The strange-looking figure in the straw hat stood gazing after them a moment and then came wearily up to the gate.  It didn’t bother to undo the latch but just climbed right over the gate as though it were something in the way.  And then I noticed that it took hold of the bars with its feet, so that it really had four hands to climb with.  But it was only when I at last got a glimpse of the face under the hat that I could be really sure it was a monkey.

Chee-Chee—­for it was he—­frowned at me suspiciously from the top of the gate, as though he thought I was going to laugh at him like the other boys and girls.  Then he dropped into the garden on the inside and immediately started taking off his clothes.  He tore the straw hat in two and threw it down into the road.  Then he took off his bodice and skirt, jumped on them savagely and began kicking them round the front garden.

Presently I heard a screech from the house, and out flew Polynesia, followed by the Doctor and Jip.

“Chee-Chee!—­Chee-Chee!” shouted the parrot.  “You’ve come at last!  I always told the Doctor you’d find a way.  How ever did you do it?”

They all gathered round him shaking him by his four hands, laughing and asking him a million questions at once.  Then they all started back for the house.

“Run up to my bedroom, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, turning to me.  “You’ll find a bag of peanuts in the small left-hand drawer of the bureau.  I have always kept them there in case he might come back unexpectedly some day.  And wait a minute—­see if Dab-Dab has any bananas in the pan-try.  Chee-Chee hasn’t had a banana, he tells me, in two months.”

When I came down again to the kitchen I found everybody listening attentively to the monkey who was telling the story of his journey from Africa.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

CHEE-CHEE’S VOYAGE

It seems that after Polynesia had left, Chee-Chee had grown more homesick than ever for the Doctor and the little house in Puddleby.  At last he had made up his mind that by hook or crook he would follow her.  And one day, going down to the seashore, he saw a lot of people, black and white, getting on to a ship that was coming to England.  He tried to get on too.  But they turned him back and drove him away.  And presently he noticed a whole big family of funny people passing on to the ship.  And one of the children in this family reminded Chee-Chee of a cousin of his with whom he had once been in love.  So he said to himself, “That girl looks just as much like a monkey as I look like a girl.  If I could only get some clothes to wear I might easily slip on to the ship amongst these families, and people would take me for a girl.  Good idea!”