nd Toby took
a doughnut from his pocket and put it into the tiny hand, which was
immediately withdrawn.

"Now what do you think of Mr. Stubbs knowing what I say to him?"

"They often stick their paws up through there," said Ben, in a matter of
fact tone. "I've had 'em pull my coat in the night till they made me
as nervous as ever any old woman was. You see, Toby my boy, monkeys is
monkeys; an' you mustn't go to gettin' the idea that they're anything
else, for it's a mistake. You think this old monkey in here knows what
you say? Why, that's just the cuteness of the old fellow--he watches you
to see if he can't do just as you do, an' that's all there is about it."

Toby was more than half convinced that Ben was putting the matter in its
proper light, and he would have believed all that had been said if, just
at that moment, he had not seen that brown hand reaching through the
hole to clutch him again by the coat.

The action seemed so natural, so like a hungry boy who gropes in
the dark pantry for something to eat, that it would have taken more
arguments than Ben had at his disposal to persuade Toby that his Mr.
Stubbs could not understand all that was said to him. Toby put another
doughnut in the outstretched hand, and then sat silently, as if in a
brown study over some difficult problem.

For some time the ride was continued in silence. Ben was going through
all the motions of whistling without uttering a sound--a favorite
amusement of his--and Toby's thoughts were far away in the humble home
he had scorned, with Uncle Daniel, whose virtues had increased in his
esteem with every mile of distance which had been put between them, and
whose faults had decreased in a corresponding ratio.

Toby's thoughtfulness had made him sleepy, and his eyes were almost
closed in slumber, when he was startled by a crashing sound, was
conscious of a feeling of being hurled from his seat by some great
force, and then he lay senseless by the side of the road, while the
wagon became a perfect wreck, from out of which a small army of monkeys
was escaping.

Ben's experienced ear had told him at the first crash that his wagon was
breaking down, and, without having time to warn Toby of his peril, he
had leaped clear of the wreck, keeping his horses under perfect control
and thus averting more trouble. It was the breaking of one of the axles
which Toby had heard just before he was thrown from his seat and when
the body of the wagon came do