"Bow wow! What are you doing that for?" asked the dog. He knew how to speak so Mappo would understand him.
"I am doing it so I will not fall off when you run fast, Prince," answered Mappo.
"Ha! Ha! Very good!" laughed Prince, in the only way dogs can laugh, which is by barking softly. "That's a good trick, little monkey. If other monkeys were as smart as you they would learn their lessons more quickly. Now hold on tight, for I am going to run!"
"I will!" promised Mappo.
The circus man looked at what Mappo had done.
"That is a smart little monkey," he said. "Now he will not fall."
And this time, when Prince started off, and ran very fast around the sawdust ring, Mappo did not fall off. His tail, which was as good as a hand to him, was wrapped about the neck of Prince, and kept Mappo from slipping.
Mappo could now do the dog-riding trick very well. No matter how fast Prince ran, the monkey would not fall off. A few days later more dogs and other monkeys were brought into the circus ring in the big barn, and they, too, raced around. But none of them could go as fast as Mappo and Prince, and, each time, they won the race around the sawdust ring.
"That certainly is a smart little monkey!" the circus man would say over and over again. "I shall teach him many tricks. I will now see how he can ride on the back of a pony, and, after that, I will teach him to jump through paper hoops."
Mappo did not very well understand what this meant, but he made up his mind he would do whatever was asked of him, and that he would do it as well as he could.