ENTER ALSO.
THE MARMOSETTI TROUP.
EXIT.
SOLILOQUY.
Among the sick in this place is a spider monkey. Mind, I say he is there. To-morrow, or in five minutes, he will probably be somewhere else, for that is the nature of a monkey. Sickening, recovering, dying, snatching, jumping, tail-pulling, bonnet-despoiling, everything a monkey does is done in a hurry. This particular spider monkey has two or three names, as Jerry, Tops, and Billy, whereunto he answers indifferently; but I prefer to call him Coincidence, because of his long arms, and he answers as well to that name as to another. He came in here because of a severe attack of horizontal bar in the stomach. I have never seen a monkey fall, and, for that reason, wish I had seen the attack, as a curiosity. For, by some accident, unparalleled in monkey history, Coincidence managed to miss his hold, and fell on his digestive department across a perch. He is a long, thread-papery sort of monkey, and it took a little time to convince him that he wasn't broken in half. When at last he understood that there was still only one of him, he set himself to such a doleful groaning and rubbing and turning up of the eyes, that Jungbluth put him on the sick list at once. But it took a very few hours to make him forget his troubles; and, indeed, I have some suspicion that the whole thing was a dodge to secure a comfortable holiday in hospital. That certainly is the opinion of Coincidence's friend, the Negro monkey, as his face will tell you, if you but ask him the question. It may interest those who already know that Coincidence has a long arm, to know also that he has but four fingers to each hand and no thumb; it is a part of his system. His tail is another part of his system, and you mustn't touch it. There is no more affable and friendly monkey alive than Coincidence, although he is a little timid; but once touch his tail (it is long, like everything else belonging to Coincidence), and you lose his friendship for ever. He instantly complains to Jungbluth, and points you out unmistakably for expulsion.
COINCIDENCE.