Transcriber's Note:
Incorrect page numbers in the list of illustrations have been changed.
THE MONKEY THAT WOULD NOT KILL
THE MONKEY
THAT WOULD NOT KILL
BY
HENRY DRUMMOND
BY
LOUIS WAIN
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1915
Copyright, 1897,
By Dodd, Mead and Company
PREFACE
A few years ago, the readers of"Wee Willie Winkie" detected a newvein running through the EditorialNotes and announcements which prefacedthe monthly collection of juvenileliterary efforts, which made up theirlittle Magazine.
There was an originality and ahumour which they had not noticed before,and Competitions were suggestedto them of a type for a repetition ofwhich they clamoured.
And then presently a new serial storybegan, and the hairbreadth escapes ofthat immortal Monkey which it recordedwere breathlessly followed by Wee WillieWinkie's army of bairns all over theworld; and when it was concluded, sonumerous were the entreaties for a sequel,that compulsion had to be resorted toin order to secure the revelation of thelater life of the hero under a new name.
And now at last the Editors who wereresponsible for the periodical referred tohave to make a confession.
Once upon a time they both, motherand daughter, forsook their office andwent away to Canada for several monthsin 1891, and during that time their jointeditorial chair was occupied by no otherthan Professor Henry Drummond.
And now our readers will understandto whom they are indebted for thequaint sayings and funny stories andCompetitions betokening someone who"understood" boys—and girls too.And they will be grateful to a certaincontributor who failed to send his copyin time for the monthly issue on oneoccasion, and so forced the then Editorto sit down and write "something." Itwas the first time he had ever tried towrite fiction, and as the story grew underhis pen, he began to realise the joy ofcreation. And so it was that, in spiteof his playful deprecation of "such nonsense"being printed, the adventures of"the Monkey that would not kill" cameto be told, and we know that we can doour old friends and readers no greaterkindness than to dedicate these chroniclesto them in permanent form, inmemory of one to whom "Wee Willie"and his bairns were ever a subject ofaffec