“Better let it burn,” said the soldier,
solemnly.
“If you don’t want it, Morris,”
said the other, “give it to me.”
“I won’t,” said his friend, doggedly.
“I threw it on the fire. If you keep
it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch
it on the fire again like a sensible man.”
The other shook his head and examined his new possession
closely. “How do you do it?” he
inquired.
“Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,”
said the sergeant-major, “but I warn you of
the consequences.”
“Sounds like the Arabian Nights,” said
Mrs. White, as she rose and began to set the supper.
“Don’t you think you might wish for four
pairs of hands for me?”
Her husband drew the talisman from pocket, and then
all three burst into laughter as the sergeant-major,
with a look of alarm on his face, caught him by the
arm.
“If you must wish,” he said, gruffly,
“wish for something sensible.”
Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing
chairs, motioned his friend to the table. In
the business of supper the talisman was partly forgotten,
and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled
fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s
adventures in India.
“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is
not more truthful than those he has been telling us,”
said Herbert, as the door closed behind their guest,
just in time for him to catch the last train, “we
sha’nt make much out of it.”
“Did you give him anything for it, father?”
inquired Mrs. White, regarding her husband closely.
“A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly.
“He didn’t want it, but I made him take
it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”
“Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended
horror. “Why, we’re going to be
rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor,
father, to begin with; then you can’t be henpecked.”
He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned
Mrs. White armed with an antimacassar.
Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it
dubiously. “I don’t know what to
wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said,
slowly. “It seems to me I’ve got
all I want.”
“If you only cleared the house, you’d
be quite happy, wouldn’t you?” said Herbert,
with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish
for two hundred pounds, then; that ’ll just
do it.”
His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity,
held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face,
somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down
at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said
the old man distinctly.
A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted
by a shuddering cry from the old man. His wife
and son ran toward him.
“It moved,” he cried, with a glance of
disgust at the object as it lay on the floor.
“As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.”
