Lad galloped toward the wizened and malodorous gray bunch; more intent on investigation than on attack. The monkey did not wait for him. With an incredibly agile leap, he was on the spattered window curtains and swarming up to the rod at the top. There he squatted, well out of reach; grimacing horribly and chattering in simian wrath.
"It's--it's a devil!" stammered Rutherford Garretse; his nearsighted eyes squinting as he sought to take in the motley details of the creature's appearance. "I--""It's Mrs. McMurdle's pest of a monkey, sirs" blithered the maid.
"Asking your pardon. The one she made such a fuss about sending away, last month, when all beastees was barred from the Park. It must 'a' strayed back from where she sent it to, the crafty little nuisance! It's--""Incidentally," said the Master, "it is the creature that wrecked your room. See the ink on it. And that bit of porcelain it's brandishing at us looks like a match for some of these smashed bits on the floor. It got in here, I suppose, through that window, earlier,--and--""No," corrected the Mistress, wiser at deduction. "Through the doorway, downstairs. From somewhere outside. Probably while the maid was dusting the dining-room. It came in here and began destroying things; as monkeys love to. And Laddie struck its trail and followed it up here. It heard Lad coming and it got out through the window. Then, just now, something outside scared it;and it climbed back in again. I wonder if--"
As she talked, the Mistress had moved toward the nearest window.
"See?" she finished, in triumph, as she pointed out and down.
On the patch of back lawn, below, stood a very much flustered old lady, her worried gaze upraised to the study. In one hand she carried a leash, in the other a half-peeled banana.
"It's Mrs. McMurdle!" exclaimed Harmon. "The maid was right. She must have disobeyed the ordinance and had the miserable monkey hidden in her house all the time. It must have gotten out, this morning; and she hunted around till she saw it perched on the top of the window cornice. I suppose it dived back in here, at sight of her. She--""Come on, Laddie!" whispered the Mistress, under cover of a new outbreak of multiple talk. "YOU'RE acquitted, anyhow. And the rest of the scene is really no business of ours. The sooner we get you to the boarding kennels again, the less chance there is of trouble. And Master and I will come to see you there, every single day, till we go back home."A week later, the car turned in again at the gates of the Place.
This time, Lad rode in state atop the flat trunk on the rear seat. As the car halted at the veranda, he sprang to earth without waiting for the tonneau door to be opened.
For, dashing toward him from the direction of the lake, Lady hove in sight. Behind her, and trotting more leisurely, came Wolf. At sight and scent of her returned mate, Lady fairly squealed with delight. She whirled up to Lad, frantically licking his face and spinning about him with little staccato yelps of joy.
Lad was deliriously happy. Not only was he at home again; but Lady was welcoming him with an effusion that she had not shown him for many a sorrowful month. He could not understand it. Nor did he try to. He was content to accept the miracle; and to rejoice in it with all his great honest heart.
Knowing nothing of feminine psychology, he could not realize that a week of Puppy Wolf's sole and undiluted companionship had bored Lady horribly and had begun to get on her nerves;--nor that she had learned to miss and yearn for the big, wise, ever-gentle mate whom she had so long neglected.
It was enough for Lad to know that he was no longer a neglected outsider, in the Place's canine family; but that his worshiped mate was wild with joy to see him again.
"Look!" said the Master. "The old chap has forgiven her for every bit of her rottenness to him. He's insanely happy, just because she chooses to make much of him, once more.""Yes," assented the Mistress, cryptically "Sometimes dogs are pitifully--human!"
