The Tale of a Monkey
There were many monkeys—I came near saying there were hundreds—in the
little clump of jungle trees back of the bungalow. We could lie in our long
chairs, any afternoon, when the sun was on the opposite side of the house, and
watch them from behind the bamboo “chicks” swinging and playing in the maze
of rubber-vines.
They played tag and high-spy, and a variety of other games. When they were
tired of playing, they fell to quarrelling, scolding, and chasing each other among
the stiff, varnished leaves, making so much noise that I could not get my
afternoon nap, and often had to call to the syce to throw a stone into the
branches. Then they would scuttle away to the topmost parts of the great trees
and there join in giving me a rating that ought to have made me ashamed forever
to look another monkey in the face.
One day, I went out and threw a stick at them myself, and the next day I found
my shoes, which the Chinese “boy” had pipe-clayed and put out in the sun to
dry, missing; and the day after I found the netting of my mosquito house torn
from top to bottom.
So I was not in the best of humors when I was awakened, one afternoon, by the
whistling of a monkey close to my chair. I reached out quickly for my cork
helmet which I had thrown down by my side. As it was there, I looked up in
surprise to see what had become of my visitor.
There he sat up against the railing of the veranda with his legs cramped up under
him, ready to flee if I made a threatening gesture. His face was turned toward
me, with the thin, hairless skin of its upper lip drawn back, showing a perfect
row of milk-white teeth that were chattering in deadly terror. The whole
expression of his face was one of conciliation and entreaty.