The show remained in Washington two days, 'cause it took all one day and night to catch the elephants, after the senator's boy and I turned the rats and mice loose in the ring while the elephants were forming a pyramid. Pa and all the circus hands had to go away down towards the Bull Run battlefield to round them up, and young Mr. Senator let me ride one of his ponies and he and I went along to help catch the elephants.

We went out through Alexandria towards Bull Run battlefield. There we overtook pa and the boss canvasman and the elephant handler, and we met some farmers coming into Alexandria with their families, stampeding like people out west when the Indians go on the warpath. They had got up in the morning to milk the cows and found about 20 elephants in the barnyard, making the cows do a song and dance. Pa told them there was no danger at all, 'cause he would take any elephant by the tail and snap its head off, like boys snap the heads off garter snakes, and I told them that me and the senator's boy stampeded the elephants and we could drive them back to town like a drove of sheep.

The farmers thought we were great and they followed us back to the farm, where we found the herd of elephants had taken possession and were having the time of their lives. About a dozen of the big elephants had found a couple of barrels of cider in a shed and had been drinking it, and when we got there they were like section hands with jags on.

Bolivar, the big elephant, was the drunkest, and when he saw pa coming with the gang of hands, with ropes and spears, he winked at the other elephants and seemed to say: "Watch me tree 'em," for he came out of the gate and bellowed, and made a charge at the gang, and pa beat them all going up crab apple trees. The senator's son saw pa up a tree, and he said: "Old gentleman, if these are your animals, or insects, or whatever they are, you ought to come down off your perch and take them to a Keeley cure, because they are intoxicated."

And pa came down and took a fence rail and sharpened it with an ax, and he run it into Bolivar about a foot, and Bolivar trumpeted for surrender, and that settled the elephant strike, for pa ordered Bolivar into the road, and in five minutes the whole herd of elephants was following Bolivar back to Washington, as meek as a drunken husband being led home by his wife.

Gee, what do you think? The president heard how the senator's boy and I stampeded the elephants and invited the senator's boy to bring his young friend around to the white house to supper. Well, we went.

I forgot what we had to eat, I was so interested in the president's conversation. He talked about the show business as though he had been a ringmaster in a circus. He said he was in the show the day before when we stampeded the elephants, and he told us about his hunting trips in the west, until I could smell bacon cooking at the camp fire, and I could smell the balsam boughs they slept on, on the ground.

When he let up a little on his talk, I braced up and asked him if he had rather shoot wild cats and bears than be president. He hedged and said both occupations worked pretty well together and he had enjoyed 'em both. Then I asked him if he was going to run for president again, and he winked at his wife, and then he asked me what made me ask the question. I told him pa wanted me to find out. I told him all the boys wanted him to run, 'cause he was a good feller, and not afraid of the cars.

The president laughed and said: "Well, it's this way. The president business is a good deal like bear hunting. You get on a fresh track, either in politics or bear hunting, and follow the game with dogs, or politicians, as the case may be. The trail keeps getting fresher and by and by the game is in sight, and the dogs are nipping its hind legs, if it is a bear, or chewing big words if it is an opposing candidate, and nipping him in exposed places. You ride like mad, your clothes or your reputation torn by briars if it is a bear, or by opposition newspapers if it is a political campaign, and you wish it was over, many times, and are so tired you wish you were dead. Finally your bear or your opponent in politics is treed and the dogs are trying to climb the tree, and your bear or your political opponent is up on a limb snarling and showing his teeth at the dogs or the politicians, and then you ride up, look the ground over, wait till your heart stops beating and fire the shot at a vital part, and your bear or your political opponent comes tumbling to the ground. When he ceases to kick you put your foot on his neck and feel sorry you killed him, but you go to work and skin him and hang his hide on the fence. Then you have got to ride all night to get to camp, if it is a bear, and work harder than a man on a treadmill for four years, if it is a presidential candidate you have skun."

I had sat with my mouth open while the president talked, and never said a word, but when he quit I said: "Yes, but suppose when you got your bear skun, another bear should come after you and dare you to knock a chip off his shoulder, and growl, and walk sideways with his bristles all up, would you run, or would you stand your ground?"

"We better change the subject," said the president, and rose from the table, and we all got up. He patted me on the head, and said: "Tell your pa I will see him later, and in the meantime, you run your circus and I will try to run mine."

The queerest thing happened that night. The senator's boy spoke of our trained seals, that catch a fish if you throw it to them and swallow it whole. He said it would be fun to take a little alarm clock and sew it up in a fish, and set the alarm at seven o'clock p. m., when the crowd is watching the seals swallow fish, and throw it to the big seal, and the alarm would go off inside him.

Well, I bit like a bass, and said we would do it, so he took a little alarm clock and set it for seven o'clock. We got it into a fish, and I am ashamed to tell what happened. Gee, but that seal grabbed the fish with a clock in it, and tried to swallow it, but the brass ring caught on one of his teeth, and he was trying to get it loose when the alarm went off, and the seal jumped out of the tank and began to prance around the crowd, scaring the women, and making all the animals nervous. He stood on his head and bellowed, and all the circus hands came rushing up. Finally the alarm clock quit jingling, and they caught the seal and pulled the clock off his tooth, and just then pa came up to me and said: "What deviltry you boys up to now? Suppose that seal had swallowed that clock, and you couldn't wind it up; it might kill him. Now, go to the car, 'cause we are going to get out of this town right off. You make me tired." And pa helped to lift the slippery seal into the tank, and looked mad at his little boy, and hurt the feelings of the senator's boy.