the prince rode out of the town with his hippopotamuses trotting and frisking behind him, and people got inside their houses as quickly as they could when they heard the voices of his pack and the blowing of his horn. the pack squeezed through the town gates and off across country to hunt the dragon. few of you who had not seen a pack of hippopotamuses in full cry will be able to imagine at all what the hunt was like. to begin with, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: they grunt like pigs, and their grunt is very big and fierce. then, of course, no one expects hippopotamuses to jump. they just crash through the hedges and lumber through the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, and annoying the farmers very much. all the hippopotamuses had collars with their name and address on, but when the farmers called at the palace to complain of the injury to their standing crops, the prince always said it served them right for leaving their crops standing about in people's way, and he never paid anything at all.