Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/160

 choice, followed obediently. Arrived there he walked round the cages, looking keenly at the animals. Finally selecting a little monkey with a blue face, he pointed it out to Patricia.

"They was just like that little chap," he said eagerly. "That one over there, see 'im eating a nut?"

"Yes, I see him," said Patricia; "but who was just like him?"

"I'll tell you when we get outside. Now come along."

Patricia followed Mr. Triggs, puzzled to account for his strange manner and sudden lack of interest in the monkey-house. They walked along for some minutes in silence, then, when they came to a quiet spot, Mr. Triggs turned to Patricia.

"You see, me dear," he said, "it was there that I asked her."

"That you asked who what?" enquired Patricia, utterly at a loss.

"You see we'd been walking out for nearly a year; I was a foreman then. I 'ad tickets given me for the Zoo one Sunday, so I took 'er. When we was in the monkey-house there was a couple of little chaps just like that blue-faced little beggar we saw just now." There was a note of affection in Mr. Triggs's voice as he spoke of the little blue-faced monkey. "And one of 'em 'ad 'is arm round the other and was a-making love to 'er as 'ard as ever 'e could go," continued Mr. Triggs. "And I says to Emily, just to see 'ow