y playful, the cook heard a great noise in the shed, and Fidelle
crying with all her might. She ran to see what was the matter, and, to
her surprise, found Jacko sitting up in the cage, grinning with delight,
while he held one of the kittens in his arms, hugging it as if it had
been a baby.

Cook knew the sight would please Minnie, and she ran to call her. But
the child sympathized too deeply in Fidelle's distress to enjoy it. She
tried to get the kitten away from Jacko, but he had no idea of giving it
up, until at last, when Mrs. Lee, who had come to the rescue, gave him a
piece of cake, of which he was very fond, he relaxed his hold, and she
instantly released the poor, frightened little animal.

Fidelle took warning by this occurrence, and never ventured through the
shed again with her babies, though Jacko might seem to be sound asleep
in his cage.

Jacko had been at Mr. Lee's more than a year before they knew him to
break his chain and run about by himself. The first visit he made was to
Leo, in the barn, and he liked it so well that, somehow or other, he
contrived to repeat the visit quite as often as it was agreeable to the
dog, who never could endure him.

After this, he became very mischievous, so that every one of the
servants, though they often had a great laugh at his tricks, would have
been glad to have the little fellow carried back to his home in Africa.

I don't think even Minnie loved her pet monkey as well as she did her
other pets. She could not take him in her arms as she did Fidelle and
Tiney, nor play with him as she did with Nannie and her lamb, and he
could not carry her on his back, as Star did.

"Well," she said, one day, after discussing the merits of her animals
with her mamma, "Poll talks to me, and Jacko makes me laugh; but if I
should have to give up one of my pets, I had rather it would be the
monkey."

CHAPTER II.

JACKO BLACKING THE TABLE.

One morning, cook went to her mistress with loud complaints of Jacko's
tricks.

"What has he been doing now?" inquired the lady, with some anxiety.

"All kinds of mischief, ma'am. If I didn't like you, and the master, and
Miss Minnie so well, I wouldn't be living in the same house with a
monkey, no ways."

Here the woman, having relieved her mind, began to relate Jacko's new
offence, and soon was joining heartily in the laugh her story caused her
mistress.

"Since the trickish fellow found the way to undo his chain, ma'am, he