Before he could answer, there was a scuttling sound under the table; the cat vanished, and the monkey suddenly dashed out of cover, made straight for me and flung its arms round my right leg.
"Get away, you brute!" I yelled, trying to shake it off.
"Oh, Daddy, darling!" cried Molly, "isn't he sweet?"
"Sweet!" I thought, wildly. "This is a nice home-coming for a man after a hard day's work in town."
Stooping down, I tried to dislodge the little brute's grip on my trouser-leg, but the effort ended in failure. It had evidently found what it thought was a refuge from further pursuit—and there it meant to stay!
"Come and get him off!" I shouted at Gran'pa.
The old man crawled quickly towards me, took hold of the monkey's tail and pulled!
It was then that I indulged in my first laugh that evening. There was a quick snarl from the monkey, a shout from Gran'pa, and the next moment Molly and I were witnessing the thrilling spectacle of a tug-of-war in which Gran'pa's beard and the monkey's tail were the chief objects of interest.
"Leggo!" cried the old man. "Ah! You would—would you?"
I saw the gleam of white teeth as the monkey tried more drastic methods on Gran'pa's arm, the sudden flash of a human hand as it reached out and cuffed the animal's head, and then a sort of rough-and-tumble on the linoleum.