CHAPTER V

TAKEN DOWN TOWN

The Calico Clown was so surprised at the quick action of the monkey in catching him by one leg and carrying him up into the tree, that, for a moment or two, the toy said nothing.  But as the hand-organ monkey climbed higher and higher the Clown finally cried: 

“Here!  Hold on if you please!  What are you going to do?”

“Oh, just have some fun!” answered the monkey in a laughing voice.  You see, he could understand and speak toy talk, just as the Calico Clown knew how to talk and understand animal language.

[Illustration with caption:  Calico Clown Amuses the Monkey.]

“Well, it may be fun for you,” went on the Clown, “but I don’t like it!  This is no fun for me!  Ouch!  Look out for my leg!” the Clown suddenly cried, as the monkey banged him against a branch of the tree.

“What about your leg?” asked the monkey, sitting down on a branch and winding his tail around it so he wouldn’t fall off.  “I don’t see anything the matter.”

“I mean look out and don’t hurt my broken leg,” went on the Clown.  “Sidney, the little boy who owns me, glued it, but if you bang it too hard it may break all over again and then I’ll be in a mighty bad fix.”

“Oh, excuse me.  I’ll be careful,” said the monkey.

“Well, I wish you’d take me down out of this tree,” begged the Calico Clown.  “I don’t see why you brought me up here, anyhow.”

“Oh, I just grabbed hold of you and brought you up here for fun,” said the monkey.  “I felt like playing.  And I had to do it quickly, or my master would have stopped me.  Every time I grab up anything he doesn’t want me to take, I have to climb a tree.  He can’t chase me up there, though he’d like to lots of times, I guess.”

“I thought hand-organ monkeys had collars around their necks, and a long rope fast to that which their masters held,” said the Clown.

“Well, I had that, too, but I took the rope off a little while ago, so I could run loose,” explained the live monkey.  “I want to have some fun.  Can you do anything to amuse me?” and he looked at the cymbals on the Calico Clown’s hands and at the strings which were fast to his legs and arms.

“I can ask you a riddle about what makes more noise than a pig under a gate,” said the Clown.  “Shall I?”

“Please don’t do that,” begged the monkey.  “I never was any good at guessing riddles.  Can’t you do anything else?”

“Yes, a few things,” the Clown said.  Then he banged his cymbals together and began to jiggle his arms and legs in such a funny way that the monkey who was holding him laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Oh, you are too funny for anything!” cried the monkey.  “I’m glad I picked you up.  Oh, excuse me while I laugh a little harder!”

The monkey set the Clown down astraddle the limb of a tree near the trunk, and quite a distance up from the ground.  Then the monkey laughed so hard that, if he had not been holding on by his tail, he surely would have fallen.  For the Clown kept on doing his funny antics and tricks, and the monkey kept on laughing until he had to hold his sides with feet and hands, they ached so.