"I am physically well, Mr. Belton," said Bragg, "but am mentally afflicted."
"Indeed!" said Toney. "I trust that there has been no serious cause for this disturbance of your usual equanimity."
"I have met with a great, I fear an irreparable, loss," said Bragg.
"A ship foundered at sea without any insurance on her?" inquired the Professor.
"My monkey," said Bragg.
"Alas!" exclaimed Tom Seddon in pathetic tones, "is the monkey no more?"
"Is he dead?" said Toney, apparently in great anxiety to learn its fate.
"I know not," said Bragg. "He is missing. I have searched for him in vain."
"He may have run away and escaped over Mason and Dixon's line," said the Professor. "Could you not reclaim him under the fugitive slave law?"
"That monkey would never have run away, Mr. Tickle. I have fed him and protected him, and he could never have been guilty of such gross folly and base ingratitude."