“Well, you couldn’t possibly make it a pet, thank goodness, because it would die in your pocket,” said Dinah. “It seems queer for you to be without any pets at all, Philip. Very nice!”
But she spoke too soon, because Philip collected a pet two days later! They had called at Madeira, left that island, and gone on to French Morocco. It was there that Philip collected his queer little pet.
The children liked French Morocco. They especially liked the native bazaars, although the smell was so terrible that Mrs. Mannering said she could only bear it if she walked along with smelling-salts pressed to her nose. The children soon got used to the smell, though Kiki didn’t, judging by the number of “Poohs” she said. “Pooh! Gah! Pooh!”
Dinah tried out her French on the black-eyed natives, and was pleased when they understood. She bought a tiny brooch, and Lucy-Ann bought a blue vase.
“Don’t you see anything you like?” she asked Philip. He shook his head.
“I don’t want things like that. Now if I could see something really exciting — say an old dagger — or, I tell you what! Something I’ve always wanted and never had.”
“What’s that?” asked Lucy-Ann, determined to buy it for him if only she could see it.
“You’ll laugh — but I’ve always wanted a ship in a bottle,” said Philip.
“I’ve never even seen one,” said Lucy-Ann, astonished. “A ship inside a bottle, do you mean? What a peculiar thing? How is it put there?”
“I don’t know,” said Philip. “It’s daft of me to want it, really — it’s just one of those ideas you get, you know.”
“I’ll be sure to look out for one for you, wherever we go,” promised Lucy-Ann. “Oh do look at Kiki. She’s taking sweets from those little brown children. She’ll make herself sick again!”
Mrs. Mannering insisted that they should all stay close to her, and keep with the ship’s party. The four children wished they could explore by themselves, for they liked the natives and their strange dark, narrow little shops.
“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Mannering. “Why, didn’t you hear what happened to the man at the next table to ours on the ship? He and his wife went off by themselves in a taxi to visit some place or other — and the driver took them to a deserted hill, and wouldn’t take them back to the ship till they had given him all the money they had!”
“Gracious,” said Lucy-Ann, alarmed.
“He brought them back just as the gangway was being drawn up,” went on Mrs. Mannering, “so they had no time to make any complaint. Now you know why I want you to keep with the ship’s party. No more adventures for you, if I can help it! It would be just like you all to disappear somewhere, get into awful danger and put a few more grey hairs into my head!”
“You haven’t really got very many,” said Lucy-Ann. “Just about one for each of our adventures, that’s all! I will keep near to you, Aunt Allie. I don’t want an adventure either.”
The next day there was to be a trip by motor-coach to a famous place inland — an old town on the edge of the desert. “The motor-coaches will be here on the quay at half-past ten,” Mrs. Mannering told the four. “Be sure to wear your sun-hats. It will be terribly hot.”
It was on that trip that Philip collected his new pet. The motor-coaches duly arrived and everyone crowded into them, looking extremely hot. Off they went at top speed down a sandy road that for a time seemed to run through what looked like a bare desert. Queer cactus-plants grew by the roadside. Lucy-Ann thought they looked ugly and spiteful with their numerous prickles and fat bulging bodies.
In two hours’ time they came to the old town. Its queer arches and towers seemed to spring up suddenly out of the sand. Little dark-brown children, with hardly anything on, ran to meet them, their hands held out.
“Penn-ee, penn-ee,” they said, and Kiki echoed them at once. “Penn-ee, penn-ee!”
They all went into the narrow street of the old town. The guide took them to an ancient building and began to drone its history. Then one by one the party climbed steep winding steps up an enormous tower.
Half-way up Philip looked out of a great stone window. It had no glass, of course. The wall was so thick that he could sit on the window-sill with his legs stretched right out. He hung on to the side of the window and slid forward to look down.
Far below he could see a little crowd of half-naked children. They were pointing upwards and chattering. Some of them were throwing stones.
“Now what are those little beggars throwing stones at?” thought Philip. “If it’s something alive I’ll knock their heads together!”
He slid down from the enormous window-sill and ran down the great winding stairs. A stone flew through a window-opening not far from the bottom, and he stopped.
He heard a little whimpering noise, and, hidden in a corner of the window-opening, he saw a little heap of brown fur. He went over to it. What could it be?
Click! A stone flew near him. Blow those kids! He stepped to the window and looked down sternly. “You stop that!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? Stop it!”
The small children looked in consternation at this sudden apparition. They disappeared in a hurry. Philip reached over to the brown bundle. A small wizened face peeped out at him, with mournful brown eyes. Then it was covered by tiny hands.
“Why — it’s a monkey — a tiny monkey!” thought Philip. He knew how scared the little creatures were, and he was afraid of frightening this poor little stoned animal. He had seen plenty of monkeys in that part of the country already, but not near — they always kept well out of the way.
Philip spoke to the little creature in what Lucy-Ann called his “special animal-voice.” It uncovered its queer little face again, and then, with one bound, was cuddling into the boy’s shoulder, nestling against his neck, trembling. He put up a cautious hand and rubbed its soft fur.
No animal had ever been able to resist Philip’s magic. Horses, dogs, cats, snakes, insects, birds — they came to him at once trustfully and confidingly. Not one could resist him. It was a gift that everyone marvelled at and envied him for.
Philip sat down on the broad window-sill and talked to the scared and miserable little monkey. It chattered back in a queer high little voice. It looked at him shyly out of child-like brown eyes. Its tiny brown fingers wound themselves round one of his. It was Philip’s devoted slave from that moment.
When the others came pattering down the stairs in front of the rest of the party, they were astonished to see the little monkey cuddled up to Philip.
“There — I knew he’d get hold of something sooner or later!” said Dinah. “Ugh! A nasty, dirty, smelly little monkey, full of fleas too, I expect.”
“Well, it is dirty and smelly, and I’m sure it’s got fleas,” said Philip. “But it isn’t nasty. It’s been stoned by those wretched little children down below. Both its back legs are hurt.”
“Poor little thing,” said Lucy-Ann, almost in tears. Jack stroked the tiny thing’s head, but that only made it shrink closer to Philip.
“You’re not to take it back to the ship with you,” began Dinah. “I shall tell Mother if you do. I won’t have a monkey in our party.”
“He’s coming with me,” said Philip sternly.
Dinah began to lose her temper. “Then I shall tell Mother I won’t have it. I shall . . .”
“Dinah, it’s so small, and it’s hurt,” said Lucy-Ann, in a shaky voice. “Don’t talk like that. It’s so unkind.”
Dinah flushed and turned away. She was cross, and horrified at the thought of having a monkey “tagging along” with them, as she put it — but she didn’t want to go against all three of the others. She said no more, though she sulked for the rest of the day.
How Philip hid the monkey till he got back to the ship only he knew. The fact is that no-one even noticed it. Philip and Lucy-Ann helped him valiantly by standing in front of him whenever they thought anyone might see the monkey. Dinah would not help, but on the other hand she did nothing to give the secret away.
Back in the cabin, the three children pored over the tiny creature. “It’s not even a grown monkey,” said Philip. “How those children could stone a little thing like this beats me. But I suppose in every country there are cruel and unkind people — after all, we’ve seen boys in our country throwing stones at a cat! Look — its legs are bruised and cut, but they’re not broken. I can soon get those right. I wonder if it would let me wash it — it’s so dirty.”