Toby looked at them in almost speechless surprise, and then he turned to where the old monkey lay, apparently asleep; but as the boy watched him intently, he could see that the cunning animal was really watching him out of one half-closed eye.
"Now you have killed us, Mr. Stubbs," wailed Toby. "We never can find our way out of here; an' now we hain't got anything to eat, an' by to-morrow we shall be starved to death. Oh dear! wasn't you bad enough when you threw all the money away, so you had to go an' do this just when we was in awful trouble?"
Mr. Stubbs now looked up as if he had just been awakened by Toby's grief, looked around him leisurely as if to see what could be the matter, and then apparently seeing for the first time the crumbs that were lying around on the ground, took up some and examined them intently.
"Now don't go to makin' believe that you don't know how they come there," said Toby, showing anger toward his pet for the first time. "You know it was you who did it, for there wasn't any one else here, an' you can't fool me by lookin' so surprised."
It seemed as if the monkey had come to the conclusion that his little plan of ignorance wasn't the most perfect success, for he walked meekly toward his young master, climbed up on his shoulder, and sat there kissing his ear, or looking down into his eyes, until the boy could resist the mute appeal no longer, but took him into his arms, and hugged him closely, as he said,
"It can't be helped now, I s'pose, an' we shall have to get along the best way we can; but it was awful wicked of you, Mr. Stubbs, an' I don't know what we're goin' to do for something to eat."
While the destructive fit was on him, the old monkey had not spared the smallest bit of food, but had picked everything into such minute shreds that none of it could be gathered up, and everything was surely wasted.
While Toby sat bemoaning his fate, and trying to make out what was to be done for food, the darkness, which had just begun to gather when he first awoke, now commenced to settle around, and he was obliged to seek for some convenient place in which to spend the night before it should be so dark as to make the search impossible.
Owing to the fact that he had slept nearly the entire afternoon, and also rendered wakeful by the loss he had just sustained, Toby lay awake on the hard ground, with the monkey on his arm hour after hour, until all kinds of fancies came to him, and in every sound he heard some one from the circus coming to capture him, or some wild beast intent on picking his bones.
The cold sweat of fear stood out on his brow, and he hardly dared to breathe, much more to speak, lest the sound of his voice should betray his whereabouts, and thus bring his enemies down upon him. The minutes seemed like hours, and the hours like days, as he lay there, listening fearfully to every one of the night sounds of the forest, and it seemed to him that he had been there very many hours, when at last he fell asleep, and was thus freed from his fears.