I was getting my breath ready to protest when the thing came through once more. It was a monkey. But it missed the cook’s back, for the broad shoulders heaved as the ax came up. The monkey slipped, slid across the chopping-block, and down came the ax. The animal squealed horribly, flung itself past me through the open window, and fled. It went like a shot, but I got the fleeting impression that its tail was gone.
“What did you do then?” asked the cook, squinting at me suspiciously.
“I tell you I haven’t done anything at all. That was a monkey. He came from somewhere. He ran through here. I think you have cut off his tail.” He peered about. “There ain’t no tail here,” he whined. “There couldn’t have been any monkey here. This ain’t any place for a monkey to be. There may be monkey business here—and you’re getting it up. You go away from here!”
I’m afraid the Snohomish Glutton and I would have had trouble then and there, but just then a man came rushing into the door of the galley. He had the monkey under his arm, upside down, and he was pointing quivering finger at a bleeding stump of a tail. I couldn’t understand what he was bawling. I found out afterward that he was a Russian Finn and could command only a few English words even when he was perfectly calm. He was not calm now. I never heard a man rave so. The monkey joined him with hideous screams.
The cook listened for a time, puckering his fat forehead. When he found that the man was talking a foreign language he upraised his ax and swished it around in circles near the Finn’s head. A cook in his galley is lord supreme in his domain, and the sailor probably knew as much. The ax was menacing; it was coming very close, and the Finn already had one exhibit of that cook’s ferocity under his arm. He allowed himself to be backed out, and the cook slammed and barred the door.
“What did he say?” he asked me, in his piping tones.
“I don’t know what he said.”
“I reckoned it was some kind of Dago swearing, and I don’t allow a man to swear at me. Most likely it was swearing.”
“You cut off that monkey’s tail,” I insisted. “I thought so when he squealed. Now I’m sure of it.”
He went to peering around again, whining to himself like a fat porcupine who is being badgered.