Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Bang up to the elephant (AND News Flash!)

~~ NEWS FLASH! This just in: A DYING NOTE is a finalist (along with piles of other wonderful books) for the Foreword INDIE Award for Mystery. Winners in all categories will be announced on June 14. Click here to see categories and to view finalists. 
END NEWS FLASH! ~~
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 I know I promised to explore chicanery this week, but the news flash above, which I just had to share, has me exclaiming with great glee, "Well, isn't this just bang up to the elephant!"

And wouldn't you just looooove to know where what that phrase means, how old it is, and where it comes from? If so, just keep reading...
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Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English, Slang, and Phrase by J. Redding Ware (1909) gives us this very complete entry:

Bang up to the Elephant (London, 1882): Perfect, complete, unapproachable. The 'Elephant' ( 'Elephant and Castle Tavern,' South London), had for years been the centre of South London tavern-life when (1882) Jumbo, an exceptionally large elephant at the Zoological Gardens, became popular through certain articles in the D. T.* The public were pleased to think Jumbo refused to leave England and the gardens for America. He, however, did ultimately, with no emotion, leave behind him this bit of passing English.

'The fly flat** thinks himself so blooming sharp, so right bang up to the elephant, that he's got an idea that no sharper*** would ever try to take him on.'

Jumbo at the opera, courtesy of an 1883 advertisement for cotton thread.
Buek and Lindner [Public domain]

*D. T. = Daily Telegraph 
** Fly flat (from 1864) = A foolish or gullible person who considers him- or herself clever. Found in Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang by John Ayto, John Simpson.
*** Sharper (from 17th century) = a thief who uses trickery to part an owner from his or her money possessions. Found in Wikipedia.