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قراءة كتاب The Strand Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 41, May, 1894 An Illustrated Monthly
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The Strand Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 41, May, 1894 An Illustrated Monthly
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GRAVE AND LEARNED.
The Diana monkey, too, makes a pleasant pet, and is not so confirmed a dier as some. The Diana monkey here is over in the large monkey-house, in the middle of the Gardens. Her name is Jessie, and her beard is most venerable and patriarchal. But just outside the eastern door of the big house, John, the Tcheli monkey, occupies his separate mansion. John is a notable and a choleric character. He dislikes being made the object of vulgar curiosity, and is apt to repel an inspection of his premises with a handful of sawdust. Any unflattering remark on his personal appearance will provoke a wild dance about his cage and a threatening spar through the wires. But once threaten him with a policeman—do as much as mention the word, in fact—and John becomes a furious Bedlamite, with the activity of a cracker and the intentions of dynamite. Against floor, walls, ceiling, and wires he bounces incontinent, flinging sawdust and language that Professor Garner would probably translate with hyphens and asterisks. John is the most easily provoked monkey I know, and the quaintest in his rage. He is also the hardiest monkey in the world, being capable of enjoying a temperature of ten degrees below zero; but there is a suitable penalty provided in the by-laws for any person so lost to decency as to suggest that this Tcheli monkey is a very Tcheli monkey indeed. For John's benefit I would suggest an extra heap of sawdust on Bank Holidays. On an occasion of that sort it is little less than cruelty to keep him short of ammunition.

DOWDY.

THE DIANA.
Of the big monkey-house, who remembers more than a nightmare of tails, paws, and chatterings? Here are monkeys with beards, monkeys with none, big monkeys, little monkeys, monkeys with blue faces, monkeys who would appear to have escaped into the grounds at some time and to have sat on freshly painted seats; all thieving from visitors and each other, pulling tails, swinging, turning somersaults, with faces expressive of unutterable dolor and weariness of the world. The wizen, careworn face of the average monkey appeals to me as does that of the elderly and rheumatic circus-clown, when his paint has washed off. The monkey, I am convinced, is as sick of his regulation jokes as is the clown of his. But he has a comic reputation to keep up, and he does it, though every mechanical joke is a weariness and a sorrow to the flesh. "There is somebody's tail hanging from a perch," reflects the monkey, looking lugubriously across the cage. "I am a joker, and several human creatures are looking at me, and preparing to laugh; consequently, I must pull that tail, though I would prefer to stay where I am, especially as it belongs to a big monkey, who will do something unpleasant if he catches me." And with an inward groan he executes the time-honoured joke and bolts for his life. It is a sad affliction to be born a wag by virtue of species. There is one monkey here who for some weeks displayed a most astonishing reluctance to snatch things through the wires, and a total disinclination to assist or share in the thefts of his friends by "passing on" or dividing. For some time I supposed him to be a moral monkey strayed from a Sunday-school book, and afflicted with an uncomfortable virtue. But afterwards I found that his conscientiousness was wholly due to his having recently grabbed a cigar by the hot end, and imbibed thereby a suspicion of the temperature of everything. Beware especially, in this house, of the paws of Marie, the Barbary ape. She has a long reach, and quickness enough to catch a bullet shot Poole-fashion—softly. Only Jungbluth, her keeper, can venture on familiarities, and him she takes by the eyebrows, gently stroking and smoothing them.

IS IT CONSCIENTIOUSNESS?

SOMETHING LIKE A MOUSTACHE.
Behind the large room Jungbluth keeps sick monkeys, delicate monkeys, tiny monkeys, and curious monkeys, who have no room outside. Here is a beautiful moustache monkey, segregated because of a slight cold, and at liberty to train his moustache without interference, if only it would grow sufficiently long. Watch the light fur under the chin of a moustache monkey; it is tinted with a delicate cobalt blue, a colour that would seem impossible, except in feathers.

NERVES.
But the little marmosets and the Pinche monkey, all in a cage together, are chiefly interesting here. The Pinche monkey is badly afflicted with nerves, and, as he is undisputed chief of the community, the marmosets have to be careful how they sneeze, or cough, or blink, or his indignation may be aroused. So that the whole performance in this cage is a sort of eccentric knockabout act, by the celebrated Marmosetti Eccentric Quartette. Marmoset No. 1 ventures on a gentle twitter, and the rest join in the song. Promptly the irritated Pinche bounds from his inmost lair, and the songsters are scattered. Everybody doesn't know, by-the-bye, that the marmoset is consumed with an eternal ambition to be a singing bird, and practises his notes with hopeless perseverance. Another thing that many seem to be ignorant of, even some who keep marmosets as pets, is that a marmoset's chief food should consist of insects. In a state of freedom he also eats small birds; but for a pet, cockroaches and bluebottles will probably be found, as a dietary, preferable in some respects to humming-birds and canaries.

ENTER.

ENTER ALSO.

THE MARMOSETTI TROUP.

EXIT.

SOLILOQUY.
Among the sick in this place is a spider monkey. Mind, I say he is there. To-morrow, or in five minutes, he will probably be somewhere else, for that is the nature of a monkey. Sickening, recovering, dying, snatching, jumping, tail-pulling, bonnet-despoiling, everything a monkey does is done in a hurry. This particular spider monkey has two or three names, as Jerry, Tops, and Billy, whereunto he answers

