Chryselephantine

I suppose I was about ten when I first came across the word ‘Chryselephantine’. I found it awesome, in the old-fashioned sense rather than the modern one in which, for instance, my nephews described a curry I had made for them as ‘Ossum’. (I’m pretty sure they meant this as praise.) ‘Chryselephantine’ sent me to my Thorndike Junior Dictionary, where I found that it meant ‘Inlaid with gold and ivory’.

The last limerick was for an animal beginning with ‘D’, so now we shall have one for an animal beginning with ‘E’. (Duh.)

 

The devious runaway Elephant
cunningly covers his fell intent:
he slyly perpends
a tail at both ends,
so no-one can see where the hell he went.

 

To avoid confusion, I perpend a picture of the relevant elephant. The object of which it stands astride is a ‘car’: