The Book of Doctor Dolittle ~ Omnibus
Author: Hugh Lofting
Date: 1919-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Children’s Literature; Talking Animals
Description: Meet Doctor Dolittle, that quirky, loveable doctor and naturalist, who has the wonderful ability to speak with animals. Join him and his crew of animal friends as they journey to strange and distant lands, join a circus, stage a Canary Opera, establish a zoo run by the animals who live there, and even travel to the Moon!
Publisher: MobileRead
Rights: Text and illustrations are in the public domain where copyright is “Life+70”.

The Book of
Doctor Dolittle

• • • • •

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Story of Doctor Dolittle
Doctor Dolittle’s Post Office
Doctor Dolittle’s Circus
Doctor Dolittle’s Caravan

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle
Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo
Doctor Dolittle’s Garden
Doctor Dolittle in the Moon
Doctor Dolittle’s Return
Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake

About

• • • • •

Introduction
to the Tenth Printing of
The Story of Doctor Dolittle
(1922)

• • • • •

THERE are some of us now reaching middle age who discover themselves to be lamenting the past in one respect if in none other, that there are no books written now for children comparable with those of thirty years ago. I say written for children because the new psychological business of writing about them as though they were small pills or hatched in some especially scientific method is extremely popular today. Writing for children rather than about them is very difficult, as everybody who has tried it knows. It can only be done, I am convinced, by somebody having a great deal of the child in his own outlook and sensibilities. Such was the author of “The Little Duke” and “The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest,” such the author of “A Flatiron for a Farthing,” and “The Story of a Short Life.” Such, above all, the author of “Alice in Wonderland.” Grownups imagine that they can do the trick by adopting baby language and talking down to their very critical audience. There never was a greater mistake. The imagination of the author must be a child’s imagination and yet maturely consistent, so that the White Queen in “Alice,” for instance, is seen just as a child would see her, but she continues always herself through all her distressing adventures. The supreme touch of the white rabbit pulling on his white gloves as he hastens is again absolutely the child’s vision, but the white rabbit as guide and introducer of Alice’s adventures belongs to mature grown insight.

Geniuses are rare and, without being at all an undue praiser of times past, one can say without hesitation that until the appearance of Hugh Lofting, the successor of Miss Yonge, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Gatty and Lewis Carroll had not appeared. I remember the delight with which some six months ago I picked up the first “Dolittle” book in the Hampshire bookshop at Smith College in Northampton. One of Mr. Lofting’s pictures was quite enough for me. The picture that I lighted upon when I first opened the book was the one of the monkeys making a chain with their arms across the gulf. Then I looked further and discovered Bumpo reading fairy stories to himself. And then looked again and there was a picture of John Dolittle’s house.

But pictures are not enough although most authors draw so badly that if one of them happens to have the genius for line that Mr. Lofting shows there must be, one feels, something in his writing as well. There is. You cannot read the first paragraph of the book, which begins in the right way “Once upon a time” without knowing that Mr. Lofting believes in his story quite as much as he expects you to. That is the first essential for a story teller. Then you discover as you read on that he has the right eye for the right detail. What child-inquiring mind could resist this intriguing sentence to be found on the second page of the book:

“Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar.”

And then when you read a little further you will discover that the Doctor is not merely a peg on whom to hang exciting and various adventures but that he is himself a man of original and lively character. He is a very kindly, generous man, and anyone who has ever written stories will know that it is much more difficult to make kindly, generous characters interesting than unkindly and mean ones. But Dolittle is interesting. It is not only that he is quaint but that he is wise and knows what he is about. The reader, however young, who meets him gets very soon a sense that if he were in trouble, not necessarily medical, he would go to Dolittle and ask his advice about it. Dolittle seems to extend his hand from the page and grasp that of his reader, and I can see him going down the centuries a kind of Pied Piper with thousands of children at his heels. But not only is he a darling and alive and credible but his creator has also managed to invest everybody else in the book with the same kind of life.

Now this business of giving life to animals, making them talk and behave like human beings, is an extremely difficult one. Lewis Carroll absolutely conquered the difficulties, but I am not sure that anyone after him until Hugh Lofting has really managed the trick; even in such a masterpiece as “The Wind in the Willows” we are not quite convinced. John Dolittle’s friends are convincing because their creator never forces them to desert their own characteristics. Polynesia, for instance, is natural from first to last. She really does care about the Doctor but she cares as a bird would care, having always some place to which she is going when her business with her friends is over. And when Mr. Lofting invents fantastic animals he gives them a kind of credible possibility which is extraordinarily convincing. It will be impossible for anyone who has read this book not to believe in the existence of the pushmi-pullyu, who would be credible enough even were there no drawing of it, but the picture settles the matter of his truth once and for all.

In fact this book is a work of genius and, as always with works of genius, it is difficult to analyze the elements that have gone to make it. There is poetry here and fantasy and humor, a little pathos but, above all, a number of creations in whose existence everybody must believe whether they be children of four or old men of ninety or prosperous bankers of forty-five. I don’t know how Mr. Lofting has done it; I don’t suppose that he knows himself. There it is—the first real children’s classic since “Alice.”

Hugh Walpole.

The Story of
Doctor Dolittle

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

THE STORY BEGINS:

1 … Puddleby
2 … Animal Language
3 … More Money Troubles
4 … A Message from Africa
5 … The Great Journey
6 … Polynesia and the King
7 … The Bridge of Apes
8 … The Leader of the Lions
9 … The Monkeys’ Council
10 … The Rarest Animal of All
11 … The Black Prince
12 … Medicine and Magic
13 … Red Sails and Blue Wings
14 … The Rats’ Warning
15 … The Barbary Dragon
16 … Too-too, the Listener
17 … The Ocean Gossips
18 … Smells
19 … The Rock
20 … The Fisherman’s Town
21 … Home Again

• • • • •

The Story Begins:

•   1   •

Puddleby

Once upon a time, many years ago – when our grandfathers were little children – there was a doctor; and his name was Dolittle – John Dolittle, M.D. “M.D.” means that he was a proper doctor and knew a whole lot.

He lived in a little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks, young and old, knew him well by sight. And whenever he walked down the street in his high hat, everyone would say, “There goes the Doctor! – He’s a clever man.” And the dogs and the children would all run up and follow behind him; and even the crows that lived in the church-tower would caw and nod their heads.

The house he lived in, on the edge of the town, was quite small; but his garden was very large and had a wide lawn and stone seats and weeping-willows hanging over. His sister, Sarah Dolittle, was housekeeper for him; but the Doctor looked after the garden himself.

He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar. He had a cow with a calf too, and an old lame horse – twenty-five years of age – and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favourite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too.

His sister used to grumble about all these animals and said they made the house untidy. And one day when an old lady with rheumatism came to see the Doctor, she sat on the hedgehog who was sleeping on the sofa and never came to see him any more, but drove every Saturday all the way to Oxenthorpe, another town ten miles off, to see a different doctor.

Then his sister, Sarah Dolittle, came to him and said,

“John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It’s a fine doctor would have his parlour full of hedgehogs and mice! That’s the fourth personage these animals have driven away. Squire Jenkins and the Parson say they wouldn’t come near your house again – no matter how sick they are. We are getting poorer every day. If you go on like this, none of the best people will have you for a doctor.”

“But I like the animals better than the ‘best people’,” said the Doctor.

“You are ridiculous,” said his sister, and walked out of the room.

So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had no one left – except the Cat’s-meat-Man, who didn’t mind any kind of animals. But the Cat’s-meat-Man wasn’t very rich and he only got sick once a year – at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine.

Sixpence a year wasn’t enough to live on – even in those days, long ago; and if the Doctor hadn’t had some money saved up in his money-box, no one knows what would have happened.

And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.

Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau-drawer. But the money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.

And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would say to one another, “There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time when he was the best known doctor in the West Country – Look at him now – He hasn’t any money and his stockings are full of holes!”

But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed him through the town – the same as they had done when he was rich.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Animal Language

It happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking with the Cat’s-meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.

“Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be an animal-doctor?” asked the Cat’s-meat-Man.

The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the rain and singing a sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing and started to listen.

“You see, Doctor,” the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, “you know all about animals – much more than what these here vets do. That book you wrote about cats, why, it’s wonderful! I can’t read or write myself – or maybe I’d write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, she’s a scholar, she is. And she read your book to me. Well, it’s wonderful – that’s all can be said – wonderful. You might have been a cat yourself. You know the way they think. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoring animals. Do you know that? You see, I’d send all the old women who had sick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, I could put something in the meat I sell ’em to make ’em sick, see?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You mustn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the Cat’s-meat-Man. “Just a little something to make them droopy-like was what I had reference to. But as you say, maybe it ain’t quite fair on the animals. But they’ll get sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat. And look, all the farmers round about who had lame horses and weak lambs – they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.”

When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the window on to the Doctor’s table and said,

“That man’s got sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be an animal-doctor. Give the silly people up – if they haven’t brains enough to see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animals instead – they’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor.”

“Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle, putting the flower-pots outside on the window-sill to get the rain.

“Yes, there are plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are any good at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did you know that animals can talk?”

“I knew that parrots can talk,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, we parrots can talk in two languages – people’s language and bird-language,” said Polynesia proudly. “If I say, ‘Polly wants a cracker,’ you understand me. But hear this: Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?”

“Good Gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What does that mean?”

“That means, ‘Is the porridge hot yet?’ – in bird-language.”

“My! You don’t say so!” said the Doctor. “You never talked that way to me before.”

“What would have been the good?” said Polynesia, dusting some cracker-crumbs off her left wing. “You wouldn’t have understood me if I had.”

“Tell me some more,” said the Doctor, all excited; and he rushed over to the dresser-drawer and came back with the butcher’s book and a pencil. “Now don’t go too fast – and I’ll write it down. This is interesting – very interesting – something quite new. Give me the Birds’ A.B.C. first – slowly now.”

So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a language of their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon, while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving him bird words to put down in the book.

At tea-time, when the dog, Jip, came in, the parrot said to the Doctor, “See, he’s talking to you.”

“Looks to me as though he were scratching his ear,” said the Doctor.

“But animals don’t always speak with their mouths,” said the parrot in a high voice, raising her eyebrows. “They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails – with everything. Sometimes they don’t want to make a noise. Do you see now the way he’s twitching up one side of his nose?”

“What’s that mean?” asked the Doctor.

“That means, ‘Can’t you see that it has stopped raining?’” Polynesia answered. “He is asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use their noses for asking questions.”

After a while, with the parrot’s help, the Doctor got to learn the language of the animals so well that he could talk to them himself and understand everything they said. Then he gave up being a people’s doctor altogether.

As soon as the Cat’s-meat-Man had told everyone that John Dolittle was going to become an animal-doctor, old ladies began to bring him their pet pugs and poodles who had eaten too much cake; and farmers came many miles to show him sick cows and sheep.

One day a plough-horse was brought to him; and the poor thing was terribly glad to find a man who could talk in horse-language.

“You know, Doctor,” said the horse, “that vet over the hill knows nothing at all. He has been treating me six weeks now – for spavins. What I need is spectacles. I am going blind in one eye. There’s no reason why horses shouldn’t wear glasses, the same as people. But that stupid man over the hill never even looked at my eyes. He kept on giving me big pills. I tried to tell him; but he couldn’t understand a word of horse-language. What I need is spectacles.”

“Of course – of course,” said the Doctor. “I’ll get you some at once.”

“I would like a pair like yours,” said the horse – “only green. They’ll keep the sun out of my eyes while I’m ploughing the Fifty-Acre Field.”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Green ones you shall have.”

“You know, the trouble is, Sir,” said the plough-horse as the Doctor opened the front door to let him out – “the trouble is that anybody thinks he can doctor animals – just because the animals don’t complain. As a matter of fact it takes a much cleverer man to be a really good animal-doctor than it does to be a good people’s doctor. My farmer’s boy thinks he knows all about horses. I wish you could see him – his face is so fat he looks as though he had no eyes – and he has got as much brain as a potato-bug. He tried to put a mustard-plaster on me last week.”

“Where did he put it?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, he didn’t put it anywhere – on me,” said the horse. “He only tried to. I kicked him into the duck-pond.”

“Well, well!” said the Doctor.

“I’m a pretty quiet creature as a rule,” said the horse – “very patient with people – don’t make much fuss. But it was bad enough to have that vet giving me the wrong medicine. And when that red-faced booby started to monkey with me, I just couldn’t bear it any more.”

“Did you hurt the boy much?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, no,” said the horse. “I kicked him in the right place. The vet’s looking after him now. When will my glasses be ready?”

“I’ll have them for you next week,” said the Doctor. “Come in again Tuesday – Good morning!”

Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and the plough-horse stopped going blind in one eye and could see as well as ever.

And soon it became a common sight to see farm-animals wearing glasses in the country round Puddleby; and a blind horse was a thing unknown.

And so it was with all the other animals that were brought to him. As soon as they found that he could talk their language, they told him where the pain was and how they felt, and of course it was easy for him to cure them.

Now all these animals went back and told their brothers and friends that there was a doctor in the little house with the big garden who really was a doctor. And whenever any creatures got sick – not only horses and cows and dogs – but all the little things of the fields, like harvest-mice and water-voles, badgers and bats, they came at once to his house on the edge of the town, so that his big garden was nearly always crowded with animals trying to get in to see him.

There were so many that came that he had to have special doors made for the different kinds. He wrote “HORSES” over the front door, “COWS” over the side door, and “SHEEP” on the kitchen door. Each kind of animal had a separate door – even the mice had a tiny tunnel made for them into the cellar, where they waited patiently in rows for the Doctor to come round to them.

And so, in a few years’ time, every living thing for miles and miles got to know about John Dolittle, M.D. And the birds who flew to other countries in the winter told the animals in foreign lands of the wonderful doctor of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, who could understand their talk and help them in their troubles. In this way he became famous among the animals – all over the world – better known even than he had been among the folks of the West Country. And he was happy and liked his life very much.

One afternoon when the Doctor was busy writing in a book, Polynesia sat in the window – as she nearly always did – looking out at the leaves blowing about in the garden. Presently she laughed aloud.

“What is it, Polynesia?” asked the Doctor, looking up from his book.

“I was just thinking,” said the parrot; and she went on looking at the leaves.

“What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about people,” said Polynesia. “People make me sick. They think they’re so wonderful. The world has been going on now for thousands of years, hasn’t it? And the only thing in animal-language that people have learned to understand is that when a dog wags his tail he means ‘I’m glad!’ – It’s funny, isn’t it? You are the very first man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me dreadfully – such airs they put on – talking about ‘the dumb animals.’ Dumb! – Huh! Why I knew a macaw once who could say ‘Good morning!’ in seven different ways without once opening his mouth. He could talk every language – and Greek. An old professor with a grey beard bought him. But he didn’t stay. He said the old man didn’t talk Greek right, and he couldn’t stand listening to him teach the language wrong. I often wonder what’s become of him. That bird knew more geography than people will ever know. – People, Golly! I suppose if people ever learn to fly – like any common hedge-sparrow – we shall never hear the end of it!”

“You’re a wise old bird,” said the Doctor. “How old are you really? I know that parrots and elephants sometimes live to be very, very old.”

“I can never be quite sure of my age,” said Polynesia. “It’s either a hundred and eighty-three or a hundred and eighty-two. But I know that when I first came here from Africa, King Charles was still hiding in the oak-tree – because I saw him. He looked scared to death.”

• • • • •

•  3  •

More Money Troubles

And soon now the Doctor began to make money again; and his sister Sarah bought a new dress and was happy.

Some of the animals who came to see him were so sick that they had to stay at the Doctor’s house for a week. And when they were getting better they used to sit in chairs on the lawn.

And often even after they got well, they did not want to go away – they liked the Doctor and his house so much. And he never had the heart to refuse them when they asked if they could stay with him. So in this way he went on getting more and more pets.

Once when he was sitting on his garden wall, smoking a pipe in the evening, an Italian organ-grinder came round with a monkey on a string. The Doctor saw at once that the monkey’s collar was too tight and that he was dirty and unhappy. So he took the monkey away from the Italian, gave the man a shilling and told him to go. The organ-grinder got awfully angry and said that he wanted to keep the monkey. But the Doctor told him that if he didn’t go away he would punch him on the nose. John Dolittle was a strong man, though he wasn’t very tall. So the Italian went away saying rude things and the monkey stayed with Doctor Dolittle and had a good home. The other animals in the house called him “Chee-Chee” – which is a common word in monkey-language, meaning “ginger.”

And another time, when the circus came to Puddleby, the crocodile who had a bad tooth-ache escaped at night and came into the Doctor’s garden. The Doctor talked to him in crocodile-language and took him into the house and made his tooth better. But when the crocodile saw what a nice house it was – with all the different places for the different kinds of animals – he too wanted to live with the Doctor. He asked couldn’t he sleep in the fish-pond at the bottom of the garden, if he promised not to eat the fish. When the circus-men came to take him back he got so wild and savage that he frightened them away. But to everyone in the house he was always as gentle as a kitten.

But now the old ladies grew afraid to send their lap-dogs to Doctor Dolittle because of the crocodile; and the farmers wouldn’t believe that he would not eat the lambs and sick calves they brought to be cured. So the Doctor went to the crocodile and told him he must go back to his circus. But he wept such big tears, and begged so hard to be allowed to stay, that the Doctor hadn’t the heart to turn him out.

So then the Doctor’s sister came to him and said,

“John, you must send that creature away. Now the farmers and the old ladies are afraid to send their animals to you – just as we were beginning to be well off again. Now we shall be ruined entirely. This is the last straw. I will no longer be housekeeper for you if you don’t send away that alligator.”

“It isn’t an alligator,” said the Doctor – “it’s a crocodile.”

“I don’t care what you call it,” said his sister. “It’s a nasty thing to find under the bed. I won’t have it in the house.”

“But he has promised me,” the Doctor answered, “that he will not bite anyone. He doesn’t like the circus; and I haven’t the money to send him back to Africa where he comes from. He minds his own business and on the whole is very well behaved. Don’t be so fussy.”

“I tell you I will not have him around,” said Sarah. “He eats the linoleum. If you don’t send him away this minute I’ll – I’ll go and get married!”

“All right,” said the Doctor, “go and get married. It can’t be helped.” And he took down his hat and went out into the garden.

So Sarah Dolittle packed up her things and went off; and the Doctor was left all alone with his animal family.

And very soon he was poorer than he had ever been before. With all these mouths to fill, and the house to look after, and no one to do the mending, and no money coming in to pay the butcher’s bill, things began to look very difficult. But the Doctor didn’t worry at all.

“Money is a nuisance,” he used to say. “We’d all be much better off if it had never been invented. What does money matter, so long as we are happy?”

But soon the animals themselves began to get worried. And one evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair before the kitchen-fire they began talking it over among themselves in whispers. And the owl, Too-Too, who was good at arithmetic, figured it out that there was only money enough left to last another week – if they each had one meal a day and no more.

Then the parrot said, “I think we all ought to do the housework ourselves. At least we can do that much. After all, it is for our sakes that the old man finds himself so lonely and so poor.”

So it was agreed that the monkey, Chee-Chee, was to do the cooking and mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep the accounts, and the pig was to do the gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and laundress, because she was the oldest.

Of course at first they all found their new jobs very hard to do – all except Chee-Chee, who had hands, and could do things like a man. But they soon got used to it; and they used to think it great fun to watch Jip, the dog, sweeping his tail over the floor with a rag tied onto it for a broom. After a little they got to do the work so well that the Doctor said that he had never had his house kept so tidy or so clean before.

In this way things went along all right for a while; but without money they found it very hard.

Then the animals made a vegetable and flower stall outside the garden-gate and sold radishes and roses to the people that passed by along the road.

But still they didn’t seem to make enough money to pay all the bills – and still the Doctor wouldn’t worry. When the parrot came to him and told him that the fishmonger wouldn’t give them any more fish, he said,

“Never mind. So long as the hens lay eggs and the cow gives milk we can have omelettes and junket. And there are plenty of vegetables left in the garden. The Winter is still a long way off. Don’t fuss. That was the trouble with Sarah – she would fuss. I wonder how Sarah’s getting on – an excellent woman – in some ways – Well, well!”

But the snow came earlier than usual that year; and although the old lame horse hauled in plenty of wood from the forest outside the town, so they could have a big fire in the kitchen, most of the vegetables in the garden were gone, and the rest were covered with snow; and many of the animals were really hungry.

• • • • •

•   4   •

A Message from Africa

That Winter was a very cold one. And one night in December, when they were all sitting round the warm fire in the kitchen, and the Doctor was reading aloud to them out of books he had written himself in animal-language, the owl, Too-Too, suddenly said,

“Sh! What’s that noise outside?”

They all listened; and presently they heard the sound of someone running. Then the door flew open and the monkey, Chee-Chee, ran in, badly out of breath.

“Doctor!” he cried, “I’ve just had a message from a cousin of mine in Africa. There is a terrible sickness among the monkeys out there. They are all catching it – and they are dying in hundreds. They have heard of you, and beg you to come to Africa to stop the sickness.”

“Who brought the message?” asked the Doctor, taking off his spectacles and laying down his book.

“A swallow,” said Chee-Chee. “She is outside on the rain-butt.”

“Bring her in by the fire,” said the Doctor. “She must be perished with the cold. The swallows flew South six weeks ago!”

So the swallow was brought in, all huddled and shivering; and although she was a little afraid at first, she soon got warmed up and sat on the edge of the mantelpiece and began to talk.

When she had finished the Doctor said,

“I would gladly go to Africa – especially in this bitter weather. But I’m afraid we haven’t money enough to buy the tickets. Get me the money-box, Chee-Chee.”

So the monkey climbed up and got it off the top shelf of the dresser.

There was nothing in it – not one single penny!

“I felt sure there was twopence left,” said the Doctor.

“There was,” said the owl. “But you spent it on a rattle for that badger’s baby when he was teething.”

“Did I?” said the Doctor – “dear me, dear me! What a nuisance money is, to be sure! Well, never mind. Perhaps if I go down to the seaside I shall be able to borrow a boat that will take us to Africa. I knew a seaman once who brought his baby to me with measles. Maybe he’ll lend us his boat – the baby got well.”

So early the next morning the Doctor went down to the seashore. And when he came back he told the animals it was all right – the sailor was going to lend them the boat.

Then the crocodile and the monkey and the parrot were very glad and began to sing, because they were going back to Africa, their real home. And the Doctor said,

“I shall only be able to take you three – with Jip the dog, Dab-Dab the duck, Gub-Gub the pig and the owl, Too-Too. The rest of the animals, like the dormice and the water-voles and the bats, they will have to go back and live in the fields where they were born till we come home again. But as most of them sleep through the Winter, they won’t mind that – and besides, it wouldn’t be good for them to go to Africa.”

So then the parrot, who had been on long sea-voyages before, began telling the Doctor all the things he would have to take with him on the ship.

“You must have plenty of pilot-bread,” she said – “‘hard tack’ they call it. And you must have beef in cans – and an anchor.”

“I expect the ship will have its own anchor,” said the Doctor.

“Well, make sure,” said Polynesia. “Because it’s very important. You can’t stop if you haven’t got an anchor. And you’ll need a bell.”

“What’s that for?” asked the Doctor.

“To tell the time by,” said the parrot. “You go and ring it every half-hour and then you know what time it is. And bring a whole lot of rope – it always comes in handy on voyages.”

Then they began to wonder where they were going to get the money from to buy all the things they needed.

“Oh, bother it! Money again,” cried the Doctor. “Goodness! I shall be glad to get to Africa where we don’t have to have any! I’ll go and ask the grocer if he will wait for his money till I get back – No, I’ll send the sailor to ask him.”

So the sailor went to see the grocer. And presently he came back with all the things they wanted.

Then the animals packed up; and after they had turned off the water so the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and put up the shutters, they closed the house and gave the key to the old horse who lived in the stable. And when they had seen that there was plenty of hay in the loft to last the horse through the Winter, they carried all their luggage down to the seashore and got on to the boat.

The Cat’s-meat-Man was there to see them off; and he brought a large suet-pudding as a present for the Doctor because, he said he had been told, you couldn’t get suet-puddings in foreign parts.

As soon as they were on the ship, Gub-Gub, the pig, asked where the beds were, for it was four o’clock in the afternoon and he wanted his nap. So Polynesia took him downstairs into the inside of the ship and showed him the beds, set all on top of one another like book-shelves against a wall.

“Why, that isn’t a bed!” cried Gub-Gub. “That’s a shelf!”

“Beds are always like that on ships,” said the parrot. “It isn’t a shelf. Climb up into it and go to sleep. That’s what you call ‘a bunk.’”

“I don’t think I’ll go to bed yet,” said Gub-Gub. “I’m too excited. I want to go upstairs again and see them start.”

“Well, this is your first trip,” said Polynesia. “You will get used to the life after a while.” And she went back up the stairs of the ship, humming this song to herself,

I’ve seen the Black Sea and the Red Sea;

I rounded the Isle of Wight;

I discovered the Yellow River,

And the Orange too – by night.

Now Greenland drops behind again,

And I sail the ocean Blue,

I’m tired of all these colours, Jane,

So I’m coming back to you.

They were just going to start on their journey, when the Doctor said he would have to go back and ask the sailor the way to Africa.

But the swallow said she had been to that country many times and would show them how to get there.

So the Doctor told Chee-Chee to pull up the anchor and the voyage began.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Great Journey

Now for six whole weeks they went sailing on and on, over the rolling sea, following the swallow who flew before the ship to show them the way. At night she carried a tiny lantern, so they should not miss her in the dark; and the people on the other ships that passed said that the light must be a shooting star.

As they sailed further and further into the South, it got warmer and warmer. Polynesia, Chee-Chee and the crocodile enjoyed the hot sun no end. They ran about laughing and looking over the side of the ship to see if they could see Africa yet.

But the pig and the dog and the owl, Too-Too, could do nothing in such weather, but sat at the end of the ship in the shade of a big barrel, with their tongues hanging out, drinking lemonade.

Dab-Dab, the duck, used to keep herself cool by jumping into the sea and swimming behind the ship. And every once in a while, when the top of her head got too hot, she would dive under the ship and come up on the other side. In this way, too, she used to catch herrings on Tuesdays and Fridays – when everybody on the boat ate fish to make the beef last longer.

When they got near to the Equator they saw some flying-fishes coming towards them. And the fishes asked the parrot if this was Doctor Dolittle’s ship. When she told them it was, they said they were glad, because the monkeys in Africa were getting worried that he would never come. Polynesia asked them how many miles they had yet to go; and the flying-fishes said it was only fifty-five miles now to the coast of Africa.

And another time a whole school of porpoises came dancing through the waves; and they too asked Polynesia if this was the ship of the famous doctor. And when they heard that it was, they asked the parrot if the Doctor wanted anything for his journey.

And Polynesia said, “Yes. We have run short of onions.”

“There is an island not far from here,” said the porpoises, “where the wild onions grow tall and strong. Keep straight on – we will get some and catch up to you.”

So the porpoises dashed away through the sea. And very soon the parrot saw them again, coming up behind, dragging the onions through the waves in big nets made of seaweed.

The next evening, as the sun was going down, the Doctor said,

“Get me the telescope, Chee-Chee. Our journey is nearly ended. Very soon we should be able to see the shores of Africa.”

And about half an hour later, sure enough, they thought they could see something in front that might be land. But it began to get darker and darker and they couldn’t be sure.

Then a great storm came up, with thunder and lightning. The wind howled; the rain came down in torrents; and the waves got so high they splashed right over the boat.

Presently there was a big BANG! The ship stopped and rolled over on its side.

“What’s happened?” asked the Doctor, coming up from downstairs.

“I’m not sure,” said the parrot; “but I think we’re shipwrecked. Tell the duck to get out and see.”

So Dab-Dab dived right down under the waves. And when she came up she said they had struck a rock; there was a big hole in the bottom of the ship; the water was coming in; and they were sinking fast.

“We must have run into Africa,” said the Doctor. “Dear me, dear me! – Well – we must all swim to land.”

But Chee-Chee and Gub-Gub did not know how to swim.

“Get the rope!” said Polynesia. “I told you it would come in handy. Where’s that duck? Come here, Dab-Dab. Take this end of the rope, fly to the shore and tie it on to a palm-tree; and we’ll hold the other end on the ship here. Then those that can’t swim must climb along the rope till they reach the land. That’s what you call a ‘life-line.’”

So they all got safely to the shore – some swimming, some flying; and those that climbed along the rope brought the Doctor’s trunk and hand-bag with them.

But the ship was no good any more – with the big hole in the bottom; and presently the rough sea beat it to pieces on the rocks and the timbers floated away.

Then they all took shelter in a nice dry cave they found, high up in the cliffs, till the storm was over.

When the sun came out next morning they went down to the sandy beach to dry themselves.

“Dear old Africa!” sighed Polynesia. “It’s good to get back. Just think – it’ll be a hundred and sixty-nine years tomorrow since I was here! And it hasn’t changed a bit! – Same old palm-trees; same old red earth; same old black ants! There’s no place like home!”

And the others noticed she had tears in her eyes – she was so pleased to see her country once again.

Then the Doctor missed his high hat; for it had been blown into the sea during the storm. So Dab-Dab went out to look for it. And presently she saw it, a long way off, floating on the water like a toy-boat.

When she flew down to get it, she found one of the white mice, very frightened, sitting inside it.

“What are you doing here?” asked the duck, “You were told to stay behind in Puddleby.”

“I didn’t want to be left behind,” said the mouse. “I wanted to see what Africa was like – I have relatives there. So I hid in the baggage and was brought on to the ship with the hard-tack. When the ship sank I was terribly frightened – because I cannot swim far. I swam as long as I could, but I soon got all exhausted and thought I was going to sink. And then, just at that moment, the old man’s hat came floating by; and I got into it because I did not want to be drowned.”

So the duck took up the hat with the mouse in it and brought it to the Doctor on the shore. And they all gathered round to have a look.

“That’s what you call a ‘stowaway,’” said the parrot.

Presently, when they were looking for a place in the trunk where the white mouse could travel comfortably, the monkey, Chee-Chee, suddenly said,

“Sh! I hear footsteps in the jungle!”

They all stopped talking and listened. And soon a black man came down out of the woods and asked them what they were doing there.

“My name is John Dolittle – M.D.,” said the Doctor. “I have been asked to come to Africa to cure the monkeys who are sick.”

“You must all come before the King,” said the black man.

“What king?” asked the Doctor, who didn’t want to waste any time.

“The King of the Jolliginki,” the man answered. “All these lands belong to him; and all strangers must be brought before him. Follow me.”

So they gathered up their baggage and went off, following the man through the jungle.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Polynesia
and the King

When they had gone a little way through the thick forest, they came to a wide, clear space; and they saw the King’s palace which was made of mud.

This was where the King lived with his Queen, Ermintrude, and their son, Prince Bumpo. The Prince was away fishing for salmon in the river. But the King and Queen were sitting under an umbrella before the palace door. And Queen Ermintrude was asleep.

When the Doctor had come up to the palace the King asked him his business; and the Doctor told him why he had come to Africa.

“You may not travel through my lands,” said the King. “Many years ago a white man came to these shores; and I was very kind to him. But after he had dug holes in the ground to get the gold, and killed all the elephants to get their ivory tusks, he went away secretly in his ship – without so much as saying ‘Thank you.’ Never again shall a white man travel through the lands of Jolliginki.”

Then the King turned to some of the black men who were standing near and said, “Take away this medicine-man – with all his animals, and lock them up in my strongest prison.”

So six of the black men led the Doctor and all his pets away and shut them up in a stone dungeon. The dungeon had only one little window, high up in the wall, with bars in it; and the door was strong and thick.

Then they all grew very sad; and Gub-Gub, the pig, began to cry. But Chee-Chee said he would spank him if he didn’t stop that horrible noise; and he kept quiet.

“Are we all here?” asked the Doctor, after he had got used to the dim light.

“Yes, I think so,” said the duck and started to count them.

“Where’s Polynesia?” asked the crocodile. “She isn’t here.”

“Are you sure?” said the Doctor. “Look again. Polynesia! Polynesia! Where are you?”

“I suppose she escaped,” grumbled the crocodile. “Well, that’s just like her! – Sneaked off into the jungle as soon as her friends got into trouble.”

“I’m not that kind of a bird,” said the parrot, climbing out of the pocket in the tail of the Doctor’s coat. “You see, I’m small enough to get through the bars of that window; and I was afraid they would put me in a cage instead. So while the King was busy talking, I hid in the Doctor’s pocket – and here I am! That’s what you call a ‘ruse,’” she said, smoothing down her feathers with her beak.

“Good Gracious!” cried the Doctor. “You’re lucky I didn’t sit on you.”

“Now listen,” said Polynesia, “tonight, as soon as it gets dark, I am going to creep through the bars of that window and fly over to the palace. And then – you’ll see – I’ll soon find a way to make the King let us all out of prison.”

“Oh, what can you do?” said Gub-Gub, turning up his nose and beginning to cry again. “You’re only a bird!”

“Quite true,” said the parrot. “But do not forget that although I am only a bird, I can talk like a man – and I know these people.”

So that night, when the moon was shining through the palm-trees and all the King’s men were asleep, the parrot slipped out through the bars of the prison and flew across to the palace. The pantry window had been broken by a tennis ball the week before; and Polynesia popped in through the hole in the glass.

She heard Prince Bumpo snoring in his bedroom at the back of the palace. Then she tip-toed up the stairs till she came to the King’s bedroom. She opened the door gently and peeped in.

The Queen was away at a dance that night at her cousin’s; but the King was in bed fast asleep.

Polynesia crept in, very softly, and got under the bed.

Then she coughed – just the way Doctor Dolittle used to cough. Polynesia could mimic anyone.

The King opened his eyes and said sleepily: “Is that you, Ermintrude?” (He thought it was the Queen come back from the dance.)

Then the parrot coughed again – loud, like a man. And the King sat up, wide awake, and said, “Who’s that?”

“I am Doctor Dolittle,” said the parrot – just the way the Doctor would have said it.

“What are you doing in my bedroom?” cried the King. “How dare you get out of prison? Where are you? – I don’t see you.”

But the parrot just laughed – a long, deep, jolly laugh, like the Doctor’s.

“Stop laughing and come here at once, so I can see you,” said the King.

“Foolish King!” answered Polynesia. “Have you forgotten that you are talking to John Dolittle, M.D. – the most wonderful man on earth? Of course you cannot see me. I have made myself invisible. There is nothing I cannot do. Now listen: I have come here tonight to warn you. If you don’t let me and my animals travel through your kingdom, I will make you and all your people sick like the monkeys. For I can make people well: and I can make people ill – just by raising my little finger. Send your soldiers at once to open the dungeon door, or you shall have mumps before the morning sun has risen on the hills of Jolliginki.”

Then the King began to tremble and was very much afraid.

“Doctor,” he cried, “it shall be as you say. Do not raise your little finger, please!” And he jumped out of bed and ran to tell the soldiers to open the prison door.

As soon as he was gone, Polynesia crept downstairs and left the palace by the pantry window.

But the Queen, who was just letting herself in at the backdoor with a latch-key, saw the parrot getting out through the broken glass. And when the King came back to bed she told him what she had seen.

Then the King understood that he had been tricked, and he was dreadfully angry. He hurried back to the prison at once.

But he was too late. The door stood open. The dungeon was empty. The Doctor and all his animals were gone.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Bridge of Apes

Queen Ermintrude had never in her life seen her husband so terrible as he got that night. He gnashed his teeth with rage. He called everybody a fool. He threw his tooth-brush at the palace cat. He rushed round in his night-shirt and woke up all his army and sent them into the jungle to catch the Doctor. Then he made all his servants go too – his cooks and his gardeners and his barber and Prince Bumpo’s tutor – even the Queen, who was tired from dancing in a pair of tight shoes, was packed off to help the soldiers in their search.

All this time the Doctor and his animals were running through the forest towards the Land of the Monkeys as fast as they could go.

Gub-Gub, with his short legs, soon got tired; and the Doctor had to carry him – which made it pretty hard when they had the trunk and the hand-bag with them as well.

The King of the Jolliginki thought it would be easy for his army to find them, because the Doctor was in a strange land and would not know his way. But he was wrong; because the monkey, Chee-Chee, knew all the paths through the jungle – better even than the King’s men did. And he led the Doctor and his pets to the very thickest part of the forest – a place where no man had ever been before – and hid them all in a big hollow tree between high rocks.

“We had better wait here,” said Chee-Chee, “till the soldiers have gone back to bed. Then we can go on into the Land of the Monkeys.”

So there they stayed the whole night through.

They often heard the King’s men searching and talking in the jungle round about. But they were quite safe, for no one knew of that hiding-place but Chee-Chee – not even the other monkeys.

At last, when daylight began to come through the thick leaves overhead, they heard Queen Ermintrude saying in a very tired voice that it was no use looking any more – that they might as well go back and get some sleep.

As soon as the soldiers had all gone home, Chee-Chee brought the Doctor and his animals out of the hiding-place and they set off for the Land of the Monkeys.

It was a long, long way; and they often got very tired – especially Gub-Gub. But when he cried they gave him milk out of the coconuts, which he was very fond of.

They always had plenty to eat and drink; because Chee-Chee and Polynesia knew all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables that grow in the jungle, and where to find them – like dates and figs and ground-nuts and ginger and yams. They used to make their lemonade out of the juice of wild oranges, sweetened with honey which they got from the bees’ nests in hollow trees. No matter what it was they asked for, Chee-Chee and Polynesia always seemed to be able to get it for them – or something like it. They even got the Doctor some tobacco one day, when he had finished what he had brought with him and wanted to smoke.

At night they slept in tents made of palm-leaves, on thick, soft beds of dried grass. And after a while they got used to walking such a lot and did not get so tired and enjoyed the life of travel very much.

But they were always glad when the night came and they stopped for their resting-time. Then the Doctor used to make a little fire of sticks; and after they had had their supper, they would sit round it in a ring, listening to Polynesia singing songs about the sea, or to Chee-Chee telling stories of the jungle.

And many of the tales that Chee-Chee told were very interesting. Because although the monkeys had no history-books of their own before Doctor Dolittle came to write them for them, they remember everything that happens by telling stories to their children. And Chee-Chee spoke of many things his grandmother had told him – tales of long, long, long ago, before Noah and the Flood, – of the days when men dressed in bear-skins and lived in holes in the rock and ate their mutton raw, because they did not know what cooking was – having never seen a fire. And he told them of the Great Mammoths and Lizards, as long as a train, that wandered over the mountains in those times, nibbling from the tree-tops. And often they got so interested listening, that when he had finished they found their fire had gone right out; and they had to scurry round to get more sticks and build a new one.

Now when the King’s army had gone back and told the King that they couldn’t find the Doctor, the King sent them out again and told them they must stay in the jungle till they caught him. So all this time, while the Doctor and his animals were going along towards the Land of the Monkeys, thinking themselves quite safe, they were still being followed by the King’s men. If Chee-Chee had known this, he would most likely have hidden them again. But he didn’t know it.

One day Chee-Chee climbed up a high rock and looked out over the tree-tops. And when he came down he said they were now quite close to the Land of the Monkeys and would soon be there.

And that same evening, sure enough, they saw Chee-Chee’s cousin and a lot of other monkeys, who had not yet got sick, sitting in the trees by the edge of a swamp, looking and waiting for them. And when they saw the famous doctor really come, these monkeys made a tremendous noise, cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches to greet him.

They wanted to carry his bag and his trunk and everything he had – and one of the bigger ones even carried Gub-Gub who had got tired again. Then two of them rushed on in front to tell the sick monkeys that the great doctor had come at last.

But the King’s men, who were still following, had heard the noise of the monkeys cheering; and they at last knew where the Doctor was, and hastened on to catch him.

The big monkey carrying Gub-Gub was coming along behind slowly, and he saw the Captain of the army sneaking through the trees. So he hurried after the Doctor and told him to run.

Then they all ran harder than they had ever run in their lives; and the King’s men, coming after them, began to run too; and the Captain ran hardest of all.

Then the Doctor tripped over his medicine-bag and fell down in the mud, and the Captain thought he would surely catch him this time.

But the Captain had very long ears – though his hair was very short. And as he sprang forward to take hold of the Doctor, one of his ears caught fast in a tree; and the rest of the army had to stop and help him.

By this time the Doctor had picked himself up, and on they went again, running and running. And Chee-Chee shouted,

“It’s all right! We haven’t far to go now!”

But before they could get into the Land of the Monkeys, they came to a steep cliff with a river flowing below. This was the end of the Kingdom of Jolliginki; and the Land of the Monkeys was on the other side – across the river.

And Jip, the dog, looked down over the edge of the steep, steep cliff and said,

“Golly! How are we ever going to get across?”

“Oh, dear!” said Gub-Gub. “The King’s men are quite close now – Look at them! I am afraid we are going to be taken back to prison again.” And he began to weep.

But the big monkey who was carrying the pig dropped him on the ground and cried out to the other monkeys,

“Boys – a bridge! Quick! – Make a bridge! We’ve only a minute to do it. They’ve got the Captain loose, and he’s coming on like a deer. Get lively! A bridge! A bridge!”

The Doctor began to wonder what they were going to make a bridge out of, and he gazed around to see if they had any boards hidden any place.

But when he looked back at the cliff, there, hanging across the river, was a bridge all ready for him – made of living monkeys! For while his back was turned, the monkeys – quick as a flash – had made themselves into a bridge, just by holding hands and feet.

And the big one shouted to the Doctor, “Walk over! Walk over – all of you – hurry!”

Gub-Gub was a bit scared, walking on such a narrow bridge at that dizzy height above the river. But he got over all right; and so did all of them.

John Dolittle was the last to cross. And just as he was getting to the other side, the King’s men came rushing up to the edge of the cliff.

Then they shook their fists and yelled with rage. For they saw they were too late. The Doctor and all his animals were safe in the Land of the Monkeys and the bridge was pulled across to the other side.

Then Chee-Chee turned to the Doctor and said,

“Many great explorers and grey-bearded naturalists have lain long weeks hidden in the jungle waiting to see the monkeys do that trick. But we never let a white man get a glimpse of it before. You are the first to see the famous ‘Bridge of Apes.’”

And the Doctor felt very pleased.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Leader of the Lions

John Dolittle now became dreadfully, awfully busy. He found hundreds and thousands of monkeys sick – gorillas, orang-outangs, chimpanzees, dog-faced baboons, marmosets, grey monkeys, red ones – all kinds. And many had died.

The first thing he did was to separate the sick ones from the well ones. Then he got Chee-Chee and his cousin to build him a little house of grass. The next thing: he made all the monkeys who were still well come and be vaccinated.

And for three days and three nights the monkeys kept coming from the jungles and the valleys and the hills to the little house of grass, where the Doctor sat all day and all night, vaccinating and vaccinating.

Then he had another house made – a big one, with a lot of beds in it; and he put all the sick ones in this house.

But so many were sick, there were not enough well ones to do the nursing. So he sent messages to the other animals, like the lions and the leopards and the antelopes, to come and help with the nursing.

But the Leader of the Lions was a very proud creature. And when he came to the Doctor’s big house full of beds, he seemed angry and scornful.

“Do you dare to ask me, Sir?” he said, glaring at the Doctor. “Do you dare to ask me – ME, the King of Beasts, to wait on a lot of dirty monkeys? Why, I wouldn’t even eat them between meals!”

Although the lion looked very terrible, the Doctor tried hard not to seem afraid of him.

“I didn’t ask you to eat them,” he said quietly. “And besides, they’re not dirty. They’ve all had a bath this morning. Your coat looks as though it needed brushing – badly. Now listen, and I’ll tell you something: the day may come when the lions get sick. And if you don’t help the other animals now, the lions may find themselves left all alone when they are in trouble. That often happens to proud people.”

“The lions are never in trouble – they only make trouble,” said the Leader, turning up his nose. And he stalked away into the jungle, feeling he had been rather smart and clever.

Then the leopards got proud too and said they wouldn’t help. And then of course the antelopes – although they were too shy and timid to be rude to the Doctor like the lion – they pawed the ground, and smiled foolishly, and said they had never been nurses before.

And now the poor Doctor was worried frantic, wondering where he could get help enough to take care of all these thousands of monkeys in bed.

But the Leader of the Lions, when he got back to his den, saw his wife, the Queen Lioness, come running out to meet him with her hair untidy.

“One of the cubs won’t eat,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with him. He hasn’t taken a thing since last night.”

And she began to cry and shake with nervousness – for she was a good mother, even though she was a lioness.

So the Leader went into his den and looked at his children – two very cunning little cubs, lying on the floor. And one of them seemed quite poorly.

Then the lion told his wife, quite proudly, just what he had said to the Doctor. And she got so angry she nearly drove him out of the den.

“You never did have a grain of sense!” she screamed. “All the animals from here to the Indian Ocean are talking about this wonderful man, and how he can cure any kind of sickness, and how kind he is – the only man in the whole world who can talk the language of the animals! And now, now – when we have a sick baby on our hands, you must go and offend him! You great booby! Nobody but a fool is ever rude to a good doctor. You—,” and she started pulling her husband’s hair.

“Go back to that white man at once,” she yelled, “and tell him you’re sorry. And take all the other empty-headed lions with you – and those stupid leopards and antelopes. Then do everything the Doctor tells you. Work like niggers! And perhaps he will be kind enough to come and see the cub later. Now be off! – Hurry, I tell you! You’re not fit to be a father!”

And she went into the den next door, where another mother-lion lived, and told her all about it.

So the Leader of the Lions went back to the Doctor and said, “I happened to be passing this way and thought I’d look in. Got any help yet?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “I haven’t. And I’m dreadfully worried.”

“Help’s pretty hard to get these days,” said the lion. “Animals don’t seem to want to work any more. You can’t blame them – in a way…. Well, seeing you’re in difficulties, I don’t mind doing what I can – just to oblige you – so long as I don’t have to wash the creatures. And I have told all the other hunting animals to come and do their share. The leopards should be here any minute now…. Oh, and by the way, we’ve got a sick cub at home. I don’t think there’s much the matter with him myself. But the wife is anxious. If you are around that way this evening, you might take a look at him, will you?”

Then the Doctor was very happy; for all the lions and the leopards and the antelopes and the giraffes and the zebras – all the animals of the forests and the mountains and the plains – came to help him in his work. There were so many of them that he had to send some away, and only kept the cleverest.

And now very soon the monkeys began to get better. At the end of a week the big house full of beds were half empty. And at the end of the second week the last monkey had got well.

Then the Doctor’s work was done; and he was so tired he went to bed and slept for three days without even turning over.

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Monkeys’ Council

Chee-Chee stood outside the Doctor’s door, keeping everybody away till he woke up. Then John Dolittle told the monkeys that he must now go back to Puddleby.

They were very surprised at this; for they had thought that he was going to stay with them forever. And that night all the monkeys got together in the jungle to talk it over.

And the Chief Chimpanzee rose up and said,

“Why is it the good man is going away? Is he not happy here with us?”

But none of them could answer him.

Then the Grand Gorilla got up and said,

“I think we all should go to him and ask him to stay. Perhaps if we make him a new house and a bigger bed, and promise him plenty of monkey-servants to work for him and to make life pleasant for him – perhaps then he will not wish to go.”

Then Chee-Chee got up; and all the others whispered, “Sh! Look! Chee-Chee, the great Traveller, is about to speak!”

And Chee-Chee said to the other monkeys,

“My friends, I am afraid it is useless to ask the Doctor to stay. He owes money in Puddleby; and he says he must go back and pay it.”

And the monkeys asked him, “What is money?”

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 Orang-outang 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!”

And then they all cried out, making a great noise, “Yes, yes. Let us give him the finest present a White Man ever had!”

Now they began to wonder and ask one another what would be the best thing to give him. And one said, “Fifty bags of coconuts!” And another – “A hundred bunches of bananas! – At least he shall not have to buy his fruit in the Land Where You Pay to Eat!”

But Chee-Chee told them that all these things would be too heavy to carry so far and would go bad before half was eaten.

“If you want to please him,” he said, “give him an animal. You may be sure he will be kind to it. Give him some rare animal they have not got in the menageries.”

And the monkeys asked him, “What are menageries?”

Then Chee-Chee explained to them that menageries were places in the Land of the White Men, where animals were put in cages for people to come and look at. And the monkeys were very shocked and said to one another,

“These Men are like thoughtless young ones – stupid and easily amused. Sh! It is a prison he means.”

So then they asked Chee-Chee what rare animal it could be that they should give the Doctor – one the White Men had not seen before. And the Major of the Marmosets asked,

“Have they an iguana over there?”

But Chee-Chee said, “Yes, there is one in the London Zoo.”

And another asked, “Have they an okapi?”

But Chee-Chee said, “Yes. In Belgium where my organ-grinder took me five years ago, they had an okapi in a big city they call Antwerp.”

And another asked, “Have they a pushmi-pullyu?”

Then Chee-Chee said, “No. No White Man has ever seen a pushmi-pullyu. Let us give him that.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Rarest Animal of All

Pushmi-pullyus are now extinct. That means, there aren’t any more. But long ago, when Doctor Dolittle was alive, there were some of them still left in the deepest jungles of Africa; and even then they were very, very scarce. They had no tail, but a head at each end, and sharp horns on each head. They were very shy and terribly hard to catch. The black men get most of their animals by sneaking up behind them while they are not looking. But you could not do this with the pushmi-pullyu – because, no matter which way you came towards him, he was always facing you. And besides, only one half of him slept at a time. The other head was always awake – and watching. This was why they were never caught and never seen in Zoos. Though many of the greatest huntsmen and the cleverest menagerie-keepers spent years of their lives searching through the jungles in all weathers for pushmi-pullyus, not a single one had ever been caught. Even then, years ago, he was the only animal in the world with two heads.

Well, the monkeys set out hunting for this animal through the forest. And after they had gone a good many miles, one of them found peculiar footprints near the edge of a river; and they knew that a pushmi-pullyu must be very near that spot.

Then they went along the bank of the river a little way and they saw a place where the grass was high and thick; and they guessed that he was in there.

So they all joined hands and made a great circle round the high grass. The pushmi-pullyu heard them coming; and he tried hard to break through the ring of monkeys. But he couldn’t do it. When he saw that it was no use trying to escape, he sat down and waited to see what they wanted.

They asked him if he would go with Doctor Dolittle and be put on show in the Land of the White Men.

But he shook both his heads hard and said, “Certainly not!”

They explained to him that he would not be shut up in a menagerie but would just be looked at. They told him that the Doctor was a very kind man but hadn’t any money; and people would pay to see a two-headed animal and the Doctor would get rich and could pay for the boat he had borrowed to come to Africa in.

But he answered, “No. You know how shy I am – I hate being stared at.” And he almost began to cry.

Then for three days they tried to persuade him.

And at the end of the third day he said he would come with them and see what kind of a man the Doctor was, first.

So the monkeys travelled back with the pushmi-pullyu. And when they came to where the Doctor’s little house of grass was, they knocked on the door.

The duck, who was packing the trunk, said, “Come in!”

And Chee-Chee very proudly took the animal inside and showed him to the Doctor.

“What in the world is it?” asked John Dolittle, gazing at the strange creature.

“Lord save us!” cried the duck. “How does it make up its mind?”

“It doesn’t look to me as though it had any,” said Jip, the dog.

“This, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee, “is the pushmi-pullyu – the rarest animal of the African jungles, the only two-headed beast in the world! Take him home with you and your fortune’s made. People will pay any money to see him.”

“But I don’t want any money,” said the Doctor.

“Yes, you do,” said Dab-Dab, the duck. “Don’t you remember how we had to pinch and scrape to pay the butcher’s bill in Puddleby? And how are you going to get the sailor the new boat you spoke of – unless we have the money to buy it?”

“I was going to make him one,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, do be sensible!” cried Dab-Dab. “Where would you get all the wood and the nails to make one with? – And besides, what are we going to live on? We shall be poorer than ever when we get back. Chee-Chee’s perfectly right: take the funny-looking thing along, do!”

“Well, perhaps there is something in what you say,” murmured the Doctor. “It certainly would make a nice new kind of pet. But does the er – what-do-you-call-it really want to go abroad?”

“Yes, I’ll go,” said the pushmi-pullyu who saw at once, from the Doctor’s face, that he was a man to be trusted. “You have been so kind to the animals here – and the monkeys tell me that I am the only one who will do. But you must promise me that if I do not like it in the Land of the White Men you will send me back.”

“Why, certainly – of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “Excuse me, surely you are related to the Deer Family, are you not?”

“Yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu – “to the Abyssinian Gazelles and the Asiatic Chamois – on my mother’s side. My father’s great-grandfather was the last of the Unicorns.”

“Most interesting!” murmured the Doctor; and he took a book out of the trunk which Dab-Dab was packing and began turning the pages. “Let us see if Buffon says anything—”

“I notice,” said the duck, “that you only talk with one of your mouths. Can’t the other head talk as well?”

“Oh, yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu. “But I keep the other mouth for eating – mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being rude. Our people have always been very polite.”

When the packing was finished and everything was ready to start, the monkeys gave a grand party for the Doctor, and all the animals of the jungle came. And they had pineapples and mangoes and honey and all sorts of good things to eat and drink.

After they had all finished eating, the Doctor got up and said,

“My friends: I am not clever at speaking long words after dinner, like some men; and I have just eaten many fruits and much honey. But I wish to tell you that I am very sad at leaving your beautiful country. Because I have things to do in the Land of the White Men, I must go. After I have gone, remember never to let the flies settle on your food before you eat it; and do not sleep on the ground when the rains are coming. I – er – er – I hope you will all live happily ever after.”

When the Doctor stopped speaking and sat down, all the monkeys clapped their hands a long time and said to one another, “Let it be remembered always among our people that he sat and ate with us, here, under the trees. For surely he is the Greatest of Men!”

And the Grand Gorilla, who had the strength of seven horses in his hairy arms, rolled a great rock up to the head of the table and said,

“This stone for all time shall mark the spot.”

And even to this day, in the heart of the jungle, that stone still is there. And monkey-mothers, passing through the forest with their families, still point down at it from the branches and whisper to their children, “Sh! There it is – look – where the Good White Man sat and ate food with us in the Year of the Great Sickness!”

Then, when the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to go back to the seashore. And all the monkeys went with him as far as the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him off.

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Black Prince

By the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell.

This took a long time, because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to shake John Dolittle by the hand.

Afterwards, when the Doctor and his pets were going on alone, Polynesia said,

“We must tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the Jolliginki. If the King should hear us, he will send his soldiers to catch us again; for I am sure he is still very angry over the trick I played on him.”

“What I am wondering,” said the Doctor, “is where we are going to get another boat to go home in…. Oh well, perhaps we’ll find one lying about on the beach that nobody is using. ‘Never lift your foot till you come to the stile.’”

One day, while they were passing through a very thick part of the forest, Chee-Chee went ahead of them to look for coconuts. And while he was away, the Doctor and the rest of the animals, who did not know the jungle-paths so well, got lost in the deep woods. They wandered around and around but could not find their way down to the seashore.

Chee-Chee, when he could not see them anywhere, was terribly upset. He climbed high trees and looked out from the top branches to try and see the Doctor’s high hat; he waved and shouted; he called to all the animals by name. But it was no use. They seemed to have disappeared altogether.

Indeed they had lost their way very badly. They had strayed a long way off the path, and the jungle was so thick with bushes and creepers and vines that sometimes they could hardly move at all, and the Doctor had to take out his pocket-knife and cut his way along. They stumbled into wet, boggy places; they got all tangled up in thick convolvulus-runners; they scratched themselves on thorns, and twice they nearly lost the medicine-bag in the under-brush. There seemed no end to their troubles; and nowhere could they come upon a path.

At last, after blundering about like this for many days, getting their clothes torn and their faces covered with mud, they walked right into the King’s back-garden by mistake. The King’s men came running up at once and caught them.

But Polynesia flew into a tree in the garden, without anybody seeing her, and hid herself. The Doctor and the rest were taken before the King.

“Ha, ha!” cried the King. “So you are caught again! This time you shall not escape. Take them all back to prison and put double locks on the door. This White Man shall scrub my kitchen-floor for the rest of his life!”

So the Doctor and his pets were led back to prison and locked up. And the Doctor was told that in the morning he must begin scrubbing the kitchen-floor.

They were all very unhappy.

“This is a great nuisance,” said the Doctor. “I really must get back to Puddleby. That poor sailor will think I’ve stolen his ship if I don’t get home soon…. I wonder if those hinges are loose.”

But the door was very strong and firmly locked. There seemed no chance of getting out. Then Gub-Gub began to cry again.

All this time Polynesia was still sitting in the tree in the palace-garden. She was saying nothing and blinking her eyes.

This was always a very bad sign with Polynesia. Whenever she said nothing and blinked her eyes, it meant that somebody had been making trouble, and she was thinking out some way to put things right. People who made trouble for Polynesia or her friends were nearly always sorry for it afterwards.

Presently she spied Chee-Chee swinging through the trees still looking for the Doctor. When Chee-Chee saw her, he came into her tree and asked her what had become of him.

“The Doctor and all the animals have been caught by the King’s men and locked up again,” whispered Polynesia. “We lost our way in the jungle and blundered into the palace-garden by mistake.”

“But couldn’t you guide them?” asked Chee-Chee; and he began to scold the parrot for letting them get lost while he was away looking for the coconuts.

“It was all that stupid pig’s fault,” said Polynesia. “He would keep running off the path hunting for ginger-roots. And I was kept so busy catching him and bringing him back, that I turned to the left, instead of the right, when we reached the swamp. – Sh! – Look! There’s Prince Bumpo coming into the garden! He must not see us. – Don’t move, whatever you do!”

And there, sure enough, was Prince Bumpo, the King’s son, opening the garden-gate. He carried a book of fairy-tales under his arm. He came strolling down the gravel-walk, humming a sad song, till he reached a stone seat right under the tree where the parrot and the monkey were hiding. Then he lay down on the seat and began reading the fairy-stories to himself.

Chee-Chee and Polynesia watched him, keeping very quiet and still.

After a while the King’s son laid the book down and sighed a weary sigh.

“If I were only a white prince!” said he, with a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes.

Then the parrot, talking in a small, high voice like a little girl, said aloud,

“Bumpo, someone might turn thee into a white prince perchance.”

The King’s son started up off the seat and looked all around.

“What is this I hear?” he cried. “Methought the sweet music of a fairy’s silver voice rang from yonder bower! Strange!”

“Worthy Prince,” said Polynesia, keeping very still so Bumpo couldn’t see her, “thou sayest winged words of truth. For ’tis I, Tripsitinka, the Queen of the Fairies, that speak to thee. I am hiding in a rose-bud.”

“Oh tell me, Fairy-Queen,” cried Bumpo, clasping his hands in joy, “who is it can turn me white?”

“In thy father’s prison,” said the parrot, “there lies a famous wizard, John Dolittle by name. Many things he knows of medicine and magic, and mighty deeds has he performed. Yet thy kingly father leaves him languishing long and lingering hours. Go to him, brave Bumpo, secretly, when the sun has set; and behold, thou shalt be made the whitest prince that ever won fair lady! I have said enough. I must now go back to Fairyland. Farewell!”

“Farewell!” cried the Prince. “A thousand thanks, good Tripsitinka!”

And he sat down on the seat again with a smile upon his face, waiting for the sun to set.

• • • • •

•   12   •

Medicine and Magic

Very, very quietly, making sure that no one should see her, Polynesia then slipped out at the back of the tree and flew across to the prison.

She found Gub-Gub poking his nose through the bars of the window, trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace-kitchen. She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wanted to speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was taking a nap.

“Listen,” whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle’s face appeared: “Prince Bumpo is coming here tonight to see you. And you’ve got to find some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise you first that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you to cross the sea in.”

“This is all very well,” said the Doctor. “But it isn’t so easy to turn a black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be re-dyed. It’s not so simple. ‘Shall the leopard change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin,’ you know?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polynesia impatiently. “But you must turn this coon white. Think of a way – think hard. You’ve got plenty of medicines left in the bag. He’ll do anything for you if you change his colour. It is your only chance to get out of prison.”

“Well, I suppose it might be possible,” said the Doctor. “Let me see—” and he went over to his medicine-bag, murmuring something about “liberated chlorine on animal-pigment – perhaps zinc-ointment, as a temporary measure, spread thick—”

Well, that night Prince Bumpo came secretly to the Doctor in prison and said to him,

“White Man, I am an unhappy prince. Years ago I went in search of The Sleeping Beauty, whom I had read of in a book. And having travelled through the world many days, I at last found her and kissed the lady very gently to awaken her – as the book said I should. ’Tis true indeed that she awoke. But when she saw my face she cried out, ‘Oh, he’s black!’ And she ran away and wouldn’t marry me – but went to sleep again somewhere else. So I came back, full of sadness, to my father’s kingdom. Now I hear that you are a wonderful magician and have many powerful potions. So I come to you for help. If you will turn me white, so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half my kingdom and anything besides you ask.”

“Prince Bumpo,” said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles in his medicine-bag, “supposing I made your hair a nice blonde colour – would not that do instead to make you happy?”

“No,” said Bumpo. “Nothing else will satisfy me. I must be a white prince.”

“You know it is very hard to change the colour of a prince,” said the Doctor – “one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want your face white, do you not?”

“Yes, that is all,” said Bumpo. “Because I shall wear shining armour and gauntlets of steel, like the other white princes, and ride on a horse.”

“Must your face be white all over?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes, all over,” said Bumpo – “and I would like my eyes blue too, but I suppose that would be very hard to do.”

“Yes, it would,” said the Doctor quickly. “Well, I will do what I can for you. You will have to be very patient though – you know with some medicines you can never be very sure. I might have to try two or three times. You have a strong skin – yes? Well that’s all right. Now come over here by the light – Oh, but before I do anything, you must first go down to the beach and get a ship ready, with food in it, to take me across the sea. Do not speak a word of this to anyone. And when I have done as you ask, you must let me and all my animals out of prison. Promise – by the crown of Jolliginki!”

So the Prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at the seashore.

When he came back and said that it was done, the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to bring a basin. Then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin and told Bumpo to dip his face in it.

The Prince leaned down and put his face in – right up to the ears.

He held it there a long time – so long that the Doctor seemed to get dreadfully anxious and fidgety, standing first on one leg and then on the other, looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture, and reading the labels on them again and again. A strong smell filled the prison, like the smell of brown paper burning.

At last the Prince lifted his face up out of the basin, breathing very hard. And all the animals cried out in surprise.

For the Prince’s face had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, which had been mud-coloured, were a manly grey!

When John Dolittle lent him a little looking-glass to see himself in, he sang for joy and began dancing around the prison. But the Doctor asked him not to make so much noise about it; and when he had closed his medicine-bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison-door.

Bumpo begged that he might keep the looking-glass, as it was the only one in the Kingdom of Jolliginki, and he wanted to look at himself all day long. But the Doctor said he needed it to shave with.

Then the Prince, taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket, undid the great double locks. And the Doctor with all his animals ran as fast as they could down to the seashore; while Bumpo leaned against the wall of the empty dungeon, smiling after them happily, his big face shining like polished ivory in the light of the moon.

When they came to the beach they saw Polynesia and Chee-Chee waiting for them on the rocks near the ship.

“I feel sorry about Bumpo,” said the Doctor. “I am afraid that medicine I used will never last. Most likely he will be as black as ever when he wakes up in the morning – that’s one reason why I didn’t like to leave the mirror with him. But then again, he might stay white – I had never used that mixture before. To tell the truth, I was surprised, myself, that it worked so well. But I had to do something, didn’t I? – I couldn’t possibly scrub the King’s kitchen for the rest of my life. It was such a dirty kitchen! – I could see it from the prison-window. – Well, well! – Poor Bumpo!”

“Oh, of course he will know we were just joking with him,” said the parrot.

“They had no business to lock us up,” said Dab-Dab, waggling her tail angrily. “We never did them any harm. Serve him right, if he does turn black again! I hope it’s a dark black.”

“But he didn’t have anything to do with it,” said the Doctor. “It was the King, his father, who had us locked up – it wasn’t Bumpo’s fault. … I wonder if I ought to go back and apologize – Oh, well – I’ll send him some candy when I get to Puddleby. And who knows? – he may stay white after all.”

“The Sleeping Beauty would never have him, even if he did,” said Dab-Dab. “He looked better the way he was, I thought. But he’d never be anything but ugly, no matter what colour he was made.”

“Still, he had a good heart,” said the Doctor – “romantic, of course – but a good heart. After all, ‘handsome is as handsome does.’”

“I don’t believe the poor booby found The Sleeping Beauty at all,” said Jip, the dog. “Most likely he kissed some farmer’s fat wife who was taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for getting scared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”

Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip and the owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was their proper home, the land where they were born.

And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the side across the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with them to guide them back to Puddleby.

The wide, wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight; and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passed out of sight of land.

But even while he was wondering, they heard a strange whispering noise, high in the air, coming through the night. And the animals all stopped saying Goodbye and listened.

The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer to them – a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of a poplar-tree, or a great, great rain beating down upon a roof.

And Jip, with his nose pointing and his tail quite straight, said,

“Birds! – millions of them – flying fast – that’s it!”

And then they all looked up. And there, streaming across the face of the moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands and thousands of little birds. Soon the whole sky seemed full of them, and still more kept coming – more and more. There were so many that for a little they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the sea grew dark and black – like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.

And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the water and the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moon shone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made – no sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than ever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of the ship – anywhere and everywhere except the trees – the Doctor could see that they had blue wings and white breasts and very short, feathered legs. As soon as they had all found a place to sit, suddenly, there was no noise left anywhere – all was quiet; all was still.

And in the silent moonlight John Dolittle spoke:

“I had no idea that we had been in Africa so long. It will be nearly Summer when we get home. For these are the swallows going back. Swallows, I thank you for waiting for us. It is very thoughtful of you. Now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea…. Pull up the anchor and set the sail!”

When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never in their lives had they known anyone they liked so well as Doctor John Dolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

And after they had called Goodbye to him again and again and again, they still stood there upon the rocks, crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight.

• • • • •

•   13   •

Red Sails
and Blue Wings

Sailing homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary. This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonely place – all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirates lived.

These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to be shipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing, they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When they caught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; and after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail back to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief they had done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write home to their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, the pirates often threw the people into the sea.

Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down on the ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along, and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another ship a long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.

“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab-Dab. “I have a feeling it isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming to us.”

Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl and talk in his sleep.

“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled – “underdone roast beef – with brown gravy over it.”

“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Is he smelling in his sleep – as well as talking?”

“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”

“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor. “There is no roast beef cooking on our ship.”

“No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship over there.”

“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell that far surely!”

“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”

Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled up angrily, showing his clean, white teeth.

“I smell bad men,” he growled – “the worst men I ever smelt. I smell trouble. I smell a fight – six bad scoundrels fighting against one brave man. I want to help him. Woof – oo – WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and woke himself up with a surprised look on his face.

“See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its three big sails – all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us…. I wonder who they are.”

“They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. They are surely the pirates of Barbary.”

“Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,” said the Doctor, “so we can go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch me all the sails you see.”

The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.

But even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind, the boat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’ – which kept coming on behind, closer and closer.

“This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig – “the slowest he could find, I should think. Might as well try to win a race in a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Look how near they are now! – You can see the mustaches on the faces of the men – six of them. What are we going to do?”

Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows that pirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he do about it.

When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor’s ship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and make them into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then the ends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and the swallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pulling the boat along.

And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two are by themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of them together. And there, tied to the Doctor’s ship, were a thousand strings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string – all terribly swift fliers.

And in a moment the Doctor found himself travelling so fast he had to hold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itself were flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.

And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the rushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they could see that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sails were being left far, far behind.

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Rats’ Warning

Dragging a ship through the sea is hard work. And after two or three hours the swallows began to get tired in the wings and short of breath. Then they sent a message down to the Doctor to say that they would have to take a rest soon; and that they would pull the boat over to an island not far off, and hide it in a deep bay till they had got breath enough to go on.

And presently the Doctor saw the island they had spoken of. It had a very beautiful, high, green mountain in the middle of it.

When the ship had sailed safely into the bay where it could not be seen from the open sea, the Doctor said he would get off on to the island to look for water – because there was none left to drink on his ship. And he told all the animals to get out too and romp on the grass to stretch their legs.

Now as they were getting off, the Doctor noticed that a whole lot of rats were coming up from downstairs and leaving the ship as well. Jip started to run after them, because chasing rats had always been his favourite game. But the Doctor told him to stop.

And one big black rat, who seemed to want to say something to the Doctor, now crept forward timidly along the rail, watching the dog out of the corner of his eye. And after he had coughed nervously two or three times, and cleaned his whiskers and wiped his mouth, he said,

“Ahem – er – you know of course that all ships have rats in them, Doctor, do you not?”

And the Doctor said, “Yes.”

“And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor – “so I’ve been told.”

“People,” said the rat, “always speak of it with a sneer – as though it were something disgraceful. But you can’t blame us, can you? After all, who would stay on a sinking ship, if he could get off it?”

“It’s very natural,” said the Doctor – “very natural. I quite understand…. Was there – Was there anything else you wished to say?”

“Yes,” said the rat. “I’ve come to tell you that we are leaving this one. But we wanted to warn you before we go. This is a bad ship you have here. It isn’t safe. The sides aren’t strong enough. Its boards are rotten. Before tomorrow night it will sink to the bottom of the sea.”

“But how do you know?” asked the Doctor.

“We always know,” answered the rat. “The tips of our tails get that tingly feeling – like when your foot’s asleep. This morning, at six o’clock, while I was getting breakfast, my tail suddenly began to tingle. At first I thought it was my rheumatism coming back. So I went and asked my aunt how she felt – you remember her? – the long, piebald rat, rather skinny, who came to see you in Puddleby last Spring with jaundice? Well – and she said her tail was tingling like everything! Then we knew, for sure, that this boat was going to sink in less than two days; and we all made up our minds to leave it as soon as we got near enough to any land. It’s a bad ship, Doctor. Don’t sail in it any more, or you’ll be surely drowned…. Goodbye! We are now going to look for a good place to live on this island.”

“Goodbye!” said the Doctor. “And thank you very much for coming to tell me. Very considerate of you – very! Give my regards to your aunt. I remember her perfectly…. Leave that rat alone, Jip! Come here! Lie down!”

So then the Doctor and all his animals went off, carrying pails and saucepans, to look for water on the island, while the swallows took their rest.

“I wonder what is the name of this island,” said the Doctor, as he was climbing up the mountainside. “It seems a pleasant place. What a lot of birds there are!”

“Why, these are the Canary Islands,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t you hear the canaries singing?”

The Doctor stopped and listened.

“Why, to be sure – of course!” he said. “How stupid of me! I wonder if they can tell us where to find water.”

And presently the canaries, who had heard all about Doctor Dolittle from birds of passage, came and led him to a beautiful spring of cool, clear water where the canaries used to take their bath; and they showed him lovely meadows where the bird-seed grew and all the other sights of their island.

And the pushmi-pullyu was glad they had come; because he liked the green grass so much better than the dried apples he had been eating on the ship. And Gub-Gub squeaked for joy when he found a whole valley full of wild sugar-cane.

A little later, when they had all had plenty to eat and drink, and were lying on their backs while the canaries sang for them, two of the swallows came hurrying up, very flustered and excited.

“Doctor!” they cried, “the pirates have come into the bay; and they’ve all got on to your ship. They are downstairs looking for things to steal. They have left their own ship with nobody on it. If you hurry and come down to the shore, you can get on to their ship – which is very fast – and escape. But you’ll have to hurry.”

“That’s a good idea,” said the Doctor – “splendid!”

And he called his animals together at once, said Goodbye to the canaries and ran down to the beach.

When they reached the shore they saw the pirate-ship, with the three red sails, standing in the water; and – just as the swallows had said – there was nobody on it; all the pirates were downstairs in the Doctor’s ship, looking for things to steal.

So John Dolittle told his animals to walk very softly and they all crept on to the pirate-ship.

• • • • •

•   15   •

The Barbary Dragon

Everything would have gone all right if the pig had not caught a cold in his head while eating the damp sugar-cane on the island. This is what happened:

After they had pulled up the anchor without a sound, and were moving the ship very, very carefully out of the bay, Gub-Gub suddenly sneezed so loud that the pirates on the other ship came rushing upstairs to see what the noise was.

As soon as they saw that the Doctor was escaping, they sailed the other boat right across the entrance to the bay so that the Doctor could not get out into the open sea.

Then the leader of these bad men (who called himself “Ben Ali, The Dragon”) shook his fist at the Doctor and shouted across the water, “Ha! Ha! You are caught, my fine friend! You were going to run off in my ship, eh? But you are not a good enough sailor to beat Ben Ali, the Barbary Dragon. I want that duck you’ve got – and the pig too. We’ll have pork-chops and roast duck for supper tonight. And before I let you go home, you must make your friends send me a trunkful of gold.”

Poor Gub-Gub began to weep; and Dab-Dab made ready to fly to save her life. But the owl, Too-Too, whispered to the Doctor,

“Keep him talking, Doctor. Be pleasant to him. Our old ship is bound to sink soon – the rats said it would be at the bottom of the sea before tomorrow night – and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till the ship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”

“What, until tomorrow night!” said the Doctor. “Well, I’ll do my best…. Let me see – What shall I talk about?”

“Oh, let them come on,” said Jip. “We can fight the dirty rascals. There are only six of them. Let them come on. I’d love to tell that collie next door, when we get home, that I had bitten a real pirate. Let ’em come. We can fight them.”

“But they have pistols and swords,” said the Doctor. “No, that would never do. I must talk to him…. Look here, Ben Ali—”

But before the Doctor could say any more, the pirates began to sail the ship nearer, laughing with glee, and saying one to another, “Who shall be the first to catch the pig?”

Poor Gub-Gub was dreadfully frightened; and the pushmi-pullyu began to sharpen his horns for a fight by rubbing them on the mast of the ship; while Jip kept springing into the air and barking and calling Ben Ali bad names in dog-language.

But presently something seemed to go wrong with the pirates; they stopped laughing and cracking jokes; they looked puzzled; something was making them uneasy.

Then Ben Ali, staring down at his feet, suddenly bellowed out,

“Thunder and Lightning! – Men, the boat’s leaking!”

And then the other pirates peered over the side and they saw that the boat was indeed getting lower and lower in the water. And one of them said to Ben Ali,

“But surely if this old boat were sinking we should see the rats leaving it.”

And Jip shouted across from the other ship,

“You great duffers, there are no rats there to leave! They left two hours ago! ‘Ha, ha,’ to you, ‘my fine friends!’”

But of course the men did not understand him.

Soon the front end of the ship began to go down and down, faster and faster – till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on its head; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts and the ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushed roaring in through all the windows and the doors. And at last the ship plunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurgling sound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water of the bay.

Some of them started to swim for the shores of the island; while others came and tried to get on to the boat where the Doctor was. But Jip kept snapping at their noses, so they were afraid to climb up the side of the ship.

Then suddenly they all cried out in great fear,

“The sharks! The sharks are coming! Let us get on to the ship before they eat us! Help, help! – The sharks! The sharks!”

And now the Doctor could see, all over the bay, the backs of big fishes swimming swiftly through the water.

And one great shark came near to the ship, and poking his nose out of the water he said to the Doctor,

“Are you John Dolittle, the famous animal-doctor?”

“Yes,” said Doctor Dolittle. “That is my name.”

“Well,” said the shark, “we know these pirates to be a bad lot – especially Ben Ali. If they are annoying you, we will gladly eat them up for you – and then you won’t be troubled any more.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “This is really most attentive. But I don’t think it will be necessary to eat them. Don’t let any of them reach the shore until I tell you – just keep them swimming about, will you? And please make Ben Ali swim over here that I may talk to him.”

So the shark went off and chased Ben Ali over to the Doctor.

“Listen, Ben Ali,” said John Dolittle, leaning over the side. “You have been a very bad man; and I understand that you have killed many people. These good sharks here have just offered to eat you up for me – and ’twould indeed be a good thing if the seas were rid of you. But if you will promise to do as I tell you, I will let you go in safety.”

“What must I do?” asked the pirate, looking down sideways at the big shark who was smelling his leg under the water.

“You must kill no more people,” said the Doctor; “you must stop stealing; you must never sink another ship; you must give up being a pirate altogether.”

“But what shall I do then?” asked Ben Ali. “How shall I live?”

“You and all your men must go on to this island and be bird-seed-farmers,” the Doctor answered. “You must grow bird-seed for the canaries.”

The Barbary Dragon turned pale with anger. “Grow bird-seed!” he groaned in disgust. “Can’t I be a sailor?”

“No,” said the Doctor, “you cannot. You have been a sailor long enough – and sent many stout ships and good men to the bottom of the sea. For the rest of your life you must be a peaceful farmer. The shark is waiting. Do not waste any more of his time. Make up your mind.”

“Thunder and Lightning!” Ben Ali muttered – “Bird-seed!” Then he looked down into the water again and saw the great fish smelling his other leg.

“Very well,” he said sadly. “We’ll be farmers.”

“And remember,” said the Doctor, “that if you do not keep your promise – if you start killing and stealing again, I shall hear of it, because the canaries will come and tell me. And be very sure that I will find a way to punish you. For though I may not be able to sail a ship as well as you, so long as the birds and the beasts and the fishes are my friends, I do not have to be afraid of a pirate chief – even though he call himself ‘The Dragon of Barbary.’ Now go and be a good farmer and live in peace.”

Then the Doctor turned to the big shark, and waving his hand he said,

“All right. Let them swim safely to the land.”

• • • • •

•   16   •

Too-too, the Listener

Having thanked the sharks again for their kindness, the Doctor and his pets set off once more on their journey home in the swift ship with the three red sails.

As they moved out into the open sea, the animals all went downstairs to see what their new boat was like inside; while the Doctor leant on the rail at the back of the ship with a pipe in his mouth, watching the Canary Islands fade away in the blue dusk of the evening.

While he was standing there, wondering how the monkeys were getting on – and what his garden would look like when he got back to Puddleby, Dab-Dab came tumbling up the stairs, all smiles and full of news.

“Doctor!” she cried. “This ship of the pirates is simply beautiful – absolutely. The beds downstairs are made of primrose silk – with hundreds of big pillows and cushions; there are thick, soft carpets on the floors; the dishes are made of silver; and there are all sorts of good things to eat and drink – special things; the larder – well, it’s just like a shop, that’s all. You never saw anything like it in your life – Just think – they kept five different kinds of sardines, those men! Come and look…. Oh, and we found a little room down there with the door locked; and we are all crazy to get in and see what’s inside. Jip says it must be where the pirates kept their treasure. But we can’t open the door. Come down and see if you can let us in.”

So the Doctor went downstairs and he saw that it was indeed a beautiful ship. He found the animals gathered round a little door, all talking at once, trying to guess what was inside. The Doctor turned the handle but it wouldn’t open. Then they all started to hunt for the key. They looked under the mat; they looked under all the carpets; they looked in all the cupboards and drawers and lockers – in the big chests in the ship’s dining-room; they looked everywhere.

While they were doing this they discovered a lot of new and wonderful things that the pirates must have stolen from other ships: Kashmir shawls as thin as a cobweb, embroidered with flowers of gold; jars of fine tobacco from Jamaica; carved ivory boxes full of Russian tea; an old violin with a string broken and a picture on the back; a set of big chess-men, carved out of coral and amber; a walking-stick which had a sword inside it when you pulled the handle; six wine-glasses with turquoise and silver round the rims; and a lovely great sugar-bowl, made of mother o’ pearl. But nowhere in the whole boat could they find a key to fit that lock.

So they all came back to the door, and Jip peered through the key-hole. But something had been stood against the wall on the inside and he could see nothing.

While they were standing around, wondering what they should do, the owl, Too-Too, suddenly said,

“Sh! – Listen! – I do believe there’s someone in there!”

They all kept still a moment. Then the Doctor said,

“You must be mistaken, Too-Too. I don’t hear anything.”

“I’m sure of it,” said the owl. “Sh! – There it is again – Don’t you hear that?”

“No, I do not,” said the Doctor. “What kind of a sound is it?”

“I hear the noise of someone putting his hand in his pocket,” said the owl.

“But that makes hardly any sound at all,” said the Doctor. “You couldn’t hear that out here.”

“Pardon me, but I can,” said Too-Too. “I tell you there is someone on the other side of that door putting his hand in his pocket. Almost everything makes some noise – if your ears are only sharp enough to catch it. Bats can hear a mole walking in his tunnel under the earth – and they think they’re good hearers. But we owls can tell you, using only one ear, the colour of a kitten from the way it winks in the dark.”

“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You surprise me. That’s very interesting…. Listen again and tell me what he’s doing now.”

“I’m not sure yet,” said Too-Too, “if it’s a man at all. Maybe it’s a woman. Lift me up and let me listen at the key-hole and I’ll soon tell you.”

So the Doctor lifted the owl up and held him close to the lock of the door.

After a moment Too-Too said,

“Now he’s rubbing his face with his left hand. It is a small hand and a small face. It might be a woman – No. Now he pushes his hair back off his forehead – It’s a man all right.”

“Women sometimes do that,” said the Doctor.

“True,” said the owl. “But when they do, their long hair makes quite a different sound. … Sh! Make that fidgety pig keep still. Now all hold your breath a moment so I can listen well. This is very difficult, what I’m doing now – and the pesky door is so thick! Sh! Everybody quite still – shut your eyes and don’t breathe.”

Too-Too leaned down and listened again very hard and long.

At last he looked up into the Doctor’s face and said,

“The man in there is unhappy. He weeps. He has taken care not to blubber or sniffle, lest we should find out that he is crying. But I heard – quite distinctly – the sound of a tear falling on his sleeve.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a drop of water falling off the ceiling on him?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Pshaw! – Such ignorance!” sniffed Too-Too. “A drop of water falling off the ceiling would have made ten times as much noise!”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “if the poor fellow’s unhappy, we’ve got to get in and see what’s the matter with him. Find me an axe, and I’ll chop the door down.”

• • • • •

•   17   •

The Ocean Gossips

Right away an axe was found. And the Doctor soon chopped a hole in the door big enough to clamber through.

At first he could see nothing at all, it was so dark inside. So he struck a match.

The room was quite small; no window; the ceiling, low. For furniture there was only one little stool. All round the room big barrels stood against the walls, fastened at the bottom so they wouldn’t tumble with the rolling of the ship; and above the barrels, pewter jugs of all sizes hung from wooden pegs. There was a strong, winey smell. And in the middle of the floor sat a little boy, about eight years old, crying bitterly.

“I declare, it is the pirates’ rum-room!” said Jip in a whisper.

“Yes. Very rum!” said Gub-Gub. “The smell makes me giddy.”

The little boy seemed rather frightened to find a man standing there before him and all those animals staring in through the hole in the broken door. But as soon as he saw John Dolittle’s face by the light of the match, he stopped crying and got up.

“You aren’t one of the pirates, are you?” he asked.

And when the Doctor threw back his head and laughed long and loud, the little boy smiled too and came and took his hand.

“You laugh like a friend,” he said – “not like a pirate. Could you tell me where my uncle is?”

“I am afraid I can’t,” said the Doctor. “When did you see him last?”

“It was the day before yesterday,” said the boy. “I and my uncle were out fishing in our little boat, when the pirates came and caught us. They sunk our fishing-boat and brought us both on to this ship. They told my uncle that they wanted him to be a pirate like them – for he was clever at sailing a ship in all weathers. But he said he didn’t want to be a pirate, because killing people and stealing was no work for a good fisherman to do. Then the leader, Ben Ali, got very angry and gnashed his teeth, and said they would throw my uncle into the sea if he didn’t do as they said. They sent me downstairs; and I heard the noise of a fight going on above. And when they let me come up again next day, my uncle was nowhere to be seen. I asked the pirates where he was; but they wouldn’t tell me. I am very much afraid they threw him into the sea and drowned him.”

And the little boy began to cry again.

“Well now – wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Don’t cry. Let’s go and have tea in the dining-room, and we’ll talk it over. Maybe your uncle is quite safe all the time. You don’t know that he was drowned, do you? And that’s something. Perhaps we can find him for you. First we’ll go and have tea – with strawberry-jam; and then we will see what can be done.”

All the animals had been standing around listening with great curiosity. And when they had gone into the ship’s dining-room and were having tea, Dab-Dab came up behind the Doctor’s chair and whispered.

“Ask the porpoises if the boy’s uncle was drowned – they’ll know.”

“All right,” said the Doctor, taking a second piece of bread-and-jam.

“What are those funny, clicking noises you are making with your tongue?” asked the boy.

“Oh, I just said a couple of words in duck-language,” the Doctor answered. “This is Dab-Dab, one of my pets.”

“I didn’t even know that ducks had a language,” said the boy. “Are all these other animals your pets, too? What is that strange-looking thing with two heads?”

“Sh!” the Doctor whispered. “That is the pushmi-pullyu. Don’t let him see we’re talking about him – he gets so dreadfully embarrassed…. Tell me, how did you come to be locked up in that little room?”

“The pirates shut me in there when they were going off to steal things from another ship. When I heard someone chopping on the door, I didn’t know who it could be. I was very glad to find it was you. Do you think you will be able to find my uncle for me?”

“Well, we are going to try very hard,” said the Doctor. “Now what was your uncle like to look at?”

“He had red hair,” the boy answered – “very red hair, and the picture of an anchor tattooed on his arm. He was a strong man, a kind uncle and the best sailor in the South Atlantic. His fishing-boat was called The Saucy Sally – a cutter-rigged sloop.”

“What’s ‘cutterigsloop’?” whispered Gub-Gub, turning to Jip.

“Sh! – That’s the kind of a ship the man had,” said Jip. “Keep still, can’t you?”

“Oh,” said the pig, “is that all? I thought it was something to drink.”

So the Doctor left the boy to play with the animals in the dining-room, and went upstairs to look for passing porpoises.

And soon a whole school came dancing and jumping through the water, on their way to Brazil.

When they saw the Doctor leaning on the rail of his ship, they came over to see how he was getting on.

And the Doctor asked them if they had seen anything of a man with red hair and an anchor tattooed on his arm.

“Do you mean the master of The Saucy Sally?” asked the porpoises.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “That’s the man. Has he been drowned?”

“His fishing-sloop was sunk,” said the porpoises – “for we saw it lying on the bottom of the sea. But there was nobody inside it, because we went and looked.”

“His little nephew is on the ship with me here,” said the Doctor. “And he is terribly afraid that the pirates threw his uncle into the sea. Would you be so good as to find out for me, for sure, whether he has been drowned or not?”

“Oh, he isn’t drowned,” said the porpoises. “If he were, we would be sure to have heard of it from the deep-sea Decapods. We hear all the salt-water news. The shell-fish call us ‘The Ocean Gossips.’ No – tell the little boy we are sorry we do not know where his uncle is; but we are quite certain he hasn’t been drowned in the sea.”

So the Doctor ran downstairs with the news and told the nephew, who clapped his hands with happiness. And the pushmi-pullyu took the little boy on his back and gave him a ride round the dining-room table; while all the other animals followed behind, beating the dish-covers with spoons, pretending it was a parade.

• • • • •

•   18   •

Smells

Your uncle must now be found,” said the Doctor – “that is the next thing – now that we know he wasn’t thrown into the sea.”

Then Dab-Dab came up to him again and whispered,

“Ask the eagles to look for the man. No living creature can see better than an eagle. When they are miles high in the air they can count the ants crawling on the ground. Ask the eagles.”

So the Doctor sent one of the swallows off to get some eagles.

And in about an hour the little bird came back with six different kinds of eagles: a Black Eagle, a Bald Eagle, a Fish Eagle, a Golden Eagle, an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances here and there and everywhere.

Gub-Gub was scared of them and got behind a barrel. He said he felt as though those terrible eyes were looking right inside of him to see what he had stolen for lunch.

And the Doctor said to the eagles,

“A man has been lost – a fisherman with red hair and an anchor marked on his arm. Would you be so kind as to see if you can find him for us? This boy is the man’s nephew.”

Eagles do not talk very much. And all they answered in their husky voices was,

“You may be sure that we will do our best – for John Dolittle.”

Then they flew off – and Gub-Gub came out from behind his barrel to see them go. Up and up and up they went – higher and higher and higher still. Then, when the Doctor could only just see them, they parted company and started going off all different ways – North, East, South and West, looking like tiny grains of black sand creeping across the wide, blue sky.

“My gracious!” said Gub-Gub in a hushed voice. “What a height! I wonder they don’t scorch their feathers – so near the sun!”

They were gone a long time. And when they came back it was almost night.

And the eagles said to the Doctor,

“We have searched all the seas and all the countries and all the islands and all the cities and all the villages in this half of the world. But we have failed. In the main street of Gibraltar we saw three red hairs lying on a wheel-barrow before a baker’s door. But they were not the hairs of a man – they were the hairs out of a fur-coat. Nowhere, on land or water, could we see any sign of this boy’s uncle. And if we could not see him, then he is not to be seen…. For John Dolittle – we have done our best.”

Then the six great birds flapped their big wings and flew back to their homes in the mountains and the rocks.

“Well,” said Dab-Dab, after they had gone, “what are we going to do now? The boy’s uncle must be found – there’s no two ways about that. The lad isn’t old enough to be knocking around the world by himself. Boys aren’t like ducklings – they have to be taken care of till they’re quite old…. I wish Chee-Chee were here. He would soon find the man. Good old Chee-Chee! I wonder how he’s getting on!”

“If we only had Polynesia with us,” said the white mouse. “She would soon think of some way. Do you remember how she got us all out of prison – the second time? My, but she was a clever one!”

“I don’t think so much of those eagle-fellows,” said Jip. “They’re just conceited. They may have very good eyesight and all that; but when you ask them to find a man for you, they can’t do it – and they have the cheek to come back and say that nobody else could do it. They’re just conceited – like that collie in Puddleby. And I don’t think a whole lot of those gossipy old porpoises either. All they could tell us was that the man isn’t in the sea. We don’t want to know where he isn’t – we want to know where he is.”

“Oh, don’t talk so much,” said Gub-Gub. “It’s easy to talk; but it isn’t so easy to find a man when you have got the whole world to hunt him in. Maybe the fisherman’s hair has turned white, worrying about the boy; and that was why the eagles didn’t find him. You don’t know everything. You’re just talking. You are not doing anything to help. You couldn’t find the boy’s uncle any more than the eagles could – you couldn’t do as well.”

“Couldn’t I?” said the dog. “That’s all you know, you stupid piece of warm bacon! I haven’t begun to try yet, have I? You wait and see!”

Then Jip went to the Doctor and said,

“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?”

So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming.

Jip smelt the ring and said,

“That’s no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his uncle.”

Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.”

As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted,

“Snuff, by Jingo! – Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff – Ask him, Doctor.”

The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.”

“Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. ’Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.”

“But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!”

“I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now – or hot water, it would be different. But snuff! – Tut, tut!”

“Does hot water have a smell?” asked the Doctor.

“Certainly it has,” said Jip. “Hot water smells quite different from cold water. It is warm water – or ice – that has the really difficult smell. Why, I once followed a man for ten miles on a dark night by the smell of the hot water he had used to shave with – for the poor fellow had no soap…. Now then, let us see which way the wind is blowing. Wind is very important in long-distance smelling. It mustn’t be too fierce a wind – and of course it must blow the right way. A nice, steady, damp breeze is the best of all…. Ha! – This wind is from the North.”

Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself,

“Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet rain-coats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed – No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes – hundreds of ’em – cubs; and—”

“Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?” asked the Doctor.

“Why, of course!” said Jip. “And those are only a few of the easy smells – the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I’ll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind – a few of the dainty ones.”

Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.

For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.

“Bricks,” he whispered, very low – “old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote – or perhaps a granary – with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses’ drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and – and – and—”

“Any parsnips?” asked Gub-Gub.

“No,” said Jip. “You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. And no snuff – plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few cigars. But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South.”

“Yes, it’s a poor wind, that,” said Gub-Gub. “I think you’re a fake, Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by smell! I told you you couldn’t do it.”

“Look here,” said Jip, getting really angry. “You’re going to get a bite on the nose in a minute! You needn’t think that just because the Doctor won’t let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as cheeky as you like!”

“Stop quarrelling!” said the Doctor – “Stop it! Life’s too short. Tell me, Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?”

“From Devon and Wales – most of them,” said Jip – “The wind is coming that way.”

“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You know that’s really quite remarkable – quite. I must make a note of that for my new book. I wonder if you could train me to smell as well as that…. But no – perhaps I’m better off the way I am. ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ they say. Let’s go down to supper. I’m quite hungry.”

“So am I,” said Gub-Gub.

• • • • •

•   19   •

The Rock

Up they got, early next morning, out of the silken beds; and they saw that the sun was shining brightly and that the wind was blowing from the South.

Jip smelt the South wind for half an hour. Then he came to the Doctor, shaking his head.

“I smell no snuff as yet,” he said. “We must wait till the wind changes to the East.”

But even when the East wind came, at three o’clock that afternoon, the dog could not catch the smell of snuff.

The little boy was terribly disappointed and began to cry again, saying that no one seemed to be able to find his uncle for him. But all Jip said to the Doctor was,

“Tell him that when the wind changes to the West, I’ll find his uncle even though he be in China – so long as he is still taking Black Rappee snuff.”

Three days they had to wait before the West wind came. This was on a Friday morning, early – just as it was getting light. A fine rainy mist lay on the sea like a thin fog. And the wind was soft and warm and wet.

As soon as Jip awoke he ran upstairs and poked his nose in the air. Then he got most frightfully excited and rushed down again to wake the Doctor up.

“Doctor!” he cried. “I’ve got it! Doctor! Doctor! Wake up! Listen! I’ve got it! The wind’s from the West and it smells of nothing but snuff. Come upstairs and start the ship – quick!”

So the Doctor tumbled out of bed and went to the rudder to steer the ship.

“Now I’ll go up to the front,” said Jip; “and you watch my nose – whichever way I point it, you turn the ship the same way. The man cannot be far off – with the smell as strong as this. And the wind’s all lovely and wet. Now watch me!”

So all that morning Jip stood in the front part of the ship, sniffing the wind and pointing the way for the Doctor to steer; while all the animals and the little boy stood round with their eyes wide open, watching the dog in wonder.

About lunch-time Jip asked Dab-Dab to tell the Doctor that he was getting worried and wanted to speak to him. So Dab-Dab went and fetched the Doctor from the other end of the ship and Jip said to him,

“The boy’s uncle is starving. We must make the ship go as fast as we can.”

“How do you know he is starving?” asked the Doctor.

“Because there is no other smell in the West wind but snuff,” said Jip. “If the man were cooking or eating food of any kind, I would be bound to smell it too. But he hasn’t even fresh water to drink. All he is taking is snuff – in large pinches. We are getting nearer to him all the time, because the smell grows stronger every minute. But make the ship go as fast as you can, for I am certain that the man is starving.”

“All right,” said the Doctor; and he sent Dab-Dab to ask the swallows to pull the ship, the same as they had done when the pirates were chasing them.

So the stout little birds came down and once more harnessed themselves to the ship.

And now the boat went bounding through the waves at a terrible speed. It went so fast that the fishes in the sea had to jump for their lives to get out of the way and not be run over.

And all the animals got tremendously excited; and they gave up looking at Jip and turned to watch the sea in front, to spy out any land or islands where the starving man might be.

But hour after hour went by and still the ship went rushing on, over the same flat, flat sea; and no land anywhere came in sight.

And now the animals gave up chattering and sat around silent, anxious and miserable. The little boy again grew sad. And on Jip’s face there was a worried look.

At last, late in the afternoon, just as the sun was going down, the owl, Too-Too, who was perched on the tip of the mast, suddenly startled them all by crying out at the top of his voice,

“Jip! Jip! I see a great, great rock in front of us – look – way out there where the sky and the water meet. See the sun shine on it – like gold! Is the smell coming from there?”

And Jip called back,

“Yes. That’s it. That is where the man is. – At last, at last!”

And when they got nearer they could see that the rock was very large – as large as a big field. No trees grew on it, no grass – nothing. The great rock was as smooth and as bare as the back of a tortoise.

Then the Doctor sailed the ship right round the rock. But nowhere on it could a man be seen. All the animals screwed up their eyes and looked as hard as they could; and John Dolittle got a telescope from downstairs.

But not one living thing could they spy – not even a gull, nor a star-fish, nor a shred of seaweed.

They all stood still and listened, straining their ears for any sound. But the only noise they heard was the gentle lapping of the little waves against the sides of their ship.

Then they all started calling, “Hulloa, there! – HULLOA!” till their voices were hoarse. But only the echo came back from the rock.

And the little boy burst into tears and said,

“I am afraid I shall never see my uncle any more! What shall I tell them when I get home!”

But Jip called to the Doctor,

“He must be there – he must – he must! The smell goes on no further. He must be there, I tell you! Sail the ship close to the rock and let me jump out on it.”

So the Doctor brought the ship as close as he could and let down the anchor. Then he and Jip got out of the ship on to the rock.

Jip at once put his nose down close to the ground and began to run all over the place. Up and down he went, back and forth – zig-zagging, twisting, doubling and turning. And everywhere he went, the Doctor ran behind him, close at his heels – till he was terribly out of breath.

At last Jip let out a great bark and sat down. And when the Doctor came running up to him, he found the dog staring into a big, deep hole in the middle of the rock.

“The boy’s uncle is down there,” said Jip quietly. “No wonder those silly eagles couldn’t see him! – It takes a dog to find a man.”

So the Doctor got down into the hole, which seemed to be a kind of cave, or tunnel, running a long way under the ground. Then he struck a match and started to make his way along the dark passage with Jip following behind.

The Doctor’s match soon went out; and he had to strike another and another and another.

At last the passage came to an end; and the Doctor found himself in a kind of tiny room with walls of rock.

And there, in the middle of the room, his head resting on his arms, lay a man with very red hair – fast asleep!

Jip went up and sniffed at something lying on the ground beside him. The Doctor stooped and picked it up. It was an enormous snuffbox. And it was full of Black Rappee!

• • • • •

•   20   •

The Fisherman’s Town

Gently then – very gently, the Doctor woke the man up.

But just at that moment the match went out again. And the man thought it was Ben Ali coming back, and he began to punch the Doctor in the dark.

But when John Dolittle told him who it was, and that he had his little nephew safe on his ship, the man was tremendously glad, and said he was sorry he had fought the Doctor. He had not hurt him much though – because it was too dark to punch properly. Then he gave the Doctor a pinch of snuff.

And the man told how the Barbary Dragon had put him on to this rock and left him there, when he wouldn’t promise to become a pirate; and how he used to sleep down in this hole because there was no house on the rock to keep him warm.

And then he said,

“For four days I have had nothing to eat or drink. I have lived on snuff.”

“There you are!” said Jip. “What did I tell you?”

So they struck some more matches and made their way out through the passage into the daylight; and the Doctor hurried the man down to the boat to get some soup.

When the animals and the little boy saw the Doctor and Jip coming back to the ship with a red-headed man, they began to cheer and yell and dance about the boat. And the swallows up above started whistling at the top of their voices – thousands and millions of them – to show that they too were glad that the boy’s brave uncle had been found. The noise they made was so great that sailors far out at sea thought that a terrible storm was coming. “Hark to that gale howling in the East!” they said.

And Jip was awfully proud of himself – though he tried hard not to look conceited. When Dab-Dab came to him and said, “Jip, I had no idea you were so clever!” he just tossed his head and answered,

“Oh, that’s nothing special. But it takes a dog to find a man, you know. Birds are no good for a game like that.”

Then the Doctor asked the red-haired fisherman where his home was. And when he had told him, the Doctor asked the swallows to guide the ship there first.

And when they had come to the land which the man had spoken of, they saw a little fishing-town at the foot of a rocky mountain; and the man pointed out the house where he lived.

And while they were letting down the anchor, the little boy’s mother (who was also the man’s sister) came running down to the shore to meet them, laughing and crying at the same time. She had been sitting on a hill for twenty days, watching the sea and waiting for them to return.

And she kissed the Doctor many times, so that he giggled and blushed like a school-girl. And she tried to kiss Jip too; but he ran away and hid inside the ship.

“It’s a silly business, this kissing,” he said. “I don’t hold by it. Let her go and kiss Gub-Gub – if she must kiss something.”

The fisherman and his sister didn’t want the Doctor to go away again in a hurry. They begged him to spend a few days with them. So John Dolittle and his animals had to stay at their house a whole Saturday and Sunday and half of Monday.

And all the little boys of the fishing-village went down to the beach and pointed at the great ship anchored there, and said to one another in whispers,

“Look! That was a pirate-ship – Ben Ali’s – the most terrible pirate that ever sailed the Seven Seas! That old gentleman with the high hat, who’s staying up at Mrs. Trevelyan’s, he took the ship away from The Barbary Dragon – and made him into a farmer. Who’d have thought it of him – him so gentle-like and all! … Look at the great red sails! Ain’t she the wicked-looking ship – and fast? – My!”

All those two days and a half that the Doctor stayed at the little fishing-town the people kept asking him out to teas and luncheons and dinners and parties; all the ladies sent him boxes of flowers and candies; and the village-band played tunes under his window every night.

