I dreaded to hear the telegraphic instrument begin to click again.  By and by the messages began to pour in, but I was happily disappointed in they nature.  It was soon apparent that all trace of the elephant was lost.  The fog had enabled him to search out a good hiding-place unobserved.  Telegrams from the most absurdly distant points reported that a dim vast mass had been glimpsed there through the fog at such and such an hour, and was “undoubtedly the elephant.”  This dim vast mass had been glimpsed in New Haven, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in interior New York, in Brooklyn, and even in the city of New York itself!  But in all cases the dim vast mass had vanished quickly and left no trace.  Every detective of the large force scattered over this huge extent of country sent his hourly report, and each and every one of them had a clue, and was shadowing something, and was hot upon the heels of it.

But the day passed without other result.

The next day the same.

The next just the same.

The newspaper reports began to grow monotonous with facts that amounted to nothing, clues which led to nothing, and theories which had nearly exhausted the elements which surprise and delight and dazzle.

By advice of the inspector I doubled the reward.

Four more dull days followed.  Then came a bitter blow to the poor, hard-working detectives—­the journalists declined to print their theories, and coldly said, “Give us a rest.”

Two weeks after the elephant’s disappearance I raised the reward to seventy-five thousand dollars by the inspector’s advice.  It was a great sum, but I felt that I would rather sacrifice my whole private fortune than lose my credit with my government.  Now that the detectives were in adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the most stinging sarcasms at them.  This gave the minstrels an idea, and they dressed themselves as detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in the most extravagant way.  The caricaturists made pictures of detectives scanning the country with spy-glasses, while the elephant, at their backs, stole apples out of their pockets.  And they made all sorts of ridiculous pictures of the detective badge—­you have seen that badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels, no doubt it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend, “We never sleep.”  When detectives called for a drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an obsolete form of expression and said, “Will you have an eye-opener?” All the air was thick with sarcasms.

But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffected, through it all.  It was that heart of oak, the chief inspector.  His brave eye never drooped, his serene confidence never wavered.  He always said: 

“Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.”