MRS. ELMO OF ELEPHANT HOUSE

Mrs. Elmo, a very grand elephant, hires Anna and Seth, middle-aged mice, as her servants. They serve each other's needs perfectly: they walt on her; she dotes on them as the children she never had. There is not much plot, just the three in their everyday, symbiotic life. Some of the nine episodes depend for their humor on an adult viewpoint: when being interviewed, Anna explains, ""I don't do windows,"" and Seth asks to be paid in cash because ""checks are so hard to cash."" Later, Mrs. Elmo wears ""a badly cut tweed suit"" and ""sensible shoes,"" phrases that amused our grandparents. This is too long; Kraus is good at writing a lot about a little, but the idea wears thin by the third episode. The whimsical, cartoon-like ink drawings are charming, but do not, alas, fill the void left by the lack of a well-tuned story.