Mr. Edgerton’s limited ability, like that of so many of his kind, was inversely proportionate to his sense of self-regard, and he was therefore generally unwilling to entertain the possibility that his genius could be attributed to any outside agency. Nevertheless, he was a man profoundly in need of inspiration from any source, and had recently been considering opium or cheap gin as possible catalysts. Having heard the story of the inkpot, he required no further convincing. He paid over money he could ill afford for the faint hope of redemption offered by the curiosity, and made his way back to his small apartment with the inkpot and its monkey tucked beneath his arm in a cloak of brown paper.
Mr. Edgerton occupied a set of rooms above a tobacconist’s store on Marylebone High Street, a recent development forced upon him by his straitened circumstances. While Mr. Edgerton did not himself partake of the noble weed, his walls were yellowed by the fumes that regularly wended their way between the cracks in the floorboards, and his clothing and furnishings reeked of assorted cigars, cigarettes, pipe tobaccos, and even the more eye-watering forms of snuff. His dwelling was, therefore, more than a little depressing, and would almost certainly have provided him with the impetus necessary to improve his finances were he not so troubled by the absence of his muse.
That evening, Mr. Edgerton sat at his desk once again and stared at the paper before him.
And stared.
And stared.
Before him, the inkpot monkey squatted impassively, its eyes reflecting the lamplight and lending its mummified form an intimation of life that was both distracting and unsettling. Mr. Edgerton poked at it tentatively with his pen, leaving a small black mark on its chest. Like most writers, he had a shallow knowledge of a great many largely useless matters. Among these was anthropology, a consequence of one of his earlier works, an evolutionary fantasy entitled The Monkey’s Uncle. (One newspaper had described it as “largely adequate, if inconsequential.” Mr. Edgerton, grateful to be reviewed at all, was rather pleased.) Yet, despite searching through three reference volumes, he had been unable to identify the origins of the inkpot monkey and had begun to take this as a bad omen.
After another unproductive hour had gone by, its tedium broken only by the spread of an occasional inkblot upon the paper, Mr. Edgerton rose and determined to amuse himself by emptying, and then refilling, his pen. Still devoid of inspiration, he wondered if there was some part of the arcane ritual of fueling one’s pen from the inkpot that he had somehow neglected to perform. He reached down, and had gently grasped the monkey in order to raise the lid, when something pricked his skin painfully. He drew back his hand immediately and examined the wounded digit. A deep cut ran across the pad of his index finger, and blood from the abrasion was flowing down the length of his pen and congregating at the nib, from which it dripped into the inkpot with soft, regular splashes. Mr. Edgerton began to suck the offended member, meanwhile turning his attention to the monkey in an effort to ascertain the cause of his injury. The lamplight revealed a small raised ridge behind the creature’s neck, where a section of curved spine had burst through its tattered fur. A little of Mr. Edgerton’s blood could be perceived on the yellowed pallor of the bone.
The wounded writer retrieved a small bandage from his medicine cabinet and bound his finger before resuming his seat at his desk. He regarded the monkey warily as he filled his pen from the well, then put pen to paper and began to write. At first, the familiarity of the act overcame any feelings of surprise at its sudden return, so that Mr. Edgerton had completed two pages of close script and was about to embark upon a third before he paused and looked in puzzlement first at his pen, then at the paper. He reread what he had written, the beginnings of a tale of a man who sacrifices love and happiness at the altar of wealth and success, and found it more than satisfactory. It was, in fact, as fine as anything he had ever written, although he was baffled as to its source. Nevertheless, he shrugged and continued writing, grateful that his old imagination had apparently woken from its torpor. He wrote long into the night, refilling his pen as required, and so bound up was he in his exertions that he failed entirely to notice that his wound had reopened and was dripping blood onto pen and page and, at those moments when he replenished his instrument, into the depths of the small Chinese inkpot.
Mr. Edgerton slept late the following morning, and awoke to find himself weakened by his efforts of the night before. It was, he supposed, the consequence of months of inactivity, and after tea and some hot buttered toast, he felt much refreshed. He returned to his desk to find that the inkpot monkey had fallen from its perch and now lay on its back amid his pencils and pens. Gingerly, Mr. Edgerton lifted it from the desk and found that it now weighed considerably more than the inkpot itself and that physics, rather than any flaw in the inkpot’s construction, had played its part in dislodging the monkey from its seat. He also noted that the creature’s fur was far more lustrous than it had appeared in the window of the antiques shop, and now shimmered healthily in the morning sunlight.
And then, quite suddenly, Mr. Edgerton felt the monkey move. Its arms and legs stretched wearily, as if it were waking from some long slumber, and its mouth opened in a wide yawn, displaying small blunt teeth. Alarmed, Mr. Edgerton dropped the monkey and heard it emit a startled squeak as it landed on the desk. It lay there for a moment or two, then slowly raised itself on its haunches and regarded the writer with a slightly hurt expression before ambling over to the inkpot and squatting down gently beside it. With its left hand, it raised the lid of the inkpot and waited patiently for Mr. Edgerton to fill his pen. For a time, the bewildered writer was unable to move, so taken aback was he at this turn of events. Then, when it became clear that he had no other option but to begin writing or go mad, he reached for his pen and supplied it from the well. The monkey watched him impassively until the reservoir was filled and Mr. Edgerton had begun to write, then promptly fell fast asleep.
Despite his unnerving encounter with the newly animated monkey, Mr. Edgerton put in a most productive day and quickly found himself with the bulk of five chapters written, none of them requiring more than a cursory rewrite. It was only when the light had begun to fade and Mr. Edgerton’s arm had started to ache that the monkey awoke and padded softly across a virgin page to where Mr. Edgerton’s pen lay in his hand. The monkey grasped the writer’s finger in its tiny paws, then placed its mouth against the cut and began to suck. It took Mr. Edgerton a moment to realize what was occurring, at which point he rose with a shout and shook the monkey from his finger. It bounced against the inkpot, striking its head soundly against its base, and lay unmoving upon a sheet of paper.
At once, Mr. Edgerton reached for it and raised it in the palm of his left hand. The monkey was obviously stunned, for its eyes were now half closed and it was dazedly moving its head from side to side as it tried to focus. Instantly, Mr. Edgerton was seized with regret at his hasty action. He had endangered the monkey, which he now acknowledged to be the source of his newfound inspiration. Without it, he would be lost. Torn between fear and disgust, Mr. Edgerton reluctantly made his decision: he squeezed together his thumb and forefinger, causing a droplet of blood to emerge from the cut and then, his gorge rising, allowed it to drip into the monkey’s mouth.