Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/172

 I lifted the quilt a bit and showed him Pretty-Heart, who had placed his little arm round my neck.

"He's the one that's ill," I said.

"A monkey!" he exclaimed, turning angrily to Vitalis. "You've brought me out in such weather to see a monkey!..."

Our master was a smart man who was not easily ruffled. Politely, and with his grand air, he stopped the doctor. Then he explained the situation, how he had been caught in a snowstorm, and how through fear of the wolves Pretty-Heart had jumped up in an oak tree, where he had been almost frozen to death. The patient might be only a monkey, but what a genius! and what a friend and companion to us! How could we confide such a wonderful, talented creature to the care of a simple veterinary surgeon? Every one knew that the village veterinary was an ass, while every one knew that doctors were scientific men, even in the smallest village. If one rings at a door which bears a doctor's name, one is sure to find a man of knowledge, and of generosity. Although the monkey is only an animal, according to naturalists they are so near like men that often an illness is treated the same for one as for the other. And was it not interesting, from a scientific point of view, to study how these illnesses differed. The doctor soon returned from the door where he had been standing.

Pretty-Heart, who had probably guessed that