He did it this morning, and no
sooner had his head appeared above the table than Algie, with a kind
of sharp wail, struck him a violent blow on the nose with a teaspoon.
Then he turned to me, very pale, and said: 'Pauline, this must
end! The time has come to speak up. A nervous, highly-strung man
like myself should not, and must not, be called upon to live in a
house where he is constantly meeting snakes and monkeys without
warning. Choose between me and--'
We had got as far as this when Eustace, the monkey, who I didn't
know was in the room at all, suddenly sprang on to his back. He is
very fond of Algie.
Would you believe it? Algie walked straight out of the house, still
holding the teaspoon, and has not returned. Later in the day he
called me up on the phone and said that, though he realized that a
man's place was the home, he declined to cross the threshold again
until I had got rid of Eustace and Clarence. I tried to reason with
him. I told him that he ought to think himself lucky it wasn't
anything worse than a monkey and a snake, for the last person Roscoe
Sherriff handled, an emotional actress named Devenish, had to keep a
young puma. But he wouldn't listen, and the end of it was that he
rang off and I have not seen or heard of him since.
I am broken-hearted.
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