Mrs Tremaine's Monkey.

Hastings Standard, Issue 125, 19 September 1896, Page 4

Mrs Tremaine's Monkey.

" I wonder," I said, as I was looking out of the window of Jack Trevar's lodgings, "who's that girl rushing up the street without her hat." "Ah!" he said, coming to the window, " I thought it must be she. She's catching the monkey. I expect she misses me now sometimes. You didn't see which way it went, did you ?" " No," I said. "Is she addicted to hunting monkeys ? " " Only the monkey," he replied. " I used to do it once." " Dear me I " I said. " It's a fashionable amusement in the neighborhood, then ? " " No," he answered mourn fully. " I was engaged to that girl once, and that beast of a monkey broke the engagement off." " Were you," I asked, "cut out by the monkey, then ? " "A man," he said "must - be very, very young to make a remark like that." " Who is she ? " I inquired. " Oh, she's Miss Tremaine," he said. "I'll tell you the story, if you like. It will be a warning never to get engaged to a girl who keeps a monkey."

" At present," I said, " there is no girl of the sort in my mind's eye, but it's better to be prepared for all emergencies." " I got engaged to Miss Tremaine," he said, " about three years ago. I met her at the tennis club and dances, and around the place generally here, but I had never seen much of her at home, and I was unaware even of the monkey's existence. As soon as we were engaged I was introduced to Jacko. He was a small monkey, of ordinary appearance, and was not at first sight prepossessing, but in the Tremaine household he was a family fetish. It's curious to notice the dominant influence in different families. Sometimes it's the baby, sometimes the butler, sometimes a first husband's memory, and sometimes the daily paper. But in this case Jacko reigned supreme. Captain Tremaine, who was dead, had bought the beast,' and it was concerned in a touching death-bed scene or something of that kind. At any rate, Mrs Tremaine regarded it as a sacred relic of the dear deceased, and lavished all her love and affection on it. I well remember the first night I saw Tacko, and discovered the habit that eventually wrecked an engagement. It was a stifling evening, and I suggested to Maud the desirability of opening a window. ' Oh, no,' she said, ' we never can have the windows open in the evening. Jacko would get out,' My first hint of Jacko's habits were enlarged by Mrs Tremaine's frequent and objectionable intrusion to inquire as to the beast's whereabouts. A man in the first rapture of an engagement naturally dislikes the inrushes of someone else in pursuit of a monkey. The next morning the nuisance increased. A servant came round—they live a few doors from here—to tell me that Jacko had just escaped, and would I help to catch him ? I found him about lunch time, and overhauled him after a long and exciting chase. As seemed obvious, I caught him by the tail, and the brute bit me and went on for another half hour. Mrs Tremaine explained reproachfully that Jacko always bit people who pulled his tail. " For some months Jacko continued to be a nuisance at home and abroad. When he escaped, which he managed to do about once a week, I was expected to secure him. This generally happened in the morning, when the windows were open and the tradesmen were calling, and at first on these occasions I did not reach chambers till the afternoon. Afterwards I became quite an adept at catching him. His plan of campaign was to wait till his pursuer was quite close and then jump about twenty yards. I bought a large butterfly net, with a long handle, and he never got the hang of that. When I had discovered this invention I was comparatively happy, but I waited with dread for the time when Jacko should escape after dark, and I should be compelled to hunt for the brute through the watches of the night on the peril of losing the regard of the Tremaine family. Jacko's nomadic habits were, I may explain, attributed to a desire to find his dead master. At last the event that I dreaded occurred. One cold winter's evening Jacko disappeared while the cook was interviewing her favorite policeman at the back door, and got well away. The cook received a month's notice to quit on the spot, and I was at once put on the track of the animal. Mrs Tremaine was very much annoyed because I wished to put my boots on before starting, and even Maud seemed only anxious for the monkey's health." After tramping through three or four miles of streets, I experienced what at first I regarded as unexpected I good luck. The brute came tearing round a corner, and in a second he was in the butterfly net. I was just preparing to return, elated that the run had been so mercifully cut short, when a crowd also came round the corner, headed by an angry and breathless Italian. I soon discovered the con- j nection of events. The Italian could not speak much English, but I gathered that he claimed Jacko as his monkey, his carrisimo monkey. The crowd, who had become excited in the chase, and who imagined that I was attempting to cheat a poor, ignorant foreigner out of his only solace in a strange land, demanded that I should give the monkey up. The vision of Maud's face, if the sacred animal spent the night in the possession of an untrustworthy Italian rose before my eyes, and I distinctly deelined to relinquish Jacko.

