“You let that boy alone,” commanded old Mr. Beebe, puffing up. The man laughed in the fat little shoemaker’s face. “Get somethin’ to eat, I tell you,” he roared.
“Oh, I will—I will,” old Mrs. Beebe trotted off, and came back with two doughnuts in her trembling hands.
“You hold ’em up,” said the organ man. “He won’t come down for me.”
“Oh, I can’t,” Mrs. Beebe shook all over.
“Let th’ boy hold ’em,” said the man; “he butted in there an’ lost us th’ chain, and now he can git him down.”
David cast a wild look up at the little beast, whose sharp eyes were roving from his master to the small boy that had interfered with the chain.
“No, no, Davie,” began the little shoemaker—but intent only on the organ man’s charge that he was to blame, Davie took the doughnuts out of old Mrs. Beebe’s hands, before she realized it.
“You mustn’t whip him,” he said, looking back at the man, before he held them up.
But he didn’t need to, for there was a sudden leap from the high shelf, the end of the chain rattled off, and the monkey came down on Davie’s little shoulder, knocking him to the floor in among the shoes and slippers and rubbers scattered about.
They never knew quite how it all ended, but when Davie picked himself up, the organ man was dragging the monkey, swallowing the last piece of the second doughnut, out of the shop.