At last the Doctor said,

“Good people, I must go home now. You have really been most kind. I shall always remember it. But I must go home – for I have things to do.”

Then, just as the Doctor was about to leave, the Mayor of the town came down the street and a lot of other people in grand clothes with him. And the Mayor stopped before the house where the Doctor was living; and everybody in the village gathered round to see what was going to happen.

After six page-boys had blown on shining trumpets to make the people stop talking, the Doctor came out on to the steps and the Mayor spoke,

“Doctor John Dolittle,” said he: “It is a great pleasure for me to present to the man who rid the seas of the Dragon of Barbary this little token from the grateful people of our worthy Town.”

And the Mayor took from his pocket a little tissue-paper packet, and opening it, he handed to the Doctor a perfectly beautiful watch with real diamonds in the back.

Then the Mayor pulled out of his pocket a still larger parcel and said,

“Where is the dog?”

Then everybody started to hunt for Jip. And at last Dab-Dab found him on the other side of the village in a stable-yard, where all the dogs of the country-side were standing round him speechless with admiration and respect.

When Jip was brought to the Doctor’s side, the Mayor opened the larger parcel; and inside was a dog-collar made of solid gold! And a great murmur of wonder went up from the village-folk as the Mayor bent down and fastened it round the dog’s neck with his own hands.

For written on the collar in big letters were these words: “JIP – The Cleverest Dog in the World.”

Then the whole crowd moved down to the beach to see them off. And after the red-haired fisherman and his sister and the little boy had thanked the Doctor and his dog over and over and over again, the great, swift ship with the red sails was turned once more towards Puddleby and they sailed out to sea, while the village-band played music on the shore.

• • • • •

•   21   •

Home Again

March winds had come and gone; April’s showers were over; May’s buds had opened into flower; and the June sun was shining on the pleasant fields, when John Dolittle at last got back to his own country.

But he did not yet go home to Puddleby. First he went travelling through the land with the pushmi-pullyu in a gipsy-wagon, stopping at all the country-fairs. And there, with the acrobats on one side of them and the Punch-and-Judy show on the other, they would hang out a big sign which read, “Come and See the Marvelous Two-Headed Animal from the Jungles of Africa.  ADMISSION: Sixpence.”

And the pushmi-pullyu would stay inside the wagon, while the other animals would lie about underneath. The Doctor sat in a chair in front taking the sixpences and smiling on the people as they went in; and Dab-Dab was kept busy all the time scolding him because he would let the children in for nothing when she wasn’t looking.

And menagerie-keepers and circus-men came and asked the Doctor to sell them the strange creature, saying they would pay a tremendous lot of money for him. But the Doctor always shook his head and said,

“No. The pushmi-pullyu shall never be shut up in a cage. He shall be free always to come and go, like you and me.”

Many curious sights and happenings they saw in this wandering life; but they all seemed quite ordinary after the great things they had seen and done in foreign lands. It was very interesting at first, being sort of part of a circus; but after a few weeks they all got dreadfully tired of it and the Doctor and all of them were longing to go home.

But so many people came flocking to the little wagon and paid the sixpence to go inside and see the pushmi-pullyu that very soon the Doctor was able to give up being a showman.

And one fine day, when the hollyhocks were in full bloom, he came back to Puddleby a rich man, to live in the little house with the big garden.

And the old lame horse in the stable was glad to see him; and so were the swallows who had already built their nests under the eaves of his roof and had young ones. And Dab-Dab was glad, too, to get back to the house she knew so well – although there was a terrible lot of dusting to be done, with cobwebs everywhere.

And after Jip had gone and shown his golden collar to the conceited collie next-door, he came back and began running round the garden like a crazy thing, looking for the bones he had buried long ago, and chasing the rats out of the tool-shed; while Gub-Gub dug up the horse-radish which had grown three feet high in the corner by the garden-wall.

And the Doctor went and saw the sailor who had lent him the boat, and he bought two new ships for him and a rubber-doll for his baby and he paid the grocer for the food he had lent him for the journey to Africa. And he bought another piano and put the white mice back in it – because they said the bureau-drawer was draughty.

Even when the Doctor had filled the old money-box on the dresser-shelf, he still had a lot of money left; and he had to get three more money-boxes, just as big, to put the rest in.

“Money,” he said, “is a terrible nuisance. But it’s nice not to have to worry.”

“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, who was toasting muffins for his tea, “it is indeed!”

And when the Winter came again, and the snow flew against the kitchen-window, the Doctor and his animals would sit round the big, warm fire after supper; and he would read aloud to them out of his books.

But far away in Africa, where the monkeys chattered in the palm-trees before they went to bed under the big yellow moon, they would say to one another,

“I wonder what The Good Man’s doing now – over there, in the Land of the White Men! Do you think he ever will come back?”

And Polynesia would squeak out from the vines,

“I think he will – I guess he will – I hope he will!”

And then the crocodile would grunt up at them from the black mud of the river,

“I’m SURE he will – Go to sleep!”

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s
Post Office

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

1 … Zuzana
2 … The Doctor’s Reception
3 … A Great Gunner
4 … The Royal Mails of Fantippo
5 … The Voyage Delayed
6 … No-Man’s-Land
7 … The Animals’ Paradise
8 … The Swiftest Mail in the World

PART TWO

1 … A Most Unusual Post Office
2 … Cheapside
3 … The Birds that Helped Columbus
4 … Cape Stephen Light
5 … Gulls and Ships
6 … Weather Bureaus
7 … Teaching by Mail

PART THREE

1 … The Animals’ Magazine
2 … The Doctor’s Story
3 … Gub-Gub’s Story
4 … Dab-Dab’s Story
5 … The White Mouse’s Story
6 … Jip’s Story
7 … Too-Too’s Story
8 … The Pushmi-Pullyu’s Story

PART FOUR

1 … Parcel Post
2 … The Great Mail Robbery
3 … Pearls and Brussels Sprouts
4 … Pearl Divers
5 … Obombo’s Rebellion
6 … The Doctor’s Release
7 … A Mysterious Letter
8 … The Land of the Mangrove Swamps
9 … The Secret Lake
10 … The Postmaster General’s Last Order
11 … Goodbye to Fantippo

• • • • •

Prologue

Nearly all of the history of Doctor Dolittle’s post office took place when he was returning from a voyage to West Africa. Therefore I will begin (as soon as I have told you a little about how he came to take the journey) from where he turned his ship towards home again and set sail for Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

Some time before this the pushmi-pullyu, after a long stay in England, had grown a little homesick for Africa. And although he was tremendously fond of the Doctor and never wanted to leave him altogether, he asked him one winter day when the weather was particularly cold and disagreeable if he would mind running down to Africa for a holiday – just for a week or two.

The Doctor readily agreed because he hadn’t been on a voyage in a long while and he felt he too needed a change from the chilly December days of England.

So he started off. Besides the pushmi-pullyu, he took Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the pig, Too-Too the owl, and the white mouse – the same good company he had had with him on his adventurous return from the Land of the Monkeys. For this trip the Doctor bought a little sailing boat – very old and battered and worn, but a good sound craft for bad weather.

They sailed away down to the south coast of the Bight of Benin. There they visited many African kingdoms and strange tribes. And while they were ashore the pushmi-pullyu had a chance to wander freely through his old grazing grounds. And he enjoyed his holiday thoroughly.

One morning the Doctor was delighted to see his old friends the swallows gathering once more about his ship at anchor for their yearly flight to England. They asked him whether he too was returning; because if so, they said, they would accompany him, the same as they had done when he was escaping from the Kingdom of Jolliginki.

As the pushmi-pullyu was now quite ready to leave, the Doctor thanked the swallows and told them he would be delighted to have their company. Then for the remainder of that day all was hustle and hurry and bustle, getting the ship provisioned and making preparations for the long trip back to England.

By the following morning everything was in readiness to put to sea. The anchor was drawn up and with all sail set the Doctor’s ship moved northward before a favourable wind. And it is from this point that my story begins.

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

Zuzana

One morning in the first week of the return voyage when John Dolittle and his animals were all sitting at breakfast round the big table in the cabin, one of the swallows came down and said that he wanted to speak to the Doctor.

John Dolittle at once left the table and went out into the passage where he found the swallow-leader himself, a very neat, trim, little bird with long, long wings and sharp, snappy, black eyes. Speedy-the-Skimmer he was called – a name truly famous throughout the whole of the feathered world. He was the champion flycatcher and aerial acrobat of Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. For years every summer he had won all the flying races, having broken his own record only last year by crossing the Atlantic in eleven and a half hours – at a speed of over two hundred miles an hour.

“Well, Speedy,” said John Dolittle. “What is it?”

“Doctor,” said the little bird in a mysterious whisper, “we have sighted a canoe about a mile ahead of the ship and a little to the eastward, with only a black woman in it. She is weeping bitterly and isn’t paddling the canoe at all. She is several miles from land – ten, at least, I should say – because at the moment we are crossing the Bay of Fantippo and can only just see the shore of Africa. She is really in dangerous straits, with such a little bit of a boat that far out at sea. But she doesn’t seem to care. She’s just sitting in the bottom of the canoe, crying as if she didn’t mind what happens to her. I wish you would come and speak to her, for we fear she is in great trouble.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Fly slowly on to where the canoe is and I will steer the ship to follow you.”

So John Dolittle went up on deck and by steering the boat after the guiding swallows he presently saw a small, dark canoe rising and falling on the waves. It looked so tiny on the wide face of the waters that it could be taken for a log or a stick – or, indeed, missed altogether, unless you were close enough to see it. In the canoe sat a woman with her head bowed down upon her knees.

“What’s the matter?” shouted the Doctor, as soon as he was near enough to make the woman hear. “Why have you come so far from the land? Don’t you know that you are in great danger if a storm should come up?”

Slowly the woman raised her head.

“Go away,” said she, “and leave me to my sorrow. Haven’t you white men done me enough harm?”

John Dolittle steered the boat up closer still and continued to talk to the woman in a kindly way. But she seemed for a long time to mistrust him because he was a white man. Little by little, however, the Doctor won her confidence and at last, still weeping bitterly, she told him her story.

These were the days, you must understand, when slavery was being done away with. To capture, to buy or to sell slaves had, in fact, been strictly forbidden by most governments. But certain bad men still came down to the west coast of Africa and captured or bought slaves secretly and took them away in ships to other lands to work on cotton and tobacco plantations. Some African kings sold prisoners they had taken in war to these men and made a great deal of money that way.

Well, this woman in the canoe belonged to a tribe which had been at war with the king of Fantippo – an African kingdom situated on the coast near which the swallows had seen the canoe.

And in this war the King of Fantippo had taken many prisoners, among whom was the woman’s husband. Shortly after the war was over some white men in a ship had called at the Kingdom of Fantippo to see if they could buy slaves for tobacco plantations. And when the king heard how much money they were willing to give for black slaves he thought he would sell them the prisoners he had taken in the war.

This woman’s name was Zuzana and her husband was a very strong and fine-looking man. The King of Fantippo would have kept Zuzana’s husband for this reason, because he liked to have strong men at his court. But the slave traders also wanted strong men, for they could do a lot of work on the plantations. And they offered the King of Fantippo a specially high price for Zuzana’s husband. And the king had sold him.

Zuzana described to the Doctor how she had followed the white man’s ship a long way out in a canoe, imploring them to give her back her husband. But they had only laughed at her and gone on their way. And their ship had soon passed out of sight.

That was why, she said, she hated all white men and had not wanted to speak to the Doctor when he had hailed her canoe.

The Doctor was dreadfully angry when he had heard the story. And he asked Zuzana how long ago was it that the slaver’s ship bearing her husband had left.

She told him it was half an hour ago. Without her husband, she said, life meant nothing to her, and when the ship had passed from view, going northward along the coast, she had burst into tears and just let the canoe drift, not even having the heart to paddle back to land.

The Doctor told the woman that no matter what it cost he was going to help her. And he was all for speeding up his ship and going in chase of the slave boat right away. But Dab-Dab the duck warned him that his boat was very slow and that its sails could be easily seen by the slavers, who would never allow it to come near them.

So the Doctor put down his anchor and, leaving the ship where it was, got into the woman’s canoe. Then, calling to the swallows to help him as guides, he set off northward along the coast, looking into all the bays and behind all the islands for the slave ship which had taken Zuzana’s husband.

But after many hours of fruitless search night began to come on and the swallows who were acting as guides could no longer see big distances, for there was no moon.

Poor Zuzana began weeping some more when the Doctor said he would have to give up for the night.

“By morning,” said she, “the ship of the wicked slave dealers will be many miles away and I shall never get my husband back. Alas! Alas!”

The Doctor comforted her as best he could, saying that if he failed he would get her another husband, just as good. But she didn’t seem to care for that idea and went on wailing, “Alas! Alas!”

She made such a noise that the Doctor couldn’t get to sleep on the bottom of the canoe – which wasn’t very comfortable, anyway. So he had to sit up and listen. Some of the swallows were still with him, sitting on the edge of the canoe. And the famous Skimmer, the leader, was also there. They and the Doctor were talking over what they could do, when suddenly the Skimmer said, “Sh! Look!” and pointed out to the westward over the dark, heaving sea.

Even Zuzana stopped her wailing and turned to look. And there, away out on the dim, black edge of the ocean, they could see a tiny light.

“A ship!” cried the Doctor.

“Yes,” said Speedy, “that’s a ship, sure enough. I wonder if it’s another slave ship.”

“Well, if it’s a slave ship, it’s not the one we’re looking for,” said the Doctor, “because it’s in the wrong direction. The one we’re after went northward.”

“Listen, Doctor,” said Speedy-the-Skimmer, “suppose I fly over to it and see what kind of a ship it is and come back and tell you. Who knows? It might be able to help us.”

“All right, Speedy. Thank you,” said the Doctor.

So the Skimmer sped off into the darkness toward the tiny light far out to sea, while the Doctor fell to wondering how his own ship was getting on which he had left at anchor some miles down the coast to the southward.

After twenty minutes had gone by John Dolittle began to get worried, because the Skimmer, with his tremendous speed, should have had time to get there and back long ago.

But soon with a flirt of the wings the famous leader made a neat circle in the darkness overhead and dropped, light as a feather, on to the Doctor’s knee.

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “what kind of a ship was it?”

“It’s a big ship,” panted the Skimmer, “with tall, high masts and, I should judge, a fast one. But it is coming this way and it is sailing with great care, afraid, I imagine, of shallows and sandbars. It is a very neat ship, smart and new-looking all over. And there are great big guns – cannons – looking out of little doors in her sides. The men on her, too, are all well dressed in smart blue clothes – not like ordinary seamen at all. And on the ship’s hull was painted some lettering – her name, I suppose. Of course, I couldn’t read it. But I remember what it looked like. Give me your hand and I’ll show you.”

Then the Skimmer, with one of his claws, began tracing out some letters on the Doctor’s palm. Before he had got very far John Dolittle sprang up, nearly overturning the canoe.

“H. M. S.!” he cried. “That means Her Majesty’s Ship. It’s a man-o’-war – a navy vessel. The very thing we want to deal with slave traders!”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Doctor’s Reception
on the Warship

Then the Doctor and Zuzana started to paddle their canoe for all they were worth in the direction of the light. The night was calm, but the long swell of the ocean swung the little canoe up and down like a seesaw and it needed all Zuzana’s skill to keep it in a straight line.

After about an hour had gone by the Doctor noticed that the ship they were trying to reach was no longer coming toward them, but seemed to have stopped. And when he finally came up beneath its towering shape in the darkness he saw the reason why – the man-o’-war had run into his own ship, which he had left at anchor with no lights. However, the navy vessel had fortunately been going so carefully that no serious damage, it seemed, had been done to either ship.

Finding a rope ladder hanging on the side of the man-o’-war, John Dolittle climbed up it, with Zuzana, and went aboard to see the Captain.

He found the Captain strutting the quarterdeck, mumbling to himself.

“Good evening,” said the Doctor politely. “Nice weather we’re having.”

The Captain came up to him and shook his fist in his face.

“Are you the owner of that Noah’s Ark down there?” he stormed, pointing to the other ship alongside.

“Er – yes – temporarily,” said the Doctor. “Why?”

“Well, will you be so good,” snarled the Captain, his face all out of shape with rage, “as to tell me what in thunder you mean by leaving your old junk at anchor on a dark night without any lights? What kind of a sailor are you? Here I bring Her Majesty’s latest cruiser after Jimmie Bones, the slave trader – been hunting him for weeks, I have – and, as though the beastly coast wasn’t difficult enough as it is, I bump into a craft riding at anchor with no lights. Luckily, I was going slow, taking soundings, or we might have gone down with all hands. I hallooed to your ship and got no answer. So I go aboard her, with pistols ready, thinking maybe she’s a slaver, trying to play tricks on me. I creep all over the ship, but not a soul do I meet. At last in the cabin I find a pig – asleep in an armchair! Do you usually leave your craft in the charge of a pig, with orders to go to sleep? If you own the ship, why aren’t you on her? Where have you been?”

“I was out canoeing with a lady,” said the Doctor, and he smiled comfortingly at Zuzana, who was beginning to weep again.

“Canoeing with a lady!” spluttered the Captain. “Well, I’ll be—”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Let me introduce you. This is Zuzana, Captain – er—”

But the Captain interrupted him by calling for a sailor, who stood near.

“I’ll teach you to leave Noah’s arks at anchor on the high seas for the navy to bump into, my fine deep-sea philanderer! Think the shipping laws are made for a joke? Here,” he turned to the sailor, who had come in answer to his call, “Master-at-arms, put this man under arrest.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the master-at-arms. And before the Doctor knew it he had handcuffs fastened firmly on his wrists.

“But this lady was in distress,” said the Doctor. “I was in such a hurry I forgot all about lighting the ship. In fact, it wasn’t dark yet when I left.”

“Take him below!” roared the Captain. “Take him below before I kill him.”

And the poor Doctor was dragged away by the Master-at-arms toward a stair leading to the lower decks. But at the head of the stairs he caught hold of the handrail and hung on long enough to shout back to the Captain:

“I could tell you where Jimmie Bones is, if I wanted to.”

“What’s that?” snorted the Captain. “Here, bring him back! What was that you said?”

“I said,” murmured the Doctor, getting his handkerchief out and blowing his nose with his handcuffed hands, “that I could tell you where Jimmie Bones is – if I wanted to.”

“Jimmie Bones, the slaver?” cried the Captain. “That’s the man the government has sent me after. Where is he?”

“My memory doesn’t work very well while my hands are tied,” said the Doctor quietly, nodding toward the handcuffs. “Possibly if you took these things off I might remember.”

“Oh, excuse me,” said the Captain, his manner changing at once. “Master-at-arms, release the prisoner.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the sailor, removing the handcuffs from the Doctor’s wrists and turning to go.

“Oh, and by the way,” the Captain called after him, “bring a chair up on deck. Perhaps our visitor is tired.”

Then John Dolittle told the Captain the whole story of Zuzana and her troubles. And all the other officers on the ship gathered around to listen.

“And I have no doubt,” the Doctor ended, “that this slaver who took away the woman’s husband was no other than Jimmie Bones, the man you are after.”

“Quite so,” said the Captain. “I know he is somewhere around the coast. But where is he now? He’s a difficult fish to catch.”

“He has gone northward,” said the Doctor. “But your ship is fast and should be able to overtake him. If he hides in some of these bays and creeks I have several birds here with me who can, as soon as it is light, seek him out for us and tell us where he is.”

The Captain looked with astonishment into the faces of his listening officers, who all smiled unbelievingly.

“What do you mean – birds?” the Captain asked. “Pigeons – trained canaries, or something?”

“No,” said the Doctor, “I mean the swallows who are going back to England for the summer. They very kindly offered to guide my ship home. They’re friends of mine, you see.”

This time the officers all burst out laughing and tapped their foreheads knowingly, to show they thought the Doctor was crazy. And the Captain, thinking he was being made a fool of, flew into a rage once more and was all for having the Doctor arrested again.

But the officer who was second in command whispered in the Captain’s ear:

“Why not take the old fellow along and let him try, Sir? Our course was northward, anyway. I seem to remember hearing something, when I was attached to the Home Fleet, about an old chap in the west counties who had some strange powers with beasts and birds. I have no doubt this is he. Dolittle, he was called. He seems harmless enough. There’s just a chance he may be of some assistance to us. The natives evidently trust him or the woman wouldn’t have come with him – you know how scared they are of putting to sea with a white man.”

After a moment’s thought the Captain turned to the Doctor again.

“You sound clean crazy to me, my good man. But if you can put me in the way of capturing Jimmie Bones the slaver I don’t care what means you use to do it. As soon as the day breaks we will get under way. But if you are just amusing yourself at the expense of Her Majesty’s Navy I warn you it will be the worst day’s work for yourself you ever did. Now go and put riding lights on that ark of yours and tell the pig that if he lets them go out he shall be made into rashers of bacon for the officers’ mess.”

There was much laughter and joking as the Doctor climbed over the side and went back to his own ship to get his lights lit. But the next morning when he came back to the man-o’-war – and about a thousand swallows came with him – the officers of Her Majesty’s Navy were not nearly so inclined to make fun of him.

The sun was just rising over the distant coast of Africa and it was as beautiful a morning as you could wish to see.

Speedy-the-Skimmer had arranged plans with the Doctor overnight. And long before the great warship pulled up her anchor and swung around upon her course the famous swallow leader was miles ahead, with a band of picked hunters, exploring up creeks and examining all the hollows of the coast where the slave trader might be hiding.

Speedy had agreed with the Doctor upon a sort of overhead telegraph system to be carried on by the swallows. And as soon as the millions of little birds had spread themselves out in a line along the coast, so that the sky was speckled with them as far as the eye could reach, they began passing messages, by whistling to one another, all the way from the scouts in front back to the Doctor on the warship, to give news of how the hunt was progressing.

And somewhere about noon word came through that Bones’s slave ship had been sighted behind a long, high cape. Great care must be taken, the message said, because the slave ship was in all readiness to sail at a moment’s notice. The slavers had only stopped to get water and look-outs were posted to warn them to return at once, if necessary.

When the Doctor told this to the Captain the man-o’-war changed her course still closer inshore, to keep behind the cover of the long cape. All the sailors were warned to keep very quiet, so the navy ship could sneak up on the slaver unawares.

Now, the Captain, expecting the slavers to put up a fight, also gave orders to get the guns ready. And just as they were about to round the long cape one of the silly gunners let a gun off by accident.

“Boom!” … The shot went rolling and echoing over the silent sea like angry thunder.

Instantly back came word over the swallows’ telegraph line that the slavers were warned and were escaping. And, sure enough, when the warship rounded the cape at last, there was the slave ship putting out to sea, with all sail set and a good ten-mile start on the man-o’-war.

• • • • •

•   3   •

A Great Gunner

And then began a most exciting sea race. It was now two o’clock in the afternoon and there were not many hours of daylight left.

The Captain (after he had done swearing at the stupid gunner who had let off the gun by accident) realized that if he did not catch up to the slaver before dark came on he would probably lose him altogether. For this Jim Bones was a very sly and clever rascal and he knew the West Coast of Africa (it is sometimes called to this day The Slave Coast) very well. After dark by running without lights he would easily find some nook or corner to hide in – or double back on his course and be miles away before morning came.

So the Captain gave orders that all possible speed was to be made. These were the days when steam was first used on ships. But at the beginning it was only used together with the sails, to help the power of the wind. Of this vessel, H. M. S. Violet, the Captain was very proud. And he was most anxious that the Violet should have the honour of catching Bones the slaver, who for so long had been defying the navy by carrying on slave trade after it had been forbidden. So the Violet’s steam engines were put to work their hardest. And thick, black smoke rolled out of her funnels and darkened the blue sea and smudged up her lovely white sails humming tight in the breeze.

Then the engine boy, also anxious that his ship should have the honour of capturing Bones, tied down the safety valve on the steam engine, to make her go faster, and then went up on deck to see the show. And soon, of course, one of the Violet’s brand new boilers burst with a terrific bang and made an awful mess of the engine room.

But, being a full-rigged man-o’-war, the Violet was still a pretty speedy sailer. And on she went, furiously ploughing the waves and slowly gaining on the slave ship.

However, the crafty Bones, with so big a start, was not easy to overtake. And soon the sun began to set and the Captain frowned and stamped his feet. For with darkness he knew his enemy would be safe.

Down below among the crew, the man who had fired the gun by accident was having a terrible time. All his companions were setting on him and mobbing him for being such a duffer as to warn Bones – who would now almost certainly escape. The distance from the slaver was still too great to use the kind of guns they had in those days. But when the Captain saw darkness creeping over the sea and his enemy escaping, he gave orders to man the guns, anyway – although he hadn’t the least hope that his shots would hit the slaver at that distance.

Now, Speedy-the-Skimmer, as soon as the race had begun, had come on to the warship to take a rest. And he happened to be talking to the Doctor when the order to man the guns came down from the Captain. So the Doctor and Speedy went below to watch the guns being fired.

They found an air of quiet but great excitement there. Each gunner was leaning on his gun, aiming it, watching the enemy’s ship in the distance and waiting for the order to fire. The poor man who had been mobbed by his fellows was still almost in tears at his own stupid mistake.

Suddenly an officer shouted “Fire!” And with a crash that shook the ship from stem to stern eight big cannon balls went whistling out across the water.

But not one hit the slave ship. Splash! Splash! Splash! They fell harmlessly into the water.

“The light’s too bad,” grumbled the gunners. “Who could hit anything two miles away in this rotten light?”

Then Speedy whispered in the Doctor’s ear: “Ask them to let me fire a gun. My sight is better than theirs for bad light.”

But just at that moment the order came from the Captain, “Cease firing!” And the men left their places.

As soon as their backs were turned Speedy jumped on top of one of the guns and, straddling his short, white legs apart, he cast his beady little black eyes along the aiming sights. Then with his wings he signalled to the Doctor behind him to swing the gun this way and that, so as to aim it the way he wanted.

“Fire!” said Speedy. And the Doctor fired.

“What in thunder’s this?” roared the Captain from the quarterdeck as the shot rang out. “Didn’t I give the order to cease firing?”

But the second in command plucked him by the sleeve and pointed across the water. Speedy’s cannon ball had cut the slaver’s mainmast clean in two and brought the sails down in a heap upon the deck!

“Holy smoke!” cried the Captain. “We’ve hit him! Look, Bones is flying the signal of surrender!”

Then the Captain, who a moment before was all for punishing the man who had fired without orders, wanted to know who it was that aimed that marvelous shot which brought the slaver to a standstill. And the Doctor was going to tell him it was Speedy. But the Skimmer whispered in his ear:

“Don’t bother, Doctor. He would never believe you, anyway. It was the gun of the man that made the mistake before that we used. Let him take the credit. They’ll likely give him a medal, and then he’ll feel better.”

And now all was excitement aboard the Violet as they approached the slave boat lying crippled in the sea. Bones, the captain, with his crew of eleven other ruffians, was taken prisoner and put down in the cells of the warship. Then the Doctor, with Zuzana, some sailors and an officer, went on to the slave ship. Entering the hold, they found the place packed with slaves with chains on them. And Zuzana immediately recognized her husband and wept all over him with joy.

The black men were at once freed from their chains and brought on to the man-o’-war. Then the slave ship was taken in tow by the Violet. And that was the end of Mr. Bones’s slave trading.

Then there was much rejoicing and hand-shaking and congratulation on board the warship. And a grand dinner was prepared for the slaves on the main deck. But John Dolittle, Zuzana and her husband were invited to the officers’ mess, where their health was drunk in port wine and speeches were made by the Captain and the Doctor.

The next day, as soon as it was light, the warship went cruising down the coast again, putting the black people ashore in their own particular countries.

This took considerable time, because Bones, it seemed, had collected slaves from a great many different tribes. And it was after noon before the Doctor, with Zuzana and her husband, were returned to John Dolittle’s ship, who still had her lights faithfully burning in the middle of the day.

Then the Captain shook hands with the Doctor and thanked him for the great assistance he had given Her Majesty’s Navy. And he asked him for his address in England, because he said he was going to tell the government about him and the Queen would most likely want to make him a knight or give him a medal or something. But the Doctor said he would rather have a pound of tea instead. He hadn’t tasted tea in several months and the kind they had in the officers’ mess was very good.

So the Captain gave him five pounds of the best China tea and thanked him again in the name of the Queen and the government.

Then the Violet swung her great bow around to the north once more and sailed away for England, while the bluejackets crowded the rail and sent three hearty cheers for the Doctor ringing across the sea.

And now Jip, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub, Too-Too and the rest of them gathered around John Dolittle and wanted to hear all about his adventures. And it was tea time before he had done telling them. So the Doctor asked Zuzana and her husband to take tea with him before they went ashore.

This they were glad to do. And the Doctor made the tea himself and it was very excellent. Over the tea Zuzana and her husband (whose name was Begwe) were conversing about the Kingdom of Fantippo.

“I don’t think we ought to go back there,” said Begwe. “I don’t mind being a soldier in the Fantippo army, but suppose some other slaver comes along. Maybe the king would sell me again. Did you send that letter to our cousin?”

“Yes,” said Zuzana. “But I don’t think he ever got it. Because no answer came.”

The Doctor asked Zuzana how she had sent the letter. And then she explained to him that when Bones had offered a big price for Begwe and the king had been tempted to sell him she had told the king she would get twelve oxen and thirty goats from a rich cousin in their own country if he would only wait till she had written to him. Now, the King of Fantippo was very fond of oxen and goats – cattle being considered as good as money in his land. And he promised Zuzana that if she got the twelve oxen and thirty goats in two days’ time her husband should be a free man, instead of being sold to the slavers.

So Zuzana had hurried to a professional letter writer (the common people of those tribes couldn’t write for themselves, you see) and had a letter written, begging their cousin to send the goats and oxen to the king without delay. Then she had taken the letter to the Fantippo post office and sent it off.

But the two days went by and no answer came – and no cattle. Then poor Begwe had been sold to Bones’s men.

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Royal Mails of Fantippo

Now, this Fantippo post office of which Zuzana had spoken to the Doctor was rather peculiar. For one thing, it was, of course, quite unusual to find a post office or regular mails of any kind in a savage African kingdom. And the way such a thing had come about was this:

A few years before this voyage of the Doctor’s there had been a great deal of talk in most civilized parts of the world about mails and how much it should cost for a letter to go from one country to another. And in England a man called Rowland Hill had started what was called “The Penny Postage,” and it had been agreed that a penny a letter should be the regular rate charge for mails from one part of the British Isles to another. Of course, for specially heavy letters you had to pay more. Then stamps were made, penny stamps, twopenny stamps, twopence-halfpenny stamps, sixpenny stamps and shilling stamps. And each was a different colour and they were beautifully engraved and most of them had a picture of the Queen on them – some with her crown on her head and some without.

And France and the United States and all the other countries started doing the same thing – only their stamps were counted in their own money, of course, and had different kings or queens or presidents on them.

Very well, then. Now, it happened one day that a ship called at the coast of West Africa, and delivered a letter for Koko, the King of Fantippo. King Koko had never seen a stamp before and, sending for a white merchant who lived in his town, he asked him what queen’s face was this on the stamp which the letter bore.

Then the white merchant explained to him the whole idea of penny postage and government mails. And he told him that in England all you had to do when you wanted to send a letter to any part of the world was to put a stamp on the envelope with the queen’s head on it and place it in a letter-box on the street corner, and it would be carried to the place to which you addressed it.

“Ah, hah!” said the King. “A new kind of magic. I understand. Very good. The High Kingdom of Fantippo shall have a post office of its own. And my serene and beautiful face shall be on all the stamps and my letters shall travel by faster magic than any of them.”

Then King Koko of Fantippo, being a very vain man, had a fine lot of stamps made with his pictures on them, some with his crown on and some without; some smiling, some frowning; some with himself on horseback, some with himself on a bicycle. But the stamp which he was most proud of was the tenpenny stamp which bore a picture of himself playing golf – a game which he had just recently learned from some Scotchmen who were mining for gold in his kingdom.

And he had letter-boxes made, just the way the white trader had told him they had in England, and he set them up at the corners of the streets and told his people that all they had to do was to put one of his stamps on their letters, poke them into these boxes and they would travel to any corner of the earth they wished.

But presently the people began complaining that they had been robbed. They had paid good money for the stamps, they said, trusting in their magic power, and they had put their letters in the boxes at the corners of the streets as they had been told. But one day a cow had rubbed her neck against one of the letter boxes and burst it open, and inside there were all the people’s letters, which had not travelled one inch from where they put them!

Then the king was very angry and, calling for the white trader, he said:

“You have been fooling My Majesty. These stamps you speak of have no magic power at all. Explain!”

Then the trader told him that it was not through magic in the stamps or boxes that letters travelled by mail. But proper post offices had mail-men, or postmen, who collected the letters out of these boxes. And he went on to explain to the King all the other duties of a post office and the things that made letters go.

So then the King, who was a persevering man, said that Fantippo should have its post office, anyway. And he sent to England for hundreds of postmen’s uniforms and caps. And when these arrived he dressed a lot of black men up in them and set them to work as postmen.

But the black men found the heavy uniforms dreadfully hot for Fantippo weather, where they wear only a string of beads. And they left off the uniforms and wore only the caps. That is how the Fantippo postman’s uniform came to be a smart cap, a string of beads and a mail bag.

Then when King Koko had got his mail-men, the Royal Fantippo post office began really working. Letters were collected from the boxes at street corners and sent off when ships called; and incoming mail was delivered at the doors of the houses in Fantippo three times a day. The post office became the busiest place in town.

Now, the peoples of West Africa have curious tastes in dress. They love bright things. And some Fantippo dandy started the idea of using up old stamps off letters by making suits of clothes out of them. They looked very showy and smart and a suit of this kind made of stamps became a valuable possession among the natives.

About this time, too, in the civilized parts of the world one of the things that arose out of all this penny-postage business was the craze or hobby for collecting stamps. In England and America and other countries people began buying stamp albums and pasting stamps in them. A rare stamp became quite valuable.

And it happened that one day two men, whose hobby was collecting stamps, came to Fantippo in a ship. The one stamp they were both most anxious to get for their collections was the “twopenny-halfpenny Fantippo red,” a stamp which the King had given up printing – for the reason that the picture of himself on it wasn’t handsome enough. And because he had given up printing it, it became very rare.

As soon as these two men stepped ashore at Fantippo a porter came up to them to carry their bags. And right in the middle of the porter’s chest the collectors spied the twopenny-halfpenny Fantippo red! Then both of the stamp collectors offered to buy the stamp. And as each was anxious to have it for his collection, before long they were offering high prices for it, bidding against one another.

King Koko got to hear of this and he called up one of these stamp collectors and asked him why men should offer high prices for one old used stamp. And the white man explained to him this new craze for stamp collecting that was sweeping over the civilized world.

So King Koko, although he thought that the civilized world must be crazy, decided it would be a good idea if he sold stamps for collections – much better business than selling them at his post office for letters. And after that whenever a ship came into the harbour of Fantippo he sent his Postmaster-General – a very grand man, who wore two strings of beads, a postman’s cap and no mail bag – out to the ship with stamps to sell for collections.

Such a roaring trade was done in this way that the King set the stamp printing presses to work more busily than ever, so that a whole new set of Fantippo stamps should be ready for sale by the time the same ship called again on her way home to England.

But with this new trade in selling stamps for stamp collections, and not for proper mailing purposes, the Fantippo mail service was neglected and became very bad.

Now, Doctor Dolittle, while Zuzana was talking over the tea about her letter which she had sent to her cousin – and to which no answer had ever come – suddenly remembered something. On one of his earlier voyages the passenger ship by which he had been travelling had stopped outside this same harbour of Fantippo, although no passengers had gone ashore. And a postman had come aboard to sell a most elegant lot of new green and violet stamps. The Doctor, being at the time a great stamp collector, had bought three whole sets.

And he realized now, as he listened to Zuzana, what was wrong with the Fantippo post office and why she had never got an answer to the letter which would have saved her husband from slavery.

As Zuzana and Begwe rose to go, for it was beginning to get dark, the Doctor noticed a canoe setting out toward his ship from the shore. And in it, when it got near, he saw King Koko himself, coming to the white man’s boat with stamps to sell.

So the Doctor got talking to the King and he told him in plain language that he ought to be ashamed of his post office. Then, giving him a cup of China tea, he explained to him how Zuzana’s letter had probably never been delivered to her cousin.

The King listened attentively and understood how his post office had been at fault. And he invited the Doctor to come ashore with Zuzana and Begwe and arrange the post office for him and put it in order so it would work properly.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Voyage Delayed

After some persuasion the Doctor consented to this proposal feeling that perhaps he could do some good. Little did he realize what great labours and strange adventures he was taking upon himself as he got into the canoe with the King, Begwe and Zuzana to be paddled to the town of Fantippo.

This place he found very different from any of the African villages or settlements he had ever visited. It was quite large, almost a city. It was bright and cheerful to look at and the people, like their King, all seemed very kind and jolly.

The Doctor was introduced to all the chief men of the Fantippo nation and later he was taken to see the post office.

This he found in a terrible state. There were letters everywhere – on the floors, in old drawers, knocking about on desks, even lying on the pavement outside the post-office door. The Doctor explained to the King that this would never do, that in properly-run post offices the letters that had stamps on were treated with respect and care. It was no wonder, he said, that Zuzana’s letter had never been delivered to her cousin if this was the way they took care of the mails.

Then King Koko again begged him to take charge of the post office and try to get it running in proper order. And the Doctor said he would see what he could do. And, going into the post office, he took off his coat and set to work.

But after many hours of terrific labour, trying to get letters sorted and the place in order, John Dolittle saw that such a tremendous job as setting the Fantippo post office to rights would not be a matter of a day or two. It would take weeks at least. So he told this to the King. Then the Doctor’s ship was brought into the harbour and put safely at anchor and the animals were all taken ashore. And a nice, new house on the main street was given over to the Doctor for himself and his pets to live in while the work of straightening out the Fantippo mails was going on.

Well, after ten days John Dolittle got what is called the Domestic Mails in pretty good shape. Domestic mails are those that carry letters from one part of a country to another part of the same country, or from one part of a city to another. The mails that carry letters outside the country to foreign lands are called Foreign Mails. To have a regular and good service of foreign mails in the Fantippo post office the Doctor found a hard problem, because the mail ships which could carry letters abroad did not come very often to this port. Fantippo, although King Koko was most proud of it, was not considered a very important country among the regular civilized nations and two or three ships a year were all that ever called there.

Now, one day, very early in the morning, when the Doctor was lying in bed, wondering what he could do about the Foreign Mail Service, Dab-Dab and Jip brought him in his breakfast on a tray and told him there was a swallow outside who wanted to give him a message from Speedy-the-Skimmer. John Dolittle had the swallow brought in and the little bird sat on the foot of his bed while he ate his breakfast.

“Good morning,” said the Doctor, cracking open the top of a hard-boiled egg. “What can I do for you?”

“Speedy would like to know,” said the swallow, “how long you expect to stay in this country. He doesn’t want to complain, you understand – nor do any of us – but this journey of yours is taking longer than we thought it would. You see, there was the delay while we hunted out Bones the slaver, and now it seems likely you will be busy with this post office for some weeks yet. Ordinarily we would have been in England long before this, getting the nests ready for the new season’s families. We cannot put off the nesting season, you know. Of course, you understand we are not complaining, don’t you? But this delay is making things rather awkward for us.”

“Oh, quite, quite. I understand perfectly,” said the Doctor, poking salt into his egg with a bone egg-spoon. “I am dreadfully sorry. But why didn’t Speedy bring the message himself?”

“I suppose he didn’t like to,” said the swallow. “Thought you’d be offended, perhaps.”

“Oh, not in the least,” said the Doctor. “You birds have been most helpful to me. Tell Speedy I’ll come to see him as soon as I’ve got my trousers on and we’ll talk it over. Something can be arranged, I have no doubt.”

“Very good, Doctor,” said the swallow, turning to go. “I’ll tell the Skimmer what you say.”

“By the way,” said John Dolittle, “I’ve been trying to think where I’ve seen your face before. Did you ever build your nest in my stable in Puddleby?”

“No,” said the bird. “But I am the swallow that brought you the message from the monkeys that time they were sick.”

“Oh, to be sure – of course,” cried the Doctor. “I knew I had seen you somewhere. I never forget faces. You had a pretty hard time coming to England in the winter, didn’t you – snow on the ground and all that sort of thing. Very plucky of you to undertake it.”

“Yes, it was a hard trip,” said the swallow. “I came near freezing to death more than once. Flying into the teeth of that frosty wind was just awful. But something had to be done. The monkeys would most likely have been wiped right out if we hadn’t got you.”

“How was it that you were the one chosen to bring the message?” asked the Doctor.

“Well,” said the swallow, “Speedy did want to do it himself. He’s frightfully brave, you know – and fast as lightning. But the other swallows wouldn’t let him. They said he was too valuable as a leader. It was a risky job. And if he had lost his life from the frost we’d never be able to get another leader like him. Because, besides being brave and fast, he’s the cleverest leader we ever had. Whenever the swallows are in trouble he always thinks of a way out. He’s a born leader. He flies quick and he thinks quick.”

“Humph!” murmured the Doctor, as he thoughtfully brushed the toast crumbs off the bed clothes. “But why did they pick you to bring the message?”

“They didn’t,” said the swallow. “We nearly all of us volunteered for the job, so as not to have Speedy risk his life. But the Skimmer said the only fair way was to draw lots. So we got a number of small leaves and we took the stalks off all of them except one. And we put the leaves in an old coconut shell and shook them up. Then, with our eyes shut, we began picking them out. The swallow who picked the leaf with the stalk on it was to carry the message to England – and I picked the leaf with the stalk on. Before I started off on the trip I kissed my wife goodbye, because I really never expected to get back alive. Still, I’m kind of glad the lot fell to me.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor, pushing the breakfast tray off his knees and punching the pillows into shape.

“Well, you see,” said the swallow, lifting his right leg and showing a tiny red ribbon made of corn silk tied about his ankle, “I got this for it.”

“What’s that?” asked the Doctor.

“That’s to show I’ve done something brave – and special,” said the swallow modestly.

“Oh, I see,” said the Doctor. “Like a medal, eh?”

“Yes. My name is Quip. It used to be just plain Quip. Now I’m called Quip the Carrier,” said the small bird proudly gazing down at his little, stubby white leg.

“Splendid, Quip,” said the Doctor. “I congratulate you. Now I must be getting up. I’ve a frightful lot of work to do. Don’t forget to tell Speedy I’ll meet him on the ship at ten. Goodbye! Oh, and would you mind asking Dab-Dab, as you go out, to clear away the breakfast things? I’m glad you came. You’ve given me an idea. Goodbye!”

And when Dab-Dab and Jip came to take away the tray they found the Doctor shaving. He was peering into a looking glass, holding the end of his nose and muttering to himself:

“That’s the idea for the Fantippo Foreign Mail service – I wonder why I never thought of it before. I’ll have the fastest overseas mail the world ever saw. Why, of course! That’s the idea – The Swallow Mail!”

• • • • •

•   6   •

No-Man’s-Land

As soon as he was dressed and shaved the Doctor went down to his ship and met the Skimmer.

“I am terribly sorry, Speedy,” said he, “to hear what a lot of trouble I have been giving you birds by my delay here. But I really feel that the business of the post office ought to be attended to, you know. It’s in a shocking state – honestly, it is.”

“I know,” said Speedy. “And if we could we would have nested right here in this country to oblige you, and not bothered about going to England this year. It wouldn’t have mattered terribly much to miss one summer in the North. But, you see, we swallows can’t nest very well in trees. We like houses and barns and buildings to nest in.”

“Couldn’t you use the houses of Fantippo?” asked the Doctor.

“Not very well,” said Speedy. “They’re so small and noisy – with the native children playing around them all day. The eggs and young ones wouldn’t be safe for a minute. And, then, they’re not built right for us – mostly made of grass, the roofs sloping wrong, the eaves too near the ground, and all that. What we like are solid English buildings, where the people don’t shriek and whoop and play drums all day – quiet buildings, like old barns and stables, where, if people come at all, they come in a proper, dignified manner, arriving and leaving at regular hours. We like people, you understand – in their right place. But nesting mother birds must have quiet.”

“Humph! I see,” said the Doctor. “Of course, myself, I rather enjoy the jolliness of these Fantippos. But I can quite see your point. By the way, how would my old ship do? This ought to be quiet enough for you here. There’s nobody living on it now. And, look, it has heaps of cracks and holes and corners in it where you could build your nests. What do you think?”

“That would be splendid,” said Speedy – “if you think you won’t be needing the boat for some weeks. Of course, it would never do if, after we had the nests built and the eggs laid, you were to pull up the anchor and sail away – the young ones would get seasick.”

“No, of course not,” said the Doctor. “But there will be no fear of my leaving for some time yet. You could have the whole ship to yourselves and nobody will disturb you.”

“All right,” said Speedy. “Then I’ll tell the swallows to get on with the nest building right away. But, of course, we’ll go on to England with you when you are ready, to show you the way – and also to teach the young birds how to get there, too. You see, each year’s new birds make their first trip back from England to Africa with us grown ones. They have to make the first journey under our guidance.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. “Then that settles that. Now I must get back to the post office. The ship is yours. But as soon as the nesting is over come and let me know, because I have a very special idea I want to tell you about.”

So the Doctor’s boat was now turned into a nesting ship for the swallows. Calmly she stood at anchor in the quiet waters of Fantippo harbour, while thousands and thousands of swallows built their nests in her rigging, in her ventilators, in her portholes and in every crack and corner of her.

No one went near her and the swallows had her to themselves. And they agreed afterward that they found her the best place for nesting they had ever used.

In a very short time the ship presented a curious and extraordinary sight, with the mud nests stuck all over her and birds flying in thousands round her masts, coming and going, building homes and feeding young ones.

And the farmers in England that year said the coming winter would be a hard one because the swallows had done their nesting abroad before they arrived and only spent a few weeks of the autumn in the North.

And later, after the nesting was all over, there were more than twice as many birds as there were before, of course. And you simply couldn’t get on to the ship for the tons and tons of mud on her.

But the parent birds, as soon as the young ones were able to fly, set their children to work clearing up the mess. And all that mud was taken off and dropped into the harbour, piece by piece. And the Doctor’s ship was left in a cleaner state than it had ever been before in its whole life.

Now, it happened one day that the Doctor came to the post office, as usual, at nine o’clock in the morning. (He had to get there at that time, because if he didn’t the postmen didn’t start working.) And outside the post office he found Jip, gnawing a bone on the pavement. Something curious about the bone struck the Doctor, who was, of course, being a naturalist, quite a specialist in bones. He asked Jip to let him look at it.

“Why, this is extraordinary!” said the Doctor, examining the bone with great care. “I did not know that this class of animals were still to be found in Africa. Where did you get this bone, Jip?”

“Over in No-Man’s-Land,” said Jip. “There are lots of bones there.”

“And where might No-Man’s-Land be?” said John Dolittle.

“No-Man’s-Land is that round island just outside the harbour,” said Jip – “you know, the one that looks like a plum pudding.”

“Oh, yes,” said the Doctor. “I know the island you mean. It’s only a short distance from the mainland. But I hadn’t heard that that was the name of it. Humph! If you’ll lend me this bone a while, Jip, I think I’ll go to see the King about it.”

So, taking the bone, John Dolittle went off to call on King Koko, and Jip asked if he might come along. They found the King sitting at the palace door, sucking a lollipop – for he, like all the Fantippos, was very fond of sweetmeats.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” said the Doctor. “Do you happen to know what kind of animal this bone belongs to?”

The King examined it, then shook his head. He didn’t know much about bones.

“Maybe it’s a cow’s bone,” said he.

“Oh, certainly not,” said John Dolittle. “No cow ever had a bone like that. That’s a jaw – but not a cow’s jaw. Listen, Your Majesty, would you mind lending me a canoe and some paddlers? I want to go over to visit No-Man’s-Land.”

To the Doctor’s astonishment the King choked on his lollipop and nearly fell over his chair backwards. Then he ran inside the palace and shut the door.

“How extraordinary!” said John Dolittle, entirely bewildered. “What ails the man?”

“Oh, it’s some humbug or other,” growled Jip. “They’re a superstitious lot, these natives. Let’s go down to the harbour, Doctor, and try to hire a canoe to take us.”

So they went down to the water’s edge and asked several of the canoesmen to take them over to No-Man’s-Land. But every one they asked got dreadfully frightened and refused to talk when the Doctor told them where he wanted to go. They wouldn’t even let him borrow their canoes to go there by himself.

At last they found one very old boatman who loved chatting so much that, although he got terribly scared when John Dolittle mentioned No-Man’s-Land, he finally told the Doctor the reason for all this extraordinary behaviour.

“That island,” said he – “we don’t even mention its name unless we have to – is the land of Evil Magic. It is called (the old man whispered it so low the Doctor could scarcely hear him) No-Man’s-Land, because no man lives there. No man ever even goes there.”

“But why?” asked the Doctor.

“Dragons live there!” said the old boatman, his eyes wide and staring. – “Enormous horned dragons, that spit fire and eat men. If you value your life never go near that dreadful island.”

“But how do you know all this,” asked the Doctor, “if nobody has ever been there to see if it’s true or not?”

“A thousand years ago,” said the old man, “when King Kakaboochi ruled over this land, he put his mother-in-law upon that island to live, because she talked too much and he couldn’t bear her around the palace. It was arranged that food should be taken to her every week. But the first week that the men went there in canoes they could find no trace of her. While they were seeking her about the island a dragon suddenly roared out from the bushes and attacked them. They only just escaped with their lives and got back to Fantippo and told King Kakaboochi. A famous wizard was consulted, and he said it must have been the King’s mother-in-law herself who had been changed into a dragon by some magic spell. Since then she has had many children and the island is peopled with dragons – whose food is men! For whenever a canoe approaches, the dragons come down to the shores, breathing flame and destruction. But for many hundreds of years now no man has set foot upon it. That is why it is called – well, you know.”

After he had told this story the old man turned away and busied himself with his canoe, as though he were afraid that the Doctor might again ask him to paddle him to the island.

“Look here, Jip,” said John Dolittle, “you said you got this bone from No-Man’s-Land. Did you see any dragons there?”

“No,” said Jip. “I swam out there – just to get cool. It was a hot day yesterday. And then I didn’t go far inland on the island. I found many bones on the beach. And as this one smelled good to me, I picked it up and swam back here with it. I was more interested in the bone and the swim than I was in the island, to tell you the truth.”

“It’s most extraordinary,” murmured the Doctor – “this legend about the island. It makes me more anxious than ever to go there. That bone interests me, too, immensely. I’ve seen only one other like it – and that was in a natural history museum. Do you mind if I keep it, Jip? I’d like to put it in my own museum when I get back to Puddleby.”

