Mr. Johnson whispered to me: ‘I don’t believe it;’ and Colonel Bannister listened with a fine incredulous stare fixed upon the skipper’s crimson countenance; but the rest of us were vastly interested, especially the elder ladies, who, behind old Keeling’s back, spoke of him as ‘a love.’
We settled it amongst us to purchase the monkeys from the boat’s crew which had rescued them, leaving the ape for the seamen to make a pet of. The matter was talked over at that dinner, and I overheard Miss Temple ask Mr. Colledge to try to secure the little monkey with the red waistcoat for her. She was the only one of the ladies who wanted a monkey.
‘Would you like one, Miss Hudson?’ said I.
She shuddered in the prettiest way.
‘Oh, I hate monkeys,’ she cried; ‘they are so like men, you know!’
‘Then, by every law of logic,’ bawled the colonel with a loud laugh, ‘you must hate men more, madam. Don’t you see?—ha! ha! Why do you hate monkeys? Because they are like men. How much, then, must you hate men, the original of the monkey!’
He roared with laughter again. In fact, there never was a man who more keenly relished his own sallies of wit than Colonel Bannister.
Miss Hudson coloured, and fanned herself.
‘I hate monkeys too,’ cried Mr. Greenhew, ‘and for the reason that makes Miss Hudson averse to them;’ and here he looked very hard at the colonel.
‘Well, certainly a fellow-feeling don’t always make us kind,’ murmured Mr. Riley in an audible voice, and putting a glass into his eye to look around him as he laughed.