258 Animal Humor. [ May, 
caucus that we would conduct ourselves as behooved philosophers, 
when this laughter-provoker should make its annual round. At 
the expected time it came, and was really excellent. The pro- 
fessor let it off in good style; then he laughed heartily at his own 
wit. And why not? He had done so annually for a generation 
of years. But, alack! nobody joined in the chorus! Such a re- 
frain! It was unanimous. The class were as demure as a pack 
of wearied mules. Every face was stolidly, starkly blank. As 
a humorist, that rotten apple had “ put a head”’ on that learned 
man. Whether this cruel shock had caused the lesion of some 
nervous centre was not known, but we never heard the professor 
joke or laugh in class again. Ever after, the humanities were 
dispensed very dry, and ethics, his forte, were especially served 
up quite plain. Sorry for our naughtiness, we came to regard 
our action as a second-class joke. 
Within hailing distance of our former home at Keyport was 
the shop of a basket-maker. A pet monkey was the occasion of 
many an uproarious scene in the shop. In fact, all hands some- 
times played monkey, the quadrumanal leading off, hunted by 
the bimanal ones, over and through the sinuosities of great heaps 
of oyster baskets. Unaware of our seeming pedantry, we vent- 
ured to say that the specimen belonged to the family Cebidæ ; 
this was promptly corrected by an apprentice, who told us that 
it belonged to the “bosss family.” Happily, we were both - 
right. It was one of the spider monkeys, and known as Ateles 
Belzebuth. “ The devil it is,” said the apprentice. ‘ You bet, 
there ’s deviltry enough in that monkey.” To this we conde- 
scended no reply, regarding it as a little profane, and a good deal 
libelous. We continued by saying that the monkey came from 
South America, where they called it the “ marimonda.” Agam 
came an interruption from the facetious apprentice, who said, 
“There 7s a heap of mountebank in the little cuss.” The wee 
thing was a slim-bodied, long-limbed, and grotesque-looking creat- 
ure, and withal gentle, and confiding, and brimming over with 
fun. It was quite fond of a good-natured romp with the men 
and boys, when it would jump from one to the other, and cast 
around their necks that marvelous fifth hand, its prehensile 
tail. In tit-for-tat, tag -and - run, its agility and tactics were 
splendid. All this was very fine for a few days. But this 
good-natured romping soon became ill-tempered and vicious 0P 
the part of the shop hands. In truth, erelong that sense of feel- 
ing tired set in which so soon comes upon many an owner of 
