After one or two ineffectual attempts to withdraw his hand, he put the other hand into the other pot, which had been placed convenient for that very purpose. Perhaps, when he put in the second hand, his object was to find out what was holding the first; but when it also touched the grain, the force of habit made him grab with it also, a beautifully human trait of character; and there he stood with both his hands in chancery, meaning by chancery a place that does not readily let anything out that once comes in.
There he remained standing. It never came into his head to open his hands and withdraw them empty. He was an emblem of many an Anglo-Indian, who has “heard the East a-calling,” [189] ]and seeking a “soft job,” has wandered where his tribe cannot thrive, but is detained by what he has in hand, and cannot find the heart to forego. The monkey stood there, with both hands full, quite wealthy for a monkey, but a helpless prisoner. If there had been pots enough, his kinsmen would all have come and done likewise; but there were only two, and he had monopolised them; and now he had to endure the multitudinous advice of the empty-handed monkeys, and their criticism, and ...
That was not all he had to endure. Dr Murphy took a whip and proceeded to chastise him, not very severely, but sufficiently to keep him from thinking clearly in the abstract. Then the hubbub thickened round the doctor. The tribe that dwelt on Jacko gathered clamorous. Quick, from the hill and almost every tree, wherever tribesmen were who heard the news, they hastened to the great indignation meeting, all seeming to talk at once, and making hideous grimaces, at which, to their surprise, Dr Murphy laughed aloud. They did not understand his noises and grimaces; but what they could not fail to see was his indifference. Whack, whack, whack! He continued the flogging amidst a chorus of disapproval, quite equal to that of the United Press Association.
[190] ]The prisoner broke away. The pots had not been very strong; and in his struggles he had broken off the rims. With an earthenware bracelet on each wrist and both hands full of grain, he reached the nearest tree; and there he opened his hands and dropped the grain. “All that a man hath he will give for his life.” But in this instance, the general opinion of observers was that the grain was dropped by inadvertence, as the monkey opened his hands in haste to climb, forgetting what he held.
By a similarly inadvertent knock against the tree, he broke one of his bracelets as he went up. Well for him if he had broken both! He joined the crowd that had come to help him, with still a bracelet (of a pot’s rim) on one of his wrists. This caused an immediate revulsion of feelings. His friends became his persecutors. They crowded round him, pushing and pulling him, smacking and scratching him, and biting him till the blood came. In a few minutes that leading monkey would have been dead, and perhaps they would have been carrying his corpse to the hill, as some people said they used to do, but suddenly, as the persecuted one was floundering about, the fatal pot’s rim broke and fell in pieces to the ground. Behold, he was now as the other monkeys were, different from [191] ]the rest no more, but sore afflicted and in agony. They succoured him now, like a prodigal returned, and helped him gently away, leaving the kind doctor sad to see how far beyond his intentions the poor fellow had been punished. The doctor declared he would never set that trap again.
But how very human it was! To translate the fine verse of Béranger’s song (“Les Fous”)—
“As we toe the line, we duffers,
If anyone quits the crowd,
Whatever he does or suffers,
We all of us yell aloud.