" In fee course of conversation with the crowd I lost my temper and a considerable portion of my clothes, and by the time that a policeman arrived, I suppose my appearance did justify him in conveying J&cko, the Italian and met? the police station. There I

3pent a most miserable night. My utmost entreaties failed to indues the police to send to Mrs Tremaine to bail me out. I think their malevolence was prompted by the policeman who had been so rudely interrupted in his tryst with the cook. " In the morning we appeared before his worship. The Italian-and I were charged with creating a disturbance, and assaults, and breaches of the peace and that kind of thing, and as far as I remember the police thfew in a charge of drunk and disorderly against me. His Worship asked to see the monkey, and when they brought him in, lo and behold ! there were two Jackos. " After some explanation the magistrate dismissed the charges against us with a caution, on the grounds of excusable mistake. And indeed it was excusable. Apparently the Italian had really lost his monkey and whether it was his monkery or Jacko that he had been pursuing when I encountered it I do not to this day. At all events the pohfce had captured the other monkey during the night, and had shut the "two up together. There they sat, two ugly, grinning, indistinguishable creatures, both guilty, according to the evidence, of aggravated assaults on the police.

" When we were released from the dock the magistrate asked its to remove the monkeys. The Italian and I stared at each other blankly. He knew no more "than I which was his property. Of course it was useless to consult the police about their identity. As the magistrate pointed out, there is no presumption either in law or in fact as to the ownership of the two stray monkeys. I appealed to him to decide the question himself, and he pointed out that it was the duty of the police to restore property to its owners. He said he was not Solomon, but only a police magistrate, and he doubted whether even the House of Lords could throw much light on the subject. The matter, he thought, was eminently one to be settled out of court. " At first I tried to solve the difficulty by buying out the Italian's claim to either of the monkeys, with the idea of sorting them afterwards. But he also, it appeared, had a romantic attachment for his carrissimo monkey, and he declined my overtures with fervent appeals to most of the saints 011 the register. The whole thing, he seemed to think, was a base attempt on the part of a foreign brutal Government to trample on the rights of an Italian citizen, and to consign his monkey to the dungeons of the Zoo. Then I offered him his choice of the two, and this might have saved all trouble if Mrs Tremaine bad not arrived that moment to inquire for Jacko, and had not learned the whole affair from a communicative inspector. Neither Jacko nor the alleged Jacko showed the faintest signs of recognition. Indeed, they almost at once devoted themselves to a sanguinary fight, in which Mrs Tremaine intervened with considerable injury to herself. Then she turned to me, and I could see from her manner that she considered me responsible for the whole difficulty. For a quarter of an hour J had a really lively time. Mrs Tremaine hectored the Italian, and the Italian objurgated Mrs Tremaine. Neither of them understood a word that the other said, and I had to act as interpreter and buffer. " Eventually, I made the best terifts that I could. The Italian agreed, for a consideration, to allow us to keep both monkeys for a week, during which we might discover their identity. Mrs Tremaine quite readily agreed to the proposal, for she was confident that no monkey but Jacko could possess Jacko's virtues. I was more doubtful, believing that the virtues were few enough to be common to many monkeys. And so it turned out. Both monkeys made themselves quite at home, overate themselves equally stole as cleverly, and, what was most remarkable, searched with identical persistence for the deceased Captain Tremaine. Twice that week I had to caibh two monkeys, and when they were both in the butterfly net they nearly killed each other. Mrs Tremaine used to look at them by the hour, and sob, and call Jacko softly. They both answered to the name if there was any food about, and at other times preferred to be the other monkey.

" And at the end of the week the organ grinder appeared punctually, and a heartrendering scene followed. No decision had been come to till the morning of his arrival, and then Mrs Tremaine and Maud differed as to which was the real Jaeko. The question had to be decided somehow; and thinking it really mattered little which we kept, I suggested that we should toss up. The flippancy of the suggestion annoyed them and led them to recrimination, but a last we agreed to decide by lot, that being a Biblical way out of the difficulty, and suitable to the occasion. The organ grinder went on his way contentedly, and I hoped the affair was at an end. But I was mistaken, No sooner had he gone than Mrs Tremaine and Maud became alike convinced that they had given np the real Jacko. They said they were now certain of it. Poor dear Jacko was sitting on a barrel organ in the cold street, and engaged in the degrading occupation of collecting coppers, and monkeys were so liable to consumption, and what would dear papa think if he were alive ?

" I stood this for about 10 days and then I went after the Italian again, have obtained his address in case of further complications. His affections were apparently now extended to both monkeys, for he consented to an exchange for a further consideration. Surely, I thought to myself, Maud and her mother will be content now. But no, the thing began all over again. The former Jacko was their darling, and they'd given him up when they'd got him safe, and as itwasby my advice and it was all my fault. Twice more I exchanged those monkeys; and then at last even my patience failed. We quarrelled, and we parted, «nd I've

never spoken to her since. That's why I say never get engaged to a girl who keeps a monkey."—Pick-Me-Up.