted the only means apparent to his limited understanding of freeing himself from his dilemma. But what was I to do? When a man has an elephant on his hands he should be judged with a kindly consideration for the awkwardness of his situation. My elephant was decidedly more trying than the average variety, for the reason that he was not metaphorical, but real. What I mean is, that I am not speaking in figurative language about some officious friend or troublesome relative, but about a genuine Asiatic elephant, Ulysses by name, who came into my possession several years ago, and of whom I have but recently managed to rid myself. Physically he was a well-developed specimen, having no special characteristics to distinguish him from the rest of his kind. Intellectually, however, he was a species of monster, and I was the
Back
Top