“Here, Tom,” he said to a stalwart fireman who sat at the wheel of the truck, “take care of this child. Don’t let her get out of your sight. She may be a valuable witness. I’ll be back soon. I want to look for—for a man.”
He dropped to the street where glowing and sputtering bits of wood floated on rivers of water.
The girl’s attention was instantly caught by a strange creature that rested on the fireman’s shoulder—a large monkey.
“That’s Jerry,” smiled Tom. “He’s our mascot. Came to us of his own free will. Tenement burned on the near west side. After everybody was out an’ the walls was totterin’ Jerry comes scamperin’ down a drain pipe, hopped on my shoulder, and he’s been there lot of times since. Nobody’s ever claimed him. He’s been with us three years, so I guess nobody ever will claim him.”
Sensing that the conversation was about him, the monkey evidently decided to show off a bit. Leaping from Tom’s shoulder, he made the towering ladder at a bound and was half way up before the child could let out her first scream of delight. Then, as the ladder began to double in upon itself, he raced down again, to at last make one mighty leap and land squarely in the girl’s lap.
In the meantime Johnny was fighting his way through the throng toward the store where he had seen the pink-eyed man.
The crowd was increasing. He made his way through it with great difficulty. Then, just as he reached the outer edge of it, there came a cry:
“Back! Back!”
Wedged in between a fat Jewish woman with a shawl over her head and a dark Italian with a bundle on his back, Johnny found himself carried backward, still backward, then to one side until a passage had been made.
Through this passage, like a young queen in a pageant, the girl he had rescued rode atop the truck. And by her side, important as a footman, rode Jerry, the monkey.