"Oh, so it did--I had forgotten," went on the Monkey.

"But my Mary _brought_ me to school," said the Cotton Doll, "and her teacher took me away. She put me in this desk drawer; the teacher did."

"Well, now we're here, let's have some fun," said the Monkey to the Cotton Doll after a bit. "We are all alone by ourselves, and we can do as we please. Let's look around and play. We can't stand up, as the drawer isn't high enough, but we can crawl on our knees. Let's see what else is here."

"All right," agreed the Cotton Doll. So while the teacher was hearing the lessons of Herbert, Madeline and the other boys and girls, the Monkey (crawling off his stick for the time being) and the Cotton Doll went creeping on their hands and knees around the drawer.

"Let's look in the bottle of ink," proposed the Monkey, as he crawled near it, and began pulling at the cork.

"Oh, don't do that!" cried the Cotton Doll, in a whisper, of course.

"Don't open it! You'll get all black!"

"Oh, if it's black ink, I know what we can do!" said the Monkey. "We can black up like colored minstrels, and have a little show in here by ourselves. I'll black your face with the ink, and you can black mine, though I am pretty brown now."

"But I don't want my face blacked with ink!" cried the Cotton Doll, as the Monkey took the cork from the bottle. "I don't want to be a minstrel!"

"Oh, but you must!" insisted the Monkey, laughing, and, catching hold of the Cotton Doll in one hand, he tilted up the ink bottle in the other, and dipped in the end of his tail.

"Now I'll paint you nice and black!" he laughed.

"Oh, don't! Please don't!" begged the Cotton Doll, as she tried to get away from the Monkey. But she couldn't, for he held her tightly, and the inky end of the tail was coming nearer and nearer to her face.

CHAPTER III

THE JANITOR'S HOUSE

"There you are! Oh, how funny you look!" chattered the Monkey on a Stick in a whisper to the Cotton Doll, as they were both shut up together in the teacher's desk. "You don't know how funny you look! If I only had a looking-gla.s.s I'd show you!"

"I don't care! I think you're real mean!" said the Cotton Doll. "Don't you dare put any more ink on me!"

"I guess I've got enough on you now!" laughed the Monkey. "There's a spot on your nose, one on your chin, and one on each of your cheeks." As he spoke the Monkey put the cork back in the ink bottle and wiped the inky end of his tail off on a piece of blotting paper in the desk.

"What's that you say?" cried the Cotton Doll. "Did you dare put ink on my nose, on my chin and my cheeks?"

"That's what I did, just for fun!" chattered the mischievous Monkey.

And, really, he had done just that. Oh, he was a regular "cut-up" when he was by himself, that Monkey was.

"I must look terrible!" said the poor Cotton Doll, and, raising her hands, she rubbed them over her face. She felt the wet spots where the Monkey had daubed her with ink.

"Oh! aren't you mean?" cried the Cotton Doll. "My little girl mistress will never like me again when the teacher gives me back to her. I'm all spoiled!"

"No, you just look funny!" laughed the Monkey. "You looked funny when I put ink spots on you, but now you look funnier than ever, 'cause you've spread the ink all around, and made big splotches of it. Oh, my! Excuse me while I laugh!" he cried, and he wiggled and twisted around on the bottom of the drawer, laughing in whispers at the funny look on the face of the Cotton Doll.

"You're too mean for anything!" said the Doll to the Monkey, and she was almost ready to cry. But she happened to think that if she shed any tears they would wash down through the ink on her cheeks and make her look queerer than ever. So she did not cry.

"I'm never going to speak to you again, so there!" exclaimed the Cotton Doll, and she would have stamped her foot if there had been room for her to stand up in the desk drawer--which there wasn't. So she just banged her heels on the bottom of it.

"Oh, I'll be good!" promised the Monkey. "I won't put any more ink on you, and I'll see if I can get some of it off on this piece of blotting paper. I blotted my tail on it."

He tried to clean the Doll's face, but, by this time, the ink had dried, and you know how hard it is to get dried ink off your fingers after you have written a letter. Well, it was this way with the Cotton Doll. The ink stayed on her face.

"Well, if you have ink on your face I've also got some on the end of my tail, where I dipped it into the bottle," said the Monkey chap, thinking to cheer up the Doll by this.

"Yes, but the ink doesn't show on your brown tail as it does on my white face," said the Doll. "However, there is no use crying over spilled milk, I suppose," she went on. "Only if you do such a thing again I'll never speak to you as long as I live!"

"I'll never do it again," said the Monkey in a sorrowful voice. "Now let's have some fun. You tell me some of your adventures and I'll tell you some of mine. Did you ever live in a store?"

"Oh, yes, that's where I came from," answered the Doll.

"And was there a Calico Clown in your store, who was always asking what it was that made more noise than a pig under a gate?" asked the Monkey.

"No. But there was a Jumping Jack who was always trying to see how high he could kick, and one day he nearly kicked my hat off," said the Cotton Doll. "But tell me, please, some of your adventures."

The Monkey was just starting to tell how the Calico Clown's red and yellow trousers were burned in the gas jet one day, when, all of a sudden, there was a great noise and commotion in the schoolroom. The Monkey and the Doll could not tell what had caused it, though the Monkey did try to look out through the keyhole.

"Can you see anything?" asked the Doll.

"I can see some water dripping down," answered the long-tailed chap, "and the teacher and the children are running around as fast as anything."

"Oh, I wonder what has happened!" exclaimed the Doll. And just then she and the Monkey on a Stick heard the teacher say:

"Run out quickly, children! Run out, all of you. A water pipe has burst and there's a regular rain storm inside our nice schoolroom."

"Please can't I have my Monkey on a Stick before I go out?" asked Herbert. "You put him in your desk, Teacher!"

"And I want my knife you took away, please!" called another boy.

"We have no time for those things, now," the teacher said. "The water is coming down fast, and we'll all be wet through if we stay. The Monkey, knife and other things will be all right in my desk. Get your hats, and pa.s.s out quickly. More pipes may burst and flood the school.

"Go home, children, all of you," said the teacher. "To-morrow the pipes will be mended, and, if the school is dry enough, we will go on with our lessons. But run home now."

You may well imagine that most of the boys and girls were glad of the holiday that had come to them so unexpectedly. But Herbert felt sorry; that he had to leave his Monkey on a Stick in school. When he reached home he acted so strangely that his mother wanted to know what the matter was.

Of course Herbert had to tell that he had taken his Monkey to school, and he also had to tell what had happened afterward.

"Of course you did wrong," said Herbert's mother, "and you must suffer a little punishment."

"What kind of punishment?" asked Herbert.

"The punishment of not having your Monkey," was the answer.

And now we must see what happened to the Monkey on a Stick.

"What do you imagine will happen next?" asked the Doll of the Monkey, for they had heard what had been said.