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I expected as a matter of course to lose another pair of shoes or something, in payment for this unneighborly behavior, but the colony in the trees seemed to know that I was innocent. It was not long before they caught the true culprit, and gave him such a beating that he was quiet and subdued for days.

But Lepas was a lovable little fellow with all his mischief. Every afternoon when I came home from the office, tired out with the heat and the fierce glare of the sun, he would hop over to my chair, whistle soothingly, and make funny little chirrups with his lips, until I noticed him.

Then he would crawl quietly up the legs of the chair until he reached my shoulder, where he would commence with his cool little fingers to inspect my eyes and nose, and to pick over carefully each hair of my mustache and head.

So we forgave him when he pulled all the feathers out of a ring-dove that was a valued present from an old native rajah; when he turned lamp-oil into the ice cream, and when he broke a rare Satsuma bowl in trying to catch a lizard. He was always so penitent after each misadventure!

We had heard that Hamat had sailed for Jedda with a shipload of pilgrims and were therefore expecting him back soon; but we had decided not to give up Lepas. He had become a sort of necessity about the house.

Next door to us, lived a high official of the English service. He was a sour, cross old man and did not like pets. Even the monkeys in the trees knew better than to go into his “compound,” or inclosure.

But Lepas started off on a voyage of discovery one day, and not only invaded his compound, but actually entered his house. The official caught him in the act of hiding his shaving-set between the palm thatch of the roof and the cheese-cloth ceiling. Recognizing Lepas, he did not kill him, but took him by his leathern girdle and soused him in his bath-tub, until he was so near dead that it took him hours to crawl home.

Lepas went around with a sad, injured expression on his wrinkled little face, for days. Not even a mangosteen sprinkled with sugar could awaken his enthusiasm.

He went so far as to make up with the monkeys in the trees, and once or twice I caught him condescending to have a game of leap-frog with them. I made up my mind that he had determined to turn over a new leaf, but the syce shook his head knowingly and said:–

“Lepas all the time thinking. He thinks bad things.”

And so it proved.

One night the mistress gave a very big dinner party. The high official from next door was there. So were several other high officials of Singapore, the general commanding her Majesty’s troops, and the foreign consuls and members of Legislative Council.

It was a hot night, and the punkah-wallah outside kept the punkah, or mechanical fan, switching back and forth over our heads with a rapidity that made us fear its ropes would break, as very often happened.

Suddenly there was a crash, and a champagne glass struck squarely in the high official’s soup and spattered it all over his white expanse of shirt front. We all looked up at the punkah. At the same instant a big, soft mango smashed in the high official’s face and changed its ruddy red color to a sickly yellow.

The women screamed, and the men jumped up from the table. Then began a regular fusillade of wine glasses and tropical fruits.

Sometimes they hit the high official from next door, at whom they all seemed to be aimed, but more often they fell upon the table, among the glass and dishes. In a moment everything was in wild confusion, and the mistress’s beautifully decorated table looked as though a bomb had exploded on it.