THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 47 



neck, lick my cheeks affectionately, pull my ears, 

 and chatter to me in a sweet but plaintive tone. 

 When Mickie joins the play, which he invariably 

 does, by climbing or jumping on to my shoulders 

 and interrupting the tete-a-tete between McGinty 

 and myself, poor little McGinty 's jealousy, which 

 is his supreme passion, causes him to retire in dis- 

 gust, and he will sometimes pout for several min- 

 utes without even accepting food from me. After 

 he has pouted for a while, however, he will some- 

 times make overtures of reconciliation and seek 

 by various means to divert my attention. One 

 of his favorite means of renewing favor w T ith me 

 was to whip poor little Nigger. He would look 

 at me and laugh, grin and make grimaces, and 

 then dash off at Nigger and want to eat him up. 

 He did not seem to understand why I objected to 

 his whipping Nigger. Monkeys do not regard 

 it as a breach of honor to whip the helpless and 

 feeble members of their tribe. They are not 

 unlike a large per cent of mankind. They al- 

 ways hunt for easy prey, and want to fight some- 

 thing that is easily whipped. They are not great 

 cowards, but when once whipped they rarely 

 attempt the second time to contest matters with 

 their victors. 