“Not at all,” said Jip. “Look here, Doctor, if we can’t raise a canoe, let’s you and I swim out to the island. It’s not over a mile and a half and we’re both good swimmers.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Jip,” said the Doctor. “We’ll go down the shore a way till we’re opposite the island, then we won’t have so far to swim.”

So off they went. And when they had come to the best place on the shore the Doctor took off his clothes and, tying them up in a bundle, he fastened them on his head, with the precious high hat on the top of all. Then he waded into the surf and, with Jip beside him, started swimming for the island.

Now this particular stretch of water they were trying to cross happened to be a bad place for swimming. And after about a quarter of an hour Jip and the Doctor felt themselves being carried out to sea in the grip of a powerful current. They tried their hardest to get to the island. But without any success.

“Let yourself drift, Doctor,” panted Jip. “Don’t waste your strength fighting the current. Let yourself drift. Even if we’re carried past the island out to sea we can land on the mainland further down the coast, where the current isn’t so strong.”

But the Doctor didn’t answer. And Jip could see from his face that his strength and breath were nearly gone.

Then Jip barked his loudest, hoping that possibly Dab-Dab might hear him on the mainland and fly out and bring help. But, of course, they were much too far from the town for anyone to hear.

“Turn back, Jip,” gasped the Doctor. “Don’t bother about me. I’ll be all right. Turn back and try and make the shore.”

But Jip had no intention of turning back and leaving the Doctor to drown – though he saw no possible chance of rescue.

Presently John Dolittle’s mouth filled with water and he began to splutter and gurgle and Jip was really frightened. But just as the Doctor’s eyes were closing and he seemed too weak to swim another stroke a curious thing happened. Jip felt something come up under the water, right beneath his feet, and lift him and the Doctor slowly out of the sea, like the rising deck of a submarine. Up and up they were lifted, now entirely out of the water. And, gasping and sprawling side by side, they gazed at one another in utter astonishment.

“What is it, Doctor?” said Jip, staring down at the strange thing, which had now stopped rising and was carrying them like a ship, right across the strong course of the current, in the direction of the island.

“I haven’t the – hah – remotest – hah – idea,” panted John Dolittle. “Can it be a whale? No, because the skin isn’t a whale’s. This is fur,” he said, plucking at the stuff he was sitting on.

“Well, it’s an animal of some kind, isn’t it?” said Jip. “But where’s its head?” and he gazed down the long sloping back that stretched in a flat curve in front of them for a good thirty yards.

“Its head is under water,” said the Doctor. “But there’s its tail, look, behind us.”

And turning around Jip saw the longest tail that mortal beast ever had, thrashing the water and driving them toward the island.

“I know!” cried Jip. “It’s the dragon! This is King Kakaboochi’s mother-in-law we’re sitting on!”

“Well anyway thank goodness she rose in time!” said the Doctor, shaking the water out of his ears. “I was never so near drowning in my life. I suppose I’d better make myself a little more presentable before she gets her head out of water.”

And, taking down his clothes off his own head, the Doctor smartened up his high hat and dressed himself, while the strange thing that had saved their lives carried them steadily and firmly toward the mysterious island.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Animals’ Paradise

At length the extraordinary creature that had come to their rescue reached the island; and with Jip and the Doctor still clinging to his wide back, he crawled out of the water on to the beach.

And then John Dolittle, seeing its head for the first time, cried out in great excitement:

“Jip, it’s a Quiffenodochus, as sure as I’m alive!”

“A Quiffeno-what-us?” asked Jip.

“A Quiffenodochus,” said the Doctor – “a prehistoric beast. Naturalists thought they were extinct – that there weren’t any more live ones anywhere in the world. This is a great day, Jip. I’m awfully glad I came here.”

The tremendous animal which the Fantippans had called a dragon had now climbed right up the beach and was standing fully revealed in all his strangeness. At first he looked like some curious mixture between a crocodile and a giraffe. He had short, spreading legs, but enormously long tail and neck. On his head were two stubby little horns.

As soon as the Doctor and Jip had climbed down off his back he swung his head around on the end of that enormous neck and said to the Doctor:

“Do you feel all right now?”

“Yes, thanks,” said John Dolittle.

“I was afraid,” said the creature, “that I wouldn’t be in time to save your life. It was my brother who first saw you. We thought it was a native and we were getting ready to give him our usual terrifying reception. But while we watched from behind the trees my brother suddenly cried: ‘Great heavens! That’s Doctor Dolittle – and he’s drowning. See, how he waves his arms! He must be saved at any cost. There isn’t one man like that born in a thousand years! Let’s go after him, quick!’ Then word was passed around the island that John Dolittle, the great doctor, was drowning out in the straits. Of course, we had all heard of you. And, rushing down to a secret cove which we have on the far side of the island, we dashed into the sea and swam out to you under water. I was the best swimmer and got to you first. I’m awfully glad I was in time. You’re sure you feel all right?”

“Oh, quite,” said the Doctor, “thank you. But why did you swim under water?”

“We didn’t want the natives to see us,” said the strange beast. “They think we are dragons – and we let them go on thinking it. Because then they don’t come near the island and we have our country to ourselves.”

The creature stretched his long neck still longer and whispered in the Doctor’s ear:

“They think we live on men and breathe fire! But all we ever really eat is bananas. And when anyone tries to come here we go down to a hollow in the middle of the island and suck up the mist, the fog, that always hangs around there. Then we come back to the beach and roar and rampage. And we breathe the fog out through our nostrils and they think it’s smoke. That’s the way we’ve kept this island to ourselves for a thousand years. And this is the only part of the world where we are left – where we can live in peace.”

“How very interesting!” said the Doctor. “Naturalists have thought your kind of animals are no longer living, you know. You are Quiffenodochi, are you not?”

“Oh, no,” said the beast. “The Quiffenodochus has gone long ago. We are the Piffilosaurus. We have six toes on the back feet, while the Quiffenodochi, our cousins, have only five. They died out about two thousand years ago.”

“But where are the rest of your people?” asked the Doctor. “I thought you said that many of you had swum out to rescue us.”

“They did,” said the Piffilosaurus. “But they kept hidden under the water, lest the natives on the shore should see and get to know that the old story about the dragon’s mother-in-law wasn’t true. While I was bringing you here they were swimming all around you under the water, ready to help if I needed them. They have gone around to the secret cove so they may come ashore unseen. We had better be going on ourselves now. Whatever happens, we mustn’t be seen from the shore and have the natives coming here. It would be the end of us if that should ever happen, because, between ourselves, although they think us so terrible, we are really more harmless than sheep.”

“Do any other animals live here?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” said the Piffilosaurus. “This island is entirely peopled by harmless, vegetable-feeding creatures. If we had the others, of course, we wouldn’t last long. But come, I will show you around the island. Let us go quietly up that valley there, so we shan’t be seen till we reach the cover of the woods.”

Then John Dolittle and Jip were taken by the Piffilosaurus all over the island of No-Man’s-Land.

The Doctor said afterward that he had never had a more enjoyable or more instructive day. The shores of the island all around were high and steep, which gave it the appearance Jim had spoken of – like a plum pudding. But in the centre, on top, there was a deep and pleasant hollow, invisible from the sea and sheltered from the winds. In this great bowl, a good thirty miles across, the piffilosauruses had lived at peace for a thousand years, eating ripe bananas and frolicking in the sun.

Down by the banks of the streams the Doctor was shown great herds of hippopotami, feeding on the luscious reeds that grew at the water’s edge. In the wide fields of high grass there were elephants and rhinoceri browsing. On the slopes where the forests were sparse he spied long-necked giraffes, nibbling from the trees. Monkeys and deer of all kinds were plentiful. And birds swarmed everywhere. In fact, every kind of creature that does not eat meat was there, living peaceably and happily with the others in this land where vegetable food abounded and the disturbing tread of Man was never heard.

Standing on the top of the hill with Jip and the piffilosaurus at his side, the Doctor gazed down over the wide bowl full of contented animal life and heaved a sigh.

“This beautiful land could also have been called the ‘Animals’ Paradise,’” he murmured. “Long may they enjoy it to themselves! May this, indeed, be No-Man’s-Land forever!”

“You, Doctor,” said the deep voice of the piffilosaurus at his elbow, “are the first human in a thousand years that has set foot here. The last one was King Kakaboochi’s mother-in-law.”

“By the way, what really became of her?” asked the Doctor. “The natives believe she was turned into a dragon, you know.”

“We married her off,” said the great creature, nibbling idly at a lily stalk. “We couldn’t stand her here, any more than the King could. You never heard anybody talk so in all your life. Yes, we carried her one dark night by sea far down the coast of Africa and left her at the palace door of a deaf king, who ruled over a small country south of the Congo River. He married her. Of course, being deaf, he didn’t mind her everlasting chatter in the least.”

And now for several days the Doctor forgot all about his post-office work and King Koko and his ship at anchor, and everything else. For he was kept busy from morning to night with all the animals who wanted to consult him about different things.

Many of the giraffes were suffering from sore hoofs and he showed them where to find a special root that could be put into a foot bath and would bring immediate relief. The rhinoceroses’ horns were growing too long and John Dolittle explained to them how by grinding them against a certain kind of stone and by eating less grass and more berries they could keep the growth down. A special sort of nut tree that the deer were fond of had grown scarce and almost died out from constant nibbling. And the Doctor showed the chief stags how, by taking a few nuts and poking them down into the soft earth with their hoofs before the rainy season set in, they could make new trees grow and so increase the supply.

One day when he was pulling out a loose tooth for a baby hippopotamus with his watch-chain, Speedy-the-Skimmer turned up, looking rather annoyed.

“Well,” said the neat little bird, settling down on the ground at his feet, “I’ve found you at last, Doctor. I’ve been hunting all over creation for you.”

“Oh, hulloa, Speedy,” said the Doctor. “Glad to see you. Did you want me for something?”

“Why, of course, I did,” said Speedy. “We finished the nesting season two days ago, and you had said you wanted to see me about some special business as soon as it was over. I went to your house, but Dab-Dab had no idea where you could be. Then I hunted all over. At last I heard some gossiping boatmen down at the harbour say that you came to this island five days ago and had never returned. All the Fantippans have given you up for lost. They say you have surely been eaten by the dragons that live here. I got an awful fright – though, of course, I didn’t quite believe the dragon story. Still, you had been gone so long I didn’t know what to make of it. The post office, as you can imagine, is in a worse mess than ever.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor, who had now got the loose tooth out and was showing the baby hippo how to rinse his mouth in the river. “I’m sorry. I suppose I should have sent you a message. But I’ve been so awfully busy. Let’s go up under the shade of those palms and sit down. It was about the post office that I wanted to talk to you.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Swiftest Mail
in the World

So the Doctor and Jip and Speedy-the-Skimmer sat down in the shade of the palm trees and for the first time plans for that great service which was to be known as the Swallow Mail were discussed.

“Now, my idea, Speedy, is this,” said the Doctor. “Regular foreign mails are difficult for the Fantippo post office because so few boats ever call there to bring or take the mails. Now, how would it be if you swallows did the letter carrying?”

“Well,” said Speedy, “that would be possible. But, of course, we could only do it during certain months of the year when we were in Africa. And then we could only take letters to the mild and warm countries. We should get frozen if we had to carry mail where severe winters were going on.”

“Oh, of course,” said the Doctor. “I wouldn’t expect you to do that. But I had thought we might get the other birds to help – cold-climate birds, hot-climate ones and temperate. And if some of the trips were too far or disagreeable for one kind of birds to make, we could deliver the mail in relays. I mean, for instance, a letter going from here to the North Pole could be carried by the swallows as far as the north end of Africa. From there it would be taken by thrushes up to the top of Scotland. There seagulls would take it from the thrushes and carry it as far as Greenland. And from there penguins would take it to the North Pole. What do you think?”

“I think it might be all right,” said Speedy, “if we can get the other birds to go in with us on the idea.”

“Well, you see,” said John Dolittle, “I think we might, because we could use the mail service for the birds themselves, and the animals, too, to send their letters by, as well as the Fantippans.”

“But, Doctor, birds and animals don’t send letters,” said Speedy.

“No,” said the Doctor. “But there’s no reason why they shouldn’t begin. Neither did people write nor send letters once upon a time. But as soon as they began they found it very useful and convenient. So would the birds and animals. We could have the head office here in this beautiful island – in this Animals’ Paradise. You see, my idea is, firstly, a post-office system for the education and betterment of the Animal Kingdom, and, secondly, a good foreign mail for the Fantippans. Do you think we could ever find some way by which birds could write letters?”

“Oh, yes, I think so,” said Speedy. “We swallows, for instance, always leave marks on houses where we have nested which are messages for those who may come after us. Look” – Speedy scratched some crosses and signs in the sand at the Doctor’s feet – “that means ‘Don’t build your nest in this house. They have a cat here!’ And this” – the Skimmer made four more signs in the sand – “this means ‘Good house. Flies plentiful. Folks quiet. Building mud can be found behind the stable.’”

“Splendid,” cried the Doctor. “It’s a kind of short-hand. You say a whole sentence in four signs.”

“And, then,” Speedy went on, “nearly all other kinds of birds have a sign language of their own. For example, the kingfishers have a way of marking the trees along the river to show where good fishing is to be found. And thrushes have signs, too; one I’ve often seen on stones, which means ‘Crack your snail shells here.’ That’s so the thrushes won’t go throwing their snail shells all over the place and scare the live snails into keeping out of sight.”

“There you are,” said the Doctor. “I always thought you birds had at least the beginnings of a written language – otherwise you couldn’t be so clever. Now all we have to do is to build up on these signs a regular and proper system of bird-writing. And I have no doubt whatever that with the animals we can do the same thing. Then we’ll get the Swallow Mail going and we’ll have animals and birds writing letters to one another all over the world – and to people, too, if they want to.”

“I suspect,” said Speedy, “that you’ll find most of the letters will be written to you, Doctor. I’ve met birds all over creation who wanted to know what you looked like, what you ate for breakfast and all sorts of silly things about you.”

“Well,” said the Doctor. “I won’t mind that. But my idea is firstly an educational one. With a good post-office system of their own, I feel that the condition of the birds and animals will be greatly bettered. Only today, for example, some deer on this very island asked me what they should do about their nut trees which were nearly eaten up. I showed them at once how they could plant seeds and grow more trees. Heaven knows how long they had been going on short rations. But if they’d only been able to write to me, I could have told them long ago – by Swallow Mail.”

Then the Doctor and Jip went back to Fantippo, carried by the piffilosaurus, who landed them on the shore under cover of night, so no one would see them. And in the morning John Dolittle called upon the King again.

“Your Majesty,” said the Doctor, “I have now a plan to provide your country with an excellent service of foreign mails if you will agree to what I suggest.”

“Good,” said the King. “My Majesty is listening. Proceed. Let me offer you a lollipop.”

The Doctor took one – a green one – from the box the King held out to him. King Koko was very proud of the quality of his lollipops – made in the Royal Candy Kitchen. He was never without one himself, and always wore it hung around his neck on a ribbon. And when he wasn’t sucking it he used to hold it up to his eye and peer through it at his courtiers. He had seen white men using quizzing glasses, and he had his lollipops made thin and transparent, so he could use them in this elegant manner. But constant lollipops had ruined his figure and made him dreadfully stout. However, as fatness was considered a sign of greatness in Fantippo, he didn’t mind that.

“My plan,” said the Doctor, “is this: The domestic mails of Fantippo, after I have instructed the postmen a little more, can be carried by your own people. But the handling of foreign mails as well as the domestic ones is too much for them. And, besides, you have so few boats calling at your port. So I propose to build a floating post office for the foreign mails which shall be anchored close to the island called” – (the Doctor only just stopped himself in time from speaking the dreaded name) – “er – er – close to the island I spoke of to you the other day.”

“I don’t like that,” said the King, frowning.

“Your Majesty need have no fear,” the Doctor put in hurriedly. “It will never be necessary for any of your people to land upon the island. The Foreign Mail post office will be a houseboat, anchored a little way out from the shore. And I will not need any Fantippan postmen to run it at all. On the contrary, I make it a special condition on your part that – er – the island we are speaking of shall continue to be left undisturbed for all time. I am going to run the Foreign Mails Office in my own way – with special postmen of my own. When the Fantippans wish to send out letters to foreign lands they must come by canoe and bring them to the houseboat post office. But incoming letters addressed to the people in Fantippo shall be delivered at the doors of the houses in the regular way. What do you say to that?”

“I agree,” said the King. “But the stamps must all have my beautiful face upon them, and no other.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. “That can be arranged. But it must be clearly understood that from now on the foreign mails shall be handled by my own postman – in my way. And after I have got the Domestic post office running properly in Fantippo you must see to it that it continues to work in order. If you will do that in a few weeks’ time I think I can promise that your kingdom shall have the finest mail service in the world.”

Then the Doctor asked Speedy to send off messages through the birds to every corner of the earth. And to ask all the leaders of seagulls, tomtits, magpies, thrushes, stormy petrels, finches, penguins, vultures, snow buntings, wild geese and the rest to come to No-Man’s-Land, because John Dolittle wanted to speak to them.

And in the meantime he went back and continued the work of getting the domestic mail service in good running order at the post office at Fantippo.

So the good Speedy sent off messengers; and all around the world and back again word was passed from bird to bird that John Dolittle, the famous animal doctor, wished to see all the leaders of all kinds of birds, great and small.

And presently in the big hollow in the centre of No-Man’s-Land they began to arrive. After three days Speedy came to the Doctor and said:

“All right, Doctor, they are ready for you now.”

A good strong canoe had by this time been put at the Doctor’s service by the King, who was also having the post-office houseboat built at the Doctor’s orders.

So John Dolittle got into his canoe and came at length to the same hill where he had before gazed out over the pleasant hollow of the Animals’ Paradise. And with the Skimmer on his shoulder he looked down into a great sea of bird faces – leaders all – every kind, from a hummingbird to an albatross. And taking a palm leaf and twisting it into a trumpet, so that he could make himself heard, he began his great inauguration speech to the leaders which was to set working the famous Swallow Mail Service.

After the Doctor had finished his speech and told the leaders what it was he meant to do, the birds of the world applauded by whistling and screeching and flapping their wings, so that the noise was terrible. And in the streets of Fantippo the natives whispered it about that the dragons were fighting one another in No-Man’s-Land.

Then the Doctor passed down among the birds and, taking a notebook, he spoke to each leader in turn, asking him questions about the signs and sign language that his particular kind of bird was in the habit of using. And the Doctor wrote it all down in the notebook and took it home with him and worked over it all night – promising to meet the leaders again the following day.

And on the morrow, crossing once again to the island, he went on with the discussion and planning and arrangement. It was agreed that the Swallow Mail Service should have its head office here in No-Man’s-Land. And that there should be branch offices at Cape Horn, Greenland, in Christmas Island, Tahiti, Kashmir, Thibet and Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. Most of the mails were arranged so that those birds who migrated or went to other lands in the winter and back again in summer should carry the letters on their regular yearly journeys. And as there are some kinds of birds crossing from one land to another in almost every week of the year, this took care of much of the mails without difficulty.

Then, of course, there were all those birds who don’t leave their home lands in winter, but stay in one country all the time. The leaders of these had come under special guidance of other birds to oblige the Doctor by being present at the great meeting. They promised to have their people all the year round take care of letters that were brought to their particular countries to be delivered. So between one thing and another, much of the planning and arrangement of the service was got through in these first two meetings.

Then the Doctor and the leaders agreed upon a regular kind of simple, easy writing for all birds to use, so that the addresses on the envelopes could be understood and read by the post birds. And at last John Dolittle sent them off home again, to instruct their relatives in this new writing and reading and explain to all the birds of all the world how the post office was going to work and how much good he hoped it would do for the education and betterment of the Animal Kingdom. Then he went home and had a good sleep.

The next morning he found that King Koko had got his post-office houseboat ready and finished – and very smart it looked. It was paddled out and anchored close to the shore of the island. Then Dab-Dab, Jip, Too-Too, Gub-Gub, the pushmi-pullyu and the white mouse were brought over, and the Doctor gave up his house on the main street of Fantippo and settled down to live at the Foreign Mails post office for the remainder of his stay.

And now John Dolittle and his animals got tremendously busy arranging the post office, its furniture, the stamp drawers, the postcard drawers, the weighing scales, the sorting bags and all the rest of the paraphernalia. Dab-Dab, of course, was housekeeper, as usual, and she saw to it that the post office was swept properly every morning. Jip was the watchman and had charge of locking up at night and opening in the morning. Too-Too, with his head for mathematics, was given the bookkeeping, and he kept account of how many stamps were sold and how much money was taken in. The Doctor ran the information window and answered the hundred and one questions that people are always asking at post offices. And the good and trusty Speedy was here, there and everywhere.

And this was how the first letter was sent off by the Swallow Mail: King Koko himself came one morning and, putting his large face in at the information window, asked:

“What is the fastest foreign mail delivery ever made by any post office anywhere in the world?”

“The British post office is now boasting,” said the Doctor, “that it can get a letter from London to Canada in fourteen days.”

“All right,” said the King. “Here’s a letter to a friend of mine who runs a shoe-shine parlour in Alabama. Let me see how quickly you can get me an answer to it.”

Now, the Doctor really had not got everything ready yet to work the foreign mails properly and he was about to explain to the King. But Speedy hopped up on the desk and whispered:

“Give me that letter, Doctor. We’ll show him.”

Then going outside, he called for Quip the Carrier.

“Quip,” said Speedy, “take this letter to the Azores as fast as you can. There you’ll just catch the White Tailed Carolina Warblers about to make their summer crossing to the United States. Give it to them and tell them to get the answer back here as quick as they know how.”

In a flash Quip was gone, seaward.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon when the King brought that letter to the Doctor. And when His Majesty woke up in the mourning and came down to breakfast there was the answer to it lying beside his plate!

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

A Most Unusual Post Office

Nobody thought, not even John Dolittle himself, when the Swallow Mail was first started, what a tremendous system it would finally grow into and what a lot of happenings and ideas would come about through it.

Of course such an entirely new thing as this required a great deal of learning and working out before it could be made to run smoothly. Something new, some fresh problem, cropped up every day. But although the Doctor, at all times a busy man, was positively worked to death, he found it all so interesting that he didn’t mind. But the motherly Dab-Dab was dreadfully worried about him; for indeed at the beginning he seemed never to sleep at all.

Certainly in the whole history of the world there never was another post office like the Doctor’s. For one thing, it was a houseboat post office; for another, tea was served to everybody – the clerks and the customers as well – regularly at four o’clock every afternoon, with cucumber sandwiches on Sundays. Paddling over to the Foreign Mails post office for afternoon tea became quite the fashionable thing to do among the more up-to-date Fantippans. A large awning was put over the back entrance, forming a pleasant sort of veranda with a good view of the ocean and the bay. And if you dropped in for a stamp around four o’clock, as likely as not you would meet the King there, and all the other high notables of Fantippo, sipping tea.

Another thing in which the Doctor’s post office was peculiar was its pens. Most post offices, the Doctor had found, always had abominably bad pens that spluttered and scratched and wouldn’t write. In fact very many post offices even nowadays seem to pride themselves on their bad pens. But the Doctor saw to it that his pens were of the very best quality. Of course, in those times there were no steel pens. Only quills were used. And John Dolittle got the albatrosses and the seagulls to keep for him their tail feathers which fell out in the moulting season. And of course, with such a lot of quills to choose from, it was easy to have the best pens in the post office.

Still another thing in which the Doctor’s post office was different from all others was the gum used on the stamps. The supply of gum which the King had been using for his stamps ran short and the Doctor had to set about discovering and making a new kind. And after a good deal of experiment he invented a gum made of licorice, which dried quickly and worked very well. But, as I have said, the Fantippans were very fond of sweetmeats. And soon after the new gum was put into use the post office was crowded with people buying stamps by the hundred.

At first the Doctor could not understand this sudden new rush of business – which kept Too-Too, the cashier, working overtime every night, adding up the day’s takings. The post-office safe could hardly hold all the money taken in and the overflow had to be put in a vase on the kitchen mantelpiece.

But presently the Doctor noticed that after they had licked the gum off the stamps, the customers would bring them back and want to exchange them for money again. Now, it is a rule that all post offices have to exchange their own stamps, when asked, for the price paid for them. So long as they are not torn or marked it doesn’t matter whether the gum has been licked off or not. So the Doctor saw that he would have to change his kind of gum if he wanted to keep stamps that would stick.

And one day the King’s brother came to the post office with a terrible cough and asked him in the same breath (or gasp) to give him five half-penny stamps and a cure for a cough. This gave the Doctor an idea. And the next gum which he invented for his stamps he called whooping-cough gum. He made it out of a special kind of sweet, sticky cough-mixture. He also invented a bronchitis gum, a mumps gum and several others. And whenever there was a catching disease in the town the Doctor would see that the proper kind of gum to cure it was issued on the stamps. It saved him a lot of trouble, because the people were always bothering him to cure colds and sore throats and things. And he was the first Postmaster General to use this way of getting rid of sickness – by serving round pleasant medicine on the backs of stamps. He called it stamping out an epidemic.

One evening at six o’clock Jip shut the doors of the post office as usual, and hung up the sign “Closed” as he always did at that hour. The Doctor heard the bolts being shot and he stopped counting post-cards and took out his pipe to have a smoke.

The first hard work of getting the post office in full swing was now over. And that night John Dolittle felt when he heard the doors being shut that at last he could afford to keep more regular hours and not be working all the time. And when Jip came inside the Registered Mail booth he found the Doctor leaning back in a chair with his feet on the desk, gazing around him with great satisfaction.

“Well, Jip,” said he with a sigh, “we now have a real working post office.”

“Yes,” said Jip, putting down his watchman’s lantern, “and a mighty good one it is, too. There isn’t another like it anywhere.”

“You know,” said John Dolittle, “although we opened more than a week ago I haven’t myself written a single letter yet. Fancy living in a post office for a week and never writing a letter! Look at that drawer there. Ordinarily the sight of so many stamps would make me write dozens of letters. All my life I never had a stamp when I really wanted to write a letter. And – funny thing! – now that I’m living and sleeping in a post office I can’t think of a single person to write to.”

“It’s a shame,” said Jip. “And you with such beautiful handwriting too – as well as a drawerful of stamps! Never mind; think of all the animals that are waiting to hear from you.”

“Of course, there’s Sarah,” the Doctor went on puffing at his pipe dreamily. “Poor dear Sarah! I wonder whom she married. But there you are, I haven’t her address. So I can’t write to Sarah. And I don’t suppose any of my old patients would want to hear from me.”

“I know!” cried Jip, “write to the Cats’-Meat-Man.”

“He can’t read,” said the Doctor gloomily.

“No, but his wife can,” said Jip.

“That’s true,” murmured the Doctor. “But what shall I write to him about?”

Just at that moment Speedy-the-Skimmer came in and said:

“Doctor, we’ve got to do something about the city deliveries in Fantippo. My post-birds are not very good at finding the right houses to deliver the letters. You see we swallows, although we nest in houses, are not regular city birds. We pick out lonely houses as a rule – in the country. City streets are a bit difficult for swallows to find their way round in. Some of the post-birds have brought back the letters they took out this morning to deliver, saying they can’t find the houses they are addressed to.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “That’s too bad. Let me think a minute. Oh, I know! I’ll send for Cheapside.”

“Who is Cheapside?” asked Speedy.

“Cheapside is a London sparrow,” said the Doctor, “who visits me every summer in Puddleby. The rest of the year he lives around St. Paul’s Cathedral. He builds his nest in St. Edmund’s left ear.”

“Where?” cried Jip.

“In the left ear of a statue of St. Edmund on the outside of the chancel – the cathedral, you know,” the Doctor explained. “Cheapside’s the very fellow we want for city deliveries. There’s nothing about houses and towns he doesn’t know. I’ll send for him right away.”

“I’m afraid,” said Speedy, “that a post-bird – unless he was a city bird himself – would have a hard job finding a sparrow in London. It’s an awful big city, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s so,” said John Dolittle.

“Listen, Doctor,” said Jip. “You were wondering just now what to write the Cats’-Meat-Man about. Let Speedy write the letter to Cheapside in bird scribble and you inclose it in a letter to the Cats’-Meat-Man. Then when the sparrow comes to Puddleby for his summer visit the Cats’-Meat-Man can give it to him.”

“Splendid!” cried the Doctor. And he snatched a piece of paper off the desk and started to write.

“And you might ask him too,” put in Dab-Dab who had been listening, “to take a look at the back windows of the house to see that none of them is broken. We don’t want the rain coming in on the beds.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “I’ll mention that.”

So the Doctor’s letter was written and addressed to Matthew Mugg, Esquire, Cats’ Meat Merchant, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, Slopshire, England. And it was sent off by Quip-the-Carrier.

The Doctor did not expect an answer to it right away because the Cats’-Meat-Man’s wife was a very slow reader and a still slower writer. And anyhow, Cheapside could not be expected to visit Puddleby for another week yet. He always stayed in London until after the Easter Bank Holiday. His wife refused to let him leave for the country till the spring family had been taught by their father how to find the houses where people threw out crumbs; how to pick up oats from under the cab horses’ nose bags without being stamped on by the horses’ hoofs; how to get about in the trafficky streets of London and a whole lot of other things that young city birds have to know.

In the meantime, while Quip was gone, life went forward busily and happily at the Doctor’s post office. The animals, Too-Too, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub, the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse and Jip all agreed that they found living in a houseboat post office great fun. Whenever they got tired of their floating home they would go off for picnic parties to the Island of No-Man’s-Land, which was now more often called by the name John Dolittle had given it, “the Animals’ Paradise.”

On these trips too, the Doctor sometimes accompanied them. He was glad to, because he so got an opportunity of talking with the many different kinds of animals there about the signs they were in the habit of using. And on these signs, which he carefully put down in notebooks, he built up a sort of written language for animals to use – or animal scribble, as he called it – the same as he had done with the birds.

Whenever he could spare the time he held afternoon scribbling classes for the animals in the Great Hollow. And they were very well attended. He found the monkeys, of course, the easiest to teach and, because they were so clever, he made some of them into assistant teachers. But the zebras were quite bright too. The Doctor discovered that these intelligent beasts had ways of marking and twisting the grasses to show where they had smelled lions about – though, happily, they did not have to use this trick in the Animals’ Paradise but had brought it with them when they had swum across from the mainland of Africa.

The Doctor’s pets found it quite thrilling to go through the mail that arrived each day to see if there were any letters for them. At the beginning of course there wasn’t much. But one day Quip had returned from Puddleby with an answer to the Doctor’s letter to the Cats’-Meat-Man. Mr. Matthew Mugg had written (through his wife) that he had hung the letter for Cheapside on an apple tree in the garden where the sparrow would surely see it when he arrived. The windows of the house were all right, he wrote; but the back door could do with a coat of paint.

And while Quip had been waiting for this letter to be written he had filled in the time at Puddleby by gossiping with all the starlings and blackbirds in the Doctor’s garden about the wonderful new animals’ post office on the island of No-Man’s-Land. And pretty soon every creature in and around Puddleby had got to hear of it.

After that, of course, letters began to arrive at the houseboat for the Doctor’s pets. And one morning, when the mail was sorted, there was a letter for Dab-Dab from her sister; one for the white mouse written by a cousin from the Doctor’s bureau drawer; one for Jip from the collie who lived next door in Puddleby and one for Too-Too, telling him he had a new family of six young ones in the rafters of the stable. But there was nothing for Gub-Gub. The poor pig was nearly in tears at being left out. And when the Doctor went into town that afternoon Gub-Gub asked could he come along.

The next day the post-birds complained that the mail was an extra heavy one. And when it was sorted, there were ten thick letters for Gub-Gub and none for anybody else. Jip got suspicious about this and looked over Gub-Gub’s shoulder while he opened them. In each one there was a banana skin.

“Who sent you those?” asked Jip.

“I sent them to myself,” said Gub-Gub, “from Fantippo yesterday. I don’t see why you fellows should get all the mail. Nobody writes to me, so I write to myself.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Cheapside

It was a great day at the Doctor’s post office when Cheapside, the London sparrow, arrived from Puddleby to look after the city deliveries for Fantippo.

The Doctor was eating his lunch of sandwiches at the information desk when the little bird popped his head through the window and said in his cheeky Cockney voice:

“’Ulloa, Doctor, ’ere we are again! What ho! The old firm! Who would ’ave thought you’d come to this?”

Cheapside was a character. Anyone on seeing him for the first time would probably guess that he spent his life in city streets. His whole expression was different from other birds. In Speedy’s eyes, for instance – though nobody would dream of thinking him stupid – there was an almost noble look of country honesty. But in the eyes of Cheapside, the London Sparrow, there was a saucy, dare-devil expression that seemed to say “Don’t you think for one moment that you’ll ever get the better of me. I’m a Cockney bird.”

“Why, Cheapside!” cried John Dolittle. “At last you’ve come. My, but it’s good to see you! Did you have a pleasant journey?”

“Not bad – not ’alf bad,” said Cheapside, eyeing some crumbs from the Doctor’s lunch which lay upon the desk. “No storms. Pretty decent travellin’. ’Ot? Well, I should say it was ’ot. ’Ot enough for an ’Ottentot!…Quaint place you ’ave ’ere – sort of a barge?”

By this time all the animals had heard Cheapside arriving and they came rushing in to see the traveller and to hear the news of Puddleby and England.

“How is the old horse in the stable?” asked John Dolittle.

“Pretty spry,” said Cheapside. “Course ’e ain’t as young as ’e used to be. But ’e’s lively enough for an old ’un. ’E asked me to bring you a bunch of crimson ramblers – just bloomin’ over the stable door, they was. But I says to ’im, I says, ’What d’yer take me for, an omnibus?’ Fancy a feller at my time of life carrying a bunch of roses all the way down the Atlantic! Folks would think I was goin’ to a weddin’ at the South Pole.”

“Gracious, Cheapside!” said the Doctor, laughing. “It makes me quite homesick for England to hear your Cockney chirp.”

“And me, too,” sighed Jip. “Were there many rats in the woodshed, Cheapside?”

“’Undreds of them,” said the sparrow – “as big as rabbits. And that uppish you’d think they owned the place!”

“I’ll soon settle them, when I get back,” said Jip. “I hope we go soon.”

“How does the garden look, Cheapside?” asked the Doctor.

“A-1,” said the sparrow. “Weeds in the paths, o’ course. But the iris under the kitchen window looked something lovely, they did.”

“Anything new in London?” asked the white mouse who was also city bred.

“Yes,” said Cheapside. “There’s always something doing in good old London. They’ve got a new kind of cab that goes on two wheels instead of four. A man called ’Ansom invented it. Much faster than the old ’ackneys they are. You see ’em everywhere. And there’s a new greengrocer’s shop near the Royal Exchange.”

“I’m going to have a greengrocer’s shop of my own when I grow up,” murmured Gub-Gub, “—in England where they grow good vegetables – I’m awfully tired of Africa – and then I’ll watch the new vegetables coming into season all the year round.”

“He’s always talking about that,” said Too-Too. “Such an ambition in life to have – to run a greengrocer’s shop!”

“Ah, England!” cried Gub-Gub sentimentally. “What is there more beautiful in life than the heart of a young lettuce in the Spring?”

“’Ark at ’im,” said Cheapside, raising his eyebrows. “Ain’t ’e the poetical porker? Why don’t you write a bunch of sonnets to the Skunk-Kissed-Cabbages of Louisiana, Mr. Bacon?”

“Well, now, look here, Cheapside,” said the Doctor. “We want you to get these city deliveries straightened out for us in the town of Fantippo. Our post birds are having great difficulty finding the right houses to take letters to. You’re a city-bird, born and bred. Do you think you can help us?”

“I’ll see what I can do for you, Doc,” said the Sparrow, “after I’ve taken a look around this ’eathen town of yours. But first I want a bath. I’m all heat up from flying under a broiling sun. Ain’t you got no puddles round here for a bird to take a bath in?”

“No, this isn’t puddly climate,” said the Doctor. “You’re not in England, you know. But I’ll bring you my shaving mug and you can take a bath in that.”

“Mind, you wash the soap out first, Doc,” chirped the Sparrow, “it gets into my eyes.”

The next day after Cheapside had had a good sleep to rest up from his long journey the Doctor took the London sparrow to show him around the town of Fantippo.

“Well, Doc,” said Cheapside after they had seen the sights, “as a town I don’t think much of it – really, I don’t. It’s big. I’ll say that for it. I ’ad no idea they ’ad towns as big as this in Africa. But the streets is so narrow! I can see why they don’t ’ave no cabs ’ere – ’ardly room for a goat to pass, let alone a four-wheeler. And as for the ’ouses, they seem to be made of the insides of old mattresses. The first thing we’ll ’ave to do is to make old King Cocoanut tell ’is subjects to put door knockers on their doors. What is ’ome without a door knocker, I’d like to know? Of course, your postmen can’t deliver the letters, when they’ve no knockers to knock with.”

“I’ll attend to that,” said the Doctor. “I’ll see the King about it this afternoon.”

“And then, they’ve got no letter boxes in the doors,” said Cheapside. “There ought to be slots made to poke the letters in. The only place these bloomin’ ’eathens have for a postman to put a letter is down the chimney.”

“Very well,” said the Doctor. “I’ll attend to that, too. Shall I have the letter boxes in the middle of the door, or would you like them on one side?”

“Put ’em on each side of the doors – two to every ’ouse,” said Cheapside.

“What’s that for?” asked the Doctor.

“That’s a little idea of my own,” said the Sparrow. “We’ll ’ave one box for the bills and one for sure-enough letters. You see, people are so disappointed when they ’ear the postman’s knock and come to the door, expecting to find a nice letter from a friend or news that money’s been left them and all they get is a bill from the tailor. But if we have two boxes on each door, one marked ‘Bills’ and the other ‘Letters’ the postman can put all the bills in one box and the honest letters in the other. As I said, it’s a little idea of my own. We might as well be real up-to-date. What do you think of it?”

“I think it’s a splendid notion,” said the Doctor. “Then the people need only have one disappointment – when they clear the bill box on the day set for paying their debts.”

“That’s the idea,” said Cheapside. “And tell the post-birds – as soon as we’ve got the knockers on – to knock once for a bill and twice for a letter, so the folks in the ’ouse will know whether to come and get the mail or not. Oh, I tell you, we’ll show these poor pagans a thing or two before we’re finished! We’ll ’ave a post office in Fantipsy that really is a post office. And, now, ’ow about the Christmas boxes, Doctor? Postmen always expect a handsome present around Christmas time, you know.”

“Well, I’m rather afraid,” said the Doctor doubtfully, “that these people don’t celebrate Christmas as a holiday.”

“Don’t celebrate Christmas!” cried Cheapside in a shocked voice. “What a disgraceful scandal! Well, look here, Doctor. You just tell King Cocoabutter that if ’e and ’is people don’t celebrate the festive season by giving us post-birds Christmas-boxes there ain’t going to be no mail delivered in Fantipsy from New Year’s to Easter. And you can tell ’im I said so. It’s ’igh time somebody henlightened ’is hignorance.”

“All right,” said the Doctor, “I’ll attend to that, too.”

“Tell ’im,” said Cheapside, “we’ll expect two lumps of sugar on every doorstep Christmas morning for the post-birds. No sugar, no letters!”

That afternoon the Doctor called upon the King and explained to him the various things that Cheapside wanted. And His Majesty gave in to them, every one. Beautiful brass knockers were screwed on all the doors – light ones, which the birds could easily lift. And very elegant they looked – by far the most up-to-date part of the ramshackle dwellings. The double boxes were also put up, with one place for bills and one for the letters.

John Dolittle instructed King Koko as well in the meaning of Christmas time, which should be a season for giving gifts. And among the Fantippo people the custom of making presents at Christmas became very general – not only to postmen, but to friends and relatives, too.

That is why when, several years after the Doctor had left this country, some missionaries visited that part of Africa, they found to their astonishment that Christmas was celebrated there, although the people were heathens. But they never learned that the custom had been brought about by Cheapside, the cheeky London sparrow.

And now very soon Cheapside took entire charge of the city delivery of mails in Fantippo. Of course, as soon as the mail began to get heavy, when the people got the habit of writing more to their friends and relatives, Cheapside could not deal with all the mail himself. So he sent a message by a swallow to get fifty sparrows from the streets of London (who were, like himself, accustomed to city ways), to help him with the delivery of letters. And around the native holiday seasons, the Harvest Moon and the Coming of the Rains, he had to send for fifty more to deal with the extra mail.

And if you happened to pass down the main street of Fantippo at nine in the morning or four in the afternoon you would hear the Rat-tat-tat of the post-sparrows, knocking on the doors – Tat-tat, if it was a real letter, and just Rat! if it was a bill.

Of course, they could not carry more than one or two letters at a time – being such small birds. But it only took them a moment to fly back to the houseboat for another load, where Too-Too was waiting for them at the “city” window with piles of mail, sorted out into boxes marked “Central,” “West Central,” “Southwest,” etc., for the different parts of the town. This was another idea of Cheapside’s, to divide up the city into districts, the same as they did in London, so the mail could be delivered quickly without too much hunting for streets.

Cheapside’s help was, indeed, most valuable to the Doctor. The King himself said that the mails were wonderfully managed. The letters were brought regularly and never left at the wrong house.

He had only one fault, had Cheapside. And that was being cheeky. Whenever he got into an argument his Cockney swearing was just dreadful. And in spite of the Doctor’s having issued orders time and time again that he expected his post-office clerks and mail birds to be strictly polite to the public, Cheapside was always getting into rows – which he usually started himself.

One day when King Koko’s pet white peacock came to the Doctor and complained that the Cockney sparrow had made faces at him over the palace wall the Doctor became quite angry and read the City Manager a long lecture.

Then Cheapside got together a gang of his tough London sparrow friends and one night they flew into the palace garden and mobbed the white peacock and pulled three feathers out of his beautiful tail.

This last piece of rowdyism was too much for John Dolittle and, calling up Cheapside, he discharged him on the spot – though he was very sorry to do it.

But when the sparrow went all his London friends went with him and the post office was left with no city birds to attend to the city deliveries. The swallows and other birds tried their hardest to get letters around to the houses properly. But they couldn’t. And before long complaints began to come in from the townspeople.

Then the Doctor was sorry and wished he hadn’t discharged Cheapside, who seemed to be the only one who could manage this part of the mails properly.

But one day, to the Doctor’s great delight – though he tried hard to look angry – Cheapside strolled into the post office with a straw in the corner of his mouth, looking as though nothing had happened.

John Dolittle had thought that he and his friends had gone home to London. But they hadn’t. They knew the Doctor would need them and they had just hung around outside the town. And then the Doctor, after lecturing Cheapside again about politeness, gave him back his job.

But the next day the rowdy little sparrow threw a bottle of post-office ink over the royal white peacock when he came to the houseboat with the King to take tea. Then the Doctor discharged Cheapside again.

In fact, the Doctor used to discharge him for rudeness regularly about once a month. And the city mails always got tied up soon after. But, to the Doctor’s great relief, the City Manager always came back just when the tie-up was at its worst and put things right again.

Cheapside was a wonderful bird. But it seemed as though he just couldn’t go a whole month without being rude to somebody. The Doctor said it was in his nature.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Birds
that Helped Columbus

After the Doctor had written his first letter by Swallow Mail to the Cats’-Meat-Man he began to think of all the other people to whom he had neglected to write for years and years. And very soon every spare moment he had was filled in writing to friends and acquaintances everywhere.

And then, of course, there were the letters he sent to and received from birds and animals all over the world. First he wrote to the various bird leaders who were in charge of the branch offices at Cape Horn, Thibet, Tahiti, Kashmir, Christmas Island, Greenland and Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. To them he gave careful instructions how the branch post offices were to be run – always insisting on strict politeness from the post-office clerks; and he answered all the questions that the branch postmasters wrote asking for guidance.

And he sent letters to various fellow naturalists whom he knew in different countries and gave them a whole lot of information about the yearly flights or migration of birds. Because, of course, in the bird mail business he learned a great deal on that subject that had never been known to naturalists before.

Outside the post office he had a notice board set up on which were posted the Outgoing and Incoming Mails. The notices would read something like this:

Next Wednesday, July 18, the Red-Winged Plovers will leave this office for Denmark and points on the Skager Rack. Post your mail early, please. All letters should bear a four-penny stamp. Small packages will also be carried on this flight for Morocco, Portugal and the Channel Islands.

Whenever a new flight of birds were expected at No-Man’s-Land the Doctor always had a big supply of food of their particular kind got ready for their arrival before-hand. He had at the big meeting with the leaders put down in his notebook the dates of all the yearly flights of the different kinds of birds, where they started from and where they went to. And this notebook was kept with great care.

One day Speedy was sitting on top of the weighing scales while the Doctor was sorting a large pile of outgoing letters. Suddenly the Skimmer cried out:

“Great heavens, Doctor, I’ve gained an ounce! I’ll never be able to fly in the races again. Look, it says four and a half ounces!”

“No, Speedy,” said the Doctor. “See, you have an ounce weight on the pan as well as yourself. That makes you only three and a half ounces.”

“Oh,” said the Skimmer, “is that the trouble? I was never good at arithmetic. What a relief! Thank goodness, I haven’t gained!”

“Listen, Speedy,” said the Doctor, “in this batch of mail we have a lot of letters for Panama. What mails have we got going out tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure,” said Speedy. “I’ll go and look at the notice board. I think it’s the Golden Jays…. Yes,” he said, coming back in a moment, “that’s right, the Golden Jays tomorrow, Tuesday, the 15th, weather permitting.”

“Where are they bound for, Speedy?” asked the Doctor. “My notebook’s in the safe.”

“From Dahomey to Venezuela,” said Speedy, raising his right foot to smother a yawn.

“Good,” said John Dolittle. “Then they can take these Panama letters for me. It won’t be much out of their way. What do Golden Jays eat?”

“They are very fond of acorns,” said Speedy.

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Please tell Gub-Gub for me to go across to the island and get the wild boars to gather up a couple of sacks of acorns. I want all the birds who work for us to have a good feed before they leave the Main Office for their flights.”

The next morning when the Doctor woke up he heard a tremendous chattering all around the post office and he knew that the Golden Jays had arrived overnight. And after he had dressed and come out on to the veranda, there, sure enough, they were – myriads of very handsome gold and black birds, swarming everywhere, gossiping away at a great rate and gobbling up the acorns laid out for them in bushels.

The leader, who already knew the Doctor, of course, came forward to get orders and to see how much mail there was to be carried.

After everything had been arranged and the leader had decided he need expect no tornadoes or bad weather for the next twenty-four hours, he gave a command. Then all the birds rose in the air to fly away – whistling farewell to Postmaster General Dolittle and the Head Office.

“Oh, by the way, Doctor,” said the leader, turning back a moment, “did you ever hear of a man called Christopher Columbus?”

“Oh, surely,” said the Doctor. “He discovered America in 1492.”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you,” said the Jay, “that if it hadn’t been for an ancestor of mine he wouldn’t have discovered it in 1492 – later perhaps, but not in 1492.”

“Oh, indeed!” said John Dolittle. “Tell me more about it.” And he pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started to write.

“Well,” said the Jay, “the story was handed down to me by my mother, who heard it from my grandmother, who got it from my great-grandmother, and so on, way back to an ancestor of ours who lived in America in the fifteenth century. Our kind of birds in those days did not come across to this side of the Atlantic, neither summer nor winter. We used to spend from March to September in the Bermudas and the rest of the year in Venezuela. And when we made the autumn journey south we used to stop at the Bahama Islands to rest on the way.

“The fall of the year 1492 was a stormy season. Gales and squalls were blowing up all the time and we did not get started on our trip until the second week in October. My ancestor had been the leader of the flock for a long time. But he had grown sort of old and feeble and a younger bird was elected in his place to lead the Golden Jays to Venezuela that year. The new leader was a conceited youngster, and because he had been chosen he thought he knew everything about navigation and weather and sea crossings.

“Shortly after the birds started they sighted, to their great astonishment, a number of boats sailing on a westward course. This was about half way between the Bermudas and the Bahamas. The ships were much larger than anything they had ever seen before. All they had been accustomed to up to that time were little canoes, with Indians in them.

“The new leader immediately got scared and gave the order for the Jays to swing in further toward the land, so they wouldn’t be seen by the men who crowded these large boats. He was a superstitious leader and anything he didn’t understand he kept away from. But my ancestor did not go with the flock, but made straight for the ships.

“He was gone about twenty minutes, and presently he flew after the other birds and said to the new leader: ‘Over there in those ships a brave man is in great danger. They come from Europe, seeking land. The sailors, not knowing how near they are to sighting it, have mutinied against their admiral. I am an old bird and I know this brave seafarer. Once when I was making a crossing – the first I ever made – a gale came up and I was separated from my fellows. For three days I had to fly with the battering wind. And finally I was blown eastward near the Old World. Just when I was ready to drop into the sea from exhaustion I spied a ship. I simply had to rest. I was weather-beaten and starving. So I made for the boat and fell half dead upon the deck. The sailors were going to put me in a cage. But the captain of the ship – this same navigator whose life is now threatened by his rebellious crew in those ships over there – fed me crumbs and nursed me back to life. Then he let me go free, to fly to Venezuela when the weather was fair. We are land birds. Let us now save this good man’s life by going to his ship and showing ourselves to his sailors. They will then know that land is near and be obedient to their captain.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor. “Go on. I remember Columbus writing of land birds in his diary. Go on.”

“So,” said the Jay, “the whole flock turned and made for Columbus’s fleet. They were only just in time. For the sailors were ready to kill their admiral, who, they said, had brought them on a fool’s errand to find land where there was none. He must turn back and sail for Spain, they said, or be killed.

“But when the sailors saw a great flock of land birds passing over the ship going southwest instead of west, they took new heart, for they were sure land must lie not far to the southwestward.

“So we led them on to the Bahamas. And on the seventh day, very early in the morning, the crew, with a cry of ‘Land! Land!’ fell down upon their knees and gave thanks to heaven. Watling’s Island, one of the smaller Bahamas, lay ahead of them, smiling in the sea.

“Then the sailors gathered about the admiral, Christopher Columbus, whom a little before they were going to kill, and cheered and called him the greatest navigator in the world – which, in truth, he was.

“But even Columbus himself never learned to his dying day that it was the weather-beaten bird who had fallen on his friendly deck some years before, who had led him by the shortest cut to the land of the New World.

