"No, Toby, it's gone," replied Ben, sorrowfully. "You couldn't find it if it was daylight, an' you don't stand a ghost of a chance now in the dark. Don't take on so, my boy. I'll see if we can't make it up to you in some way."
Toby gave no heed to this last remark of Ben's. He hugged the monkey convulsively to his breast, as if he would seek consolation from the very one who had wrought the ruin, and rocking himself to and fro, he said, in a voice full of tears and sorrow:
"Oh, Mr. Stubbs, why did you do it?—why did you do it? That money would have got us away from this hateful place, an' we'd gone back to Uncle Dan'l's, where we'd have been so happy, you an' me. An' now it's all gone—all gone. What made you, Mr. Stubbs, what made you do such a bad, cruel thing? Oh, what made you?"
"Don't, Toby—don't take on so," said Ben, soothingly; "there wasn't so very much money there, after all, an' you'll soon get as much more."
"But it won't be for a good while, an' we could have been in the good old home long before I can get so much again."
"That's true, my boy; but you must kinder brace up, an' not give way so about it. Perhaps I can fix it so the fellers will make it up to you. Give Stubbs a good poundin', an perhaps that'll make you feel better."
"That won't bring back my money, an' I don't want to whip him," cried Toby, hugging his pet the closer because of this suggestion. "I know what it is to get a whippin', an' I wouldn't whip a dog, much less Mr. Stubbs, who didn't know any better."
"Then you must try to take it like a man," said Ben, who could think of no other plan by which the boy might soothe his feelings. "It hain't half so bad as it might be, an' you must try to keep a stiff upper lip, even if it does seem hard at first."
This keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of all the trouble he was having was all very well to talk about, but Toby could not reduce it to practice, or, at least, not so soon after he knew of his loss, and he continued to rock the monkey back and forth, to whisper in his ear now and then, and to cry as if his heart was breaking, for nearly an hour.
Ben tried, in his rough, honest way, to comfort him, but without success, and it was not until the boy's grief had spent itself that he would listen to any reasoning.