The Stolen White Elephant
When the King of Siam gifts a sacred white elephant to the Queen of England as a diplomatic gesture, the animal vanishes from a New Jersey railroad station. What follows is Mark Twain's brilliantly absurd send-up of the detective genre. Two dozen incompetent detectives descend on the case, each more useless than the last. They interview witnesses who saw nothing, arrest the wrong suspects, and somehow manage to damage property, terrify citizens, and turn the entire investigation into a spectacular farce. Meanwhile, the elephant itself drifts through the story like a ghost, apparently destroying everything it encounters while the detectives chase their own tails. Twain exposes the absurdity of police procedure, the bumbling nature of authority, and the way good intentions spiral into chaos. It's a short, savage comedy that never lets you forget how ridiculous the whole apparatus of law enforcement can be. Anyone who enjoys watching authority make a fool of itself will find plenty to love here.
Editions
X-Ray
“He will leave Bibles to eat bricks, he will leave bricks to eat bottles, he will leave bottles to eat clothing, he will leave clothing to eat cats, he will leave cats to eat oysters, he will leave oysters to eat ham, he will leave ham to eat sugar, he will leave sugar to eat pie, he will leave pie to eat potatoes, he will leave potatoes to eat bran; he will leave bran to eat hay, he will leave hay to eat oats, he will leave oats to eat rice, for he was mainly raised on it. There is nothing whatever that he will not eat but European butter, and he would eat that if he could taste it.””
— Mark Twain
“It made him feel a little uncomfortable sometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. He loved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature about being a Sunday-school-book boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good.””
— Mark Twain