“So you see, Doctor,” the Jay ended, picking up his letters and getting ready to fly, “if it hadn’t been for my ancestor Christopher Columbus would have had to turn back to please his sailors, or be killed. If it hadn’t been for him America would not have been discovered in 1492 – later, perhaps, but not in 1492. Goodbye! I must be going. Thanks for the acorns.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Cape Stephen Light

On the coast of West Africa, about twenty miles to the northward of Fantippo, there was a cape running out into the sea which had a lighthouse on it called the Cape Stephen Light. This light was kept carefully burning by the government who controlled that part of Africa, in order that ships should see it from the sea and know where they were. It was a dangerous part of the coast, this. There were many rocks and shallows near the end of Cape Stephen. And if the light were ever allowed to go out at night, of course, ships travelling that part of the sea would be in great danger of running into the long cape and wrecking themselves.

Now, one evening not long after the Golden Jays had gone west, the Doctor was writing letters in the post office by the light of a candle. It was late and all the animals were fast asleep long ago. Presently while he wrote he heard a sound a long way off, coming through the open window at his elbow. He put down his pen and listened.

It was the sound of a seabird, calling away out at sea. Now, seabirds don’t, as a rule, call very much unless they are in great numbers. This call sounded like a single bird. The Doctor put his head through the window and looked out.

It was a dark night, as black as pitch, and he couldn’t see a thing – especially as his eyes were used to the light of the candle. The mysterious call was repeated again and again, like a cry of distress from the sea. The Doctor didn’t know quite what to make of it. But soon he thought it seemed to be coming nearer. And, grabbing his hat, he ran out on to the veranda.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” he shouted into the darkness over the sea.

He got no answer. But soon, with a rush of wings that nearly blew his candle out, a great seagull swept down on to the houseboat rail beside him.

“Doctor,” panted the gull, “the Cape Stephen Light is out. I don’t know what’s the matter. It has never gone out before. We use it as a landmark, you know, when we are flying after dark. The night’s as black as ink. I’m afraid some ship will surely run into the cape. I thought I’d come and tell you.”

“Good heavens!” cried the Doctor. “What can have happened? There’s a lighthouse keeper living there to attend to it. Was it lighted earlier in the evening?”

“I don’t know,” said the gull. “I was coming in from catching herring – they’re running just now, you know, a little to the North. And, expecting to see the light, I lost my way and flew miles too far south. When I found out my mistake I went back, flying close down by the shore. And I came to Stephen Cape, but it had no light. It was black as anything. And I would have run right into the rocks myself if I hadn’t been going carefully.”

“How far would it be from here?” asked John Dolittle.

“Well, by land it would be twenty-five miles to where the lighthouse stands,” said the gull. “But by water it would be only about twelve, I should say.”

“All right,” said the Doctor, hurrying into his coat. “Wait just a moment till I wake Dab-Dab.”

The Doctor ran into the post-office kitchen and woke the poor housekeeper, who was slumbering soundly beside the kitchen stove.

“Listen, Dab-Dab!” said the Doctor, shaking her. “Wake up! The Cape Stephen Light’s gone out!”

“Whazhat?” said Dab-Dab, sleepily opening her eyes. “Stove’s gone out?”

“No, the lighthouse on Cape Stephen,” said the Doctor. “A gull just came and told me. The shipping’s in danger. Wrecks, you know, and all that. Wake up and look sensible, for pity’s sake!”

At last poor Dab-Dab, fully awakened, understood what was the matter. And in a moment she was up and doing.

“I know where it is, Doctor. I’ll fly right over there. – No, I won’t need the gull to guide me. You keep him to show you the way. Follow me immediately in the canoe. If I can find out anything I’ll come back and meet you half way. If not, I’ll wait for you by the lighthouse tower. Thank goodness, it’s a calm night, anyway – even if it is dark!”

With a flap of her wings, Dab-Dab flew right through the open window and was gone into the night, while the Doctor grabbed his little black medicine bag and, calling to the gull to follow him, ran down to the other end of the houseboat, untied the canoe and jumped in. Then he pushed off, headed around the island of No-Man’s-Land and paddled for all he was worth for the seaward end of Cape Stephen.

About half way to the long neck of land that jutted out into the gloomy ocean the Doctor’s canoe was met by Dab-Dab – though how she found it in the darkness, with only the sound of the paddle to guide her, goodness only knows.

“Doctor,” said she, “if the lighthouse keeper is in there at all he must be sick, or something. I hammered on the windows, but nobody answered.”

“Dear me!” muttered the Doctor, paddling harder than ever, “I wonder what can have happened?”

“And that’s not the worst,” said Dab-Dab. “On the far side of the cape – you can’t see it from here – there’s the headlight of a big sailing ship, bearing down southward, making straight for the rocks. They can’t see the lighthouse and they don’t know what danger they’re in.”

“Good Lord!” groaned the Doctor, and he nearly broke the paddle as he churned the water astern to make the canoe go faster yet.

“How far off the rocks is the ship now?” asked the gull.

“About a mile, I should say,” said Dab-Dab. “But she’s a big one – judging by the height of her mast-light – and she won’t be long before she’s aground on the cape.”

“Keep right on, Doctor,” said the gull. “I’m going off to get some friends of mine.”

And the seagull spread his wings and flew away toward the land, calling the same cry as the Doctor had heard through the post-office window.

John Dolittle had no idea of what he meant to do. Nor was the gull himself sure that he would be in time to succeed with the plan he had in mind. But presently, to his delight, the seabird heard his call being answered from the rocky shores shrouded in darkness. And soon he had hundreds of his brother gulls circling round him in the night.

Then he took them to the great ship, which was sailing calmly onward toward the rocks and destruction. And there, going forward to where the helmsman held the spokes of the wheel and watched the compass swinging before him in the light of a little, dim lamp, the gulls started dashing themselves into the wheelman’s face and covering the glass of the compass, so he could not steer the ship.

The helmsman, battling with the birds, set up a yell for help, saying he couldn’t see to steer the boat. Then the officers and sailors rushed up to his assistance and tried to beat the birds off.

In the meantime the Doctor, in his canoe, had reached the end of Cape Stephen and, springing ashore, he scrambled up the rocks to where the great tower of the lighthouse rose skyward over the black, unlighted sea. Feeling and fumbling, he found the door and hammered on it, yelling to be let in. But no one answered him. And Dab-Dab whispered in a hoarse voice that the light of the ship was nearer now – less than half a mile from the rocks.

Then the Doctor drew back for a run and threw his whole weight against the door. But the hinges and lock had been made to stand the beating of the sea and they budged no more than if he had been a fly.

At last, with a roar of rage, the Doctor grabbed up a rock from the ground as big as a chair and banged it with all his might against the lock of the lighthouse door. With a crash the door flew open and the Doctor sprang within.

On the ship the seamen were still fighting with the gulls. The captain, seeing that no helmsman could steer the boat right with thousands of wings fluttering in his eyes, gave the orders to lay the ship to for a little and to get out the hose pipes. And a strong stream of water was turned on to the gulls around the helmsman, so they could no longer get near him. Then the ship got under way again and came on toward the cape once more.

Inside the lighthouse the Doctor found the darkness blacker still. With hands outstretched before him, he hurried forward and the first thing he did was to stumble over a man who was lying on the floor just within the door. Without waiting to see what was the matter with him, the Doctor jumped over his body and began to grope his way up the winding stairs of the tower that led to the big lamp at the top.

Meanwhile Dab-Dab stayed below at the door, looking out over the sea at the mast light of the ship – which, after a short delay, was now coming on again toward the rocks. At any minute she expected the great beam of the lighthouse lamp to flare out over the sea, as soon as the Doctor should get it lit, to warn the sailors of their danger. But, instead, she presently heard the Doctor’s agonized voice calling from the head of the stairs:

“Dab-Dab! Dab-Dab! I can’t light it. We forgot to bring matches!”

“Well, what have you done with the matches, Doctor?” called Dab-Dab. “They were always in your coat.”

“I left them beside my pipe on the information desk,” came the Doctor’s voice from the top of the dark stairs. “But there must be matches in the lighthouse somewhere. We must find them.”

“What chance have we of that?” shouted Dab-Dab. “It’s as black as black down here. And the ship is coming nearer every minute.”

“Feel in the man’s pockets,” called John Dolittle. “Hurry!”

In a minute Dab-Dab went through the pockets of the man who lay so still upon the floor.

“He hasn’t any matches on him,” she shouted. “Not a single one.”

“Confound the luck!” muttered John Dolittle.

And then there was a solemn silence in the lighthouse while the Doctor above and Dab-Dab below thought gloomily of that big ship sailing onward to her wreck because they had no matches.

But suddenly out of the black stillness came a small, sweet voice, singing, somewhere near.

“Dab-Dab!” cried the Doctor in a whisper. “Do you hear that? A canary! There’s a canary singing somewhere – probably in a cage in the lighthouse kitchen!”

In a moment he was clattering down the stairs.

“Come on,” he cried. “We must find the kitchen. That canary will know where the matches are kept. Find the kitchen!”

Then the two of them went stumbling around in the darkness, feeling the walls, and presently they came upon a low door, opened it and fell headlong down a short flight of steps that led to the lighthouse kitchen. This was a little underground room, like a cellar, cut out of the rock on which the lighthouse stood. If there was any fire or stove in it it had long since gone out, for the darkness here was as black as anywhere else. But as soon as the door had opened, the trills of the song bird grew louder.

“Tell me,” called John Dolittle, in canary language, “where are the matches? Quick!”

“Oh, at last you’ve come,” said a high, small, polite voice out of the darkness. “Would you mind putting a cover over my cage? There’s a draught and I can’t sleep. Nobody’s been near me since midday. I don’t know what can have happened to the keeper. He always covers up my cage at tea-time. But tonight I wasn’t covered at all, so I went on singing. You’ll find my cover up on the—”

“Matches! Matches! Where are the matches?” screamed Dab-Dab. “The light’s out and there’s a ship in danger! Where are the matches kept?”

“On the mantelpiece, next to the pepper box,” said the canary. “Come over here to my cage and feel along to your left – high up – and your hand will fall right on them.”

The Doctor sprang across the room, upsetting a chair on his way, and felt along the wall. His hand touched the corner of a stone shelf and the next moment Dab-Dab gave a deep sigh of relief, for she heard the cheerful rattle of a box of matches as the Doctor fumbled to strike a light.

“You’ll find a candle on the table – there – look – behind you,” said the canary, when the match light dimly lit up the kitchen.

With trembling fingers the Doctor lit the candle. Then, shielding the flame with his hand, he bounded out of the room and up the stairs.

“At last!” he muttered. “Let’s hope I’m not too late!”

At the head of the kitchen steps he met the seagull coming into the lighthouse with two companions.

“Doctor,” cried the gull, “we held off the ship as long as we could. But the stupid sailors, not knowing we were trying to save them, turned hoses on us and we had to give up. The ship is terribly near now.”

Without a word the Doctor sped on up the winding steps of the tower. Round and round he went, upward, till he was ready to drop from dizziness.

At length reaching the great glass lamp chamber at the top, he set down his candle and, striking two matches at once he held one in each hand and lit the big wick in two places.

By this time Dab-Dab had gone outside again and was watching over the sea for the oncoming ship. And when at last the great light from the big lamp at the top of the tower suddenly flared out over the sea there was the bow of the vessel, not more than a hundred yards from the rocky shore of the cape!

Then came a cry from the look-out, shouted orders from the captain, much blowing of whistles and ringing of bells. And just in time to save herself from a watery grave, the big ship swung her nose out to sea and sailed safely past upon her way.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Gulls and Ships

The morning sun peeping in at the window of the lighthouse found the Doctor still working over the keeper where he lay at the foot of the tower stairs.

“He’s coming to,” said Dab-Dab. “See, his eyes are beginning to blink.”

“Get me some more clean water from the kitchen,” said the Doctor, who was bathing a large lump on the side of the man’s head.

Presently the keeper opened his eyes wide and stared up into the Doctor’s face.

“Who? – – What?” – – he murmured stupidly. “The light! – I must attend to the light! – I must attend to the light!” and he struggled weakly to get up.

“It’s all right,” said the Doctor. “The light has been lit. And it’s nearly day now. Here, drink this. Then you’ll feel better.”

And the Doctor held some medicine to his lips which he had taken from the little black bag.

In a short while the man grew strong enough to stand on his feet. Then, with the Doctor’s help, he walked as far as the kitchen, where John Dolittle and Dab-Dab made him comfortable in an armchair, lit the stove and cooked his breakfast for him.

“I’m mighty grateful to you, stranger, whoever you be,” said the man. “Usually there’s two of us here, me and my partner, Fred. But yesterday morning I let Fred go off with the ketch to get oysters. That’s why I’m alone. I was coming down the stairs about noon, from putting new wicks in the lamp, when my foot slipped and I took a tumble to the bottom. My head fetched up against the wall and knocked the senses right out of me. How long I lay there before you found me I don’t know.”

“Well, all’s well that ends well,” said the Doctor. “Take this; you must be nearly starved.”

And he handed the keeper a large cup of steaming coffee.

About ten o’clock in the morning Fred, the partner, returned in the little sail-boat from his oyster-gathering expedition. He was very much worried when he heard of the accident which had happened while he had been off duty. Fred, like the other keeper, was a Londoner and a seaman. He was a pleasant fellow and both he and his partner (who was now almost entirely recovered from his injury) were very glad of the Doctor’s company to break the tiresome dullness of their lonely life.

They took John Dolittle all over the lighthouse to see the workings of it. And outside they showed him with great pride the tiny garden of tomatoes and nasturtiums which they had planted near the foot of the tower.

They only got a holiday once a year, they told John Dolittle, when a government ship stopped near Cape Stephen and took them back to England for six weeks’ vacation, leaving two other men in their place to take care of the light while they were gone.

They asked the Doctor if he could give them any news of their beloved London. But he had to admit that he also had been away from that city for a long time. However, while they were talking Cheapside came into the lighthouse kitchen, looking for the Doctor. The city sparrow was delighted to find that the keepers were also Cockneys. And he gave them, through the Doctor, all the latest gossip of Wapping, Limehouse, the East India Docks and the wharves and the shipping of London River.

The two keepers thought that the Doctor was surely crazy when he started a conversation of chirps with Cheapside. But from the answers they got to their questions they could see there was no fake about the news of the city which the sparrow gave.

Cheapside said the faces of those two Cockney seamen were the best scenery he had looked on since he had come to Africa. And after that first visit he was always flying over to the lighthouse in his spare time to see his new friends. Of course, he couldn’t talk to them, because neither of them knew sparrow talk – not even Cockney sparrow talk. But Cheapside loved being with them, anyway.

“They’re such a nice, wholesome, Christian change,” he said, “after these ‘ere ’eathen hidolaters. And you should just hear Fred sing ‘See That My Grave’s Kept Green.’”

The lighthouse keepers were sorry to have the Doctor go and they wouldn’t let him leave till he promised to come and take dinner with them next Sunday.

Then, after they had loaded his canoe with a bushel of rosy tomatoes and a bouquet of nasturtiums, the Doctor, with Dab-Dab and Cheapside, paddled away for Fantippo, while the keepers waved to them from the lighthouse door.

The Doctor had not paddled very far on his return journey to the post office when the seagull who had brought the news of the light overtook him.

“Everything all right now, Doctor?” he asked as he swept in graceful circles around the canoe.

“Yes,” said John Dolittle, munching a tomato. “The man got an awful crack on the head from that fall. But he will be all over it in a little while. If it hadn’t been for the canary, though, who told us where the matches were – and for you, too, holding back the sailors – we would never have saved that ship.”

The Doctor threw a tomato skin out of the canoe and the gull caught it neatly in the air before it touched the water.

“Well, I’m glad we were in time,” said the bird.

“Tell me,” asked the Doctor, watching him thoughtfully as he hovered and swung and curved around the tiny boat, “what made you come and bring me the news about the light? Gulls don’t, as a rule, bother much about people or what happens to ships, do they?”

“You’re mistaken, Doctor,” said the gull, catching another skin with deadly accuracy. “Ships and the men in them are very important to us – not so much down here in the South. But up North, why, if it wasn’t for the ships in the winter we gulls would often have a hard time finding enough to eat. You see, after it gets cold fish and sea foods become sort of scarce. Sometimes we make out by going up the rivers to towns and hanging about the artificial lakes in parks where fancy waterfowl are kept. The people come to the parks and throw biscuits into the lakes for the waterfowl. But if we are around the biscuits get caught before they hit the lake – like that,” and the gull snatched a third tomato skin on the wing with a lightning lunge.

“But you were speaking of ships,” said the Doctor.

“Yes,” the gull went on – rather indistinctly, because his mouth was full of tomato skin – “we find ships much better for winter feeding. You see, it isn’t really fair of us to go and bag all the food from the fancy waterfowl in parks. So we never do it unless we have to. Usually in winter we stick to the ships. Why, two years ago I and a cousin of mine lived the whole year round following ships for the food scraps the stewards threw out into the sea. The rougher the weather, the more food we get, because then the passengers don’t feel like eating and most of the grub gets thrown out. Yes, I and my cousin attached ourselves, as it were, to the Transatlantic Packet Line, which runs ships from Glasgow to Philadelphia, and travelled back and forth with them across the ocean dozens of trips. But later on we changed over to the Binnacle Line – Tilbury to Boston.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor.

“We found they ran a better table for their passengers. With the Binnacle, who threw us out morning biscuits, afternoon tea and sandwiches last thing at night – as well as three square meals a day – we lived like fighting cocks. It nearly made sailors of us for good. It’s a great life – all you do is eat. I should say gulls are interested in men and ships, Doctor – very much so. Why, I wouldn’t have an accident happen to a ship for anything – especially a passenger ship.”

“Humph! That’s very interesting,” murmured the Doctor. “And have you seen many accidents – ships in trouble?”

“Oh, heaps of times,” said the gull – “storms, collisions at night, ships going aground in the fog, and the rest. Oh, yes, I’ve seen lots of boats in trouble at sea.”

“Ah!” said the Doctor, looking up from his paddling. “See, we are already back at the post office. And there’s the pushmi-pullyu ringing the lunch bell. We’re just in time. I smell liver and bacon – these tomatoes will go with it splendidly. Won’t you come in and join us?” he asked the gull. “I would like to hear more about your life with ships. You’ve given me an idea.”

“Thank you,” said the gull. “I am feeling kind of peckish myself. You are very kind. This is the first time I’ve eaten ship’s food inside a ship.”

And when the canoe was tied up they went into the houseboat and sat down to lunch at the kitchen table.

“Well, now,” said the Doctor to the gull as soon as they were seated, “you were speaking of fogs. What do you do yourself in that kind of weather – I mean, you can’t see any more in the fog than the sailors can, can you?”

“No,” said the gull, “we can’t see any more, it is true. But, my goodness! If we were as helpless in a fog as the sailors are we’d always be lost. What we do, if we are going anywhere special and we run into a fog, is to fly up above it – way up where the air is clear. Then we can find our way as well as ever.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “But the storms, what do you do in them to keep yourselves safe?”

“Well, of course, in storms – bad storms – even seabirds can’t always go where they want. We seagulls never try to battle our way against a real gale. The petrels sometimes do, but we don’t. It is too tiring, and even when you can come down and rest on the water, swimming, every once in a while, it’s a dangerous game. We fly with the storm – just let it carry us where it will. Then when the wind dies down we come back and finish our journey.”

“But that takes a long time, doesn’t it?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, yes,” said the gull, “it wastes a little time. But, you know, we very seldom let ourselves get caught by a storm.”

“How do you mean?” asked John Dolittle.

“We know, before we reach one, where it is. And we go around it. No experienced sea bird ever runs his head into a bad storm.”

“But how do you know where the storms are?” asked the Doctor.

“Well,” said the gull, “I suppose two great advantages we birds have over the sailors in telling when and where to expect bad weather are our good eyesight and our experience. For one thing, we can always rise high in the air and look over the sea for a distance of fifty or sixty miles. Then if we see gales approaching we can turn and run for it. And we can put on more speed than the fastest gale that ever blew. And then, another thing, our experience is so much better than sailors’. Sailors, poor duffers, think they know the sea – that they spend their life on it. They don’t – believe me, they don’t. Half the time they spend in the cabin, part of the time they spend on shore and a lot of the time they spend sleeping. And even when they are on deck they’re not always looking at the sea. They fiddle around with ropes and paint brushes and mops and buckets. You very seldom see a sailor looking at the sea.”

“I suppose they get rather tired of it, poor fellows!” murmured the Doctor.

“Maybe. But, after all, if you want to be a good seaman the sea is the thing that counts, isn’t it? That’s the thing you’ve got to look at – to study. Now, we sea birds spend nearly all our lives, night and day, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, looking at the sea. And what is the result?” asked the gull, taking a fresh piece of toast from the rack that Dab-Dab handed him.

“The result is this: we know the sea. Why, Doctor, if you were to shut me up in a little box with no windows in it and take me out into the middle of any ocean you liked and then opened the box and let me look at the sea – even if there wasn’t a speck of land in sight – I could tell you what ocean it was, and, almost to a mile, what part of it we were in. But, of course, I’d have to know what date it was.”

“Marvelous!” cried the Doctor. “How do you do it?”

“From the colour of it; from the little particles of things that float in it; from the kind of fishes and sea creatures swimming in it; from the way the little ripples rippled and the big waves waved; from the smell of it; from the taste, the saltness of it and a couple of hundred other things. But, you know, in most cases – not always, but in most cases – I could tell you where we were with my eyes shut, as soon as I got out of the box, just from the wind blowing on my feathers.”

“Great heavens!” the Doctor exclaimed. “You don’t say!”

“That’s the main trouble with sailors, Doctor. They don’t know winds the way they ought. They can tell a northeast wind from a west wind. And a strong one from a weak one. And that’s about all. But when you’ve spent most of your life, the way we have, flying among the winds, using them to climb on, to swoop on and to hover on, you get to know that there’s a lot more to a wind besides its direction and its strength. How often it puffs upward or downward, how often it grows weak or grows strong, will tell you, if you know the science of winds, a whole lot.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

Weather Bureaus

When the lunch was over the Doctor took an armchair beside the kitchen stove and lit his pipe. “I am thinking,” he said to the gull, “of starting a new department in my post office. Many of the birds who have helped me in this mail business seem to be remarkably good weather prophets. And what you have just told me about your knowledge of the sea and storms has given me the idea of opening a weather bureau.”

“What’s that?” asked Jip, who was brushing up the table crumbs, to be put out later for the birds on the houseboat deck.

“A weather bureau,” said the Doctor, “is a very important thing – especially for shipping and farmers. It is an office for telling you what kind of weather you’re going to have.”

“How do they do it?” asked Gub-Gub.

“They don’t,” said the Doctor – “at least they do sometimes. But as often as not they’re wrong. They do it with instruments – thermometers, barometers, hygrometers and wind gauges and things. But most weather bureaus so far have been pretty poor. I think I can do much better with my birds. They very seldom go wrong in prophesying the weather.”

“Well, for what parts of the world do you want to know the weather, Doctor?” asked the gull. “If it’s just for Fantippo or West Africa it will be easy as pie. All you ever get here is tornadoes. The rest of the year is just frying heat. But if you want to prophesy the weather for the Straits of Magellan or Nova Zembla or those countries where they have all sorts of fancy weathers, it will be a different matter. Even prophesying the weather for England would keep you busy. Myself, I never thought that the weather itself knew what it was going to do next in England.”

“The English climate’s all right,” put in Cheapside, his feathers ruffling up for a fight. “Don’t you get turning up your long nautical nose at England, my lad. What do you call this ’ere? A climate? Well, I should call it a Turkish bath. In England we like variety in our climate. And we get it. That’s why Englishmen ’ave such ’earty red faces. ’Ere the poor creatures turn black.”

“I would like,” said the Doctor, “to be able to prophesy weather for every part of the world. I really don’t see why I shouldn’t; this office, together with my branch offices, is in communication with birds going to every corner of the earth. I could improve the farming and the agriculture of the whole human race. But also, and especially, I want to have a bureau for ocean weather, to help the ships.”

“Ah,” said the gull, “for land weather I wouldn’t be much help to you. But when it comes to the oceans, I know a bird who can tell you more about sea weather than any bureau ever knew.”

“Oh,” said the Doctor, “who is that?”

“We call him One Eye,” said the gull. “He’s an old, old albatross. Nobody knows how old. He lost an eye fighting with a fish eagle over a flounder. But he’s the most marvelous weather prophet that ever lived. All sea birds have the greatest respect for his opinions. He has never been known to make a mistake.”

“Indeed?” said the Doctor. “I would like very much to meet him.”

“I’ll get him for you,” said the gull. “His home is not very far from here – out on a rock off the Angola coast. He lives there because the shellfish are so plentiful on the rock and he’s too feeble – with his bad sight – to catch the other kinds of livelier fish. It’s a sort of dull life for his old age, after all the great travelling he has done. He’ll be no end pleased to know you want his help. I’ll go and tell him right away.”

“That will be splendid,” said the Doctor. “I think your friend should be very helpful to us.”

So the gull, after thanking the Doctor and Dab-Dab for a very excellent luncheon, took a couple of post-cards which were going to Angola and flew off to get One Eye, the albatross.

Later in the afternoon the gull returned and with him came the great One Eye, oldest of bird weather prophets.

The Doctor said afterward that he had never seen a bird who reminded him so much of a sailor. He had the rolling, straddling walk of a seafaring man; he smelt strongly of fish; and whenever he spoke of the weather he had an odd trick of squinting up at the sky with his one eye, the way old sailors often do.

He agreed with the Doctor that the idea of a bird weather bureau was quite a possible thing and would lead to much better weather reports than had so far been possible. Then for a whole hour and a half he gave the Doctor a lecture on winds. Every word of this John Dolittle wrote down in a notebook.

Now the wind is the chief thing that changes the weather. And if, for instance, you know that it is raining in the Channel Islands at tea-time on a Thursday – and there’s a northeast wind blowing – you can be pretty sure that the rain will reach England some time Thursday night.

The next thing that the Doctor did was to write to all the branch postmasters and have them arrange exactly with the different kinds of birds a time for them to start their yearly migrations – not just the second week in November, or anything like that – but an exact day and hour. Then by knowing how fast each kind of bird flies, he could calculate almost to a minute what time they should arrive at their destination. And if they were late in arriving, then he would know that bad weather had delayed them on the way or that they had put off their starting till storms died down.

The Doctor, the gull, One Eye, Dab-Dab, Cheapside, Speedy-the-Skimmer and Too-Too the mathematician put their heads together and discussed far into the night, working out a whole lot more arrangements and particulars for running a good weather bureau. And a few weeks later a second brand new notice board appeared on the walls of the Doctor’s post office, beside the one for Outgoing and Incoming Mails.

The new notice board was marked at the top Weather Reports, and would read something like this:

The Green Herons were one day, three hours and nine minutes late in their arrival at Cape Horn from the Sandwich Islands. Wind coming south-southeast. Blustery weather can be expected along the west coast of Chili and light gales in the Antarctic Sea.

And then the land birds, particularly those that live on berries, were very helpful to the Doctor in telling him by letter if the Winter was going to be a hard one or not in their particular country. And he used to write to farmers all over the world, advising them whether they could expect a sharp frost, a wet Spring or a dry Summer – which, of course, helped them in their farming tremendously.

And then the Fantippans, who so far had been very timid about going far out to sea on account of storms, now that they had a good weather bureau and knew what weather to expect, began building larger sailboats, instead of their little frail canoes. And they became what is called a mercantile nation, traded up and down the shores of West Africa, and even went as far south as the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean to traffic in goods with people of foreign lands.

This made the kingdom of Fantippo much richer and more important than it had been before, of course. And a large grant of money was given by the King to the Foreign Mails post office, which was used by the Doctor in making the houseboat better and bigger.

And soon the No-Man’s-Land Weather Bureau began to get known abroad. The farmers in England, who had received such good weather reports by letter from the Doctor, went up to London and told the government that their own reports were no good, that a certain John Dolittle, M.D., was writing them much better reports from some place in Africa.

And the government got quite worked up about it. And they sent the Royal Meteorologist, an old grey-haired weather man, down to Fantippo to see how the Doctor was doing it.

John Dolittle saw him one day, snooping around the post office, looking at the notice boards and trying to find out things. But he found out nothing. And when he got back to England he said to the government:

“He hasn’t any new instruments at all. The man’s a fake. All he has down there is an old barge and a whole lot of messy birds flying around.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

Teaching by Mail

The educational side of the Doctor’s post office was a very important one and it grew all the time. As he had said to the Skimmer at the beginning, as soon as the birds and animals realized the helpfulness of having a post office of their own they used it more and more.

And, of course, as Speedy had foretold, they wrote most of their letters to the Doctor. Soon the poor man was swamped with mail, asking for medical advice. The Esquimaux sleigh dogs wrote all the way from the Arctic Continent to know what they should do about their hair falling out. Hair – which was all the poor creatures had to keep them warm against the Polar winds – was, of course, very important to them. And John Dolittle spent a whole Saturday and Sunday experimenting with hair tonics on Jip to find a way to cure their trouble. Jip was very patient about it, knowing that the Doctor was doing it for the good of his fellow dogs. And he did not grumble – although he did mention to Dab-Dab that he felt like a chemist’s shop from all the different hair oils the Doctor had used on him. He said they ruined his keen nose entirely for two weeks, so he couldn’t smell straight.

And besides the letters asking for medical advice, the Doctor got all sorts of requests from animals all over the world for information about food for their babies, nesting materials and a thousand other things. In their new thirst for education the animals asked all manner of questions, some of which neither the Doctor nor anybody else could answer: What were the stars made of? Why did the tide rise and fall – and could it be stopped?

Then, in order to deal with this wide demand for information which had been brought about by his post office, John Dolittle started, for the first time in history, courses by correspondence for animals.

And he had printed forms made, called “Things a Young Rabbit Should Know,” “The Care of Feet in Frosty Weather,” etc., etc. These he sent out by mail in thousands.

And then because so many letters were written him about good manners and proper behaviour, he wrote a “Book of Etiquette for Animals.” It is still a very famous work, though copies of it are rare now. But when he wrote it the Doctor printed a first edition of fifty thousand copies and sent them all out by mail in one week. It was at this time, too, that he wrote and circulated another very well-known book of his called “One-Act Plays for Penguins.”

But, alas! instead of making the number of letters he had to answer less, the Doctor found that by sending out books of information he increased a hundredfold the already enormous mail he had to attend to.

This is a letter he received from a pig in Patagonia:

“Dear Doctor – I have read your ‘Book of Etiquette for Animals’ and liked it very much. I am shortly to be married. Would it be proper for me to ask the guests to bring turnips to my wedding, instead of flowers?

“In introducing one well-bred pig to another should you say ‘Miss Virginia Ham, “meet Mr. Frank Footer”,’ or ‘Get acquainted?’

“Yours truly,

“Bertha Bacon.

“P.S. – I have always worn my engagement ring in my nose. Is this the right place?”

And the Doctor wrote back:

“Dear Bertha – In introducing one pig to another I would avoid using the word ‘meet.’ ‘Get acquainted’ is quite all right. Remember that the object of all etiquette and manners should be to make people comfortable – not uncomfortable.

“I think turnips at a wedding quite proper. You might ask the guests to leave the tops on. They will then look more like a bouquet.

“Sincerely yours,

“John Dolittle.”

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

The Animals’ Magazine

The next thing I must tell you about is the Prize Story Competition: The fame of the Puddleby fireside-circle, where the Doctor had amused his pets with so many interesting tales, had become quite a famous institution. Too-Too had gossiped about it; Gub-Gub, Jip and the white mouse had boasted of it. (You see, they were always proud that they could say they were part of the great man’s regular household.) And before long, through this new post office of their own, creatures all over the world were speaking of it and discussing it by letter. Next thing, the Doctor began to receive requests for stories by mail. He had become equally famous as an animal doctor, an animal educator and an animal author.

From the Far North letters came in by the dozen from polar bears and walruses and foxes asking that he send them some light entertaining reading as well as his medical pamphlets and books of etiquette. The winter nights (weeks and weeks long up there) grew frightfully monotonous, they said, after their own supply of stories had run out – because you couldn’t possibly sleep all the time and something had to be done for amusement on the lonely ice-floes and in the dens and lairs beneath the blizzard-swept snow. For some time the Doctor was kept so busy with more serious things that he was unable to attend to it. But he kept it in mind until he should be able to think out the best way of dealing with the problem.

Now his pets, after the post-office work got sort of settled and regular, often found it somewhat hard to amuse themselves in the evenings. One night they were all sitting around on the veranda of the houseboat wondering what game they could play when Jip suddenly said:

“I know what we can do – let’s get the Doctor to tell us a story.”

“Oh, you’ve heard all my stories,” said the Doctor. “Why don’t you play Hunt-the-Slipper?”

“The houseboat isn’t big enough,” said Dab-Dab. “Last time we played it Gub-Gub got stuck by the pushmi-pullyu’s horns. You’ve got plenty of stories. Tell us one, Doctor – just a short one.”

“Well, but what shall I tell you a story about?” asked John Dolittle.

“About a turnip field,” said Gub-Gub.

“No, that won’t do,” said Jip. “Doctor, why don’t you do what you did sometimes by the fire in Puddleby – turn your pockets out upon the table till you come to something that reminds you of a story – you remember?”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “But—”

And then an idea came to him.

“Look here,” he said: “You know I’ve been asked for stories by mail. The creatures around the North Pole wanted some light reading for the long winter nights. I’m going to start an animals’ magazine for them. I’m calling it The Arctic Monthly. It will be sent by mail and be distributed by the Nova Zembla branch office. So far, so good. But the great problem is how to get sufficient stories and pictures and articles and things to fill a monthly magazine – no easy matter. Now listen, if I tell you animals a story tonight, you’ll have to do something to help me with my new magazine. Every night when you want to amuse yourselves we’ll take it in turns to tell a story. That will give us seven stories right away. There will be only one story printed each month – the rest of the magazine will be news of the day, a medical advice column, a babies’ and mothers’ page and odds and ends. Then we’ll have a Prize Story Competition. The readers shall judge which is the best; and when they write to us here and tell us, we’ll give the prize to the winner. What do you say?”

“What a splendid idea!” cried Gub-Gub. “I’ll tell my story tomorrow night. I know a good one. Now go ahead, Doctor.”

Then John Dolittle started turning his trousers pockets out onto the table to try and find something that reminded him of a story. It was certainly a wonderful collection of objects that he brought forth. There were pieces of string and pieces of wire, stub ends of pencils, pocket-knives with the blades broken, coat buttons, boot buttons, a magnifying glass, a compass and a corkscrew.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything very hopeful there,” said the Doctor.

“Try in your waistcoat pockets,” said Too-Too. “They were always the most interesting. You haven’t turned them out since you left Puddleby. There must be lots in them.”

So the Doctor turned out his waistcoat pockets. These brought forth two watches (one that went and one that didn’t), a measuring tape, a piece of cobbler’s wax, a penny with a hole through it and a clinical thermometer.

“What’s that?” asked Gub-Gub, pointing to the thermometer.

“That’s for taking people’s temperature with,” said the Doctor. “Oh, that reminds me—”

“Of a story?” cried Too-Too.

“I knew it would,” said Jip. “A thing like that must have a story to it. What’s the name of the story, Doctor?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, settling himself back in his chair, “I think I’ll call this story ‘The Invalids’ Strike.’”

“What’s a strike?” asked Gub-Gub.

“And what on earth is an invalid?” cried the pushmi-pullyu.

“A strike,” said the Doctor, “is when people stop doing their own particular work in order to get somebody else to give them what they want. And an invalid – well, an invalid is a person who is always – er, more or less – ill.”

“But what kind of work is invalids’ work?” asked the white mouse.

“Their work is – er staying – ill,” said the Doctor. “Stop asking questions or I’ll never get this story started.”

“Wait a minute,” said Gub-Gub. “My foot’s gone to sleep.”

“Oh, bother your feet!” cried Dab-Dab. “Let the Doctor get on with his story.”

“Is it a good story?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I’ll tell it, and then you can decide for yourself. Stop fidgeting, now, and let me begin. It’s getting late.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Doctor’s Story

As soon as the Doctor had lit his pipe and got it well going he began:

“Many years ago, at the time I bought this thermometer, I was a very young doctor, full of hope, just starting out in business. I fancied myself a very good doctor, but I found that the rest of the world did not seem to think so. And for many months after I began I did not get a single patient. I had no one to try my new thermometer on. I tried it on myself quite often. But I was always so frightfully healthy I never had any temperature anyway. I tried to catch a cold. I didn’t really want a cold, you understand, but I did want to make sure that my new thermometer worked. But I couldn’t even catch a cold. I was very sad – healthy but sad.

“Well, about this time I met another young doctor who was in the same fix as myself – having no patients. Said he to me: ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, let’s start a sanitarium.’”

“What’s a sanitarium?” asked Gub-Gub.

“A sanitarium,” said the Doctor, “is a sort of mixture between a hospital and a hotel – where people stay who are invalids…. Well, I agreed to this idea. Then I and my young friend – his name was Phipps, Dr. Cornelius Q. Phipps – took a beautiful place way off in the country, and we furnished it with wheel chairs and hot-water bottles and ear trumpets and the things that invalids like. And very soon patients came to us in hundreds and our sanitarium was quite full up and my new thermometer was kept very busy. Of course, we made a lot of money, because all these people paid us well. And Phipps was very happy.

“But I was not so happy. I had noticed a peculiar thing: none of the invalids ever seemed to get well and go away. And finally I spoke of this to Phipps.

“‘My dear Dolittle,’ he answered, ‘go away? – of course not! We don’t want them to go away. We want them to stay here, so they’ll keep on paying us.’

“‘Phipps,’ I said, ‘I don’t think that’s honest. I became a doctor to cure people – not to pamper them.’

“Well, on this point we fell out and quarreled. I got very angry and told him I would not be his partner any longer – that I would pack up and go the following day. As I left his room, still very angry, I passed one of the invalids in his wheel chair.

“It was Sir Timothy Quisby, our most important and expensive patient. He asked me, as I passed, to take his temperature, as he thought he had a new fever. Now, I had never been able to find anything wrong with Sir Timothy and had decided that being an invalid was a sort of hobby with him. So, still, very angry, instead of taking his temperature, I said quite rudely: ‘Oh, go to the Dickens!’

“Sir Timothy was furious. And, calling for Dr. Phipps, he demanded that I apologize. I said I wouldn’t. Then Sir Timothy told Phipps that if I didn’t he would start an invalids’ strike. Phipps got terribly worried and implored me to apologize to this very special patient. I still refused.

“Then a peculiar thing happened. Sir Timothy, who had always so far seemed too weak to walk, got right out of his wheel chair and, waving his ear trumpet wildly, ran around all over the sanitarium, making speeches to the other invalids, saying how shamefully he had been treated and calling on them to strike for their rights.

“And they did strike – and no mistake. That night at dinner they refused to take their medicine – either before or after meals. Dr. Phipps argued with them, prayed them, implored them to behave like proper invalids and carry out their doctors’ orders. But they wouldn’t listen to him. They ate all the things they had been forbidden to eat, and after dinner those who had been ordered to go for a walk stayed at home, and those who had been ordered to stay quiet went outside and ran up and down the street. They finished the evening by having a pillow fight with their hot-water bottles, when they should have been in bed. The next morning they all packed their own trunks and left. And that was the end of our sanitarium.

“But the most peculiar thing of all was this: I found out afterward that every single one of those patients had got well! Getting out of their wheel chairs and going on strike had done them so much good they stopped being invalids altogether. As a sanitarium doctor, I suppose I was not a success – still, I don’t know. Certainly I cured a great many more patients by going out of the sanitarium business than Phipps ever did by going into it.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Gub-Gub’s Story

The next night, when they were again seated around the veranda after supper, the Doctor asked: “Now, who’s going to tell us a story tonight? Didn’t Gub-Gub say he had one for us?”

“Oh, don’t let him tell one, Doctor,” said Jip. “It’s sure to be stupid.”

“He isn’t old enough to tell a good story,” said Dab-Dab. “He hasn’t had any experience.”

“His only interest in life is food, anyway,” said Too-Too. “Let someone else tell a story.”

“No, now wait a minute,” cried the Doctor. “Don’t all be jumping on him this way. We were all young once. Let him tell his story. He may win the prize. Who knows? Come along, Gub-Gub. Tell us your story. What’s the name of it?”

Gub-Gub fidgeted his feet, blushed up to the ears, and finally said:

“This is a kind of a crazy story. But it’s a good one. It’s – er – er – a Piggish Fairy Tale. It’s called ‘The Magic Cucumber.’”

“Gosh!” growled Jip.

“More food!” murmured Too-Too. “What did I tell you?”

“Tee-hee-hee!” tittered the white mouse.

“Go on, Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor. “Don’t take any notice of them. I’m listening.”

“Once upon a time,” Gub-Gub began, “a small pig went out into the forest with his father to dig for truffles. The father pig was a very clever truffle digger, and just by smelling the ground he could tell with great sureness the places where truffles were to be found. Well, this day they came upon a place beneath some big oak trees and they started digging. Presently, after the father pig had dug up an enormous truffle and they were both eating it, they heard, to their great astonishment, the sound of voices coming from the hole out of which they had dug the truffle.

“The father pig hurried away with his child because he did not like magic. But that night the baby pig, when his mother and father were fast asleep, crept out of his sty and went off into the woods. He wanted to find out the mystery of those voices coming from under the ground.

“So, reaching the hole where his father had dug up the truffle, he set to work digging for himself. He had not dug very long when the earth caved right in underneath him and he felt himself falling and falling and falling. At last he came to a stop, upside down in the middle of a dining table.

The table was all set for dinner – and he had fallen into the soup. He looked about him and saw seated around the table many tiny little men, none of them more than half as big as himself and all a dark green in colour.

“‘Where am I?’ asked the baby pig.

“‘You’re in the soup,’ said the little men.

“The baby pig was at first terribly frightened. But when he saw how small were the men around him his fear left him. And before he got out of the soup tureen on the table he drank up all the soup. He then asked the little men who they might be. And they said:

“‘We are The Cook Goblins. We live under the ground and we spend half our time inventing new things to eat and the other half in eating them. The noise you heard coming out of the hole was us singing our food hymns. We always sing food hymns whenever we are preparing particularly fine dishes.’

“‘Good!’ said the pig. ‘I’ve come to the right place. Let us go on with the dinner.’

“But just as they were about to begin on the fish (the soup was already gone, you see), there was a great noise outside the dining hall and in rushed another lot of little men, a bright red in colour. These were The Toadstool Sprites, ancient enemies of the Cook Goblins. A tremendous fight began, one side using toothpicks for spears and the other using nut crackers for clubs. The pig took the side of his friends the Cook Goblins, and, being as big as any two of the enemy put together, he soon had the Toadstool Sprites running for their lives.

“When the fight was over and the dining hall cleared the Cook Goblins were very grateful to the baby pig for his valuable assistance. They called him a conquering hero and, crowning him with a wreath of parsley, they invited him to the seat of honour at the dining table and went on with the meal.

“Never had the baby pig enjoyed a meal so much in all his life as he did that one. He found that the Cook Goblins, as well as inventing new and marvelously tasty dishes, had also thought out a lot of new things in the way of table furnishings. For instance, they served pin cushions with the fish. These were to stick your fishbones in, instead of leaving them to clutter up your plate. Pudding-fans were another of their novelties – fans for cooling off your pudding with, instead of blowing on it. Then they had cocoa-skin clothes lines – little toy clothes lines to hang the skin off your cocoa on, neatly. (You know what a nasty mess it makes draped over the rim of your cup.) And when the fruit came on tennis racquets were handed around also. And if anyone at the other end of the table asked you for an apple, instead of going to all the work of handing down a heavy bowl of fruit, you just took an apple and served it at him like a tennis ball, and he would catch it at the other end of the table on the point of a fork.

“These things added a good deal of jolliness to the meal and some of them were very clever inventions. Why, they even had a speaking tube for things you are not allowed to mention at table.”

“A speaking tube!” the white mouse interrupted. “How was it used? I don’t understand.”

“Well,” said Gub-Gub, “you know how people are always telling you ‘You mustn’t speak about those things at table!’ Well, the Cook Goblins had a speaking tube in the wall which led, at the other end, to the open air outside. And whenever you wanted to talk about any of the things forbidden at table you left the table and went and said it into the speaking tube; then you came back to your seat. It was a very great invention…. Well, as I was saying, the baby pig enjoyed himself tremendously. And when the meal was over he said he must be going back because he wanted to get into the sty before his mother and father should be awake.

“The Cook Goblins were sorry to see him go. And as a farewell present in return for the help he had given them against their enemies, they gave him the Magic Cucumber. Now, this cucumber, if you cut off even the smallest part of it and planted it, would grow immediately into a whole field of any fruit or vegetable you wished. All you had to do was to say the name of the vegetable you wanted. The baby pig thanked the Cook Goblins, kissed them all goodbye and went home.

“He found his mother and father still asleep when he got back. So after carefully hiding his Magic Cucumber under the floor of the cow barn, he crept into the sty and went fast asleep.

“Now, it happened that a few days later a neighbouring king made war upon the king that owned the country where the pig family lived. Things went very badly for the pigs’ king, and, seeing that the enemy were close at hand, he gave orders that all cattle and farm animals and people should be brought inside the castle walls. The pig family was also driven into the castle grounds. But before he left, the baby pig went and bit off a piece of his Magic Cucumber and took it along with him.

“Soon after, the enemy’s army closed about the castle and tried to storm it. Then for many weeks they remained there, knowing that sooner or later the king and the people in the castle would run short of food and have to give in.

“Now, it happened that the queen had noticed the baby pig within the castle grounds and, being a princess of Irish blood, she took a great fancy to him and had a piece of green ribbon tied about his neck and made a regular pet of him, much to the disgust of her husband, the king.

“Well, the fourth week after the enemy came the food in the castle was all gone and the king gave orders that the pigs must be eaten. The queen raised a great outcry and begged that her pet should be spared. But the king was very firm.

“‘My soldiers are starving,’ said he. ‘Your pet, Madam, must be turned into sausages.’

“Then the baby pig saw that the time to use the goblins’ magic gift had come. And, rushing out into the castle garden, he dug a hole and planted his piece of cucumber right in the middle of the king’s best rosebed.

“‘Parsnips!’ he grunted, as he filled in the hole. ‘May they blossom acres wide!’

“And, sure enough, he had hardly said the words before all over the king’s garden parsnips began springing up thick and fast. Even the gravel walks were covered with them.

“Then the king and his army had plenty of food and, growing strong on the nutritious parsnips, they sallied forth from the castle, smote the enemy, hip and thigh, and put them to flight.

“And the queen was allowed to keep her pet pig, which rejoiced her kind heart greatly – she being of Irish blood royal. And he became a great hero at the court and was given a sty studded with jewels in the centre of the castle garden – on the very spot where he had planted the Magic Cucumber. And they all lived happily ever after. And that is the end of the Piggish Fairy Tale.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Dab-Dab’s Story

The animals now began to look forward to the evening story-telling – the way people do to regular habits that are pleasant. And for the next night they arranged among themselves before-hand that it should be Dab-Dab’s turn to tell a tale.

After they were all seated on the veranda the housekeeper preened her feathers and in a very dignified voice began:

“On the outskirts of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh there lives a farmer who swears to this day that his cat can understand every word he says. It isn’t true, but both the farmer and his wife think it is. And I am now going to tell you how they came to get that idea.

“Once when the Doctor was away in Scotland, looking for fossils, he left me behind to take charge of the house. The old horse in the stable complained to me one night that the rats were eating up all his corn. While I was walking around the stable, trying to think out what I should do about it I spied an enormous white Persian cat stalking about the premises. Now, I myself have no love for cats. For one thing, they eat ducklings, and for another, they always seem to me sort of sneaky things. So I ordered this one to get off the Doctor’s property. To my surprise, she behaved very politely – said she didn’t know she was trespassing and turned to leave. Then I felt sort of guilty, knowing the Doctor liked to be hospitable to every kind of animal, and, after all, the cat wasn’t doing any harm there. So I overtook her and told her that if she didn’t kill anything on the place she could come and go as she pleased.

“Well, we got chatting, the way people do, and I found out that the cat lived at a farmer’s house about a quarter of a mile down the Oxenthorpe Road. Then I walked part of the way home with her, still chatting, and I found that she was a very agreeable individual. I told her about the rats in the stable and the difficulty I had in making them behave, because the Doctor wouldn’t allow any one to kill them. And she said, if I wished, she’d sleep in the stable a few nights and the rats would probably leave as soon as they smelled her around.

“This she did, and the results were excellent. The rats departed in a body and the old horse’s corn-bin was left undisturbed. Then she disappeared and for several nights I saw nothing of her. So one evening I thought it would be only decent of me to call at her farm down the Oxenthorpe Road, to thank her.

“I went to her farm and found her in the farm-yard. I thanked her for what she had done and asked her why she hadn’t been around to my place of late.

“‘I’ve just had kittens,’ she said. ‘Six – and I haven’t been able to leave them a moment. They are in the farmer’s parlour now. Come in and I’ll show them to you.’

“So in we went. And on the parlour floor, in a round basket, there were six of the prettiest kittens you ever saw. While we were looking at them we heard the farmer and his wife coming downstairs. So, thinking they might not like to have a duck in the parlour (some folks are so snobbish and pernickety you know – not like the Doctor), I hid myself behind a closet door just as the farmer and his wife came into the room.

“They leaned over the basket of kittens, stroked the white cat and started talking. Now, the cat didn’t understand what they said, of course. But I, being round the Doctor so much and discussing with him the differences between duck grammar and people’s grammar, understood every word they uttered.

“And this is what I heard the farmer say to his wife: ‘We’ll keep the black and white kitten, Liza. I’ll drown the other five tomorrow morning. Won’t never do to have all them cats running around the place.’ His grammar was atrocious.

“As soon as they had gone I came out of the closet and I said to the white cat: ‘I shall expect you to bring up these kittens to leave ducklings alone. Now listen: Tonight, after the farmer and his wife are in bed, take all your kittens except the black and white one, and hide them in the attic. The farmer means to drown them and is going to keep only one.’

“The cat did as I bade her. And next morning, when the farmer came to take the kittens away, he found only the black and white one – the one he meant to keep. He could not understand it. Some weeks later, however, when the farmer’s wife was Spring cleaning, she came upon the others in the attic, where the mother cat had hidden them and nursed them secretly. But they were now grown big enough to escape through the window and they went off to find new homes for themselves.

“And that is why to this day that farmer and his wife swear their cat can understand English, because, they say, she must have heard them when they were talking over the basket. And whenever she’s in the room and they are gossiping about the neighbours, they always speak in whispers, lest she overhear. But between you and me, she doesn’t really understand a single word they say.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The White Mouse’s Story

“Whose turn is it to give us a story now?” asked the Doctor, when the supper things were cleared away the following evening.

“I think the white mouse ought to tell us one,” said Jip.

“Very well,” said the white mouse. “I will tell you one of the days of my youth. The Doctor knows this story, but the rest of you have never heard it.”

