There he sat laughing at a hundred and fifty men and boys, employed in the vain attempt to catch one monkey! Sailors are certainly not men to give up a pursuit lightly; but after an hour of as hard labour as I ever witnessed, they were all obliged to relinquish the chase from sheer fatigue, and poor Jacko was pardoned by acclamation.

The captain of the foretop, however, a couple of days afterwards, more out of fun than from any ill-will on the old grog score, gave the monkey's ear a pinch, upon which the animal snapped at his thumb, and bit it so seriously that the man was obliged to apply to the doctor.

When this was reported to me by the surgeon, I began to think my four-footed friend was either getting rather too much licence, or that too many liberties were taken with him, so I gave orders that in future he should be let alone.

Nevertheless, Jacko contrived to bite two more of the people, one of whom was the sergeant, the other the midshipmen's boy.

These were all wounded in one day; and when the surgeon came to me next morning, as usual, with the sick-list in his hand, he was rather in dudgeon.
"Really, sir," said he, "this does seem rather too much of the monkey.
Here are no fewer than three persons in my list from bites of this infernal beast." "Three!" I exclaimed, and straightway got angry, partly at my own folly, partly at the perversity of my pet, and also somewhat nettled by the tone not very unreasonably assumed by the doctor.