“Here, Hamat,” I said, laughing, “here is five dollars; take it; when you come back from Mecca with a green turban come and see me. If I am sick of the monkey, you can have him back.”
So commenced our acquaintance with Lepas. We got into the habit of calling him Lepas, because it was the Malay for “let go,” which definition we broadened until it became a term of correction for every form of mischief. He was such a restless, active little imp, with hands into everything and upon everything, that it was “Lepas!” from morning to night.
He soon learned the word’s twofold meaning. If we said “Lepas” sternly, he subsided at once; but when we called it pleasantly he came running across the room and leaped into our laps.
It did not take Lepas as long to forget his former master as it did to forget his former habits. In truth, his civilization was never more than skin deep.
Just a gray, jungle monkey
“Lepas would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress’s lap”
He would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress’s lap, playing with her work and making deft slaps at passing flies, until he had thoroughly convinced her of his perfect trustworthiness. Then, the moment her back was turned, he would slip away to her bureau, and such a mess as he would make of her ribbons and laces!
I think he liked the servants better than he did us. He would dance and turn handsprings and salaam for them, but never for the mistress or myself. Such tricks, he seemed to think, were beneath his new position in society.
He had a standing grudge against me, however, for insisting on his bath in the big Shanghai jar every day, and took delight in rolling in the red dust of the road the moment he was through.