"What is it, then, sir?"
"Well, you see, Mike, I don't know myself yet," said Harry, laughing.
Mike looked at him sharply, then at the three Siamese, whose faces were contorted with mirth, and back at his young master.
"Humbugging me," he said sharply. "That's it, is it, Master Harry?
Yah! I don't believe there's anything in the old hamper at all."
He went round the basket from the other direction, so as to reach the door, and as he got behind the two men on the lid, he turned.
"I do wonder at you, Master Harry, laughing at a fellow like that, and setting these niggers to make fun of me. Yah!"
He raised one foot and delivered a tremendous kick at the bottom of the basket, startling the two squatting men on the lid so that one sprang up and the other leaped off on to the bamboo floor of the verandah, while a violent commotion inside the basket showed that its occupant had also been disturbed.
"Something else for you to laugh at," said Mike, and he slipped in and closed the door.
Harry smiled, the man returned to his perch on the lid, frowning and looking very serious, while the occupant of the basket settled down quietly again, making Harry more curious than ever as to what it might be; but he mastered his desire to go and peer through the split bamboo so tightly woven together, and waited impatiently for the coming of his friend and companion.
"I believe it's a big monkey, after all," he said to himself. "Sree always said he was sure there were monsters right away in the jungle, just about the same as the one father saw at Singapore, brought from Borneo. It was precious quiet, though, till Mike kicked the basket. How savage it made him to be laughed at!"