as well begin now. I think I'll pet
you a bit."
"Chatter! Chatter! Chat! Bur-r-r-r! Snip!" went Mappo. That meant, in
his language, that he would not think of biting the kind sailor who had
fed and watered him. But the sailor was careful. Very slowly he put out
his hand, and, reaching through the bars, he stroked Mappo's soft fur.
"That's a good chap!" said the sailor. "I believe you are going to be
nice after all."
"Bur-r-r-r! Wopp!" said Mappo. That meant: "Of course I am!"
In a few days the sailor and Mappo were good friends, and one afternoon
the sailor opened the cage door and let the monkey out. Then Mappo grew
quite excited. It was the first time he had been loose since he had been
caught, and he was so glad to run about, and use his legs and tail,
that, before he knew what he was doing, he had jumped right over the
sailor's head, and had scrambled up on the ship's deck.
"Oh, a monkey's loose! One of the monkeys has gotten away!" cried the
sailors.
"Never mind! I'll catch him!" said the one who had been kind to Mappo.
Mappo ran and leaped. He saw something like a tall tree, only it had no
branches on it. But there were ropes and ladders fast to it, and, in an
instant, Mappo had scrambled up them to the top of the tall thing. It
was the mast of the ship, but Mappo did not know that.
Away up to the top he went, and, curling his tail around a rope, there
he sat.
"Make him come down!" cried the captain. "I can't have a monkey on top
of my ship's mast! Somebody climb up after him and bring him down."
"I'll go," said a sailor.
Now a sailor is a good climber, but not nearly so good as a monkey.
Mappo waited until the sailor was almost up to him, and then, quick as a
flash, Mappo swung himself out of the way by another rope, and, just as
he had done in the jungle, he went over to the top of another mast.
"There he goes!" cried the sailors on deck.
"Yes, I see he does," said the sailor who had tried to catch Mappo.
"You had better come down," spoke the man who had let Mappo out of the
cage. "I think he'll come down for me." In his hand he held some lumps
of sugar, of which Mappo was very fond.
"Come on down, old chap," called the sailor. "No one will hurt you. Come
and get the sugar."
Now whether Mappo had had enough of being loose, or whether it was too
cold for him up on the mast, I can't say. Perhaps he wanted the sugar,
and, again, he might not have wanted to make trouble for his kin
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