And smoothing back his white whiskers and curling his pink tail snugly about his small, sleek body, he blinked his eyes twice and began:

“When I was born I was one of seven twins. But all my brothers and sisters were ordinary mouse colour and I alone out of the whole family was white. My colour worried my mother and father a great deal. They said I was so conspicuous and would certainly, as soon as I left the nest, get caught by the first owl or cat that came along.

“We were city folk, my family were – and proud of it. We lived under the floor of a miller’s shop. Across the street from our place was a butcher’s shop, and next door to us was a dyer’s – where they dyed cloth different colours before it went to the tailor’s to be made into suits.

“Now when we children grew up big enough to go off for ourselves our parents gave us all sorts of careful instructions about escaping cats and ferrets and weasels and dogs. But over poor me they shook their heads. They really felt that there was not much hope of my leading a peaceful life with white fur that could be seen a mile off.

“Well, they were quite right. My colour got me into trouble the first week that I set out to seek my fortune – but not in the way they thought it would. The son of the miller who owned the shop where we lived found me one morning in a bin of oats.

“‘Ah, hah!’ he cried. ‘A white mouse! The very thing I’ve been wanting!’

“And he caught me in a fishing net and put me in a cage, to keep as a pet.

“I was very sad at first. But after a while I got sort of used to the life. The boy – he was only eight years old – treated me kindly and fed me regularly each day. I grew almost fond of the funny, snub-nosed lad and became so tame that he would let me out of my cage sometimes and I would run up and down his sleeve. But I never got a chance to escape.

“After some months I began to grow weary of the silly life I was leading. And then, too, the wild mice were so mean to me. They used to come around at night and point at me through the wire of my cage, saying:

“‘Look at the tame white mouse! Tee-hee-hee! A plaything for children! Good little mousey! Come and have ’ims facey washed!’ The stupid little idiots!

“Well, finally I set to work and thought out a clever plan of escape. I gnawed a hole through the wooden floor of my cage and kept it covered with straw, so the boy couldn’t see it. And one night when I heard him safely snoring – he always kept my cage at the head of his bed – I slipped out of the hole and got away.

“I had many adventures with cats. It was winter time and the snow lay thick upon the ground. I started off to explore the world, rejoicing in my liberty. Going around to the back of the house, I passed from the miller’s yard into the dyer’s yard, next door. In the yard was a dyeing shed and I noticed two owls sitting on the top of it in the moonlight.

“Entering the shed, I met a rat, very old and very thin. Said he to me:

“‘I am the oldest rat in the town and I know a great deal. But, tell me, why do you come here into the dyeing shed?’

“‘I was looking for food,’ I said.

“The old rat laughed a cracked and quavering laugh, with no joy in it at all.

“‘There’s no food here,’ he said, ‘only dyes of different colours.’ And he pointed to the big dye vats, all in a row, that towered in the half darkness above our heads.

“‘Any food there was here I’ve eaten,’ he went on sadly, ‘and I dare not go out for more because the owls are waiting on the roof. They’d see my dark body against the snow and I’d stand no chance of escape. I am nearly starved.’ And he swayed weakly on his old feet. ‘But now you’ve come, it’s different. Some good fairy must have sent you to me. I’ve been sitting here for days and nights on end, hoping a white mouse might come along. With your white fur, you understand, the owls can’t see you so well against the snow. That’s what’s called protective colouration. I know all about natural history – I’m very old, you see. That is why you managed to get in here without being caught. Go out now, for pity’s sake, and bring me the first food of any kind that you can find. The owls by night and the cats by day have kept me shut in here since the snow came without a bite to eat. You are only just in time to save my life.’

“So off I went across the moonlit snow and the blinking owls on the roof of the dyeing shed never spotted me. Against the whiteness I was nearly invisible. I felt quite proud. At last my white fur was coming in handy.

“I found a garbage can and, picking out some bacon rinds, I carried them back to the starving rat. The old fellow was ever so grateful. He ate and ate – my whiskers, how he ate! Finally he said:

“‘Ah! Now I feel better.’

“‘You know,’ said I, ‘I have only just escaped from captivity. I was kept as a pet by a boy. So far being white has only been a great inconvenience to me. The cats could see me so well life wasn’t worth living.’

“‘Well, now, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said he, ‘you come and live in this dyeing shed with me. It isn’t a bad place – quite warm and snug under the floors, and the foundations are simply riddled with holes and corridors and hiding places. And while the snow is here you can go out and get the food for both of us – because you can’t be seen so well against the snow. And when the Winter is over and the earth is black again I will do the food hunting outside and you can do the staying at home. You see, this is a good place to live in in another way – there is nothing for rats and mice to destroy here, so people don’t bother about you. Other places – like houses and food shops and mills – folks are always setting traps and sending ferrets after you. But no one minds rats living in a dyeing shed, see? Foolish young rats and mice go and live where there’s lots of food. But not for me! I’m a wise one, I am.’

“Well, we agreed upon this arrangement and for a whole year I lived at the dyer’s with the old wise rat. And we lived high – no mistake! Not a soul ever bothered us. In the winter days I did the foraging and when Summer came my old partner, who knew where to get the choicest foods in town, kept our larder stocked with the daintiest delicacies. Ah, many’s the jolly meal I’ve had under the floor of the dye shed with that old veteran, chuckling in whispers as we heard the dyers overhead mixing the dyes in the great big vats and talking over the news of the town!

“But none of us are ever content for long, you know – foolish creatures that we are. And by the time the second Summer was coming I was longing to be a free mouse, to roam the world and all that sort of thing. And then, too, I wanted to get married. Maybe the Spring was getting into my blood. So one night I said to the old rat:

“‘Rat,’ I said, ‘I’m in love. All Winter, every night I went out to gather fodder, I’ve been keeping company with a lady mouse – well-bred she is, with elegant manners. I’ve a mind to settle down and have a family of my own. Now, here comes the Summer again and I’ve got to stay shut up in this miserable shed on account of my beastly colour.’

“The old rat gazed at me thoughtfully a moment and I knew that he was going to say something particularly wise.

“‘Young man,’ says he at last, ‘if you’ve a mind to go I reckon I can’t stop you – foolish young madcap though I think you. And how I’ll ever shift for myself after you’ve gone goodness only knows. But, seeing you have been so useful to me this past year and more, I’ll help you.’

“So saying, he takes me upstairs to where the dye vats stood. It was twilight and the men were gone. But we could see the dim shapes of the big vats towering above our heads. Then he takes a string that lay upon the floor and, scaling up the middle vat, he lets the string down inside.

“‘What’s that for?’ I asked.

“‘That’s for you to climb out by, after you’ve taken a bath. For you to go abroad in Summer with a coat like yours would mean certain death. So I’m going to dye you black.’

“‘Jumping Cheese!’ I cried. ‘Dye me black!’

“‘Just that,’ says he. ‘It’s quite simple. Scale up that middle vat now – on to the edge – and dive right in. Don’t be afraid. There’s a string there for you to climb out by.’

“Well, I was always adventurous by nature. And, plucking up my courage, I scrambled up the vat, on to the edge of it. It was awful dark and I could just see the dye, glimmering murky and dim, far down inside.

“‘Go ahead,’ said the old rat. ‘Don’t be afraid – and be sure you dip your head and all under.’

“Well, it took an awful lot of nerve to take that plunge. And if I hadn’t been in love I don’t suppose I’d ever have done it. But I did – I dove right down into the dye.

“I thought I’d never come up again, and even when I did I nearly drowned before I found the string in the dark and scrambled, gasping for breath, out of the vat.

“‘Fine!’ says the old rat, ‘Now run around the shed a few times, so you won’t take a chill. And then go to bed and cover up. In the morning when it’s light you’ll find yourself very different.’

“Well – tears come to my eyes when I think of it – the next day, when I woke up, expecting to find myself a smart, decent black, I found instead that I had dyed myself a bright and gaudy blue! That stupid old rat had made a mistake in the vats!”

The white mouse paused a moment in his story, as though overcome with emotion. Presently he went on:

“Never have I been so furious with anyone in my life as I was with that old rat.

“‘Look! Look what you’ve done to me now!’ I cried. ‘It isn’t even a navy blue. You’ve made me just hideous!’

“‘I can’t understand it,’ he murmured. ‘The middle vat used to be the black one, I know. They must have changed them. The blue one was always the one on the left.’

“‘You’re a stupid old duffer!’ I said. And I left the dye shed in great anger and never went back to it again.

“Well, if I had been conspicuous before, now I was a hundred times more so. Against the black earth, or the green grass, or the white snow, or brown floors my loud, sky-blue coat could be seen as plain as a pikestaff. The minute I got outside the shed a cat jumped for me. I gave her the slip and got out into the street. There some wretched children spotted me and, calling to their friends that they had seen a blue mouse, they hunted me along the gutter. At the corner of the street two dogs were fighting. They stopped their fight and joined the chase after me. And very soon I had the whole blessed town at my heels. It was awful. I didn’t get any peace till after night had fallen, and by that time I was so exhausted with running I was ready to drop.

“About midnight I met the lady mouse with whom I was in love, beneath a lamp-post. And, would you believe it? She wouldn’t speak to me! Cut me dead, she did.

“‘It was for your sake I got myself into this beastly mess,’ I said, as she stalked by me with her nose in the air. ‘You’re an ungrateful woman, that’s what you are.’

“‘Oh, la, la, la!’ said she, smirking. ‘You wouldn’t expect any self-respecting person to keep company with a blue mouse, would you?’

“Later, when I was trying to find a place to sleep, all the mice I met, wherever there was any light at all, made fun of me and pointed at me and jeered. I was nearly in tears. Then I went down to the river, hoping I might wash the dye off and so get white again. That, at least, would be better than the way I was now. But I washed and I swam and I rinsed, all to no purpose. Water made no impression on me.

“So there I sat, shivering on the river bank, in the depths of despair. And presently I saw the sky in the east growing pale and I knew that morning was coming. Daylight! That for me meant more hunting and running and jeering, as soon as the sun should show my ridiculous colour.

“And then I came to a very sad decision – probably the saddest decision that a free mouse ever made. Rather than be hunted and jeered at any more I decided that I would sooner be back in a cage, a pet mouse! Yes, there at least I was well treated and well fed by the snub-nosed miller lad. I would go back and be a captive mouse. Was I not spurned by my lady love and jeered at by my friends? Very well then, I would turn my back upon the world and go into captivity. And then my lady love would be sorry – too late!

“So, picking myself up wearily, I started off for the miller’s shop. On the threshold I paused a moment. It was a terrible step I was about to take. I gazed miserably down the street, thinking upon the hardness of life and the sadness of love, and there, coming toward me, with a bandage around his tail, was my own brother!

“As he took a seat beside me on the doorstep I burst into tears and told him all that had happened to me since we left our parents’ home.

“‘I am terribly sorry for your bad luck,’ said he when I had ended. ‘But I’m glad I caught you before you went back into captivity. Because I think I can guide you to a way out of your troubles.’

“‘What way is there?’ I said. ‘For me life is over!’

“‘Go and see the Doctor,’ said my brother.

“‘What doctor?’ I asked.

“‘There is only one Doctor,’ he answered. ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve never heard of him!’

“And then he told me all about Doctor Dolittle. This was around the time when the Doctor first began to be famous among the animals. But I, living alone with the old rat at the dyer’s shed, had not heard the news.

“‘I’ve just come from the Doctor’s office,’ said my brother. ‘I got my tail caught in a trap and he bandaged it up for me. He’s a marvelous man – kind and honest. And he talks animals’ language. Go to him and I’m sure he’ll know some way to clean blue dye off a mouse. He knows everything.’

“So that is how I first came to John Dolittle’s house in Puddleby. The Doctor, when I told my troubles to him, took a very small pair of scissors and cut off all my fur, so I was as bald and as pink as a pig. Then he rubbed me with some special hair restorer for mice – a patent invention of his own. And very soon I grew a brand new coat of fur, as white as snow!

“And then, hearing what difficulty I had had keeping away from cats, the Doctor gave me a home in his own house – in his own piano, in fact. And no mouse could wish for more than that. He even offered to send for the lady I was in love with, who would, no doubt, think differently about me, now that I was white again. But I said:

“‘No, Doctor. Let her be. I’m through with women for good.’”

• • • • •

•   6   •

Jip’s Story

The next night Jip was called upon for a story. And after thinking a moment he said: “All right, I’ll tell you the story of ‘The Beggar’s Dog.’” And the animals all settled down to listen attentively, because Jip had often told them stories before and they liked his way of telling them.

“Some time ago,” Jip began, “I knew a dog who was a beggar’s dog. We met by chance one day, when a butcher’s cart had an accident and got upset. The butcher’s boy who was driving the cart was a stupid boy whom all the dogs of that town heartily disliked. So when his cart hit a lamp-post and overturned, spilling mutton chops and joints all over the street, we dogs were quickly on the scene and ran off with all his meat before he had time to pick himself up out of the gutter.

“It was on this occasion, as I said, that I fell in with the beggar’s dog. I found him bolting down the street beside me, with a choice steak flapping merrily around his ears. Myself, I had pinched a string of sausages and the beastly things kept getting tangled up in my legs, – till he came to my rescue and showed me how to coil them up neatly so I could run with them without getting tripped.

“After that the beggar’s dog and I became great friends. I found that his master had only one leg and was very, very old.

“‘He’s most frightfully poor,’ said my friend. ‘And he’s too old to work, you see – even if he had two legs to get around on. And now he has taken to pavement art. You know what that is – you draw pictures on the pavement in coloured chalks and you write under them: “All my own work.” And then you sit by the side of them, with your cap in your hand, waiting for people to give you pennies.’

“‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘I know. I’ve seen pavement artists before.’

“‘Well,’ said my friend, ‘my beggar doesn’t get any pennies. And I know the reason why: his pictures aren’t good enough – not even for pavement art. Myself, I don’t pretend to know much about drawing. But his pictures are just awful – awful. One kind old lady the other day stopped before our stand – wanting to encourage him, you know – and, pointing to one picture, she said, “ Oh, what a lovely tree!” The picture was meant to be a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, with a storm raging around it. That’s the kind of an artist my man is. I don’t know what to do about him.’

“‘Well, look here,’ I said, ‘I have an idea. Since your man can’t work for himself, suppose you and I go into the bone-hiring business.’

“‘What on earth is that?’ he asked.

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘people hire out bicycles and pianos for rent, don’t they? So, why can’t you and I rent out bones for dogs to chew? They won’t be able to pay us in money of course, so we’ll get them to bring us things, instead. Then the beggar can sell the things and get money.’

“‘That’s a good notion,’ said he. ‘Let’s start tomorrow.’”

“So the following day we found an empty lot, where people used to dump rubbish, and dug an enormous hole, which was to be our bone shop. Then we went around the back doors of all the richest people’s houses early in the morning and picked out the best bones from the garbage cans. We even snatched a few from other dogs who were tied to kennels and couldn’t run after us – rather a dirty trick, but we were working in a good cause and were not particular. Then we took all these bones and put them in the hole we had dug. By night we kept them covered up with earth, because we didn’t want them stolen – and, besides, some dogs prefer their bones buried a few days before they chew them. It gets them seasoned-like. And then by day we stood over our wares, calling out to all the dogs that passed by:

“‘Bones for hire! Beef bones, ham bones, mutton bones, chicken bones! All juicy! Step up, gentlemen, and take your choice! BONES for hire!’

“Well, right from the start we did a roaring trade. All the dogs for miles around heard of us and came to hire bones. And we would charge them according to the length of time they wanted to hire them. For instance, you could rent a good ham bone for one day for a candlestick or a hair brush; for three days for a violin or an umbrella. And if you wanted your bone for a whole week you had to bring us a suit of clothes in payment.

“Well, for a while our plan worked splendidly. The beggar sold the things that we got in payment from the dogs and he had money to live on.

“But we never thought where the dogs might be getting all these things they brought us. The truth is, we didn’t bother very much, I’m afraid. Anyway at the end of our first week of brisk trade we noticed a great many people going through the streets as though they were looking for something. And presently these people, seeing our shop in the empty lot, gathered around us, talking to one another. And while they were talking a retriever came up to me with a gold watch and chain in his mouth, which he wanted to exchange for a ham bone.

“Well, you should have seen the excitement among the people then! The owner of the watch and chain was there and he raised a terrible row. And then it came out that these dogs had been taking things from their masters’ homes to hire bones with. The people were dreadfully annoyed. They closed up our bone shop and put us out of business. But they never discovered that the money we had made had gone to the beggar.

“Of course, we hadn’t made enough to keep him in comfort for long and very soon he had to become a pavement artist again and was as badly off as he had ever been – and the pictures he drew were worse, if anything, than before.

“Now it happened one day, when I was wandering around in the country outside the town, that I met a most conceited spaniel. He passed me with his nose turned up in the air in such a cheeky manner that I said to him, I said: ‘What makes you so stuck up?’

“‘My master has been ordered to paint the portrait of a prince,’ he said, putting on no end of elegance.

“‘Who is your master?’ I said. ‘Anybody would think you were going to paint the portrait yourself.’

“‘My master is a very famous artist,’ said he.

“‘What’s his name?’ I asked.

“‘George Morland,’ said the spaniel.

“‘George Morland!’ I cried. ‘Is he in these parts now?’

“‘Yes,’ said the spaniel. ‘We are staying at The Royal George. My master is painting some pictures of the country and next week he is going back to London to commence on the portrait of the prince.’

“Now, it happened that I had met this George Morland, who was, and is still, perhaps the most famous painter of farm-life pictures the world has ever known. I am proud to be able to say that I knew him. He was especially good at painting horses in stables, pigs in styes, roosters and dogs hanging around kitchen doors, and things like that.

“So, without letting the spaniel see that I was following him, I went after him, to see where he was going.

“He led me to a lonely old farm out on the hills. And there, concealing myself in some bushes, I watched the great Morland painting one of his famous farm scenes.

“Presently he laid down his paint brush and muttered to himself: ‘I need a dog – by the watering trough there – to fill out the picture. I wonder if I could get that fool spaniel to lie still for five minutes…. Here, Spot, Spot! Come here!’

“His spaniel, Spot, came up to him. And George, leaving his painting for a moment, placed the spaniel beside the watering trough and flattened him out and told him to keep still. I could see that George’s idea was to have him look as though he were asleep in the sun. George simply loved to paint animals asleep in the sun.

“Well, that blockhead of a spaniel never kept still one minute. First, he was snapping at the flies that bit his tail; then he was scratching his ear, then barking at the cat – never still. And, of course, George couldn’t paint him at all, and at last he got so angry he threw the paint brush at him.

“Then an idea came to me – one of the best ideas I ever had. I left the bushes and came trotting up to George, wagging my tail. And how I thrilled with pride as the great Morland recognized me! For, mind you, he had met me only once before – back in the autumn of 1802.

“‘Why, it’s Jip!’ he cried. ‘Good dog. Come here. You’re the very fellow I want.’”

“Then while he gathered up the things he had thrown at the spaniel he went on talking to me – the way people do talk to dogs, you know. Of course, he didn’t expect me to understand what he said, but I did – every word.

“‘I want you to come over here by the trough, Jip,’ said he. ‘All you’ve got to do is to keep still. You can go to sleep if you like. But don’t move or fidget for ten minutes. Think you can do that?’

“And he led me over to the trough, where I lay down and kept perfectly still while he painted me into the picture. That picture now hangs in the National Gallery. It’s called Evening on the Farm. Hundreds of people go to see it every year. But none of them know that the smart-looking dog sleeping beneath the watering trough is none other than myself – except the Doctor, whom I took in to see it one day when we were up in London, shopping.

“Well, now, as I told you, I had an idea in all this. I hoped that if I did something for George Morland perhaps I could get him to do something for me. But, of course, with him not knowing dog talk it was a bit difficult to make him understand. However, while he was packing up his painting things I disappeared for a while, just as though I was going away. Then I came rushing back to him in a great state of excitement, barking, trying to show him something was wrong and that I wanted him to follow me.

“‘What’s the matter, Jip?’ said he. ‘House on fire or something?’

“Then I barked some more and ran a little way in the direction of the town, looking back at him to show him I wanted him to come with me.

“‘What ails the dog?’ he murmured to himself. ‘Can’t be anybody drowning, because there’s no river near…. Oh, all right, Jip, I’ll come. Wait a second till I get these brushes cleaned.’

“Then I led him into the town. On the way there every once in a while he would say to himself: ‘I wonder what can be the matter. Something’s wrong, that’s sure, or the dog wouldn’t carry on so.’

“I took him down the main street of the town till we came to the place where the beggar had his pictures. And as soon as George saw the pictures he knew what was wrong.

“‘Heaven preserve us!’ he cried. ‘What a dreadful exhibition! No wonder the dog was excited.’

“Well, it happened that as we came up the one-legged beggar, with his own dog beside him, was at work on a new drawing. He was sitting on the pavement, making a picture on canvas with a piece of chalk of a cat drinking milk. Now, my idea was that the great Morland – who, no matter what people say about him, was always a most kind-hearted man – should make some good pictures for the beggar to show, instead of the dreadful messes that he made himself. And my plan worked.

“‘Man alive!’ said George, pointing to the picture the beggar was doing, ‘a cat’s spine doesn’t curve that way – here, give me the chalk and let me do it.’

“Then, rubbing out the whole picture, George Morland re-drew it in his way. And it was so lifelike you could nearly hear the cat lapping up the milk.

“‘My! I wish I could draw that way,’ said the beggar. ‘And so quick and easy you do it – like it was nothing at all.’

“‘Well, it comes easy,’ said George. ‘Maybe there’s not so much credit in it for that. But, tell me, do you make much money at this game?’

“‘Awful little,’ said the beggar. ‘I’ve taken only twopence the whole day. I suppose the truth is I don’t draw good enough.’

“I watched Morland’s face as the beggar said this. And the expression that came into it told me I had not brought the great man here in vain.

“‘Look here,’ he said to the beggar. ‘Would you like me to re-draw all your pictures for you? Of course, those done on the pavement you couldn’t sell, but we can rub them out. And I’ve got some spare canvases in my satchel here. Maybe you could sell a few. I can sell pictures in London any day in the week. But I’ve never been a pavement artist before. It would be rather a lark to see what happens.’

“Then Morland, all busy and excited, like a schoolboy, took the beggar’s chalk pictures from against the wall and, rubbing them out, did them over the way they should be done. He got so occupied with this that he didn’t notice that a whole crowd of people was gathering around, watching. His work was so fine that the people were spellbound with the beauty of the cats and dogs and cows and horses that he drew. And they began asking one another in whispers who the stranger could be who was doing the pavement artist’s pictures for him.

“The crowd grew bigger and bigger. And presently someone among the people who had seen Morland’s pictures before recognized the work of the great artist. And then whispers went through the crowd – ‘It’s Morland – the great Morland, himself.’ And somebody went off and told a picture dealer – that is, a man who buys and sells pictures – who had a shop in the High Street, that George Morland was drawing in the market-place for a lame beggar.

“And the dealer came down. And the Mayor came down – and all the rich folk and poor folk. So, when the whole town was gathered around, the people began offering to buy these pictures, asking the beggar how much he wanted for them. The old duffer was going to sell them at sixpence apiece, but Morland whispered to him:

“‘Twenty guineas – don’t sell a blessed one under twenty guineas. You’ll get it.’

“And sure enough, the dealer and a few of the richer townsfolk bought the whole lot at twenty guineas apiece.

“And when I went home that night I felt I had done a good day’s work. For my friend’s master, the one-legged beggar, was now rich enough to live in comfort for the rest of his life.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

Too-Too’s Story

All the animals had now told a story except Too-Too, the owl, and the pushmi-pullyu. And the following night, a Friday, it was agreed that they should toss a coin (the Doctor’s penny that had a hole through it) to see which of these two should tell a tale. If the penny came down heads it was to be the pushmi-pullyu, and if it came down tails it was to be Too-Too’s turn.

The Doctor spun the penny and it came down tails.

“All right,” said Too-Too. “Then that makes it my turn, I suppose. I will tell you a story of the time – the only time in my life – that I was taken for a fairy. Fancy me as a fairy!” chuckled the little round owl. “Well, this is how it happened: One October day, toward evening, I was wandering through the woods. There was a wintry tang in the air and the small, furred animals were busy among the dry, rustly leaves, gathering nuts and seeds for food against the coming of snow. I was out after shrew mice, myself – a delicacy I was extremely fond of at that time – and while they were busy foraging they made easy hunting.

“In my travels through the woods I heard children’s voices and the barking of a dog. Usually I would have gone further into the forest, away from such sounds. But in my young days I was a curious bird and my curiosity often led me into many adventures. So instead of flying away, I went toward the noises I heard, moving cautiously from tree to tree, so that I could see without being seen.

“Presently I came upon a children’s picnic – several boys and girls having supper in a grove of oak trees. One boy, much larger than the rest, was teasing a dog. And two other children, a small girl and a small boy, were objecting to his cruelty and begging him to stop. The bully wouldn’t stop. And soon the small boy and girl set upon him with their fists and feet and gave him quite a fine drubbing – which greatly surprised him. The dog then ran off home and presently the small boy and girl – I found out afterwards they were brother and sister – wandered off from the rest of the picnicking party to look for mushrooms.

“I had admired their spirit greatly in punishing a boy so much bigger than they were. And when they wandered off by themselves, again out of curiosity, I followed them. Well, they travelled quite a distance for such small folk. And presently the sun set and darkness began to creep over the woods.

“Then the children thought to join their friends again and started back. But, being poor woodsmen, they took the wrong direction. It grew darker still, of course, as time went on, and soon the youngsters were tumbling and stumbling over roots they could not see and getting pretty thoroughly lost and tired.

“All this time I was following them secretly and noiselessly overhead. At last the children sat down and the little girl said:

“‘Willie, we’re lost! Whatever shall we do? Night is coming on and I’m so afraid of the dark.’

“‘So am I,’ said the boy. ‘Ever since Aunt Emily told us that spooky story of the “Bogey in the Cupboard” I’ve been scared to death of the dark.’

“Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Of course, you must realize that was the first time I had ever heard of any one’s being afraid of the dark. It sounds ridiculous enough to all of you, I suppose, but to me, who had always preferred the cool, calm darkness to the glaring, vulgar daylight, it seemed then an almost unbelievable thing that anyone could be afraid merely because the sun had gone to bed.

“Now, some people have an idea that bats and owls can see in the dark because we have some peculiar kind of eyes. It’s not so. Peculiar ears we have – but not eyes. We can see in the dark because we practise it. It’s all a matter of practice – the same as the piano or anything else. We get up when other people go to bed, and go to bed when other people get up, because we prefer the dark; and you’d be surprised how much nicer it is when you get used to it. Of course, we owls are specially trained by our mothers and fathers to see on very dark nights when we are quite young. So it comes easier to us. But anybody can do it – to a certain extent – if they only practise.

“Well, to return to the children: There they were, all fussed and worried and scared, sitting on the ground, weeping and wondering what they could do. Then, remembering the dog and knowing they were kind to animals, I thought I would try to help them. So I popped across into the tree over their heads and said in the kindliest, gentlest sort of a voice ‘Too-wit, Too-hoo!’ – which means in owl language – as you know – ‘It’s a fine night! How are you?’

“Then you should have seen those poor children jump!

“‘Ugh!’ says the little girl, clutching her brother around the neck. ‘What was that, a spook?’

“‘I don’t know,’ says the little boy. ‘Gosh, but I’m scared! Isn’t the dark awful?’

“Then I made two or three more attempts to comfort them, talking kindly to them in owl language. But they only grew scareder and scareder. First, they thought I was a bogey; then an ogre; then a giant of the forest – me, whom they could put in their pockets! Golly, but these human creatures do bring up their children in awful ignorance! If there ever was a bogey or a giant or an ogre – in the forest or out of it – I’ve yet to see one.

“Then I thought maybe if I went off through the woods too-witting and too-hooing all the way, they would follow me and I could then lead them out of the forest and show them the way home. So I tried it. But they didn’t follow me, the stupid little beggars – thinking I was a witch or some evil nonsense of that kind. And all I got for my too-witting and too-hooing all over the place was to wake up another owl some distance off, who thought I was calling to him.

“So, since I wasn’t doing the children any good, I went off to look up this other owl and see if he had any ideas to suggest. I found him sitting on the stump of a hollow birch, rubbing his eyes, having just got out of bed.

“‘Good evening,’ says I. ‘It’s a fine night!’

“‘It is,’ says he, ‘only it’s not dark enough. What were you making all that racket over there for just now? Waking a fellow out of his sleep before it’s got properly dark!’

“‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but there’s a couple of children over in the hollow there who’ve got lost. The little silly duffers are sitting on the ground, bawling because the daylight’s gone and they don’t know what to do.’

“‘My gracious!’ says he. ‘What a quaint notion. Why don’t you lead them out of the woods? They probably live over in one of those farms near the crossroads.’

“‘I’ve tried,’ I said. ‘But they’re so scared they won’t follow me. They don’t like my voice or something. They take me for a wicked ogre, and all that sort of rot.’

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘then you’ll have to give an imitation of some other kind of creature – one they’re not scared of. Are you any good at imitations? Can you bark like a dog?’

“‘No,’ I said. ‘But I can make a noise like a cat. I learned that from an American catbird that lived in a cage in the stable where I spent last summer.’

“‘Fine,’ says he. ‘Try that and see what happens!’

“So I went back to the children and found them weeping harder than ever. Then, keeping myself well hidden down near the ground among the bushes, I went ‘Meow! Me-o-w!’ real catlike.

“‘Oh, Willie,’ says the little girl to her brother, ‘we’re saved!’ (‘Saved,’ mark you, when neither of the boobies was in the slightest danger!) ‘We’re saved!’ says she. ‘There’s Tuffie, our cat, come for us. She’ll show us the way home. Cats can always find their way home, can’t they, Willie? Let’s follow her!’”

For a moment Too-Too’s plump sides shook with silent laughter as he recalled the scene he was describing.

“Then,” said he, “I went a little further off, still taking great care that I shouldn’t be seen, and I meowed again.

“‘There she is!’ said the little girl. ‘She’s calling to us. Come along, Willie.’

“Well, in that way, keeping ahead of them and calling like a cat, I finally led the children right out of the woods. They did a good deal of stumbling and the girl’s long hair often got caught in the bushes. But I always waited for them if they were lagging behind. At last, when we gained the open fields, we saw three houses on the sky line, and the middle one was all lighted up and people with lanterns were running around it, hunting in all directions.

“When I had brought the children right up to this house their mother and father made a tremendous fuss, weeping over them, as though they had been saved from some terrible danger. In my opinion grown-up humans are even more stupid than the young ones. You’d think, from the way that mother and father carried on, that those children had been wrecked on a desert island or something, instead of spending a couple of hours in the pleasant woods.

“‘How ever did you find your way, Willie?’ asked the mother, wiping away her tears and smiling all over.

“‘Tuffie brought us home,’ says the little girl. ‘She came out after us and led us here by going ahead of us and meowing.’

“‘Tuffie!’ says the mother, puzzled. ‘Why, the cat’s asleep in the parlour in front of the fire – been there all evening.’

“‘Well, it was some cat,’ says the boy. ‘He must be right around here somewhere, because he led us almost up to the door.’

“Then the father swings his lantern around, looking for a cat; and before I had time to hop away he throws the light full on me, sitting on a sage bush.

“‘Why, it’s an owl!’ cries the little girl.

“‘Meow!’ says I – just to show off. ‘Too-wit, Too-hoo! Meow! Meow!’ And with a farewell flip of the wing I disappeared into the night over the barn roof. But as I left I heard the little girl saying in tremendous excitement:

“‘Oh, mother, a fairy! It was a fairy that brought us home. It must have been – disguised as an owl! At last! At last I’ve seen a fairy!’

“Well, that’s the first and last time I ever expect to be taken for a fairy. But I got to know those children quite well. They were a real nice couple of kiddies – even if the little girl did keep on insisting that I was a fairy in disguise. I used to hang around their barn, nights, looking for mice and rats. But if those youngsters ever caught sight of me they’d follow me everywhere. After bringing them safely home that evening I could have led them across the Sahara Desert and they’d follow – certain in their minds that I was the best of all good fairies and would keep them out of harm. They used to bring me mutton chops and shrimps and all the best tit-bits from their parents’ table. And I lived like a fighting cock – got so fat and lazy I couldn’t have caught a mouse on crutches.

“They were never afraid of the dark again. Because, you see – as I said to the Doctor one day, when we were talking over the multiplication tables and other philosophy – fear is usually ignorance. Once you know a thing, you’re no longer afraid of it. And those youngsters got to know the dark – and then they saw, of course, that it was just as harmless as the day.

“I used to take them out into the woods at night and across the hills and they got to love it – liked the adventure, you know. And thinking it would be a good thing if some humans, anyway, had sense enough to travel without sunlight, I taught them how to see in the dark. They soon got on to it, when they saw how I always shaded my eyes in the light of a lantern, so as not to get the habit of strong light. Well, those young ones became real expert – not so good as an owl or a bat, of course, but quite good at seeing in the dark for anyone who had not been brought up that way.

“It came in handy for them, too. That part of the country got flooded one springtime in the middle of the night and there wasn’t a dry match or a light to be had anywhere. Then those children, who had travelled all that country scores of times in the dark with me, saved a great many lives. They acted as guides, you understand, and took the people to safety, because they knew how to use their eyes, and the others didn’t.”

Too-Too yawned and blinked up sleepily at the lantern hanging above his head.

“Seeing in the dark,” he ended, “is all a matter of practice – same as the piano or anything else.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Pushmi-Pullyu’s Story

And now it came, at last, to the pushmi-pullyu’s turn for a story. He was very shy and modest and when the animals asked him the following night he said in his very well-bred manner:

“I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid I don’t know any stories – at least none good enough to entertain you with.”

“Oh, come on, Push,” said Jip. “Don’t be so bashful. We’ve all told one. You don’t mean to say you’ve lived all your life in the African jungle without seeing any adventures? There must be lots of yarns you could tell us.”

“But I’ve mostly led such a quiet life, you see,” said the pushmi-pullyu. “Our people have always kept very much to themselves. We mind our own business and don’t like getting mixed up in scandals and rows and adventures.”

“Oh, but just think a minute,” said Dab-Dab. “Something will come to you…. Don’t pester him,” she whispered to the others. “Just leave him alone and let him think – he’s got two heads to think with, you know. Something will come to him. But don’t get him embarrassed, whatever you do.”

For a moment or two the pushmi-pullyu pawed the deck of the veranda with his dainty hoofs, as if wrapped in deep thought. Then, looking up with one of his heads, he began speaking in a quiet voice, while the other coughed apologetically below the level of the tea-table.

“Er – this isn’t much of a story – not really. But perhaps it will serve to pass the time. I will tell you about the Badamoshi ostrich hunters. You must know, then, that the black peoples have various methods of hunting wild animals. And the way they go about it depends on the kind of animal they mean to hunt. For example, if they want giraffes they dig deep holes and cover them up with light boughs and grass. Next, they wait until the giraffe comes along and walks over the hole and falls in. Then they run up and catch him. For certain kinds of rather stupid deer they make a little screen of branches and leaves about the size of a man. And the hunter, holding the screen in front of him like a shield, creeps slowly forward until he is close to the deer and then fires his spear or arrow. Of course, the stupid deer thinks the moving leaves are just trees being swayed by the wind and takes very little notice, if the hunter is careful to approach quietly enough.

“They have various other dodges, more or less underhanded and deceitful, for getting game. But the one invented by the Badamoshi ostrich hunters was perhaps the meanest of them all. Briefly, this was it: Ostriches, you know, usually go about in small herds, like cattle. And they’re rather stupid. You’ve heard the story about their sticking their heads in the sand when a man comes along, thinking that because they can’t see the man, the man can’t see them. That doesn’t speak very well for their intelligence, does it? No. Very well then. Now, in the Badamoshi country there wasn’t much sand for the ostriches to stick their heads in – which in a way was a good thing for them. Because there, when a man came along, they ran away instead – I suppose to look for sand. Anyhow, the running away saved their lives. So the hunters of Badamoshi had to think out some dodge of coming near enough to the ostriches to get among the herd and kill them. And the way they thought out was quite clever. As a matter of fact, I by chance came upon a group of these hunters in the woods one day, practising their new trick. They had the skin of an ostrich and were taking it in turns, putting it over their heads and trying to walk and look like a real ostrich, holding up the long neck with a stick. Keeping myself concealed, I watched them and saw at once what their game was. They meant to disguise themselves as ostriches and walk among the herd and kill them with axes which they kept hidden inside the skin.

“Now, the ostriches of those parts were great friends of mine – had been ever since they put the Badamoshis’ tennis court out of business. The chief of the tribe some years before, finding a beautiful meadow of elephant grass – which happened to be my favourite grazing ground – had the fine hay all burnt off and made the place into a tennis court. He had seen white men playing that game and thought he’d like to play it, too. But the ostriches took the tennis balls for apples and ate them – you know, they’re dreadfully unparticular about their food. Yes, they used to sneak around in the jungles on the edge of the tennis court and whenever a ball was knocked out of the court they’d run off with it and swallow it.

“By eating up all the chief’s tennis balls in this way they put the tennis court out of business, and my beautiful grazing ground soon grew its long grass again and I came back to it. That is how the ostriches happened to be friends of mine.

“So, seeing they were threatened by a secret danger, I went off and told the leader of the herd about it. He was frightfully stupid and I had the hardest work getting it into his head.

“‘Now, remember,’ I said as I was leaving, ‘you can easily tell the hunter when he comes among your herd from the colour and shape of his legs. Ostriches’ legs are a sort of grey – as you see from your own – and the hunters’ legs are black and thicker.’ You see, the skin which the Badamoshis were going to use did not cover the hunters’ legs. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘you must tell all your birds when they see a black-legged ostrich trying to make friends with them to set on him and give him a good hiding. That will teach the Badamoshi hunters a lesson.’

“Well, you’d think after that everything should have gone smoothly. But I had not counted on the extraordinary stupidity of ostriches. The leader, going home that night, stepped into some marshy, boggy places and got his stupid long legs all over black mud – caked with it, thick. Then before he went to bed he gave all the ostriches the careful instructions which I had given to him.

“The next morning he was late in getting up and the herd was out ahead of him, feeding in a pleasant place on the hillside. Then that numbskull of a leader – the stupidest cock ostrich of them all – without bothering to brush the black mud off his legs which he had stepped into the night before, comes stalking out into the open space like a king, expecting a grand reception. And he got a grand reception, too – the ignoramus! As soon as the others saw his black legs they passed the word around quickly and at a given signal they set on the poor leader and nearly beat the life out of him. The Badamoshis, who had not yet appeared at all, arrived upon the scene at this moment. And the silly ostriches were so busy beating their leader, whom they took for a hunter in disguise, that the black men came right up to them and would have caught the whole lot if I hadn’t shouted in time to warn them of their danger.

“So, after that, of course, I saw that if I wanted to save my good but foolish friends from destruction, I had better do something on my own account.

“And this was what I thought I’d do: When the Badamoshi hunters were asleep I would go and take that ostrich skin – the only one they had – away from them and that would be the end of their grand new hunting trick.

“So in the dead of night I crept out of the jungle and came to the place where the hunters’ huts were. I had to come up from the leeward side, because I didn’t want to have the dogs get my scent on the wind. I was more afraid of the hunters’ dogs, you see, than I was of the hunters themselves. From the men I could escape quite easily, being much swifter than they were; but dogs, with their sense of smell, are much harder to get away from, even when you can reach the cover of the jungle.

“Well, then, coming up from the leeward side, I started searching around the huts for the ostrich skin. At first I couldn’t find it anywhere. And I began to think they must have hidden it some place. Now, the Badamoshis, like a good many black races, when they go to bed for the night, always leave one of their number outside the huts to watch and keep guard. I could see this night-watchman at the end of the row of huts, and of course I was careful not to let him see me. But after spending some time hunting for this ostrich skin I noticed that the watchman had not moved at all, but stayed in the same place, squatting on a stool. Then I guessed he had probably fallen asleep. So I moved closer and I found, to my horror, that he was wearing the ostrich skin as a blanket – for the night was cool.

“How to get it without waking him was now the problem. On tiptoe – hardly breathing – I went up and began to draw it gently off his shoulders. But the wretched man had tucked part of it in under him and I couldn’t get it free while he was sitting down.

“Then I was in despair and I almost gave up. But, thinking of the fate that surely awaited my poor, foolish friends if I didn’t get that skin, I decided on desperate measures. Suddenly and swiftly I jabbed the watchman in a tender spot with one of my horns. With an ‘Ouch!’ you could hear a mile off, he sprang in the air. Then, snatching the bird skin from under him, I sped off into the jungle, while the Badamoshis, their wives, the dogs and the whole village woke up in an uproar and came after me like a pack of wolves.

“Well,” the pushmi-pullyu sighed as he balanced his graceful body to the slight rolling of the houseboat, “I hope never again to have such a race for my life as I had that night. Cold shivers run down my spine still whenever I think of it – the barking of the dogs and the shouting of the men and the shrieking of the women and the crashing of the underbrush as my pursuers came tearing through the jungle, hot upon my trail.

“It was a river that saved me. The rainy season was on and the streams were in flood. Panting with terror and fatigue, I reached the bank of a swirling torrent. It was fully twenty-five feet wide. The water was simply raging down it. To try and swim it would be madness. Looking backward, I could see and hear my pursuers close upon my heels. Again I had to take desperate measures. Drawing back a little to get space for a run and still clutching that wretched ostrich skin firmly in my mouth, I rushed at the river at full speed and leaped – as I have never leaped in my life – clear across to the further bank.

“As I came down in a heap I realized I had only just been in time, for my enemies had already come up to the river on the side that I had left. Shaking their fists at me in the moonlight, they were trying to find a way to get across to me. The dogs, eagerest of all, tried, some of them, to swim; but the swift and raging waters swept them down the stream like corks and the hunters were afraid to follow their example.

“With a thrill of triumph, I dropped the precious ostrich skin before their very eyes into the swirling river, where it quickly disappeared from view. A howl of rage went up from the Badamoshis.

“Then I did something I’ve been sorry for all my life. You know how my people have always insisted on good manners and politeness. Well – I blush to recall it – in the excitement of the moment I stuck out both my tongues at the baffled foe across the river. There was no excuse for it – there never is for deliberate rudeness. But it was only moonlight and I trust the Badamoshis didn’t see it.

“Well, though I was safe for the present, my troubles were not over by any means. For some time the Badamoshis now left the ostriches alone and turned their whole attention to hunting me. They badgered my life out. As soon as I had moved from one part of the country to get away from their pestering they’d find out where I was and pursue me there. They laid traps for me; they set pitfalls; they sent the dogs after me. And although I managed for a whole year to keep away from them, the constant strain was very wearing.

“Now, the Badamoshis, like most savage peoples, are very superstitious. And they are terribly afraid – in the way that Too-Too was speaking of last night – of anything they can’t understand. Nearly everything they can’t understand they think is a devil.

“Well, after I had been hunted and worried for a long time, I thought I would take a leaf out of their own book, so to speak, and play something like the same trick on them as they had tried to play on the ostriches. With this idea in mind, I set about finding some means to disguise myself. One day, passing by a tree, I found a skin of a wild ox spread out by some huntsman to dry. This I decided was just the thing I wanted. I pulled it down and, lowering one of my heads, I laid one pair of my horns flat along my back – like this – and drew the cowhide over myself, so that only one of my heads could be seen.

“It changed my appearance completely. Moving through the long grass, I looked like some ordinary kind of deer. So, disguised in this manner, I sauntered out into an open meadow and grazed around till my precious Badamoshis should appear. Which they very shortly did.

“I saw them – though they didn’t know it – creeping about among the trees on the edge of the meadow, trying to get near without scaring me. Now, their method of hunting small deer is this: they get up into a tree and lie along a lower branch, keeping very still. And when the deer passes under the tree they drop down upon his hindquarters and fell him to the ground.

“So presently, picking out the tree where I had seen the chief himself go and hide, I browsed along underneath it, pretending I suspected nothing at all. Then when the chief dropped on what he thought was my hindquarters, I struck upward with my other horns, hidden under the cowhide, and gave him a jab he will remember the rest of his days.

“With a howl of superstitious fright, he called out to his men that he had been stuck by the devil. And they all ran across the country like wildfire and I was never hunted or bothered by them again.”

•   •   •

Everybody had now told a tale and the Arctic Monthly’s Prize Story Competition was declared closed. The first number of the first animals’ magazine ever printed was, shortly after that, issued and circulated by Swallow Mail to the inhabitants of the frozen North. It was a great success. Letters of thanks and votes on the competition began pouring in from seals and sea-lions and caribou and all manner of polar creatures. Too-Too, the mathematician, became editor; Dab-Dab ran the Mothers’ and Babies’ Page, while Gub-Gub wrote the Gardening Notes and the Pure Foods Column. And the Arctic Monthly continued to bring happiness to homes and dens and icebergs as long as the Doctor’s Post office existed.

• • • • •

Part Four

•   1   •

Parcel Post

One day Gub-Gub came to the Doctor and said:

“Doctor, why don’t you start a parcel post?”

“Great heavens, Gub-Gub!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Don’t you think I’m busy enough already? What do you want a parcel post for?”

“I’ll bet it’s something to do with food,” said Too-Too, who was sitting on the stool next to the Doctor’s, adding up figures.

“Well,” said Gub-Gub, “I was thinking of sending to England for some fresh vegetables.”

“There you are!” said Too-Too. “He has a vegetable mind.”

“But parcels would be too heavy for the birds to carry, Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor – “except perhaps the small parcels by the bigger birds.”

“Yes, I know. I had thought of that,” said the pig. “But this month the Brussels sprouts will be coming into season in England. They’re my favourite vegetable, you know – after parsnips. And I hear that a special kind of thrushes will be leaving England next week to come to Africa. It wouldn’t be too much to ask them to bring a single Brussels sprout apiece, would it? There will be hundreds of birds in the flight and if they each brought a sprout we’d have enough to last us for months. I haven’t tasted any fresh English vegetables since last Autumn, Doctor. And I’m so sick of these yams and okras and African rubbish.”

“All right, Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor, “I’ll see what I can do. We will send a letter to England by the next mail going out and ask the thrushes to bring you your Brussels sprouts.”

Well, that was how still another department, the Parcel Post, was added to the Foreign Mails Office of Fantippo. Gub-Gub’s sprouts arrived (tons of them, because this was a very big flight of birds), and after that many kinds of animals came to the Doctor and asked him to send for foreign foods for them when their own ran short. In this way, too, bringing seeds and plants from other lands by birds, the Doctor tried quite a number of experiments in planting, and what is called acclimatizing, fruits and vegetables and even flowers.

And very soon he had an old-fashioned window-box garden on the houseboat post office blooming with geraniums and marigolds and zinnias raised from the seeds and cuttings his birds brought him from England. And that is why many of the same vegetables that grow in England can still be found in a wild state in Africa. They came there through Gub-Gub’s passion for the foods he had been brought up on.

A little while after that, by using the larger birds to carry packages, a regular parcel post every two months was put at the service of the Fantippans; and alarm clocks and all sorts of things from England were sent for.

King Koko even sent for a new bicycle. It was brought over in pieces, two storks carrying a wheel each, an eagle the frame and crows the smaller parts, like the pedals, the spanners and the oil can.

When they started to put it together again in the post office a part – one of the nuts – was found to be missing. But that was not the fault of the Parcel Post. It had been left out by the makers, who shipped it from Birmingham. But the Doctor wrote a letter of complaint by the next mail and a new nut was sent right away. Then the King rode triumphantly through the streets of Fantippo on his new bicycle and a public holiday was held in honour of the occasion. And he gave his old bicycle to his brother, Prince Wolla-Bolla. And the Parcel Post, which had really been started by Gub-Gub, was declared a great success.

Some weeks later the Doctor received this letter from a farmer in Lincolnshire:

“Dear Sir: Thank you for your excellent weather reports. By their help I managed to raise the finest crop of Brussels sprouts this year ever seen in Lincolnshire. But the night before I was going to pick them for market they disappeared from my fields – every blessed one of them. How, I don’t know. Maybe you could give me some advice about this.

“Your obedient servant,

“Nicholas Scroggins.”

“Great heavens!” said the Doctor: “I wonder what happened to them.”

“Gub-Gub ate them,” said Too-Too. “Those are the sprouts, no doubt, that the thrushes brought here.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “That’s too bad. Well, I dare say I’ll find some way to pay the farmer back.”

For a long time Dab-Dab, the motherly housekeeper, had been trying to get the Doctor to take a holiday from his post-office business.

“You know, Doctor,” said she, “you’re going to get sick – that’s what’s going to happen to you, as sure as you’re alive. No man can work the way you’ve been doing for the last few months and not pay for it. Now you’ve got the post office going properly, why don’t you hand it over to the King’s postmen to run and give yourself a rest? And, anyway, aren’t you ever going back to Puddleby?”

“Oh, yes,” said John Dolittle. “All in good time, Dab-Dab.”

“But you must take a holiday,” the duck insisted. “Get away from the post office for a while. Go up the coast in a canoe for a change of air – if you won’t go home.”

Well, the Doctor kept saying that he would go. But he never did – until something happened in the natural history line of great enough importance to take him from his post-office work. This is how it came about:

One day the Doctor was opening the mail addressed to him, when he came upon a package about the size and shape of a large egg. He undid the outer wrapper, which was made of seaweed. Inside he found a letter and a pair of oyster shells tied together like a box.

Somewhat puzzled, the Doctor first read the letter, while Dab-Dab, who was still badgering him about taking a holiday, looked over his shoulder. The letter said:

“Dear Doctor: I am sending you, inclosed, some pretty pebbles which I found the other day while cracking open oysters. I never saw pebbles of this colour before, though I live by the seashore and have been opening shellfish all my life. My husband says they’re oyster’s eggs. But I don’t believe it. Would you please tell me what they are? And be careful to send them back, because my children use them as playthings and I have promised them they shall have them to keep.”

Then the Doctor put down the letter and, taking his penknife, he cut the seaweed strings that neatly held the oyster shells together. And when he opened the shells he gave a gasp of astonishment.

“Oh, Dab-Dab,” he cried, “how beautiful! Look, look!”

“Pearls!” whispered Dab-Dab in an awed voice, gazing down into the Doctor’s palm. “Pink pearls!”

“My! Aren’t they handsome?” murmured the Doctor. “And did you ever see such large ones? Each one of those pearls, Dab-Dab, is worth a fortune. Who the dickens is this that sent them to me, anyhow?”

And he turned to the letter again.

“It’s from a spoonbill,” said Dab-Dab. “I know their writing. They are a sort of a cross between a curlew and a snipe. They like messing around lonely seacoast places, hunting for shellfish and sea worms and stuff like that.”

