r monkey in the face.

One day, I went out and threw a stick at them myself, and the next
day I found my shoes, which the Chinese "boy" had pipe-clayed and
put out in the sun to dry, missing; and the day after I found the
netting of my mosquito house torn from top to bottom.

So I was not in the best of humors when I was awakened, one afternoon,
by the whistling of a monkey close to my chair. I reached out quickly
for my cork helmet which I had thrown down by my side. As it was there,
I looked up in surprise to see what had become of my visitor.

There he sat up against the railing of the veranda with his legs
cramped up under him, ready to flee if I made a threatening gesture.
His face was turned toward me, with the thin, hairless skin of its
upper lip drawn back, showing a perfect row of milk-white teeth that
were chattering in deadly terror. The whole expression of his face
was one of conciliation and entreaty.

I knew that it was all make-believe, so I half closed my eyes and
did not move. The chattering stopped. The little fellow looked about
curiously, drew his mouth up into a pucker, whistled once or twice
to make sure I was not awake, and reached out his bony arm for a few
crumbs of cake that had fallen near.

He was not more than a foot in height. His diminutive body seemed
to have been fitted into a badly worn skin that was two sizes too
large for him, and the scalp of his forehead moved about like an
overgrown wig.

He was the most ordinary kind of gray, jungle monkey, not even a
wah-wah or spider face.

"Well," I said, after we had thoroughly inspected each other, "where
are my shoes?"

Like a flash the whistling ceased, and with a pathetic trembling of
his thin upper lip he commenced to beg with his mouth, and to put up
his homely little hands in mute appeal.

For a moment I feared he would go into convulsions, but I soon
discovered that my sympathy, had been wasted.

Then I noticed, for the first time, that there was a leather strap
around his body just in front of his back legs, and that a string was
attached to it, which ran through the railings and off the veranda. I
looked over, and there, squatting on his sandalled feet, was a Malay,
with the other end of the string in his hand.

He arose, smiling, touched his forehead with the back of his brown
palm, and asked blandly:--

"Tuan, want to buy?"

The calm assurance of the man amused me.

"What, that miserable little monkey?" I said. "