Then Chee-Chee told them that in the Land of the White Men you could get nothing without money; you could do nothing without money—that it was almost impossible to live without money.
And some of them asked, “But can you not even eat and drink without paying?”
But Chee-Chee shook his head. And then he told them that even he, when he was with the organ-grinder, had been made to ask the children for money.
And the Chief Chimpanzee turned to the Oldest Orangutan and said, “Cousin, surely these Men be strange creatures! Who would wish to live in such a land? My gracious, how paltry!”
Then Chee-Chee said,
“When we were coming to you we had no boat to cross the sea in and no money to buy food to eat on our journey. So a man lent us some biscuits; and we said we would pay him when we came back. And we borrowed a boat from a sailor; but it was broken on the rocks when we reached the shores of Africa. Now the Doctor says he must go back and get the sailor another boat—because the man was poor and his ship was all he had.”
And the monkeys were all silent for a while, sitting quite still upon the ground and thinking hard.
At last the Biggest Baboon got up and said,
“I do not think we ought to let this good man leave our land till we have given him a fine present to take with him, so that he may know we are grateful for all that he has done for us.”
And a little, tiny red monkey who was sitting up in a tree shouted down,
“I think that too!”