"I don't know," was the answer. "But if we are left alone here in the room we can get out of the desk and have some fun."

"Oh, so we can!" cried the Doll. "I'm tired of being shut up here. Can you open the desk, Mr. Monkey?"

"I think so," was the reply.

The Monkey was just going to raise the lid, by prying under it with the long stick up and down which he climbed, when, all of a sudden, there was a noise in the room.

"Some one is coming!" whispered the Doll.

"I hear them," said the Monkey. He looked out through the keyhole and saw a man wading through the water toward the desk. "I guess it's the night watchman," went on the Monkey in a whisper.

"We don't have a night watchman in school," whispered back the Doll.

"But we have a janitor. Maybe it's the janitor coming."

And so it was. The janitor had shut off some of the water in the broken pipes, and he was going about from room to room to see how much damage had been done. He walked up to the desk inside of which the Monkey and Doll had been placed.

"Well, I do declare!" exclaimed the janitor, and the Monkey and the Doll heard him. "There's ink running out of the drawer of the teacher's desk!

Ink running out of her desk, and water running out of the broken pipes!

Sure the school had bad luck to-day! But I must see about this ink. It may spoil everything in the drawer. The bottle must have been upset and the cork came out when the teacher and children were running around after the pipes burst."

The Monkey turned away from the keyhole and looked at the bottle of ink.

Surely enough, it lay on its side, and the cork was out. A stream of black liquid was running out of the bottle, dripping down through a crack in the teacher's desk.

"Oh, do you suppose you did that?" asked the Doll in a whisper of the Monkey.

"I--I guess maybe I did," he answered. "After I dipped my tail in the ink and marked your face, maybe I didn't put the cork back in tightly enough. And when I jumped around, to see what all the racket was about, I must have knocked the bottle over."

The janitor opened the lid of the desk, at the same time saying:

"I'd better take the teacher's things out and keep them for her until morning. What with the ink and water, everything may be spoiled."

A bright light shone in on the Monkey and the Doll when the top of the desk was opened by the janitor. Of course both the toys kept very still as soon as the janitor looked at them. This was the rule, as I have told you in the other books.

It did not take the school janitor long to cork the ink bottle and stop any more of the black fluid running out.

"Well, well!" said the janitor, looking at the ink-splashed Doll and the ink-tipped Monkey. "I'll take these two toys home and maybe my little girl can clean them. Then I'll bring them back to school to-morrow, and the teacher can give them to whoever owns them. Yes, I'll take the Monkey and Doll home to my house."

And this the janitor did. He stuffed the Monkey on a Stick, and also the Cotton Doll, into his pocket, taking care, of course, not to break them, and then, having cleaned from the room as much of the water as he could, the janitor went home.

"Look what I've brought you," he said to his little girl, as he took the Monkey and the Doll out of his pocket on reaching home.

"Oh, aren't they funny!" cried the little girl, dancing up and down.

"May I have them to keep?"

"Gracious me! what is going to happen now?" thought the Monkey on a Stick.

CHAPTER IV

A QUEER RIDE

"Look out for the ink on the Doll's face," said the janitor to his little girl, as he handed her the toy. "And see, the Monkey also has ink on the end of his tail. I brought them home to you, to see if you could clean them."

"Oh, then I can't keep them!" exclaimed the little girl in a sad voice.

"And they are so cute, too, even if they are covered with ink! How did it happen?"

"A water pipe burst in the school, and there was so much running around that an ink bottle in the teacher's desk got upset, I suppose, and then the ink splashed on the Monkey and the Doll," said the janitor.

"But how did they get in the teacher's desk?" the little girl wanted to know.

"I guess she must have taken them away from the children who had them out, playing with them during lesson time," answered the janitor. And he was right about that, as we know, but he was wrong about the bottle of ink.

"But perhaps you can clean them," said the janitor to his little girl.

"That's why I brought the toys home to you."

"Yes, I can wash the Doll's face with soap and water," answered the little girl. "But I don't believe I can get the ink off the Monkey's tail. He's made of plush, and ink stains that very badly."

Then she got a basin of soap and water and began to wash the Doll's face. In a little while the ink spots began to fade away, for the Doll's head was of porcelain, though she was stuffed with cotton.

"It's going to leave the Doll a little darker color, though," said the little girl to her father. "I can't get her as nice and white as she was at first."

"Well, never mind, you can pretend she went to the seash.o.r.e and got tanned," said the janitor, laughing. "Did you get the ink out of the Monkey's tail?" he asked.

"No, it won't come out," was the answer, and it would not. The ink on the tail of the Monkey on a Stick was there to stay, so it seemed.

"There! Just see what happened by your fooling!" said the Doll to the Monkey a little later, when they were left alone for a few minutes. "My face will always be dark, and your tail will be inky."

"I don't so much mind about my tail," answered the Monkey. "I think it will be rather stylish to have it dark and inky on the end. But I am sorry about your face. I never thought about the ink staying on or I never would have daubed you the way I did."

"Well, don't feel too bad about it," advised the Doll, with a smile. "I just happened to remember that it is stylish to be tanned. All the other dolls and toys will think I have spent a vacation at the seash.o.r.e, as the janitor says. Really, after I get used to it, I shall be glad you put the ink on me."

But the Monkey still felt sorry.

That night the janitor's little girl played with the Monkey on a Stick, making him do all sorts of funny tricks. He would climb up when she pulled the string, and sometimes he would just stand up on the top of his stick, almost as straight as the Bold Tin Soldier.

Then, again, he would turn over backward and slide down head first to the bottom of the pole. Another time he would tumble forward and slide down the other way, turning somersaults on the trip.

"Oh, I just love this Monkey!" said the little girl.

In the morning the janitor took back to school in his pocket the Monkey and the Doll.

"Be sure and bring them to me again, if n.o.body wants them!" called the little girl, who had almost got the Doll's face clean.

"I will," her father promised.