“Well, where is it written from?” asked the Doctor. “What do you make that address out to be – at the top of the page there?”

Dab-Dab screwed up her eyes and peered at it closely.

“It looks to me,” she said, “like the Harmattan Rocks.”

“Where is that?” asked the Doctor.

“I have no idea,” said Dab-Dab. “But Speedy will know.”

And she went off to fetch the Skimmer.

Speedy said, yes, he knew – the Harmattan Rocks were a group of small islands off the coast of West Africa, about sixty miles further to the northward.

“That’s curious,” said the Doctor. “I wouldn’t have been so surprised if they had come from the South Sea Islands. But it is rather unusual to find pearls of any size or beauty in these waters. Well, these must be sent back to the spoonbill’s children – by registered parcel post, of course. Though, to tell you the truth, I hate to part with them – they are so lovely. They can’t go before tomorrow, anyway. I wonder where I can keep them in the meantime. One has to be frightfully careful with gems as valuable as these. You had better not tell anyone about them, Dab-Dab – except Jip the watchman and the pushmi-pullyu. They must take it in turns to mount guard at the door all night. Men will do all sorts of things for pearls. We’ll keep it a secret and send them right back first thing tomorrow morning.”

Even while the Doctor was speaking he noticed a shadow fall across the desk at which he was standing. He looked up. And there at the information window was the ugliest man’s face he had ever seen, staring in at the beautiful pearls that still lay on the palm of his hand.

The Doctor, annoyed and embarrassed, forgot for the first time in his post-office career to be polite.

“What do you want?” he asked, thrusting the pearls into his pocket.

“I want a postal order for ten shillings,” said the man. “I am going to send some money to my sick wife.”

The Doctor made out the postal order and took the money, which the man handed through the window.

“Here you are,” he said.

Then the man left the post office and the Doctor watched him go.

“That was a queer-looking customer, wasn’t he?” he said to Dab-Dab.

“He was, indeed,” said the duck. “I’m not surprised his wife is sick, if she has a husband with a face like that.”

“I wonder who he is,” said John Dolittle. “It isn’t often we have white men coming in here. I don’t much like the looks of him.”

The following day the pearls were wrapped up again the way they had arrived, and after a letter had been written by the Doctor explaining to the spoonbill what the “pebbles” really were, they were sent off by registered parcel post to the Harmattan Rocks.

The bird chosen to take the package happened to be one of the thrushes that had brought the Brussels sprouts from England. These birds were still staying in the neighbourhood. And though a thrush was a somewhat small bird to carry parcel post, the package was a very little one and the Doctor had nobody else to send. So after explaining to the thrush that registered mail should be guarded very carefully by postmen, the Doctor sent the pearls off.

Then he went to call on the King, as he did every so often. And in the course of conversation John Dolittle asked His Majesty if he knew who the white stranger might be that had called at the houseboat for a postal order.

After he had listened to the description of the man’s cross-eyed, ugly face, the King said, yes, he knew him very well. He was a pearl fisherman, who spent most of his time in the Pacific Ocean, where fishing for pearls was more common. But, the King said, he often came hanging around these parts, where he was known to be a great villain who would do anything to get pearls or money. Jack Wilkins was his name.

The Doctor, on hearing this, felt glad that he had already got the pink pearls safely off to their owner by registered mail. Then he told the King that he hoped shortly to take a holiday because he was overworked and needed a rest. The King asked where he was going, and the Doctor said he thought of taking a week’s canoe trip up the coast toward the Harmattan Rocks.

“Well,” said His Majesty, “if you are going in that direction you might call on an old friend of mine, Chief Nyam-Nyam. He owns the country in those parts and the Harmattan Rocks themselves. He and his people are frightfully poor, though. But he is honest – and I think you will like him.”

“All right,” said the Doctor, “I’ll call on him with your compliments.”

The next day, leaving Speedy, Cheapside and Jip in charge of the post office, the Doctor got into his canoe with Dab-Dab and paddled off to take his holiday. On the way out he noticed a schooner, the ship of Jack Wilkins, the pearl fisherman, at anchor near the entrance to Fantippo Harbour.

Toward evening the Doctor arrived at a small settlement of straw huts, the village of Chief Nyam-Nyam. Calling on the Chief with an introduction from King Koko, the Doctor was well received. He found, however, that the country over which this chief ruled was indeed in a very poor state. For years powerful neighbours on either side had made war on the old Chief and robbed him of his best farming lands, till now his people were crowded onto a narrow strip of rocky shore where very little food could be grown. The Doctor was particularly distressed by the thinness of the few chickens pecking about in the streets. They reminded him of old broken-down cab-horses, he said.

While he was talking to the Chief (who seemed to be a kindly old man) Speedy swept into the Chief’s hut in a great state of excitement.

“Doctor,” he cried, “the mail has been robbed! The thrush has come back to the post office and says his package was taken from him on the way. The pearls are gone!”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Great Mail Robbery

“Great heavens!” cried the Doctor, springing up. “The pearls gone? And they were registered, too!”

“Yes,” said Speedy, “here’s the thrush himself. He’ll tell you all about it.”

And going to the door, he called in the bird who had carried the registered package.

“Doctor,” said the thrush, who was also very upset and breathless, “it wasn’t my fault. I never let those pearls out of my sight. I flew straight off for the Harmattan Rocks. But part of the trip I had to go over land, if I took the shortest cut. And on the way I saw a sister of mine whom I hadn’t met in a long time, sitting in a tree in the jungle below me. And I thought it would be no harm if I went and talked to her a while. So I flew down and she was very glad to see me. I couldn’t talk properly with the string of the package in my mouth, so I put the parcel down on the bough of the tree behind me – right near me, you understand – and went on talking to my sister. And when I turned around to pick it up again it was gone.”

“Perhaps it slipped off the tree,” said the Doctor, “and fell down into the underbrush.”

“It couldn’t have,” said the thrush. “I put it into a little hollow in the bark of the bough. It just couldn’t have slipped or rolled. Somebody must have taken it.”

“Dear me,” said John Dolittle. “Robbing the mails; that’s a serious thing. I wonder who could have done it?”

“I’ll bet it’s Jack Wilkins, the cross-eyed pearl fisherman,” whispered Dab-Dab. “A man with a face like that would steal anything. And he was the only one, besides us and Speedy, who knew the pearls were going through the mails. It’s Wilkins, sure as you’re alive.”

“I wonder,” said the Doctor. “They do say he is a most unscrupulous customer. Well, there’s nothing for it, I suppose, but that I should paddle back to Fantippo right away and try to find him. The post office is responsible for the loss of registered mail, and if Mr. Wilkins took those pearls I’m going to get them back again. But after this we will make it a post-office rule that carriers of registered mail may not talk to their sisters or anyone else while on duty.”

And in spite of the lateness of the hour, John Dolittle said a hasty farewell to Chief Nyam-Nyam and started off by moonlight for Fantippo Harbour.

In the meantime, Speedy and the thrush flew over the land by the short cut to the post office.

“What are you going to say to Wilkins, Doctor?” asked Dab-Dab as the canoe glided along over the moonlit sea. “It’s a pity you haven’t got a pistol or something like that. He looks a desperate character and he isn’t likely to give up the pearls without a fight.”

“I don’t know what I’ll say to him. I’ll see when I get there,” said John Dolittle. “But we must be very careful how we approach, so that he doesn’t see us coming. If he should pull up his anchor and sail away we would never be able to overtake him by canoe.”

“I tell you what, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab, “let me fly ahead and do a little spying on the enemy. Then I’ll come back and tell you anything I can find out. Maybe he isn’t on his schooner at all at present. And we ought to be hunting him somewhere else.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Do that. It will take me another four hours at least to reach Fantippo at this pace.”

So Dab-Dab flew away over the sea and John Dolittle continued to paddle his canoe bravely forward.

After about an hour had passed he heard a gentle sort of whispered quacking high overhead and he knew that his faithful housekeeper was returning. Presently, with a swish of feathers, Dab-Dab settled down at his feet. And on her face was an expression which meant great news.

“He’s there, Doctor – and he’s got the pearls, all right!” said she. “I peeked through the window and I saw him counting them out from one little box into another by the light of a candle.”

“The villain!” grunted the Doctor, putting on all the speed he could. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get away before we reach Fantippo.”

Dawn was beginning to show before they came in sight of the ship they sought. This made approaching the schooner without being seen extremely difficult. And the Doctor went all the way around the Island of No-Man’s-Land, so as to come upon the ship from the other side, where he would not have to cross so large an open stretch of sea.

Paddling very, very softly, he managed to get the canoe right under the bow of the ship. Then, tying his own craft so it couldn’t float away, he swarmed up the schooner’s anchor chain and crept on to the boat on hands and knees.

Full daylight had not yet come and the light from a lamp could be seen palely shining up the stairs which led to the cabin. The Doctor slid forward like a shadow, tiptoed his way down the stairs and peered through the partly opened door.

The cross-eyed Wilkins was still seated at the table, as Dab-Dab had described, counting pearls. Two other men were asleep in bunks around the room. The Doctor swung open the door and jumped in. Instantly Wilkins sprang up from the table, snatched a pistol from his belt and leveled it at the Doctor’s head.

“Move an inch and you’re a dead man!” he snarled.

The Doctor, taken aback for a moment, gazed at the pistol muzzle, wondering what to do next. Wilkins, without moving his eyes from the Doctor for a second, closed the pearl box with his left hand and put it into his pocket.

While he was doing this, however, Dab-Dab sneaked in under the table, unseen by anyone. And suddenly she bit the pearl fisherman in the leg with her powerful beak.

With a howl Wilkins bent down to knock her off.

“Now’s your chance, Doctor!” yelled the duck.

And in the second while the pistol was lowered the Doctor sprang onto the man’s back, gripped him around the neck, and with a crash the two of them went rolling on the floor of the cabin.

Then a tremendous fight began. Over and over and over they rolled around the floor, upsetting things in all directions, Wilkins fighting to get his pistol hand free, the Doctor struggling to keep it bound to his body, Dab-Dab hopping and flying and jumping and flapping to get a bite in on the enemy’s nose whenever she saw a chance.

At last John Dolittle, who for his size, was a very powerful wrestler, got the pearl fisherman in a grip of iron where he couldn’t move at all. But just as the Doctor was forcing the pistol out of his enemy’s hand, one of the other men, who had been aroused by the noise of the fight, woke up. And, leaning out of his bunk from behind the Doctor’s back, he hit him a tremendous blow on the head with a bottle. Stunned and senseless, John Dolittle fell over in a heap and lay still upon the floor.

Then all three men sprang on him with ropes and in a minute his arms and legs were tied and the fight was over.

•   •   •

When he woke up the Doctor found himself lying at the bottom of his own canoe, with Dab-Dab tugging at the ropes which bound his wrists to get him free.

“Where is Wilkins?” he asked in a dazed, sleepy kind of way.

“Gone,” said Dab-Dab; “and the pearls with him – the scoundrel! As soon as they had dumped you in the canoe they pulled up the anchor, hoisted sail and got away. They were in an awful hurry and kept looking out to sea with telescopes and talking about the revenue cutter. I guess they are wanted by the government for a good many bad deeds. I never saw a tougher-looking crowd of men in all my life. See, I’ve got the rope around your hands free now; you can do the rest better yourself. Does your head hurt much?”

“It’s a bit dizzy still,” said the Doctor, working at the rope about his ankles. “But I’ll be all right in a little.”

Presently when he had undone the cord that tied his feet, John Dolittle stood up and gazed over the ocean. And there, on the sky line, he could just see the sails of Wilkins’ schooner disappearing eastward.

“Villain!” was all he said between his clenched teeth.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Pearls and
Brussels Sprouts

Disappointed and sad, Dab-Dab and the Doctor started to paddle their way back.

“I think I’ll stop in at the post office before I return to Chief Nyam-Nyam’s country,” said the Doctor. “There’s nothing more I can do about the pearls, I suppose. But I’d like to see if everything else is going all right.”

“Wilkins may get caught yet – by the government,” said Dab-Dab. “And if he does we might get the pearls back, after all.”

“Not much chance of that, I’m afraid,” said John Dolittle. “He will probably sell them the first chance he gets. That’s all he wants them for – for the money they’ll bring in. Whereas the young spoonbills appreciated their beauty. It’s a shame they should lose them – and when they were in my care, too. Well – it’s no use crying over spilt milk. They’re gone. That’s all.”

As they were approaching the houseboat they noticed a large number of canoes collected about it. Today was not one of the outgoing or incoming mail days and the Doctor wondered what the excitement could be.

Fastening up his own canoe, he went into the post office. And inside there was quite a crowd. He made his way through it with Dab-Dab and in the registered mail booth he found all the animals gathered around a small black squirrel. The little creature’s legs were tied with post-office red tape and he seemed very frightened and miserable. Speedy and Cheapside were mounting guard over him, one on each side.

“What’s all this about?” asked the Doctor.

“We’ve caught the fellow who stole the pearls, Doctor,” said Speedy.

“And we’ve got the pearls, too,” cried Too-Too. “They’re in the stamp drawer and Jip is guarding them.”

“But I don’t understand,” said John Dolittle. “I thought Wilkins had made off with them.”

“Those must have been some other stolen pearls, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab. “Let’s take a look at the ones Jip has.”

The Doctor went and opened the stamp drawer. And there, inside, sure enough, were the three pink beauties he had sent by registered mail.

“How did you find them?” he asked, turning to Speedy.

“Well, after you had set off in the canoe,” said the Skimmer, “I and the thrush stopped on our way back here at the tree where he had lost the package. It was too dark then to hunt for it, so we roosted in the tree all night, intending to look in the morning. Just as dawn was breaking we saw this wretched squirrel here flirting about in the branches with an enormous pink pearl in his mouth. I at once pounced on him and held him down, while the thrush took the pearl away from him. Then we made him tell us where he had hidden the other two. And after we had got all three of them we put the squirrel under arrest and brought him here.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor, looking at the miserable culprit, who was all tied up with red tape. “What made you steal the pearls?”

At first the squirrel seemed almost too frightened to speak. So the Doctor took a pair of scissors and cut the bonds that held him.

“Why did you do it?” he repeated.

“I thought they were Brussels sprouts,” said the squirrel timidly. “A few weeks ago when I and my wife were sitting in a tree we suddenly smelled the smell of Brussels sprouts, awful strong, all about us. I and my wife are very fond of this vegetable and we wondered where the smell was coming from. And then, looking up, we saw thousands of thrushes passing overhead, carrying Brussels sprouts in their mouths. We hoped they would stop so we could get a few. But they didn’t. So we agreed that perhaps more would be coming over in a few days. And we arranged to stay around that same tree and wait. And, sure enough, this morning I saw one of these same thrushes alight in the tree, carrying a package.

“‘Pst!’ I whispered to the wife. ‘More Brussels sprouts. Let’s bag his parcel while he’s not looking!’ And bag it I did. But when we opened it we found nothing but these wretched gew-gaws. I thought they might be some new kind of rock candy and I was on my way to find a stone to crack them with when this bird grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and arrested me. I didn’t want the beastly pearls.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I’m sorry you’ve been put to such inconvenience. I’ll have Dab-Dab carry you back to your family. But, you know, robbing the registered mail is a serious thing. If you wanted some Brussels sprouts you should have written to me. After all, you can’t blame the birds for putting you under arrest.”

“Stolen fruit’s the sweetest, Doctor,” said Cheapside. “If you ’ad given ’im a ton of ’ot-’ouse grapes ’e wouldn’t ’ave enjoyed ’em ’alf as much as something ’e pinched. I’d give ’im a couple of years ’ard labour, if I was you – just to learn ’im to leave the mails alone.”

“Well, never mind, we’ll forget it,” said the Doctor. “It’s only a boyish escapade.”

“Boyish fiddlesticks!” growled Cheapside. “‘E’s the father of a large family – and a natural-born pickpocket. All squirrels are like that. Don’t I know ’em in the city parks – with their mincin’ ways that the folks call ‘cute’? Cheekiest beggars that ever was – pinch a crumb from under your nose and pop into an ’ole with it before you could get your breath. Boyish hescapade!”

“Come along,” said Dab-Dab, picking the wretched culprit up in her big webbed feet. “I’ll take you back to the mainland. And you can thank your lucky stars that it’s the Doctor who is in charge of this post office. It’s to jail you really ought to go.”

“Oh, and hurry back, Dab-Dab,” the Doctor called after her as she flapped her way through the open window and set off across the sea with her burden. “I’m going to start right away for Chief Nyam-Nyam’s country as soon as you are ready.”

“I’ll take the pearls myself this time,” he said to Speedy, “and hand them over to the spoonbill in person. We don’t want any more accidents happening to them.”

About noon the Doctor started out a second time Upon his holiday trip and as Gub-Gub, Jip and the white mouse begged to be taken along, the canoe was well loaded.

They reached Nyam-Nyam’s village about six o’clock in the evening and the old chief prepared a supper for his guests. There was very little to eat at it, however. And the Doctor was again reminded how poor these people were.

While talking with the old chief the Doctor found out that the worst enemy his country had was the Kingdom of Dahomey. This big and powerful neighbour was, it seemed, always making war upon Chief Nyam-Nyam and cutting off parts of his land and making the people poorer still. Now, the soldiers of Dahomey were Amazons – that is, they were women soldiers. And although they were women, they were very big and strong and there were a terrible lot of them. So whenever they attacked the small country next to them they easily won and took what they wanted.

As it happened, they made an attack that night while the Doctor was staying with the Chief. And about ten o’clock everybody was awakened out of his sleep with cries of “War! War! The Amazons are here!”

There was terrible confusion. And until the moon had risen people were hitting and falling over one another everywhere in the darkness, not knowing friend from enemy.

When it was possible to see, however, the Doctor found that most of Chief Nyam-Nyam’s people had fled off into the jungle; and the Amazons, in thousands, were just going through the village, taking anything they fancied. The Doctor tried to argue with them, but they merely laughed at him.

Then the white mouse, who was watching the show from the Doctor’s shoulder, whispered in his ear:

“If this is an army of women, Doctor, I think I know of a way to deal with them. Women are terribly afraid of mice, you know. I’ll just go off and collect a few in the village and see what we can do.”

So the white mouse went off and gathered an army of his own, about two hundred mice, which lived in the grass walls and floors of the huts. And then suddenly they attacked the Amazons and began nipping them in the legs.

With shrieks and howls the fat women soldiers dropped the things they had been stealing and ran helter-skelter for home. And that was one time the famous Amazons of Dahomey didn’t have it all their own way.

The Doctor told his pet he could be very proud of himself. For he was surely the only mouse in the world that ever won a war.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Pearl Divers

The next morning the Doctor was up early. After a light breakfast (it was impossible to get any other kind in that poverty-stricken country) he asked Nyam-Nyam the way to the Harmattan Rocks and the Chief told him they were just beyond sight from here, about an hour and a half’s paddle straight out into the ocean.

So the Doctor decided that he had better have a sea bird to guide him. And Dab-Dab went and got a curlew who was strolling about on the beach, doing nothing in particular. This bird said he knew the place quite well and would consider it an honour to act as guide to John Dolittle. Then, with Jip, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub and the white mouse, the Doctor got into his canoe and started off for the Harmattan Rocks.

It was a beautiful morning and they enjoyed the paddle – though Gub-Gub came very near to upsetting the canoe more than once, leaning out to grab for passing sea weed, which he had noticed the curlew eating. Finally, for safety’s sake, they made him lie down at the bottom of the canoe, where he couldn’t see anything.

About eleven o’clock a group of little rocky islands were sighted, which their guide said were the Harmattan Rocks. At this point in their journey the mainland of Africa was just disappearing from view on the sky-line behind them. The rocks they were coming to seemed to be the home of thousands of different kinds of sea birds. As the canoe drew near, gulls, terns, gannets, albatrosses, cormorants, auklets, petrels, wild ducks, even wild geese, came out, full of curiosity to examine the stranger. When they learned from the curlew that this quiet little fat man was none other than the great Doctor Dolittle himself they passed word back to the rocks; and soon the air about the canoe was simply thick with wings flashing in the sunlight. And the welcome to their home that the sea birds screeched to the Doctor was so hearty and noisy you couldn’t hear yourself speak.

It was easy to see why this place had been chosen for a home by the sea birds. The shores all around were guarded by half-sunken rocks, on which the waves roared and broke dangerously. No ship was ever likely to come here to disturb the quiet life of the birds. Indeed, even with a light canoe that could go in shallow water, the Doctor would have had hard work to make a landing. But the welcoming birds guided him very skillfully around to the back of the biggest island, where a bay with deep water formed a pretty sort of toy harbour. The Doctor understood now why these islands had been left in the possession of the poor Chief: no neighbours would consider them worth taking. Hard to approach, with very little soil in which crops could be grown, flat and open to all the winds and gales of heaven, barren and lonesome, they tempted none of the Chief’s enemies. And so for many, many years they remained the property of Nyam-Nyam and his people – though indeed even they hardly ever visited them. But in the end the Harmattan Rocks proved to be of greater value than all the rest of the lands this tribe had lost.

“Oh, I think this is an awful place,” said Gub-Gub as they got out of the canoe. “Nothing but waves and rocks. What have you come here for, Doctor?”

“I hope to do a little pearl fishing,” said John Dolittle. “But first I must see the spoonbill and give her this registered package. Dab-Dab, would you please try to find her for me? With so many millions of sea birds around, myself, I wouldn’t know how to begin to look for her.”

“All right,” said Dab-Dab. “But it may take me a little time. There are several islands and quite a number of spoonbills. I shall have to make inquiries and find out which one sent you the pearls.”

So Dab-Dab went off upon her errand. And in the meantime the Doctor talked and chatted with various sea bird leaders who had already made his acquaintance at the Great Conference in the hollow of No-Man’s-Land. These kept coming up to him, anxious to show off before their fellows the fact that they knew the great man personally. And once more the Doctor’s notebook was kept busy with new discoveries to be jotted down about the carriage of mail by birds that live upon the sea.

The birds, who at first followed the Doctor in droves around the main island wherever he went, presently returned to their ordinary doings when the newness of his arrival had worn off. And after Dab-Dab had come back from her hunt and told him the spoonbill lived on one of the smaller islands, he got back into his canoe and paddled over to the rock she pointed out.

Here the spoonbill was waiting for him at the water’s edge. She apologized for not coming in person to welcome him, but said she was afraid to leave her babies when there were sea eagles around. The little ones were with her, two scrubby, greasy youngsters, who could walk but not fly. The Doctor opened the package and gave them back their precious toys; and with squawks of delight they began playing marbles on the flat rocks with the enormous pink pearls.

“What charming children you have,” said the Doctor to the mother spoonbill, who was watching them proudly. “I’m glad they’ve got their playthings safely back. I wouldn’t have had them lose them for anything.”

“Yes, they are devoted to those pebbles,” said the spoonbill. “By the way, were you able to tell me what they are? I found them, as I wrote you, inside an oyster.”

“They are pearls,” said the Doctor, “and worth a tremendous lot. Ladies in cities wear them around their necks.”

“Oh, indeed,” said the bird. “And why don’t the ladies in the country wear them, too?”

“I don’t just know,” said the Doctor. “I suppose because they’re too costly. With any one of those pearls you could buy a house and garden.”

“Well, wouldn’t you like to keep them, then?” asked the spoonbill. “I could get the children something else to play with, no doubt.”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor, “thank you. I have a house and garden.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Dab-Dab put in, “but you wouldn’t be bound to buy a second one with the money you would get for the pearls. It would come in real handy for something else, you know.”

“The baby spoonbills want them,” said John Dolittle. “Why should I take them away from them?”

“Balls of pink putty would suit them just as well,” snorted Dab-Dab.

“Putty is poisonous,” said the Doctor. “They appreciate the beauty of the pearls. Let them have them. But,” he added to the mother spoonbill, “if you know where any more are to be found I should be glad to know.”

“I don’t,” said she. “I don’t even know how these came to be in the possession of the oyster I ate.”

“Pearls always grow in oysters – when they grow at all,” said the Doctor. “But they are rare. This is the point that most interests me – the natural history of pearls. They are said to form around a grain of sand that gets into the oyster’s shell by accident. I had hoped that if you were in the habit of eating oysters you could give me some information.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” said the spoonbill. “To tell you the truth, I got those oysters from a pile which some other bird had left on the rock here. He had eaten his fill, I suppose, and gone away. There are a good many left still. Let’s go over to the pile and crack a few. Maybe they’ve all got pearls in them.”

So they went across to the other side of the little island and started opening oysters. But not another pearl did they find.

“Where are the oyster beds around here?” asked the Doctor.

“Between this island and the next,” said the spoonbill. “I don’t fish for them myself because I’m not a deep diver. But I’ve seen other kinds of sea birds fishing in that place – just about half way between this island and that little one over there.”

“I’ll go out with her, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab, “and do a little fishing on my own account. I can dive pretty deep, though I’m not a regular diving duck. Maybe I can get some pearls for you.”

So Dab-Dab went out with the spoonbill and started pearl fishing.

Then for a good hour and a half the faithful housekeeper fished up oyster after oyster and brought them to the Doctor on the island. He and the animals found opening them quite exciting work, because you never knew what you might discover. But nothing was found in the shells but fat oysters and thin oysters.

“I think I’d like to try a hand at diving myself,” said the Doctor, “if the water is not too deep. I used to be quite good at fishing up sixpences from the bottom of the swimming pool when I was a boy.”

And he took off his clothes, got into the canoe and paddled out with the animals till he was over the oyster beds. Then he dove right down into the clear green water, while Jip and Gub-Gub watched him with intense interest.

But when he came up, blowing like a seal, he hadn’t even got an oyster. All he had was a mouthful of seaweed.

“Let’s see what I can do,” said Jip. And out of the canoe jumped another pearl fisherman.

Then Gub-Gub got all worked up and before anybody could stop him he had taken a plunge. The pig went down so quick and so straight he got his snout stuck in the mud at the bottom, and the Doctor, still out of breath, had to go down after him and get him free. The animals by this time were at such a pitch of excitement that even the white mouse would have jumped in if Gub-Gub’s accident hadn’t changed his mind.

Jip managed to bring up a few small oysters, but there were no pearls in them.

“I’m afraid we’re pretty poor fishers,” said John Dolittle. “Of course, it’s possible that there may not be any more pearls there.”

“No, I’m not satisfied yet,” said Dab-Dab. “I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of pearls there – the beds are enormous. I think I’ll go around among the sea birds and try to find out who it was got those oysters our spoonbill found the pearls in. The bird that fished up that pile was an expert oyster diver.”

So while the Doctor put his clothes on and Gub-Gub washed the mud out of his ears, Dab-Dab went off on a tour of inquiry around the islands.

After about twenty minutes she brought back a black duck-like bird with a tuft on his head.

“This cormorant, Doctor,” said she, “fished up that pile of oysters.”

“Ah,” said John Dolittle, “perhaps we shall find out something now. Can you tell me,” he asked the cormorant, “how to get pearls?”

“Pearls? What do you mean?” said the bird.

Then Dab-Dab went and borrowed the playthings from the spoonbill’s children to show him.

“Oh, those things,” said the cormorant. “Those come in bad oysters. When I go oyster fishing I never pick up that kind except once in a while by accident – and then I never bother to open them.”

“But how do you tell oysters of that kind from the others?” asked the Doctor.

“By sniffing them,” said the cormorant. “The ones that have those things in them don’t smell fresh. I’m frightfully particular about my oysters.”

“Do you mean to say that even when you are right down under the water you could tell an oyster that had pearls in it from one that hadn’t – just by sniffing it?”

“Certainly. So could any cormorant.”

“There you are, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab. “The trick’s done. Now you can get all the pearls you want.”

“But these oyster beds don’t belong to me,” said John Dolittle.

“Oh, dear!” sighed the duck. “Did anyone ever see a man who could find so many objections to getting rich? Who do they belong to, then?”

“To Chief Nyam-Nyam and his people, of course. He owns the Harmattan Rocks. Would you mind,” the Doctor asked, turning to the cormorant, “getting me a few oysters of this kind to look at?”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” said the cormorant.

And he flew out over the oyster beds and shot down into the sea like a stone. In a minute he was back again with three oysters – two in his feet and one in his mouth. The animals gathered around with bated breath while the Doctor opened them. In the first was a small grey pearl; in the second a middle-sized pink pearl, and in the third two enormous black ones.

“Gosh, how lovely!” murmured Gub-Gub.

“Pearls before swine,” giggled the white mouse. “Tee, hee!”

“How uneducated you are!” snorted the pig, turning up his snout. “Ladies before gentlemen; swine before pearls!”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Obombo’s Rebellion

Late that same afternoon the Doctor returned to Chief Nyam-Nyam’s village. And with him he took the cormorant as well as Dab-Dab and his animals.

As he arrived at the little group of straw houses he saw that there was some kind of a commotion going on. All the villagers were gathered about the Chief’s hut; speeches were being made and everyone seemed in a great state of excitement. The old Chief himself was standing at the door, and when he saw his friend, the Doctor, approaching on the edge of the crowd, he signalled him to come into the hut. This the Doctor did. And as soon as he was inside the Chief closed the door and began to tell him what the trouble was.

“Great trials have overtaken me in my old age, oh white man,” said he. “For fifty years I have been head of this tribe, respected, honoured and obeyed. Now my young son-in-law, Obombo, clamours to be made Chief and many of the people support him. Bread we have none; food of any kind is scanty. And Obombo tells the tribesmen that the fault is mine – that he, if he is made chief, will bring them luxury and prosperity. It is not that I am unwilling to give up the chieftaincy, but I know this young upstart who would take my place means to lead the people into war. What can he do by going to war? Can he fill the people’s stomachs? In wars we have always lost. Our neighbours are large peoples, while we are the smallest tribe in all West Africa. So we have been robbed and robbed, till now the mothers and children clamour at my door for bread. Alas, alas, that I should ever see this day!”

The old Chief sank into his chair as he ended and burst out weeping. The Doctor went up and patted him on the shoulder.

“Chief Nyam-Nyam,” said he, “I think I have discovered something today which should make you and your people rich for the remainder of your lives. Go out now and address the tribesmen. Promise them in my name – and remind them that I come recommended by King Koko – promise them from me that if they will abide peacefully under your rule for another week the country of Chief Nyam-Nyam will be made famous for its riches and prosperity.”

Then the old Chief opened the door and made a speech to the clamouring crowd outside. And when he had ended Obombo, the son-in-law, got up and began another speech, calling on the people to drive the old man out into the jungle. But before he had got halfway through the crowd began to murmur to one another:

“Let us not listen to this forward young man. It were better far that we abide the white man’s promise and see what comes. He is a man of deeds, not words. Did he not put the Amazons to flight with a magic mouse that lives in his pocket? Let us side with the white man and the venerable Nyam-Nyam, who has ruled us with kindness for so long. Obombo would but lead us into war, and bring us to greater poverty still.”

Soon hisses and groans broke out among the crowd and, picking up pebbles and mud, they began pelting Obombo so he could not go on with his speech. Finally he had to run for the jungle himself to escape the fury of the people.

Then when the excitement had died down and the villagers had gone peacefully to their homes, the Doctor told the old Chief of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the oysters of the Harmattan Rocks. And the cormorant agreed to oblige John Dolittle by getting a number of his relatives to do pearl fishing for these people, who were so badly in need of money and food.

And during the next week the Doctor paddled the old Chief to the rocks twice a day. A great number of oysters were fished up by the cormorants and the pearls were sorted by the Doctor, put in little boxes and sent out to be sold. John Dolittle told the old Chief to keep the matter a secret and only to intrust the carrying to reliable men.

And soon money began to pour into the country from the pearl fishing business which the Doctor had established and the people were prosperous and had all the food they wanted.

By the end of that week the Doctor had, indeed, made good his promise. The country of Chief Nyam-Nyam became famous all along the coast of West Africa as a wealthy state.

But wherever money is made in large quantities and business is good, there strangers will always come, seeking their fortune. And before long the little village that used to be so poor and insignificant was full of traders from the neighbouring kingdoms, buying and selling in the crowded, busy markets. And, of course, questions were soon asked as to how this country had suddenly got so rich. And, although the Chief had carried out the Doctor’s orders and had only intrusted the secret of the fisheries to a few picked men, folks began to notice that canoes frequently came and went between the Harmattan Rocks and the village of Chief Nyam-Nyam.

Then spies from those neighbouring countries who had always been robbing and warring upon this land began to sneak around the rocks in canoes. And, of course, very soon the secret was out.

And the Emir of Ellebubu, who was one of the big, powerful neighbours, called up his army and sent them off in war canoes to take possession of the Harmattan Rocks. At the same time he made an attack upon the village, drove everybody out, and carrying off the Doctor and the Chief, he threw them into prison in his own country. Then at last Nyam-Nyam’s people had no land left at all.

And in the jungle, where the frightened villagers had fled to hide, Obombo made whispered speeches to little scattered groups of his father-in-law’s people, telling them what fools they had been to trust the crazy white man, instead of listening to him, who would have led them to greatness.

Now, when the Emir of Ellebubu had thrown the Doctor into prison he had refused to allow Dab-Dab, Jip or Gub-Gub to go with him. Jip put up a fight and bit the Emir in the leg. But all he got for that was to be tied up on a short chain.

The prison into which the Doctor was thrown had no windows. And John Dolittle, although he had been in African prisons before, was very unhappy because he was extremely particular about having fresh air. And besides, his hands were firmly tied behind his back with strong rope.

“Dear me,” said he while he was sitting miserably on the floor in the darkness, wondering what on earth he was going to do without any of his animals to help him, “what a poor holiday I am spending, to be sure!”

But presently he heard something stirring in his pocket. And to his great delight, the white mouse, who had been sleeping soundly, entirely forgotten by the Doctor, ran out on his lap.

“Good luck!” cried John Dolittle. “You’re the very fellow I want. Would you be so good as to run around behind my back and gnaw this beastly rope? It’s hurting my wrists.”

“Certainly,” said the white mouse, setting to work at once. “Why is it so dark? I haven’t slept into the night, have I?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “It’s only about noon, I should say. But we’re locked up. That stupid old Emir of Ellebubu made war on Nyam-Nyam and threw me into jail. Bother it, I always seem to be getting into prison! The worst of it was, he wouldn’t let Jip or Dab-Dab come with me. I’m particularly annoyed that I haven’t got Dab-Dab. I wish I knew some way I could get a message to her.”

“Well, just wait until I have your hands free,” said the white mouse. “Then I’ll see what can be done. There! I’ve bitten through one strand. Now wiggle your hands a bit and you can undo the whole rope.”

The Doctor squirmed his arms and wrists and presently his hands were free.

“Thank goodness, I had you in my pocket!” he said. “That was a most uncomfortable position. I wonder what kind of a prison old Nyam-Nyam got. This is the worst one I was ever in.”

In the meantime the Emir, celebrating victory in his palace, gave orders that the Harmattan Rocks, which were now to be called the Royal Ellebubu Pearl Fisheries, would henceforth be his exclusive, private property, and no trespassing would be allowed. And he sent out six special men with orders to take over the islands and to bring all the pearls to him.

Now the cormorants did not know that war had broken out, nor anything about the Doctor’s misfortune. And when the Emir’s men came and took the pearl oysters they had fished up the birds supposed they were Nyam-Nyam’s men and let them have them. However, it happened, luckily, that this first load of oysters had only very small and almost worthless pearls in them.

Jip and Dab-Dab were still plotting to find some way to reach the Doctor. But there seemed to be nothing they could think of.

Inside the prison the Doctor was swinging his arms to get the stiffness out of them.

“You said something about a message you had for Dab-Dab, I think,” peeped the white mouse’s voice from the darkness of the corner.

“Yes,” said the Doctor – “and a very urgent one. But I don’t see how on earth I’m going to get it to her. This place is made of stone and the door’s frightfully thick. I noticed it as I came in.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll get it to her,” said the mouse. “I’ve just found an old rat hole over here in the corner. I popped down it and it goes under the wall and comes out by the root of the tree on the other side of the road from the prison.”

“Oh, how splendid!” cried the Doctor.

“Give me the message,” said the white mouse, “and I’ll hand it to Dab-Dab before you can say Jack Robinson. She’s sitting in the tree, where the hole comes out.”

“Tell her,” said the Doctor, “to fly over to the Harmattan Rocks right away and give the cormorants strict orders to stop all pearl fishing at once.”

“All right,” said the mouse. And he slipped down the rat hole.

Dab-Dab, as soon as she got the message, went straight off to the pearl fisheries and gave the Doctor’s instructions to the cormorants.

She was only just in time. For the Emir’s six special men were about to land on the islands to get a second load of pearls. Dab-Dab and the cormorants swiftly threw back into the sea the oysters that had been fished up and when the Emir’s men arrived they found nothing.

After hanging around a while they paddled back and told the Emir that they could find no more pearl oysters on the rocks. He sent them out to look again; but they returned with the same report.

Then the Emir was puzzled and angry. If Nyam-Nyam could get pearls on the Harmattan Rocks, why couldn’t he? And one of his generals said that probably the white man had something to do with it, since it was he who had discovered and started the fisheries.

So the Emir ordered his hammock men and had himself carried to the Doctor’s prison. The door was unlocked and the Emir, going inside, said to the Doctor:

“What monkey business have you done to my pearl fisheries, you white-faced villain?”

“They’re not your pearl fisheries, you black-faced ruffian,” said the Doctor. “You stole them from poor old Nyam-Nyam. The pearls were fished for by diving birds. But the birds are honest and will work only for honest people. Why don’t you have windows in your prisons? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Then the Emir flew into a terrible passion.

“How dare you speak to me like that? I am the Emir of Ellebubu,” he thundered.

“You’re an unscrupulous scoundrel,” said the Doctor. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“If you don’t make the birds work for me I’ll give orders that you get no food,” said the Emir. “You shall be starved to death.”

“I have told you,” said the Doctor, “that I don’t desire any further conversation with you. Not a single pearl shall you ever get from the Harmattan Fisheries.”

“And not a bite to eat shall you ever have till I do,” the Emir yelled.

Then he turned to the prison guards, gave instructions that the Doctor was not to be fed till further orders and stalked out. The door slammed shut with a doleful clang and after one decent breath of fresh air the Doctor was left in the darkness of his stuffy dungeon.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Doctor’s Release

The Emir of Ellebubu went back to his palace feeling perfectly certain that after he had starved John Dolittle for a few days he would be able to make him do anything he wanted. He gave orders that no water should be served to the prisoner either, so as to make doubly sure that he would be reduced to obedience.

But immediately the Emir had left, the white mouse started out through the rat hole in the corner. And all day and all night he kept busy, coming and going bringing in crumbs of food which he gathered from the houses of the town: bread crumbs, cheese crumbs, yam crumbs, potato crumbs and crumbs of meat which he pulled off bones. All these he stored carefully in the Doctor’s hat in the corner of the prison. And by the end of each day he had collected enough crumbs for one good square meal.

The Doctor said he never had the slightest idea of what he was eating, but as the mealy mixture was highly digestible and nutritious he did not see why he should mind. To supply his master with water the mouse got nuts, and after gnawing a tiny hole in one end he would chop the nut inside into pieces and shake it out through the hole. Then he would fill the empty shell with water and seal up the hole with gum arabic which he got from trees. The water-filled nuts were a little heavy for him to carry, so Dab-Dab would bring them from the river as far as the outside end of the rat hole, and the white mouse would roll them down the hole into the prison.

By getting his friends, the village mice, to help him in the preparation of these nuts, he was able to supply them in hundreds. Then all the Doctor had to do when he wanted a drink was to put one in his mouth, crack it with his teeth, and after the cool water had run down his throat, spit the broken shells out.

The white mouse also provided crumbs of soap, so that his master could shave – for the Doctor, even in prison, was always very particular about this part of his appearance.

Well, when four days had passed the Emir of Ellebubu sent a messenger to the prison to inquire if the Doctor was now willing to do as he was told. The guards after talking to John Dolittle brought word to the Emir that the white man was as obstinate as ever and had no intention of giving in.

“Very well,” said the Emir, stamping his foot, “then let him starve. In ten days more the fool will be dead. Then I will come and laugh over him. So perish all wretches who oppose the wishes of the Emir of Ellebubu!”

And in ten days’ time he went to the prison, as he had said, to gloat over the terrible fate of the white man. Many of his ministers and generals came with him to help him gloat. But when the prison door was opened, instead of seeing the white man’s body stretched upon the floor, the Emir found the Doctor smiling on the threshold, shaved and hearty and all spruced up. The only difference in his appearance was that with no exercise in prison he had grown slightly stouter and rounder.

The Emir stared at the prisoner open-mouthed, speechless with astonishment. Now, the day before this he had heard for the first time the story of the rout of the Amazons. The Emir had refused to believe it. But now he began to feel that anything might be true about this man.

“See,” one of the ministers whispered in his ear, “the sorcerer has even shaved his beard without water or soap. Your Majesty, there is surely evil magic here. Set the man free before harm befall. Let us be rid of him.”

And the frightened minister moved back among the crowd so the Doctor’s evil gaze could not fall upon his face.

Then the Emir himself began to get panicky. And he gave orders that the Doctor should be released right away.

“I will not leave here,” said John Dolittle, standing squarely in the door, “till you have windows put in this prison. It’s a disgrace to lock up anyone in a place without windows.”

“Build windows in the prison at once,” the Emir said to the guards.

“And after that I won’t go,” said the Doctor – “not till you have set Chief Nyam-Nyam free; not till you have ordered all your people to leave his country and the Harmattan Rocks; not till you have returned to him the farming lands you robbed him of.”

“It shall be done,” muttered the Emir, grinding his teeth – “Only go!”

“I go,” said the Doctor. “But if you ever molest your neighbours again I will return. Beware!”

Then he strode through the prison door out into the sunlit street, while the frightened people fell back on either side and covered their faces, whispering:

“Magic! Do not let his eye fall on you!”

And in the Doctor’s pocket the white mouse had to put his paws over his face to keep from laughing.

And now the Doctor set out with his animals and the old Chief to return to Nyam-Nyam’s country from the land where he had been imprisoned. On the way they kept meeting with groups of the Chief’s people who were still hiding in the jungle. These were told the glad tidings of the Emir’s promise. When they learned that their land was now free and safe again the people joined the Doctor’s party for the return journey. And long before he came in sight of the village John Dolittle looked like a conquering general coming back at the head of an army, so many had gathered to him on the way.

That night grand celebrations were made in the Chief’s village and the Doctor was hailed by the people as the greatest man who had ever visited their land. Two of their worst enemies need now no longer be feared – the Emir had been bound over by a promise and Dahomey was not likely to bother them again after the fright the Amazons got on their last attack. The pearl fisheries were restored to their possession. And the country should now proceed prosperously and happily.

The next day the Doctor went out to the Harmattan Rocks to visit the cormorants and to thank them for the help they had given. The old Chief came along on this trip, and with him four trustworthy men of his. In order that there should be no mistake in future, these men were shown to the cormorants and the birds were told to supply them – and no others – with pearl oysters.

While the Doctor and his party were out at the Rocks an oyster was fished up that contained an enormous and very beautiful pearl – by far the biggest and handsomest yet found. It was perfect in shape, flawless and a most unusual shade in colour. After making a little speech, the Chief presented this pearl to the Doctor as a small return for the services he had done him and his people.

“Thank goodness for that!” Dab-Dab whispered to Jip. “Do you realize what that pearl means to us? The Doctor was down to his last shilling – as poor as a church mouse. We would have had to go circus-travelling with the pushmi-pullyu again, if it hadn’t been for this. I’m so glad. For, for my part, I shall be glad enough to stay at home and settle down a while – once we get there.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Gub-Gub. “I love circuses. I wouldn’t mind travelling, so long as it’s in England – and with a circus.”

“Well,” said Jip, “whatever happens, it’s nice the Doctor’s got the pearl. He always seems to be in need of money. And, as you say, Dab-Dab, that should make anybody rich for life.”

But while the Doctor was still thanking the Chief for the beautiful present, Quip-the-Carrier flew up with a letter for him.

“It was marked ‘Urgent,’ in red ink, Doctor,” said the swallow, “so Speedy thought he had better send it to you by special delivery.”

John Dolittle tore open the envelope.

“Who’s it from, Doctor?” asked Dab-Dab.

“Dear me,” muttered the Doctor, reading. “It’s from that farmer in Lincolnshire whose Brussels sprouts we imported for Gub-Gub. I forgot to answer his letter – you remember, he wrote asking me if I could tell him what the trouble was. And I was so busy it went clean out of my mind. Dear me! I must pay the poor fellow back somehow. I wonder – oh, but there’s this. I can send him the pearl. That will pay for his sprouts and something to spare. What a good idea!”

And to Dab-Dab’s horror, the Doctor tore a clean piece off the farmer’s letter, scribbled a reply, wrapped the pearl up in it and handed it to the swallow.

“Tell Speedy,” said he, “to send that off right away – registered. I am returning to Fantippo tomorrow. Goodbye and thank you for the special delivery.”

As Quip-the-Carrier disappeared into the distance with the Doctor’s priceless pearl Dab-Dab turned to Jip and murmured:

“There goes the Dolittle fortune. My, but it is marvelous how money doesn’t stick to that man’s fingers!”

“Heigh ho!” sighed Jip, “it’s a circus for us, all right.”

“Easy comes, easy goes,” murmured Gub-Gub. “Never mind. I don’t suppose it’s really such fun being rich. Wealthy people have to behave so unnaturally.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

A Mysterious Letter

We are now come to an unusual event in the history of the Doctor’s post office, to the one which was, perhaps, the greatest of all the curious things that came about through the institution of the Swallow Mail.

On arriving back at the houseboat from his short and very busy holiday the Doctor was greeted joyfully by the pushmi-pullyu, Too-Too, Cheapside and Speedy the Skimmer. King Koko also came out to greet his friend when he saw the arrival of the Doctor’s canoe through a pair of opera glasses (price ten shillings and sixpence) which he had recently got from London by parcel post. And the prominent Fantippans, who had missed their afternoon tea and social gossip terribly during the Postmaster’s absence, got into their canoes and followed the King out to the Foreign Mails Office.

So for three hours after his arrival – in fact, until it was dark – the Doctor did not get a chance to do a thing besides shake hands and answer questions about how he had enjoyed his holiday, where he had been and what he had done. The welcome he received on his return and the sight of the comfortable houseboat, gay with flowering window boxes, made the Doctor, as he afterward said to Dab-Dab, feel as though he were really coming home.

“Yes,” said the housekeeper, “but don’t forget that you have another home, a real one, in Puddleby.”

“That’s true,” said the Doctor. “I suppose I must be getting on to England soon. But the Fantippans were honestly pleased to see us, weren’t they? And, after all, Africa is a nice country, now, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, “a nice enough country for short holidays – and long drinks.”

After supper had been served and eaten and the Doctor had been made to tell the story of the pearl fisheries all over again for the benefit of his own family circle, he at last turned to the enormous pile of letters which were waiting for him. They came, as usual, from all parts of the world, from every conceivable kind of animal and bird. For hours he waded patiently through them, answering them as they came. Speedy acted as his secretary and took down in bird and animal scribble the answers that the Doctor reeled off by the dozen. Often John Dolittle dictated so fast that the poor Skimmer had to get Too-Too (who had a wonderful memory) to come and help listen, so nothing should be missed through not writing it down quick enough.

Toward the end of the pile the Doctor came across a very peculiar thick envelope, all over mud. For a long time none of them could make out a single word of the letter inside, nor even who it was from. The Doctor got all his notebooks out of the safe, compared and peered and pored over the writing for hours. Mud had been used for ink. The signs were made so clumsily they might almost be anything.

But at last, after a tremendous lot of work, copying out afresh, guessing and discussing, the meaning of the extraordinary letter was pieced together, and this is what it said:

“Dear Doctor Dolittle: I have heard of your post office and am writing this as best I can – the first letter I ever wrote. I hear you have a weather bureau in connection with your post office and that a one-eyed albatross is your chief weather prophet. I am writing to tell you that I am the oldest weather prophet in the world. I prophesied the Flood, and it came true to the day and the hour I said it would. I am a very slow walker or I would come and see you and perhaps you could do something for my gout, which in the last few hundred years has bothered me a good deal. But if you will come to see me I will teach you a lot about weather. And I will tell you the story of the Flood, which I saw with my own eyes from the deck of Noah’s Ark.

“Yours very truly,

“Mudface.”

“P.S. – I am a turtle.”

At last, on reading the muddy message through, the Doctor’s excitement and enthusiasm knew no bounds. He began at once to make arrangements to leave the following day for a visit to the turtle.

But, alas! when he turned again to the letter to see where the turtle lived, he could find nothing to give a clue to his whereabouts! The mysterious writer who had seen the Flood, Noah and the Ark had forgotten to give his address!

“Look here, Speedy,” said John Dolittle, “we must try and trace this. Let us leave no stone unturned to find where this valuable document came from. First, we will question everyone in the post office to find out who it was delivered it.”

Well, everyone in turn, the pushmi-pullyu, Cheapside, Too-Too, Quip-the-Carrier, all the swallows, any stray birds who were living in the neighbourhood, even a pair of rats who had taken up their residence in the houseboat, were cross-examined by the Doctor or Speedy.

But no one had seen the letter arrive; no one could tell what day or hour it had come; no one could guess how it got into the pile of the Doctor’s mails; no one knew anything about it. It was one of those little post-office mysteries that are always cropping up even in the best-run mail systems.

The Doctor was positively heartbroken. Often in his natural history meditations he had wondered about all sorts of different matters connected with the Ark; and he had decided that Noah, after his memorable voyage was over, must have been a great naturalist. Now had come most unexpectedly a chance to hear the great story from an eye-witness – from someone who had actually known and sailed with Noah – and just because of a silly little slip like leaving out an address the great chance was to be lost!

All attempts to trace the writer having failed, the Doctor, after two days, gave it up and went back to his regular work. This kept him so busy for the next week that he finally forgot all about the turtle and his mysterious letter.

But one night, when he was working late to catch up with the business which had multiplied during his absence, he heard a gentle tapping on the houseboat window. He left his desk and went and opened it. Instantly in popped the head of an enormous snake, with a letter in its mouth – a thick, muddy letter.

“Great heavens!” cried the Doctor. “What a start you gave me! Come in, come in, and make yourself at home.”

Slowly and smoothly the snake slid in over the window sill and down on to the floor of the houseboat. Yards and yards and more yards long he came, coiling himself up neatly at John Dolittle’s feet like a mooring rope on a ship’s deck.

“Pardon me, but is there much more of you outside still?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes,” said the snake, “only half of me is in yet.”

“Then I’ll open the door,” said the Doctor, “so you can coil part of yourself in the passage. This room is a bit small.”

