In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing ranks, expected him to play.

Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked elephantine.

It sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was faithful--if uncorrupted.

The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good.

This Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on--a sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money must be to a wise man.