“Is nobody going to open the door of the cage?” asked the boy impatiently. “I want to see the creature loose.”
“Oh, my sweet child, leave it where it is. You’ll frighten me to death, if you let it out,” cried the Queen in alarm.
The Prince immediately threw himself down on the floor, and began to roar.
“Don’t cry, there’s a love,” said his wise mother, soothingly, “and the Baron shall see if he can’t hold it while you look at it. Wrap your handkerchief round your hand, Baron; it won’t bite, I’m sure.”
The Baron did as he was bid, and, in considerable trepidation, opened the door of the cage, and made an effort to seize the macauco. The animal immediately darted at his hand, bit it with all its strength, and dashed out of the cage in an instant. “Sess! sess! sess!” cried Prince Eigenwillig, springing up from the floor, and clapping his hands. “Now for a chase! Sess! macauco! Hie at them! Good monkey! Bite Rigida! Bite Puffendorf!”
Away ran the instructress, away ran the Lord of the Bedchamber, and after them pursued the macauco round and round the room, now biting at the Baron’s heels, and now at the Lady Rigida’s; while the Queen ran screaming out of the apartment, and the author of all the mischief stood in the midst, laughing with all his might. In another moment, the agile monkey had scrambled up the Lady Rigida’s back, and, having half strangled her in its attempts to tear off her head-dress, took a flying leap to the top of a cabinet, whence, having dashed down a most precious vase of rose-coloured chrystal, it proceeded to tear the cap to tatters.
But Prince Eigenwillig was too highly delighted with the more active freaks of the animal, and too much pleased at the opportunity of terrifying and tormenting the Lady Rigida, to allow it to remain long at the top of the cabinet. So snatching up a book which lay on a table beside him, he threw it at the macauco for the purpose of dislodging it.
And therein he succeeded, but at a cost which by no means entered into his calculations, for the animal, irritated by the blow, now turned on the naughty boy, and springing on his shoulders, laid hold of one of his ears with his teeth.
It was now the Prince’s turn to scream, and the more he screamed and struggled, the more the macauco bit him, and the child would soon have fainted with fright and pain; but, just at the critical moment, when he had fallen to the ground, the sound of many voices was heard outside the door, which was immediately flung open, and, together with a number of members of the household, in rushed a great black mastiff, which immediately flew at the monkey, who, thereupon, quitted its hold of the Prince’s ear, and retreated to its cage.
The whole palace was by this time in confusion; messengers were rushing in all directions for surgeons and physicians; and even King Katzekopf, who had now grown so fat, that he never left his arm-chair when he could help it, ran up-stairs, three steps at a time, to know what was the matter.