Just at that moment, something hit Carl on the back of the head. Whirling away from the parrot, he looked upward. A black monkey was clinging to the ironwork of the gallery overhead. In one paw the monkey held Carl s cap, and with the other paw he was fishing bits of plaster out of the wall and throwing them downward.
"Und dere iss a monkey, too!" exclaimed Carl. "It looks like I vas in a menacherie. Say, you monk, gif me dot hat!"
"Sic 'im, Tige!" shrilled the parrot. "Police! police!"
The monkey chattered and flaunted the cap defiantly, at the same time getting ready to throw another piece of plaster.
"Nice leedle monk!" wheedled Carl. "Iss der leedle monkey hungry? Den come down und ged some peanuds vich I ain'd got! Pooty leedle monk! py shinks, I vill preak you in doo oof you don'd——"
Biff!
The piece of plaster came downward, straight as a die, and landed on Carl's chin. That was more than Carl's temper could stand, and he started up the stairway toward the gallery.
In order to get near the monkey he had to run around the gallery, past the door through which the creole gentleman and Bangs had vanished with the chest.
There was a window, set in a sort of embrasure, beside the door, and one of the lights was broken out.
As Carl passed under the window, on his way around the gallery, he heard a voice that brought him to a gasping halt. All thoughts of his stolen cap, and the monkey, left his mind.