If he had only known what was in store for him later, he would have been glad enough to quit then and there.
“I’ll just take a look at the monkeys and then go in and watch the performers,” resolved Billy. “It won’t do not to have a good look at them, for ever since old Mr. Coon told me his story I have been most anxious to see what monkeys look like. I expect they are dreadful or the remembrance of them could not affect a tough old sinner like the Coon as it does.”
The monkeys’ cage was very large, and was fitted up with all sorts of contrivances for exercise. There were a dozen or more monkeys of all sorts and sizes in it, and they were always one of the greatest attractions of the whole show and the crowds of people in front of it were enormous.
Billy had no difficulty in locating it and was very soon watching the antics of the monkeys with interest. He decided that they were the strangest looking animals and about the most ugly he had ever seen, but he couldn’t make up his mind why it was the Coon had seemed to hate them so much and at the same time to be so afraid of them.
He would learn pretty soon.
Like everybody else, Billy soon found himself laughing with all his might at the funny things the monkeys were doing. They never seemed to stop for a minute, and around and around they went, always cutting up some new caper, doing something that nobody expected.
“The looks of that old blue-nosed Mandrill is surely enough to make a dog laugh,” said giggling Billy, using his favorite expression.
Just about this time, two or three of the monkeys spied Billy looking and laughing.
“It’s that goat,” said one, “who made such a smash-up in the freak depot when he jumped off the elephant’s back. I haven’t laughed so hard in a month of Sundays. I wonder if we can’t make his acquaintance. I think anybody who can tip over that fat lady is worth knowing. Ask him, Colonel Mandrill, to come up closer where we can talk to him.”