“Oh, your excellency, you will pardon me——”
The strange and scared formality of the old man did not tend to put the General at his ease. Still forcing himself to be jocular, he said—
“I hope your old dame has not run off with any one?”
The gamekeeper wished himself a thousand miles away. Once more he attempted to draw the well-conned speech from out of his confused memory, but stuck fast at—
“May it please your honour——”
“Well!” exclaimed the General, impatiently, “what, in the name of fortune, has occurred? The house not burnt down, your wife not run away from you, and yet you are making a face as if you were going to be hanged! What other evil can possibly cross the path of two old fellows like us?”
“A great misfortune has happened, excellency!”
“Oh, that’s it. Then you would do well to tell it me without more ado.”
“The monkeys, your honour——”
“The monkeys,” repeated the General, as though electrified; “what is the matter with the monkeys?”