Chapter 8

DAGO BIDS FAREWELL TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY.

Hey there, Ring-tail, I've just slipped in a moment to say good-bye. I'm off for California in the morning. It seems that I'm at the bottom of all the trouble in this family, so I'm to be shipped by the fast express. But you needed waste any sympathy on me. I am going back to the old California garden among the vines and the pepper-trees, where I shall miss all the winter's snow and ice that I have been dreading.

The boys do not feel that they are giving me up entirely, for they will see me once a year when they visit their grandfather. I am sorry to leave them, but the kindest master in the world couldn't make me as happy as the freedom of the warm, wide outdoors. Next time you hear of me I shall be back in that land of summer, watching the water splash over the marble mermaid in the fountain, and the goldfish swim by in the sun.

Think of me, sometimes, Ring-tail; not as you have known me here, caged in a man-made house, and creeping about in everybody's way, but think of me as the happiest, freest creature that ever swung from a bough. Free as the birds and the bees in the old high-walled garden, and as happy, too, as they, when the sunshine turns to other sunshine all the Gold of Ophir roses. Good-bye! old fellow!

THE END.

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