"Come away and let me
put the poor thing out of its agony."
"How can you do it?" asked Toby, bitterly. "He's dying already."
"I know it, and it will be a kindness to put a bullet through his
head."
If Toby had been big enough, perhaps there might really have been
a murder committed, for he looked up at the man who so coolly
proposed to kill the poor monkey after he had already received his
death wound that the young man stepped back quickly, as if really
afraid that in his desperation the boy might do him some injury.
"Go 'way off," said Toby, passionately, "an' don't ever come here
again. You've killed all I ever had in this world of my own to love
me, an' I hate you -- I hate you!"
Then, turning again to the monkey, he put his hands on each side
of his head, and, leaning down, kissed the little brown lips as
tenderly as a mother would kiss her child.
The monkey was growing more and more feeble, and when Toby had shown
this act of affection he reached up his tiny paws, grasped Toby's
finger, half raised himself from the ground, and then with a
convulsive struggle fell back dead, while the tiny fingers slowly
relaxed their hold of the boy's hand.
Toby feared that it was death, and yet hoped that he was mistaken;
he looked into the half open, fast glazing eyes, put his hand
over his heart, to learn if it were still beating; and, getting no
responsive look from the dead eyes, feeling no heart throbs from
under that gory breast, he knew that his pet was really dead, and
flung himself by his side in all the childish abandonment of grief.
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