As soon as it was dawn, the mice retired to their holes. Jacko awoke shivering with cold, stretched himself, and then, pushing the soup tureen from the shelf, broke it to pieces. After this achievement, he began to look about for something to eat, when he spied the jam pots on the upper shelf.
“There is something good,” he thought, smelling them. “I’ll see.”
His sharp teeth soon worked an entrance, when the treasured jams, plums, raspberry, strawberry, candied apricots, the pride and care of the cook, disappeared in an unaccountably short time.
At last, his appetite for sweets was satisfied, and coiling his tail in a corner, he lay quietly awaiting the servant’s coming to take him out.
Presently he heard the door cautiously open, when the chamber girl gave a scream of horror as she saw the elegant China dish broken into a thousand bits, and lying scattered on the floor.
She ran in haste to summon Hepsy and the nurse, her heart misgiving her that this was not the end of the calamity. They easily removed Jacko, who began already to experience the sad effects of overloading his stomach, and then found, with alarm and grief, the damage he had done.
For several days the monkey did not recover from the effects of his excess. He was never shut up again in the pantry.
When Mrs. Lee returned she blamed the servants for trying such an experiment in her absence. Jacko was now well, and ready for some new mischief; and Minnie, who heard a ludicrous account of the story, laughed till she cried.
She repeated it, in great glee, to her father, who looked very grave as he said, “We think a sea voyage would do the troublesome fellow good; but you shall have a Canary or a pair of Java sparrows instead.”