Always been
such a friendly little beast, the monkey has, should never have
thought he'd got it in him to see red like that. Can't tell you
how sorry I feel about it, and now of course you'll hate the sight
of the monkey."
"Not at all," said Groby sincerely. A few hours earlier the
tragic end which had befallen his parrot would have presented
itself to him as a calamity; now it arrived almost as a polite
attention on the part of the Fates.
"The bird was getting old, you know," he went on, in explanation
of his obvious lack of decent regret at the loss of his pet. "I
was really beginning to wonder if it was an unmixed kindness to
let him go on living till he succumbed to old age. What a
charming little monkey!" he added, when he was introduced to the
culprit.
The new-comer was a small, long-tailed monkey from the Western
Hemisphere, with a gentle, half-shy, half-trusting manner that
instantly captured Groby's confidence; a student of simian
character might have seen in the fitful red light in its eyes some
indication of the underlying temper which the parrot had so rashly
put to the test with such dramatic consequences for itself.
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