“Guess we’ll have to leave him where he is—up in the tree,” answered her husband. “He can’t do much harm, and since it is summer, he won’t suffer from the cold. If winter was coming on he’d be a pretty sick monkey—out in the open like this.”
“I wish I could have this monkey!” pleaded Trouble. “I like a monkey better’n I do a nellifunt, I guess!”
“Well, that’s quite a thing for you to say!” laughed the little fellow’s father. “But I’m afraid we can’t get you this for a playmate. Hold fast, children, I’m going to start.”
As he was about to let in the clutch and send the car ahead, there appeared, running around the bend in the road, an excited Italian organ grinder with his music box. He was running fast, and when he caught sight of the auto he cried:
“You seena da monk? You seena da monk?”
At this moment the monkey in the tree, still swinging by his tail, began to chatter shrilly. Doubtless he had caught sight of his master and the organ to which tunes the monkey danced. And as the monkey chattered the Italian looked up, catching sight of his pet.
“Ah, da monk! My leetle monk!” he exclaimed, and then he talked in his own language. After which he again spoke English, saying: “Come down, Mickey! Come down to papa!”
The children laughed at this, and the Italian joined them in the mirth.
“He gooda da monk, but he run away,” explained the man. “Da string, she break, Mickey go ’way. Come down! Come down!” he begged, holding out his cap. “Come to papa!”
But the monkey did not appear to want to come down. It turned right side up, no longer swinging by its tail, but sitting on a branch.