CHAPTER XVI.
AN APISH ORGY.
It required ten minutes of difficult work before Philip could succeed in leaving the room where he had thoughtlessly done so much mischief, and then, with all the drunken apes close at his heels, he ran into the court-yard and threw himself on the bank of the tiny stream, so thoroughly disheartened as to be careless of what further trouble might come.
The scene which was presented under the awning during the next half-hour would have given a disinterested spectator no slight amount of amusement, but in Philip’s eyes it was too painful to admit of even a smile.
The party were seated as near the border of the pond as possible, and to have some idea of the picture the reader should multiply any grossly intoxicated person he has seen by about four hundred; but even then, and with the most vivid imagination, he could hardly do full justice to the spectacle.
They leered at each other, called names in the monkey language, very likely told improbable stories, and argued after the fashion of men. Here and there a party of a dozen were raising their voices in discordant notes, which was not unlike the maudlin singing of human beings. Now and then one would stagger back and forth in a vain attempt to get nearer the pond, while his companions did all in their power to keep him back. Then an ape, catching a glimpse of his own tail, and believing that it belonged to his neighbor, would seize and pull it until he literally overturned himself. If in falling he struck any other member of the party, an incipient riot was started, but not to continue very long, owing to the inebriated condition of all.
Those nearest the prisoner overwhelmed him with rough caresses, which at times threatened to leave him entirely bald, because of the desire to show affection by examining each particular hair on his head. If they had understood the custom and significance of hand-shaking, the animal-trainer’s troubles would have been much greater; but as it was, he had even more in the way of trials than could be borne with any respectable show of equanimity.
Taking the scene as a whole, and knowing exactly how these disagreeable companions had been made more brutish than was natural, it presented such a lesson as Philip must have profited by, for one cannot see even drunken men without realizing the beauties and benefits of temperance.
To move ever so slightly was to find the others doing the same thing, and Philip waited patiently throughout the whole of that long, dreary day, hoping his companions would soon be wrapped in slumber, when he might make his escape to the grotto.
But he waited in vain. At intervals certain members of the party would doze; but there was no moment when more than fifty were in a state even approaching unconsciousness, although the entire troop grew more quiet, if not more sober, when the shadows of night began to gather.