with its feet, sprang
twenty feet, more or less, to the ground, which it reached on its hands,
tumbled a somersault inadvertently, and went skipping over the ground at
a great rate in the direction of the cries.

When it reached the spot, however, Letta had fled, but Robin still lay
motionless on his back. It was evident that the small monkey looked on
the prostrate youth with alarm and suspicion, yet with an intense
curiosity that no sense of danger could restrain. It walked slowly and
inquiringly round him several times, each time drawing closer, while its
crouched back and trailing tail betokened abject humility. Then it
ventured to put out a small black hand and touch him, drawing it back
again as if it had got an electric shock. Then it ventured to touch him
again, with less alarm. After that it went close up, and gazed in his
face.

Familiarity, says the proverb, breeds contempt. The truth of proverbs
can be verified by monkeys as well as men. Seeing that nothing came of
its advances, that small monkey finally leaped on Robin's chest, sat
down thereon, and stared into his open mouth. Still the youth moved
not, whereupon the monkey advanced a little and laid its paw upon his
nose! Either the touch was more effective than Letta's shaking, or time
was bringing Robin round, for he felt his nose tickled, and gave way to
a tremendous sneeze. It blew the monkey clean off its legs, and sent it
shrieking into a neighbouring tree. As Robin still lay quiet, the
monkey soon recovered, and returned to its former position, where,
regardless of consequences, it again laid hold of the nose.

This time consciousness returned. Robin opened his eyes with a stare of
dreamy astonishment. The monkey replied with a stare of indignant
surprise. Robin's eyebrows rose still higher. So did those of the
monkey as it leaped back a foot, and formed its mouth into a little O of
remonstrance. Robin's mouth expanded; he burst into an uncontrollable
fit of laughter, and the monkey was again on the eve of flight, when
voices were heard approaching, and, next instant, Letta came running
forward, followed at some distance by Sam and the others.

"Oh! my dear, sweet, exquisite darling!" exclaimed Letta.

It did much for the poor youth's recovery, the hearing himself addressed
in such endearing terms, but he experienced a relapse when the monkey,
responding to the endearments, ran with obvious joy into the child's
bosom, and submi