It was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the leading families.  Miss Chetwynd’s school was closed, so that the daughters of leading families might remain in seclusion till the worst was over.  The Baineses ignored the Wakes in every possible way, choosing that week to have a show of mourning goods in the left-hand window, and refusing to let Maggie outside on any pretext.  Therefore the dazzling social success of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing Mrs. Baines into the vortex, cannot imaginably be over-estimated.

On the previous night one of the three Wombwell elephants had suddenly knelt on a man in the tent; he had then walked out of the tent and picked up another man at haphazard from the crowd which was staring at the great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his mouth.  Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he placed the man on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of the victim’s arm.  He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself to be led away.  He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of Baines’s shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, and ropes forced to his knees.  His head was whitewashed, and six men of the Rifle Corps were engaged to shoot at him at a distance of five yards, while constables kept the crowd off with truncheons.  He died instantly, rolling over with a soft thud.  The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by their importance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the carcase, and were then borne off as heroes to different inns.  The elephant, by the help of his two companions, was got on to a railway lorry and disappeared into the night.  Such was the greatest sensation that has ever occurred, or perhaps will ever occur, in Bursley.  The excitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Inkerman, was feeble compared to that excitement.  Mr. Critchlow, who had been called on to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had popped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it.  Mr. Baines’s interest, however, had been slight.  Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with the ladies, who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details.

The next day it was known that the elephant lay near the playground, pending the decision of the Chief Bailiff and the Medical Officer as to his burial.  And everybody had to visit the corpse.  No social exclusiveness could withstand the seduction of that dead elephant.  Pilgrims travelled from all the Five Towns to see him.

“We’re going now,” said Mrs. Baines, after she had assumed her bonnet and shawl.

“All right,” said Sophia, pretending to be absorbed in study, as she sat on the sofa at the foot of her father’s bed.

And Constance, having put her head in at the door, drew her mother after her like a magnet.

Then Sophia heard a remarkable conversation in the passage.