"Well, sir, it's wonderful the intelligence of these monkeys. When I first knew Carbo he was in the coal business, and that's why I call him Carbo. Yes, you may laugh, but it's a fact. He had a coal-yard right at the dépôt at K——, a little junction where every train but two expresses a day has to stop. He wasn't the proprietor of that yard. He was a salaried employé, like what merchants call a 'buyer.' He bought the coal, and the chap that owned the yard sold it again at a big profit—at least I guess he must have sold some of it."
"And pray what sort of money did Carbo pay for it?" I asked.
"Antics, sir," replied the engineer, disengaging Carbo's fingers from his beard, which the attentive little fellow was carefully combing; "antics, sir, and pranks. This was the how of it: Carbo lived, as I say, with a man that owned a little house and yard right where the engines mostly stopped at K—— Junction. Coal was dear that winter, and so this man lighted on a dodge to make Carbo keep him in coal free of all expense.
"He set up a pole, in the middle of his yard, twenty feet high, and on top of it he set a little platform with a little roof over it, and on that platform he tied this here monkey. Well, sir, that man knew human nature well, for he reckoned that not an engine would stop there but the engineer and his mate would have a shot with a chunk of coal at that chattering monkey on the pole, and every chunk would fall into his yard. And I guess the old man—he wasn't so old either, but he was a dry kind of a chap as always had a sly grin on his face, as if he was chuckling at the way we boys slinged good coal into his yard—I guess he reckoned aright. Many's the time when I've chucked half a dozen lumps of coal at this little chap, never thinking how I was a-feeding the old man's stove with the company's coal. I reckon Carbo must have made as much as two hundred-weight of coal a week. It seems a heap to give away, but, bless you! I never guessed that any other engineer but me ever threw coal at that monkey. But I thought a good deal of it afterward, and I made up my mind that every one of 'em did, and their mates too—such is human nature. Not that we wanted to hurt the little beast, but he was such a good mark, though I never heard that any one ever hit him, he was so quick."
"Well, sir," I said, as the engineer paused to light his pipe, "that is the best true monkey story I've heard yet, and I guess it is true. But how did you come to get him? I should think he would have been too valuable to be parted with."
"There's a story to that, too, Colonel," he replied. "It was a year ago, just about this time, that the family that Carbo lived with got burned out one windy night. P'r'aps they'd been using coal too free, seeing as they came by it so easy. Anyway, I came up one morning on my engine, and there the little house and the cow-shed and the little corn-crib was all a heap of smoking ashes. It had caught fire in the night, and burned down in twenty minutes, so the neighbors said. The poor old man was so badly burned trying to get his cow out of the shed that he died inside of two days; and his wife and daughters escaped in their night clothes, but that was all they had. The neighbors took them in, but everything they owned, except a few acres of run-down land, was burned up.
"Of course it got talked of along the line, and by-and-by it came out that every engineer and fireman as come along had chucked chunks of coal at that monkey on his pole. Well, the agent at K—— was a kind-hearted chap, and no fool either, and he thought he'd get up a benefit to help the poor old woman. So he had a handbill printed, telling how the family had been burned out, and the old man killed, and how that all they had left was a pet monkey. Then it went on to say that the monkey would be raffled for at two dollars a share, and called upon every engineer and fireman who had thrown the company's coal at the monkey to take a share for the benefit of the widow and orphans.
"Well, sir, that handbill was circulated all along the line, and the boys came to think how they'd been throwing away the company's coal (for the neighbors told the whole story when the old man was dead), and they felt mean. Then the company refused to take any shares when it was brought to their notice, so the boys thought they'd make it right with their consciences by buying a share with what they owed the company for coal they'd thrown at the monkey.
"And so, as every train came up after pay-day, the boys handed in two dollars apiece without a growl, and some of us took two shares apiece. Then the handbill had got into the cars, and some of the passengers who read the story bought shares; and so, when it came to be footed up, the value of this little chap here was found to be five hundred dollars, all paid up.
"Well, sir, we appointed a committee to conduct the raffle, and one night I got a dispatch from Perkins, the dépôt agent at K——, saying: 'Monkey is yours. Will you take twenty dollars for him?' I wired back: 'No, nor two hundred. Keep him until I come up with No. 12.' So next day I got him. You see, I'd been thinking a deal about this monkey, and now I'd won him I thought he'd keep me in luck. Well, I've had him nigh on to a year now, and I wouldn't part with him for as much money as he brought the widow."