When at last the great serpent was all in, his thick coils entirely covered the floor of the Doctor’s office and a good part of him overflowed into the passage outside.

“Now,” said the Doctor, closing the window, “what can I do for you?”

“I’ve brought you this letter,” said the snake. “It’s from the turtle. He is wondering why he got no answer to his first.”

“But he gave me no address,” said John Dolittle, taking the muddy envelope from the serpent. “I’ve been trying my hardest ever since to find out where he lived.”

“Oh, was that it?” said the snake. “Well, old Mudface isn’t much of a letter-writer. I suppose he didn’t know he had to give his address.”

“I’m awfully glad to hear from him again,” said the Doctor. “I had given up all hope of ever seeing him. You can show me how to get to him?”

“Why, certainly,” said the big serpent. “I live in the same lake as he does, Lake Junganyika.”

“You’re a water snake, then, I take it,” said the Doctor.

“Yes.”

“You look rather worn out from your journey. Is there anything I can get you?”

“I’d like a saucer of milk,” said the snake.

“I only have wild goats’ milk,” said John Dolittle. “But it’s quite fresh.”

And he went out into the kitchen and woke up the housekeeper.

“What do you think, Dab-Dab,” he said breathless with excitement, “I’ve got a second letter from the turtle and the messenger is going to take us to see him!”

When Dab-Dab entered the postmaster’s office with the milk she found John Dolittle reading the letter. Looking at the floor, she gave a squawk of disgust.

“It’s a good thing for you Sarah isn’t here,” she cried. “Just look at the state of your office – it’s full of snake!”

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Land of the
Mangrove Swamps

It was a long but a most interesting journey that the Doctor took from Fantippo to Lake Junganyika. It turned out that the turtle’s home lay many miles inland in the heart of one of the wildest, most jungly parts of Africa.

The Doctor decided to leave Gub-Gub home this time and he took with him only Jip, Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside – who said he wanted a holiday and that his sparrow friends could now quite well carry on the city deliveries in his absence.

The great water snake began by taking the Doctor’s party down the coast south for some forty or fifty miles. There they left the sea, entered the mouth of a river and started to journey inland. The canoe (with the snake swimming alongside it) was quite the best thing for this kind of travel so long as the river had water in it. But presently, as they went up it, the stream grew narrower and narrower. Till at last, like many rivers in tropical countries, it was nothing more than the dry bed of a brook, or a chain of small pools with long sand bars between.

Overhead the thick jungle arched and hung like a tunnel of green. This was a good thing by day-time, as it kept the sun off better than a parasol. And in the dry stretches of river bed, where the Doctor had to carry or drag the canoe on home-made runners, the work was hard and shade something to be grateful for.

At the end of the first day John Dolittle wanted to leave the canoe in a safe place and finish the trip on foot. But the snake said they would need it further on, where there was more water and many swamps to cross.

As they went forward the jungle around them seemed to grow thicker and thicker all the time. But there was always this clear alley-way along the river bed. And though the stream’s course did much winding and twisting, the going was good.

The Doctor saw a great deal of new country, trees he had never met before, gay-coloured orchids, butterflies, ferns, birds and rare monkeys. So his notebook was kept busy all the time with sketching and jotting and adding to his already great knowledge of natural history.

On the third day of travel this river bed led them into an entirely new and different kind of country. If you have never been in a mangrove swamp, it is difficult to imagine what it looks like. It was mournful scenery. Flat bog land, full of pools and streamlets, dotted with tufts of grass and weed, tangled with gnarled roots and brambling bushes, spread out for miles and miles in every direction. It reminded the Doctor of some huge shrubbery that had been flooded by heavy rains. No large trees were here, such as they had seen in the jungle lower down. Seven or eight feet above their heads was as high as the mangroves grew and from their thin boughs long streamers of moss hung like grey, fluttering rags.

The life, too, about them was quite different. The gaily coloured birds of the true forest did not care for this damp country of half water and half land. Instead, all manner of swamp birds – big-billed and long-necked, for the most part – peered at them from the sprawling saplings. Many kinds of herons, egrets, ibises, grebes, bitterns – even stately anhingas, who can fly beneath the water – were wading in the swamps or nesting on the little tufty islands. In and out of the holes about the gnarled roots strange and wondrous water creatures – things half fish and half lizard – scuttled and quarreled with brightly coloured crabs.

For many folks it would have seemed a creepy, nightmary sort of country, this land of the mangrove swamps. But to the Doctor, for whom any kind of animal life was always companionable and good intentioned, it was a most delightful new field of exploration.

They were glad now that the snake had not allowed them to leave the canoe behind. For here, where every step you took you were liable to sink down in the mud up to your waist, Jip and the Doctor would have had hard work to get along at all without it. And, even with it, the going was slow and hard enough. The mangroves spread out long, twisting, crossing arms in every direction to bar your passage – as though they were determined to guard the secrets of this silent, gloomy land where men could not make a home and seldom ever came.

Indeed, if it had not been for the giant water snake, to whom mangrove swamps were the easiest kind of travelling, they would never have been able to make their way forward. But their guide went on ahead of them for hundreds of yards to lead the way through the best openings and to find the passages where the water was deep enough to float a canoe. And, although his head was out of sight most of the time in the tangled distance, he kept, in the worst stretches, a firm hold on the canoe by taking a turn about the bowpost with his tail. And whenever they were stuck in the mud he would contract that long, muscular body of his with a jerk and yank the canoe forward as though it had been no more than a can tied on the end of a string.

Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside did not, of course, bother to sit in the canoe. They found flying from tree to tree a much easier way to travel. But in one of these jerky pulls which the snake gave on his living towline, the Doctor and Jip were left sitting in the mud as the canoe was actually yanked from under them. This so much amused the vulgar Cheapside, who was perched in a mangrove tree above their heads, that he suddenly broke the solemn silence of the swamp by bursting into noisy laughter.

“Lor’ bless us, Doctor, but you do get yourself into some comical situations! Who would think to see John Dolittle, M.D., heminent physician of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, bein’ pulled through a mud swamp in darkest Africa by a couple of ’undred yards of fat worm! You’ve no idea how funny you look!”

“Oh, close your silly face!” growled Jip, black mud from head to foot, scrambling back into the canoe. “It’s easy for you – you can fly through the mess.”

“It ’ud make a nice football ground, this,” murmured Cheapside. “I’m surprised the Hafricans ’aven’t took to it. I didn’t know there was this much mud anywhere – outside of ’Amstead ’Eath after a wet Bank ’Oliday. I wonder when we’re going to get there. Seems to me we’re comin’ to the end of the world – or the middle of it. ’Aven’t seen a ’uman face since we left the shore. ’E’s an exclusive kind of gent, our Mr. Turtle, ain’t ’e? Meself, I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into old Noah, sitting on the wreck of the Hark, any minute…. ’Elp the Doctor up, Jip. Look, ’e’s got his chin caught under a root.”

The snake, hearing Cheapside’s chatter, thought something must be wrong. He turned his head-end around and came back to see what the matter was. Then a short halt was made in the journey while the Doctor and Jip cleaned themselves up, and the precious notebooks, which had also been jerked out into the mud, were rescued and stowed in a safe place.

“Do no people at all live in these parts?” the Doctor asked the snake.

“None whatever,” said the guide. “We left the lands where men dwell behind us long ago. Nobody can live in these bogs but swamp birds, marsh creatures and water snakes.”

“How much further have we got to go?” asked the Doctor, rinsing the mud off his hat in a pool.

“About one more day’s journey,” said the snake. “A wide belt of these swamps surrounds the Secret Lake of Junganyika on all sides. The going will become freer as we approach the open water of the lake.”

“We are really on the shores of it already, then?”

“Yes,” said the serpent. “But, properly speaking, the Secret Lake cannot be said to have shores at all – or, certainly, as you see, no shore where a man can stand.”

“Why do you call it the Secret Lake?” asked the Doctor.

“Because it has never been visited by man since the Flood,” said the giant reptile. “You will be the first to see it. We who live in it boast that we bathe daily in the original water of the Flood. For before the Forty Days’ Rain came it was not there, they say. But when the Flood passed away this part of the world never dried up. And so it has remained, guarded by these wide mangrove swamps, ever since.”

“What was here before the Flood then?” asked the Doctor.

“They say rolling, fertile country, waving corn and sunny hilltops,” the snake replied. “That is what I have heard. I was not there to see. Mudface, the turtle, will tell you all about it.”

“How wonderful!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Let us push on. I am most anxious to see him – and the Secret Lake.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Secret Lake

During the course of the next day’s travel the country became, as the snake had foretold, freer and more open. Little by little the islands grew fewer and the mangroves not so tangly. In the dreary views there was less land and more water. The going was much easier now. For miles at a stretch the Doctor could paddle, without the help of his guide, in water that seemed to be quite deep. It was indeed a change to be able to look up and see a clear sky overhead once in a while, instead of that everlasting network of swamp trees. Across the heavens the travellers now occasionally saw flights of wild ducks and geese, winging their way eastward.

“That’s a sign we’re near open water,” said Dab-Dab.

“Yes,” the snake agreed. “They’re going to Junganyika. It is the feeding ground of great flocks of wild geese.”

It was about five o’clock in the evening when they came to the end of the little islands and mud banks. And as the canoe’s nose glided easily forward into entirely open water they suddenly found themselves looking across a great inland sea.

The Doctor was tremendously impressed by his first sight of the Secret Lake. If the landscape of the swamp country had been mournful this was even more so. No eye could see across it. The edge of it was like the ocean’s – just a line where the heavens and the water meet. Ahead to the eastward – the darkest part of the evening sky – even this line barely showed, for now the murky waters and the frowning night blurred together in an inky mass. To the right and left the Doctor could see the fringe of the swamp trees running around the lake, disappearing in the distance North and South.

Out in the open great banks of grey mist rolled and joined and separated as the wailing wind pushed them fretfully hither and thither over the face of the waters.

“My word!” the Doctor murmured in a quiet voice. “Here one could almost believe that the Flood was not over yet!”

“Jolly place, ain’t it?” came Cheapside’s cheeky voice from the stern of the canoe. “Give me London any day – in the worst fog ever. This is a bloomin’ eels’ country. Look at them mist shadows skatin’ round the lake. Might be old Noah and ’is family, playin’ ‘Ring-a-ring-a-rosy’ in their night-shirts, they’re that lifelike.”

“The mists are always there,” said the snake – “always have been. In them the first rainbow shone.”

“Well,” said the sparrow, “I’d sell the whole place cheap if it was mine – mists and all. ’Ow many ’undred miles of this bonny blue ocean ’ave we got to cross before we reach our Mr. Mudface?”

“Not very many,” said the snake. “He lives on the edge of the lake a few miles to the North. Let us hurry and try to reach his home before darkness falls.”

Once more, with the guide in front, but this time at a much better pace, the party set off.

As the light grew dimmer the calls of several night birds sounded from the mangroves on the left. Too-Too told the Doctor that many of these were owls, but of kinds that he had never seen or met with before.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I imagine there are lots of different kinds of birds and beasts in these parts that can be found nowhere else in the world.”

At last, while it was still just light enough to see, the snake swung into the left and once more entered the outskirts of the mangrove swamps. Following him with difficulty in the fading light, the Doctor was led into a deep glady cove. At the end of this the nose of the canoe suddenly bumped into something hard. The Doctor was about to lean out to see what it was when a deep, deep bass voice spoke out of the gloom quite close to him.

“Welcome, John Dolittle. Welcome to Lake Junganyika.”

Then looking up, the Doctor saw on a mound-like island the shape of an enormous turtle – fully twelve feet across the shell – standing outlined against the blue-black sky.

The long journey was over at last.

Doctor Dolittle did not at any time believe in travelling with very much baggage. And all that he had brought with him on this journey was a few things rolled up in a blanket – and, of course, the little black medicine-bag. Among those things, luckily, however, were a couple of candles. And if it had not been for them he would have had hard work to land safely from the canoe.

Getting them lighted in the wind that swept across the lake was no easy matter. But to protect their flame Too-Too wove a couple of little lanterns out of thin leaves, through which the light shone dimly green but bright enough to see your way by.

To his surprise, the Doctor found that the mound, or island, on which the turtle lived was not made of mud, though muddy footprints could be seen all over it. It was made of stone – of stones cut square with a chisel.

While the Doctor was examining them with great curiosity the turtle said:

“They are the ruins of a city. I used to be content to live and sleep in the mud. But since my gout has been so bad I thought I ought to make myself something solid and dry to rest on. Those stones are pieces of a king’s house.”

“Pieces of a house – of a city!” the Doctor exclaimed, peering into the wet and desolate darkness that surrounded the little island. “But where did they come from?”

“From the bottom of the lake,” said the turtle. “Out there,” Mudface nodded toward the gloomy wide-stretching waters, “there stood, thousands of years ago, the beautiful city of Shalba. Don’t I know, when for long enough I lived in it? Once it was the greatest and fairest city ever raised by men and King Mashtu of Shalba the proudest monarch in the world. Now I, Mudface the turtle, make a nest in the swamp out of the ruins of his palace. Ha! Ha!”

“You sound bitter,” said the Doctor. “Did King Mashtu do you any harm?”

“I should say he did,” growled Mudface. “But that belongs to the story of the Flood. You have come far. You must be weary and in need of food.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I am most anxious to hear the story. Does it take long to tell?”

“About three weeks would be my guess,” whispered Cheapside. “Turtles do everything slow. Something tells me that story is the longest story in the world, Doctor. Let’s get a nap and a bite to eat first. We can hear it just as well tomorrow.”

So, in spite of John Dolittle’s impatience, the story was put off till the following day. For the evening meal Dab-Dab managed to scout around and gather together quite a nice mess of fresh-water shellfish and Too-Too collected some marsh berries that did very well for dessert.

Then came the problem of how to sleep. This was not so easy, because, although the foundations of the turtle’s mound were of stone, there was hardly a dry spot on the island left where you could lie down. The Doctor tried the canoe. But it was sort of cramped and uncomfortable for sleeping, and now even there, too, the mud had been carried by Dab-Dab’s feet and his own. In this country the great problem was getting away from the mud.

“When Noah’s family first came out of the Ark,” said the turtle, “they slept in little beds which they strung up between the stumps of the drowned trees.”

“Ah, hammocks!” cried the Doctor. “Of course – the very thing!”

Then, with Jip’s and Dab-Dab’s help, he constructed a very comfortable basket-work hammock out of willow wands and fastened it between two larger mangroves. Into this he climbed and drew the blanket over him. Although the trees leaned down toward the water with his weight, they were quite strong and their bendiness acted like good bed springs.

The moon had now risen and the weird scenery of Junganyika was all green lights and blue shadows. As the Doctor snuffed out his candles and Jip curled himself up at his feet the turtle suddenly started humming a tune in his deep bass voice, waving his long neck from side to side in the moonlight.

“What is that tune you are humming?” asked the Doctor.

“That’s the ‘Elephants’ March,’” said the turtle. “They always played it at the Royal Circus of Shalba for the elephants’ procession.”

“Let’s ’ope it ’asn’t many verses,” grumbled Cheapside, sleepily putting his head under his wing.

The sun had not yet risen on the gloomy waters of Lake Junganyika before Jip felt the Doctor stirring in his hammock, preparing to get up.

Presently Dab-Dab could be heard messing about in the mud below, bravely trying to get breakfast ready under difficult conditions.

Next Cheapside, grumbling in a sleepy chirp, brought his head out from under his wing, gave the muddy scenery one look and popped it back again.

But it was of little use to try to get more sleep now. The camp was astir. John Dolittle, bent on the one idea of hearing that story, had already swung himself out of his hammock and was now washing his face noisily in the lake. Cheapside shook his feathers, swore a few words in Cockney and flew off his tree down to the Doctor’s side.

“Look ’ere, Doctor,” he whispered, “this ain’t an ’olesome place to stay at all. I’m all full of cramp from the damp night air. You’d get webfooted if you loitered in this country long. Listen, you want to be careful about gettin’ old Mudface started on his yarn spinning. D’yer know what ’e reminds me of? Them old Indian War veterans. Once they begin telling their reminiscences there’s no stoppin’ ’em. ’E looks like one, too, with that long, scrawny neck of ’is. Tell ’im to make it short and sweet – just to give us the outline of his troubles, like, see? The sooner we can shake the mud of this place off our feet and make tracks for Fantippo the better it’ll be for all of us.”

Well, when breakfast had been disposed of the Doctor sharpened his pencil, got out a notebook and, telling Too-Too to listen carefully, in case he should miss anything, he asked the turtle to begin the story of the Flood.

Cheapside had been right. Although it did not take a fortnight to tell it did take a very full day. Slowly and evenly the sun rose out of the East, passed across the heavens and sank down into the West. And still Mudface went murmuring on, telling of all the wonders he had seen in days long ago, while the Doctor’s pencil wiggled untiringly over the pages of his notebook. The only interruptions were when the turtle paused to lean down and moisten his long throat with the muddy water of the lake, or when the Doctor stopped him to ask a question on the natural history of antediluvian times.

Dab-Dab prepared lunch and supper and served them as silently as she could, so as not to interrupt; but for the Doctor they were very scrappy meals. On into the night the story went. And now John Dolittle wrote by candle-light, while all his pets, with the exception of Too-Too, were already nodding or dozing.

At last, about half past ten – to Cheapside’s great relief – the turtle pronounced the final words.

“And that, John Dolittle, is the end of the story of the Flood by one who saw it with his own eyes.”

For some time after the turtle finished no one spoke. Even the irreverent Cheapside was silent. Little bits of stars, dimmed by the light of a half-full moon, twinkled like tiny eyes in the dim blue dome that arched across the lake. Away off somewhere among the tangled mangroves an owl hooted from the swamp and Too-Too turned his head quickly to listen. Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, seeing the Doctor close his notebook and put away his pencil, blew out the candle.

At last the Doctor spoke:

“Mudface, I don’t know when, in all my life I have listened to a story that interested me so much. I – I’m glad I came.”

“I too am glad, John Dolittle. You are the only one in the world now who understands the speech of animals. And if you had not come my story of the Flood could not have been told. I’m getting very old and do not ever move far away from Junganyika.”

“Would it be too much to ask you?” said the Doctor, “to get me some souvenir from the city below the lake?”

“Not at all,” said the turtle. “I’ll go down and try to get you something right away.”

Slowly and smoothly, like some unbelievable monster of former days, the turtle moved his great bulk across his little island and slid himself into the lake without splashing or disturbance of any kind. Only a gentle swirling in the water showed where he had disappeared.

In silence they all waited – the animals now, for the moment, reawakened and full of interest. The Doctor had visions of his enormous friend moving through the slime of centuries at the bottom of the lake, hunting for some souvenir of the great civilization that passed away with the Flood. He hoped that he would bring a book or something with writing on it.

Instead, when at last he reappeared wet and shining in the moonlight, he had a carved stone windowsill on his back which must have weighed over a ton.

“Lor’ bless us!” muttered Cheapside. “What a wonderful piano-mover ’e would make to be sure! Great Carter Patterson! Does ’e think the Doctor’s goin’ to ’ang that on ’is watch-chain?”

“It was the lightest thing I could find,” said the turtle, rolling it off his back with a thud that shook the island. “I had hoped I could get a vase or a plate or something you could carry. But all the smaller objects are now covered in fathoms of mud. This I broke off from the second story of the palace – from the queen’s bedroom window. I thought perhaps you’d like to see it anyway, even if it was too much for you to carry home. It’s beautifully carved. Wait till I wash some of the mud off it.”

The candles were lighted again and after the carvings had been cleaned the Doctor examined them with great care and even made sketches of some of them in his notebook.

By the time the Doctor had done, all his party, excepting Too-Too, had fallen asleep. It was only when he heard Jip suddenly snore from the hammock that he realized how late it was. As he blew out the candles again he found that it was very dark, for now the moon had set. He climbed into bed and drew the blankets over him.

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Postmaster General’s
Last Order

When Dab-Dab roused the party next morning the sun was shining through the mist upon the lake doing its best to brighten up the desolate scenery around them.

Poor Mudface awoke with an acute attack of gout. He had not been bothered by this ailment since the Doctor’s arrival. But now he could scarcely move at all without great pain. And Dab-Dab brought his breakfast to him where he lay.

John Dolittle was inclined to blame himself for having asked him to go hunting in the lake for souvenirs the night before.

“I’m afraid that was what brought on the attack,” said the Doctor, getting out his little black bag from the canoe and mixing some medicines. “But you know you really ought to move out of this damp country to some drier climate. I am aware that turtles can stand an awful lot of wet. But at your age one must be careful, you know.”

“There isn’t any other place I like as well,” said Mudface. “It’s so hard to find a country where you’re not disturbed these days.”

“Here, drink this,” the Doctor ordered, handing him a tea-cup full of some brown mixture. “I think you will find that that will soon relieve the stiffness in your front legs.”

The turtle drank it down. And in a minute or two he said he felt much better and could now move his legs freely without pain.

“It’s a wonderful medicine, that,” said he. “You are surely a great Doctor. Have you got any more of it?”

“I will make up several bottles of the mixture and leave them with you before I go,” said John Dolittle. “But you really ought to get on high ground somewhere. This muddy little hummock is no place for you to live. Isn’t there a regular island in the lake, where you could make your home – if you’re determined not to leave the Junganyika country?”

“Not one,” said the turtle. “It’s all like this, just miles and miles of mud and water. I used to like it – in fact I do still. I wouldn’t wish for anything better if it weren’t for this wretched gout of mine.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “if you haven’t got an island we must make one for you.”

“Make one!” cried the turtle. “How would you go about it?”

“I’ll show you very shortly,” said John Dolittle. And he called Cheapside to him.

“Will you please fly down to Fantippo,” he said to the City Manager, “and give this message to Speedy-the-Skimmer. And ask him to send it out to all the postmasters of the branch offices: The Swallow Mail is very shortly to be closed – at all events for a considerable time. I must now be returning to Puddleby and it will be impossible for me to continue the service in its present form after I have left No-Man’s-Land. I wish to convey my thanks to all the birds, postmasters, clerks and letter-carriers who have so generously helped me in this work. The last favour which I am going to ask of them is a large one; and I hope they will give me their united support in it. I want them to build me an island in the middle of Lake Junganyika. It is for Mudface the turtle, the oldest animal living, who in days gone by did a very great deal for man and beast – for the whole world in fact – when the earth was passing through the darkest chapters in all its history. Tell Speedy to send word to all bird leaders throughout the world. Tell him I want as many birds as possible right away to build a healthy home where this brave turtle may end his long life in peace. It is the last thing I ask of the post-office staff and I hope they will do their best for me.”

Cheapside said that the message was so long he was afraid he would never be able to remember it by heart. So John Dolittle told him to take it down in bird scribble and he dictated it to him all over again.

That letter, the last circular order issued by the great Postmaster General to the staff of the Swallow Mail, was treasured by Cheapside for many years. He hid it under his untidy nest in St. Edmund’s left ear on the south side of the chancel of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He always hoped that the pigeons who lived in the front porch of the British Museum would some day get it into the Museum for him. But one gusty morning, when men were cleaning the outside of the cathedral, it got blown out of St. Edmund’s ear and, before Cheapside could overtake it, it sailed over the housetops into the river and sank.

The sparrow got back to Junganyika late that afternoon. He reported that Speedy had immediately, on receiving the Doctor’s message, forwarded it to the postmasters of the branch offices with orders to pass it on to all the bird-leaders everywhere. It was expected that the first birds would begin to arrive here early the following morning.

It was Speedy himself who woke the Doctor at dawn the next day. And while breakfast was being eaten he explained to John Dolittle the arrangements that had been made.

The work, the Skimmer calculated, would take three days. All birds had been ordered to pick up a stone or a pebble or a pinch of sand from the seashore on their way and bring it with them. The larger birds (who would carry stones) were to come first, then the middle-sized birds and then the little ones with sand.

Soon, when the sky over the lake was beginning to fill up with circling ospreys, herons and albatrosses, Speedy left the Doctor and flew off to join them. There, taking up a position in the sky right over the centre of the lake, he hovered motionless, as a marker for the stone-droppers. Then the work began.

All day long a never-ending stream of big birds, a dozen abreast, flew up from the sea and headed across Lake Junganyika. The line was like a solid black ribbon, the birds, dense, packed and close, beak to tail. And as each dozen reached the spot where Speedy hovered, twelve stones dropped into the water. The procession was so continuous and unbroken that it looked as though the sky were raining stones. And the constant roar of them splashing into the water out of the heavens could be heard a mile off.

The lake in the centre was quite deep. And of course tons and tons of stone would have to be dropped before the new island would begin to show above the water’s surface. This gathering of birds was greater even than the one the Doctor had addressed in the hollow of No-Man’s-Land. It was the biggest gathering of birds that had ever been seen. For now not only the leaders came but thousands and millions of every species. John Dolittle got tremendously excited and jumping into his canoe he started to paddle out nearer to the work. But Speedy grew impatient that the top of the stone-pile was not yet showing above the water; and he gave the order to double up the line – and then double again, as still more birds came to help from different parts of the world. And soon, with a thousand stones falling every fraction of a second, the lake got so rough that the Doctor had to put back for the turtle’s hummock lest his canoe capsize.

All that day, all that night and half the next day, this continued. At last about noon on the morrow the sound of the falling stones began to change. The great mound of seething white water, like a fountain in the middle of the lake, disappeared; and in its place a black spot showed. The noise of splashing changed to the noise of stone rattling on stone. The top of the island had begun to show.

“It’s like the mountains peeping out after the Flood,” Mudface muttered to the Doctor.

Then Speedy gave the order for the middle-sized birds to join in; and soon the note of the noise changed again – shriller – as tons and tons of pebbles and gravel began to join the downpour.

Another night and another day went by, and at dawn the gallant Skimmer came down to rest his weary wings; for the workers did not need a marker any longer – now that a good-sized island stood out on the bosom of the lake for the birds to drop their burdens on.

Bigger and bigger grew the home-made land and soon Mudface’s new estate was acres wide. Still another order from Speedy; and presently the rattling noise changed to a gentle hiss. The sky now was simply black with birds; the pebble-shower had ceased; it was raining sand. Last of all, the birds brought seeds: grass seeds, the seeds of flowers, acorns and the kernels of palms. The turtle’s new home was to be provided with turf, with wild gardens, with shady avenues to keep off the African sun.

When Speedy came to the hummock and said, “Doctor, it is finished,” Mudface gazed thoughtfully out into the lake and murmured:

“Now proud Shalba is buried indeed: she has an island for a tombstone! It’s a grand home you have given me, John Dolittle. – Alas, poor Shalba! – Mashtu the king passes. But Mudface the turtle – lives on!”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Goodbye to Fantippo

Mudface’s landing on his new home was quite an occasion. The Doctor paddled out alongside of him till they reached the island. Until he set foot on it, John Dolittle himself had not realized what a large piece of ground it was. It was more than a quarter of a mile across. Round in shape, it rose gently from the shores to the flat centre, which was a good hundred feet above the level of the lake.

Mudface was tremendously pleased with it; climbing laboriously to the central plateau – from where you could see great distances over the flat country around – he said he was sure his health would quickly improve in this drier air.

Dab-Dab prepared a meal – the best she could in the circumstances – to celebrate what she called the turtle’s house-warming. And everyone sat down to it; and there was much gayety and the Doctor was asked to make a speech in honour of the occasion.

Cheapside was dreadfully afraid that Mudface would get up to make a speech in reply and that it would last into the following day. But to the sparrow’s relief the Doctor, immediately he had finished, set about preparations for his departure.

He made up the six bottles of gout mixture and presented them to Mudface with instructions in how it should be taken. He told him that although he was closing up the post office for regular service it would always be possible to get word to Puddleby. He would ask several birds of passage to stop here occasionally; and if the gout got any worse he wanted Mudface to let him know by letter.

The old turtle thanked him over and over again and the parting was a very affecting one. When at last the goodbyes were all said, they got into the canoe and set out on the return journey.

Reaching the mouth of the river at the southern end of the lake they paused a moment before entering the mangrove swamps and looked back. And there in the distance they could just see the shape of the old turtle standing on his new island, watching them. They waved to him and pushed on.

“He looks just the same as we saw him the night we arrived,” said Dab-Dab – “you remember? Like a statue on a pedestal against the sky.”

“Poor old fellow!” murmured the Doctor. “I do hope he will be all right now…. What a wonderful life! – What a wonderful history!”

“Didn’t I tell you, Doctor,” said Cheapside, “that it was going to be the longest story in the world? – Took a day and half a night to tell.”

“Ah, but it’s a story that nobody else could tell,” said John Dolittle.

“Good thing too,” muttered the Sparrow. “It would never do if there was many of ’is kind spread around this busy world. – Of course, meself, I don’t believe a word of the yarn. I think he made it all up. ’E ’ad nothin’ else to do – sittin’ there in the mud, century after century, cogitatin’.”

The journey down through the jungle was completed without anything special happening. But when they reached the sea and turned the bow of the canoe westward they came upon a very remarkable thing. It was an enormous hole in the beach – or rather a place where the beach had been taken away bodily. Speedy told the Doctor that it was here that the birds had picked up the stones and sand on their way to Junganyika. They had literally carried acres of the seashore nearly a thousand miles inland. Of course in a few months the action of the surf filled in the hole, so that the place looked like the rest of the beach.

But that is why, when many years later some learned geologists visited Lake Junganyika, they said that the seashore gravel on an island there was a clear proof that the sea had once flowed through that neighbourhood. Which was true – in the days of the Flood. But the Doctor was the only scientist who knew that Mudface’s island, and the stones that made it, had quite a different history.

On his arrival at the post office the Doctor was given his usual warm reception by the king and dignitaries of Fantippo who paddled out from the town to welcome him back.

Tea was served at once; and His Majesty seemed so delighted at renewing this pleasant custom that John Dolittle was loath to break the news to him that he must shortly resign from the Foreign Mail Service and sail for England. However, while they were chatting on the veranda of the houseboat a fleet of quite large sailing vessels entered the harbour. These were some of the new merchant craft of Fantippo which plied regularly up and down the coast, trading with other African countries. The Doctor pointed out to the king that mails intended for foreign lands could now be quite easily taken by these boats to the bigger ports on the coast where vessels from Europe called every week.

From that the Doctor went on to explain to the King, that much as he loved Fantippo and its people, he had many things to attend to in England and must now be thinking of going home. And of course as none of the natives could talk bird-language, the Swallow Mail would have to be replaced by the ordinary kind of post office.

The Doctor found that His Majesty was much more distressed at the prospect of losing his good white friend and his afternoon tea on the houseboat than at anything else which the change would bring. But he saw that the Doctor really felt he had to go; and at length, with tears falling into his tea-cup, he gave permission for the Postmaster General of Fantippo to resign.

Great was the rejoicing among the Doctor’s pets and the patient swallows when the news got about that John Dolittle was really going home at last. Gub-Gub and Jip could hardly wait while the last duties and ceremonies of closing the houseboat to the public and transferring the Foreign Mails Service to the office in the town were performed. Dab-Dab bustled cheerfully from morning to night while Cheapside never ceased to chatter of the glories of London, the comforts of a city life and all the things he was going to do as soon as he got back to his beloved native haunts.

There was no end to the complimentary ceremonies which the good King Koko and his courtiers performed to honour the departing Doctor. For days and days previous to his sailing, canoes came and went between the town and the houseboat bearing presents to show the good will of the Fantippans. During all this, having to keep smiling the whole time, the Doctor got sadder and sadder at leaving his good friends. And he was heartily glad when the hour came to pull up the anchor and put to sea.

People who have written the history of the Kingdom of Fantippo all devote several chapters to a mysterious white man who in a very short space of time made enormous improvements in the mail, the communications, the shipping, the commerce, the education, and the general prosperity of the country. Indeed it was through John Dolittle’s quiet influence that King Koko’s reign came to be looked upon as the Golden Age in Fantippan history. A wooden statue still stands in the market-place to his memory.

The excellent postal service continued after he left. The stamps with Koko’s face on them were as various and as beautiful as ever. On the occasion of the first annual review of the Fantippo Merchant Fleet a very fine two-shilling stamp was struck in commemoration, showing His Majesty inspecting his new ships through a lollipop quizzing-glass. The King himself became a stamp-collector and his album was as good as a family photo-album, containing as it did so many pictures of himself. The only awkward incident that happened in the record of the post office which the Doctor had done so much to improve was when some ardent stamp-collectors, wishing to make the modern stamps rare, plotted to have the King assassinated in order that the current issues should go out of date. But the plot was happily discovered before any harm was done.

Years afterwards, the birds visiting Puddleby told the Doctor that the King still had the flowers in the window-boxes of his old houseboat carefully tended and watered in his memory. His Majesty, they said, never gave up the fond hope that some day his good white friend would come back to Fantippo with his kindly smile, his instructive conversation and his jolly tea-parties on the post office veranda.

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s
Circus

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PART ONE

1 … The Fireside Circle

2 … The Doctor Meets a Friend – and a Relative

3 … Business Arrangements
4 … The Doctor Is Discovered
5 … The Doctor Is Discouraged
6 … Sophie, from Alaska
7 … The Messenger from the North

PART TWO

1 … Planning the Escape
2 … “Animals’ Night” at the Circus
3 … In the Deserted Garden
4 … The Leader of the Bloodhounds
5 … The Passengers from Penchurch
6 … The Grantchester Coach

PART THREE

1 … The Highwayman’s Double
2 … To the Sea by River
3 … Sir William Peabody, J. P.
4 … Nightshade the Vixen
5 … “The Dolittle Safety Packet”

PART FOUR

1 … Back to the Circus
2 … The Patent Medicine Riots
3 … Nino
4 … Another Talking Horse
5 … The Star Turn Gives a Great Performance
6 … Beppo the Great
7 … The Perfect Pasture

8 … The Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association

PART FIVE

1 … Mr. Bellamy of Manchester
2 … Animal Plays
3 … The Poster and the Statue
4 … Fame, Fortune – and Rain
5 … Mr. Blossom’s Mysterious Disappearance
6 … The Doctor Becomes Manager of the Circus
7 … Matthew Mugg, Assistant Manager
8 … The Dolittle Circus

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

The Fireside Circle

This is the story of that part of Doctor Dolittle’s adventures which came about through his joining and travelling with a circus. He had not planned in the beginning to follow this life for any considerable time. His intention had only been to take the pushmi-pullyu out on show long enough to make sufficient money to pay the sailor back for the boat which had been borrowed and wrecked.

But a remark Too-Too had made was true; it was not so hard for John Dolittle to become rich – for indeed he was easily satisfied where money was concerned – but it was a very different matter for him to remain rich. Dab-Dab used to say that during the years she had known him he had, to her knowledge, been quite well off five or six times; but that the more money he had, the sooner you could expect him to be poor again.

Dab-Dab’s idea of a fortune was not, of course, very large. But certainly during his experience with the circus the Doctor repeatedly had enough money in his pockets to be considered well to do; and, as regular as clockwork, by the end of the week or the month he would be penniless again.

Well, the point from which we are beginning, then, is where the Dolittle party (Jip the dog, Dab-Dab the duck, Too-Too the owl, Gub-Gub the pig, the pushmi-pullyu and the white mouse) had returned at last to the little house in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh after their long journey from Africa. It was a large family to find food for. And the Doctor, without a penny in his pockets, had been a good deal worried over how he was going to feed it, even during the short time they would be here before arrangements were made to join a circus. However, the thoughtful Dab-Dab had made them carry up from the pirates’ ship such supplies as remained in the larder after the voyage was done. These, she said, should last the household – with economy – for a day or two at least.

The animals’ delight had at first, on getting back home, banished every care or thought of the morrow from the minds of all – except Dab-Dab. That good housekeeper had gone straight to the kitchen and set about the cleaning of pots and the cooking of food. The rest of them, the Doctor included, had gone out into the garden to re-explore all the well-known spots. And they were still roaming and poking around every nook and corner of their beloved home when they were suddenly summoned to luncheon by Dab-Dab’s dinner-bell – a frying pan beaten with a spoon. At this there was a grand rush for the back door. And they all came trundling in from the garden, gabbling with delight at the prospect of taking a meal again in the dear old kitchen where they had in times past spent so many jolly hours together.

“It will be cold enough for a fire tonight,” said Jip as they took their places at the table. “This September wind has a chilly snap in it. Will you tell us a story after supper, Doctor? It’s a long time since we sat around the hearth in a ring.”

“Or read to us out of your animal story books,” said Gub-Gub, “the one about the Fox who tried to steal the King’s goose.”

“Well, maybe,” said the Doctor. “We’ll see. We’ll see. What delicious sardines these are that the pirates had! From Bordeaux, by the taste of them. There’s no mistaking real French sardines.”

At this moment the Doctor was called away to see a patient in the surgery – a weasel who had broken a claw. And he was no sooner done with that when a rooster with a sore throat turned up from a neighbouring farm. He was so hoarse, he said, he could only crow in a whisper, and nobody on his farm woke up in the morning. Then two pheasants arrived to show him a scrawny chick which had never been able to peck properly since it was born.

For, although the people in Puddleby had not yet learned of the Doctor’s arrival, news of his coming had already spread among the animals, and the birds. And all that afternoon he was kept busy bandaging, advising and physicking, while a huge motley crowd of creatures waited patiently outside the surgery door.

“Ah me! – just like old times,” sighed Dab-Dab. “No peace. Patients clamouring to see him morning, noon and night.”

Jip had been right: by the time darkness came that night it was very chilly. Wood enough was found in the cellar to start a jolly fire in the big chimney. Round this the animals gathered after supper and pestered the Doctor for a story or a chapter from one of his books.

“But look here,” said he. “What about the circus? If we’re going to make money to pay the sailor back we’ve got to be thinking of that. We haven’t even found a circus to go with yet. I wonder what’s the best way to set about it. They travel all over the place, you know. Let me see: who could I ask?”

“Sh!” said Too-Too. “Wasn’t that the front door bell ringing?”

“Strange!” said the Doctor, getting up from his chair “Callers already?”

“Perhaps it’s the old lady with rheumatism,” said the white mouse as the Doctor walked out into the hall. “Maybe she didn’t find her Oxenthorpe doctor was so very good after all.”

When John Dolittle had lit the candles in the hall he opened the front door. And there standing on the threshold was the Cat’s-Meat-Man.

“Why, it’s Matthew Mugg, as I’m alive!” he cried. “Come in Matthew, come in. But how did you know I was here?”

“I felt it in my bones, Doctor,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man, stumping into the hall. “Only this morning I says to my wife, ‘Theodosia,’ I says, ‘something tells me the Doctor’s got back. And I’m going up to his house tonight to take a look.’”

“Well, I’m glad to see you,” said John Dolittle. “Let’s go into the kitchen where it’s warm.”

Although he said he had only come on the chance of finding the Doctor, the Cat’s-Meat-Man had brought presents with him: a knuckle bone off a shoulder of mutton for Jip; a piece of cheese for the white mouse; a turnip for Gub-Gub and a pot of flowering geraniums for the Doctor. When the visitor was comfortably settled in the armchair before the fire John Dolittle handed him the tobacco-jar from the mantelpiece and told him to fill his pipe.

“I got your letter about the sparrow,” said Matthew. “He found you all right, I s’pose.”

“Yes, and he was very useful to me. He left the ship when we were off the Devon coast. He was anxious to get back to London.”

“Are you home for a long stay now?”

“Well – yes and no,” said the Doctor. “I’d like nothing better than to enjoy a few quiet months here and get my garden to rights. It’s in a shocking mess. But unfortunately I’ve got to make some money first.”

“Humph,” said Matthew, puffing at his pipe. “Meself, I’ve bin trying to do that all my life – Never was very good at it. But I’ve got twenty-five shillings saved up, if that would help you.”

“It’s very kind of you, Matthew, very. The fact is I – er – I need a whole lot of money. I’ve got to pay back some debts. But listen: I have a strange kind of new animal – a pushmi-pullyu. He has two heads. The monkeys in Africa presented him to me after I had cured an epidemic for them. Their idea was that I should travel with him in a circus – on show, you know. Would you like to see him?”

“I surely would,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man. “Sounds like something very new.”

“He’s out in the garden,” said the Doctor. “Don’t stare at him too hard. He isn’t used to it yet. Gets frightfully embarrassed. Let’s take a bucket of water with us and just pretend we’ve brought him a drink.”

When Matthew came back into the kitchen with the Doctor he was all smiles and enthusiasm.

“Why, John Dolittle,” said he, “you’ll make your fortune – sure as you’re alive! There’s never bin anything seen like that since the world began. And anyway, I always thought you ought to go into the circus business – you, the only man living that knows animal language. When are you going to start?”

“That’s just the point. Perhaps you can help me. I’d want to be sure it was a nice circus I was going with – people I would like, you understand.”

Matthew Mugg bent forward and tapped the Doctor on the knee with the stem of his pipe.

“I know the very concern you want,” said he. “Right now over at Grimbledon there’s the nicest little circus you ever saw. Grimbledon Fair’s on this week and they’ll be there till Saturday. Me and Theodosia saw ’em the first day they was on. It isn’t a large circus but it’s a good one – select like. What do you say if I take you over there tomorrow and you have a chat with the ringmaster?”

“Why, that would be splendid,” said the Doctor. “But in the meantime don’t say anything to anyone about the idea at all. We must keep the pushmi-pullyu a secret till he is actually put on show before the public.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Doctor Meets a Friend – and a Relative

Now, Matthew Mugg was a peculiar man. He loved trying new jobs – which was one reason, perhaps, that he never made much money. But his attempts to get into some new kind of work usually ended in his coming back to selling cat’s meat and rat-catching for farmers and millers around Puddleby.

Matthew had already at Grimbledon Fair tried to get a job with the circus and been refused. But now that he found the Doctor was going into the business – and with such a wonderful exhibition as a pushmi-pullyu – his hopes rose again. And as he went home that night he already in imagination saw himself in partnership with his beloved Doctor, running the biggest circus on earth.

Next day he called at the little house early. After Dab-Dab had made them up some sardine sandwiches to take with them for lunch, they set out.

It was a long walk from Puddleby to Grimbledon. But after the Doctor and the Cat’s-Meat-Man had been trudging down the road a while they heard a sound of hoofs behind them. They turned round; and there was a farmer coming toward them in a trap. Seeing the two travellers upon the road, the farmer was going to offer them a ride. But his wife did not like the ragged looks of the Cat’s-Meat-Man, and she forbade her husband to stop for them.

“What d’yer think of that for Christian charity?” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man as the cart went spinning by them. “Sit comfortable in their seats and leave us to walk! That’s Isidore Stiles, the biggest potato-grower in these parts. I often catches rats for him. And his wife, the snobby old scarecrow! Did yer see that look she gives me? A rat-catcher ain’t good enough company for her!”

“But look,” said the Doctor. “They’re stopping and turning the trap around.”

Now this farmer’s horse knew the Doctor very well both by sight and reputation. And as he had trotted by he had recognized the little man tramping along the road as none other than the famous John Dolittle. Delighted to find that his friend had returned to these parts, the horse had then turned around of his own accord, and was now trotting back – in spite of his driver’s pulling – to greet the Doctor and inquire for his health.

“Where are you going?” asked the horse as he came up.

“We’re going to Grimbledon Fair,” said the Doctor.

“So are we,” said the horse. “Why don’t you get into the back of the trap beside the old woman?”

“They haven’t invited me,” said the Doctor. “See, your farmer is trying to turn you around again toward Grimbledon. Better not anger him. Run along. Don’t bother about us. We’ll be all right.”

Very unwillingly the horse finally obeyed the driver, turned about and set off once more for the fair. But he hadn’t gone more than half a mile before he said to himself, “It’s a shame the great man should have to walk, while these bumpkins ride. I’m hanged if I’ll leave him behind!”

Then he pretended to shy at something in the road, swung the trap around again suddenly and raced back toward the Doctor at full gallop. The farmer’s wife screamed and her husband threw all his weight on the reins. But the horse took not the slightest notice. Reaching the Doctor he started rearing and bucking and carrying on like a wild colt.

“Get into the trap, Doctor,” he whispered. “Get in, or I’ll spill these boobies into the ditch.”

The Doctor, fearing an accident, took hold of the horse’s bridle and patted him on the nose. Instantly he became as calm and gentle as a lamb.

“Your horse is a little restive, sir,” said the Doctor to the farmer. “Would you let me drive him for a spell? I am a veterinary surgeon.”

“Why, certainly,” said the farmer. “I thought I knew something about horses meself. But I can’t do a thing with him this morning.”

Then, as the Doctor climbed up and took the reins, the Cat’s-Meat-Man got in behind and, chuckling with delight, sat beside the indignant wife.

“Nice day, Mrs. Stiles,” said Matthew Mugg. “How are the rats in the barn?”

They reached the Grimbledon about the middle of the morning. The town was very full and busy and holidayfied. In the cattle-market fine beeves, prize pigs, fat sheep and pedigreed draught horses with ribbons in their manes filled the pens.

Through the good-natured crowds that thronged the streets the Doctor and Matthew made their way patiently toward the enclosure where the circus was. The Doctor began to get worried that he might be asked to pay to go in, because he hadn’t a single penny in his pockets. But at the entrance to the circus they found a high platform erected, with some curtains at the back. It was like a small outdoor theatre. On this platform a man with an enormous black moustache was standing. From time to time various showily-dressed persons made their appearance through the curtains; and the big man introduced them to the gaping crowd and told of the wonders they could perform. Whatever they were, clowns, acrobats or snake-charmers, he always said they were the greatest in the world. The crowd was tremendously impressed; and every once in a while people in ones and twos would make their way through the throng, pay their money at the little gate and pass into the circus enclosure.

“There you are,” the Cat’s-Meat-Man whispered in the Doctor’s ear. “Didn’t I tell yer it was a good show? Look! People going in by hundreds.”

“Is that big man the manager?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes, that’s him. That’s Blossom himself – Alexander Blossom. He’s the man we’ve come to see.”

The Doctor began to squirm his way forward through the people, with Matthew following behind. Finally he reached the front and started making signs to the big man on the platform above to show that he wanted to speak to him. But Mr. Blossom was so busy bellowing about the wonders of his show that the Doctor – a small man in a big crowd – could not attract his attention.

“Get up on the platform,” said Matthew. “Climb up and talk to him.”

So the Doctor clambered up one corner of the stage and then suddenly got frightfully embarrassed to find himself facing so large a gathering of people. However, once there, he plucked up his courage and, tapping the shouting showman on the arm, he said:

“Excuse me.”

Mr. Blossom stopped roaring about the “greatest show on earth” and gazed down at the little round man who had suddenly appeared beside him.

“Er – er—” the Doctor began.

Then there was a silence. The people began to titter.

Blossom, like most showmen, was never at a loss for words and seldom missed an opportunity of being funny at somebody else’s expense. And while John Dolittle was still wondering how to begin, the manager suddenly turned to the crowd again and, waving his arm towards the Doctor, shouted:

“And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the original Humpty-Dumpty – the one what gave the king’s men so much trouble. Pay your money and come in! Walk up and see ’im fall off the wall!”

At that the crowd roared with laughter and the poor Doctor got more embarrassed than ever.

“Talk to him, Doctor, talk to him!” called the Cat’s-Meat-Man from down below.

Soon, when the laughter had subsided, the Doctor made another attempt. He had just opened his mouth when a single piercing cry rang from amidst the crowd – “John!”

The Doctor turned and gazed over the heads of the people to see who was calling him by name. And there on the outskirts of the throng he saw a woman waving violently to him with a green parasol.

“Who is it?” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man.

“Heaven preserve us!” groaned the Doctor, shamefacedly climbing down off the stage. “What’ll we do now? Matthew – it’s Sarah!”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Business Arrangements

“Well, well, Sarah!” said John Dolittle when he had finally made his way to her. “My, how well and plump you’re looking!”

“I’m nothing of the sort, John,” said Sarah, severely. “Will you please tell me what you mean by gallivanting around on that platform like a clown? Wasn’t it enough for you to throw away the best practice in the West Country for the sake of pet mice and frogs and things? Have you no pride? What are you doing up there?”

“I was thinking of going into the circus business,” said the Doctor.

Sarah gasped and put her hand to her head as though about to swoon. Then a long lean man in parson’s clothes who was standing behind her came and took her by the arm.

“What is it, my dear?” said he.

“Launcelot,” said Sarah weakly, “this is my brother, John Dolittle. John, this is the Reverend Launcelot Dingle, rector of Grimbledon, my husband. But, John, you can’t be serious. Go into the circus business! How disgraceful! You must be joking – and who is this person?” she added as Matthew Mugg shuffled up and joined the party.

“This is Matthew Mugg,” said the Doctor. “You remember him, of course?”

“Ugh! – the rat-catcher,” said Sarah, closing her eyes in horror.

“Not at all. He’s a meat merchant,” said the Doctor. “Mr. Mugg, the Reverend Launcelot Dingle.” And the Doctor introduced his ragged greasy friend as if he had been a king. “He’s my most prominent patient,” he added.

“But, listen, John,” said Sarah, “if you do go into this mad business, promise me you’ll do it under some other name. Think what it would mean to our position here if it got known that the Rector’s brother-in-law was a common showman!”

The Doctor thought a moment. Then he smiled.

“All right, Sarah, I’ll use some other name. But I can’t help it if someone recognizes me, can I?”

After they had bidden farewell to Sarah, the Doctor and Matthew again sought out the manager. They found him counting money at the gate, and this time were able to talk to him at their ease.

John Dolittle described the wonderful animal that he had at home and said he wanted to join the circus with him. Alexander Blossom admitted he would like to see the creature, and told the Doctor to bring him here. But John Dolittle said it would be better and easier if the manager came to Puddleby to look at him.

This was agreed upon. And after they had explained to Blossom how to get to the little house on the Oxenthorpe Road, they set out for home again, very pleased with their success so far.

“If you do go with Blossom’s Circus,” Matthew asked, as they tramped along the road chewing sardine sandwiches, “will you take me with you, Doctor? I’d come in real handy, taking care of the caravan, feeding and cleaning and the likes o’ that.”

“You’re very welcome to come, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “But what about your own business?”

“Oh, that,” said Matthew, biting viciously into another sandwich. “There ain’t no money in that. Besides, it’s so tame, handing out bits of meat on skewers to overfed poodles! There’s no – no what d’y’ call it?” – (he waved his sandwich towards the sky) – “no adventure in it. I’m naturally venturesome – reckless like – always was, from my cradle up. Now the circus: that’s the real life! That’s a man’s job.”

“But how about your wife?” asked the Doctor.

“Theodosia? Oh, she’d come along. She’s venturesome, like me. She could mend the clothes and do odd jobs. What do you think?”

“What do I think?” asked the Doctor, who was staring down at the road as he walked. “I was thinking of Sarah.”

“Queer gent, that what she married, ain’t he,” said Matthew, “the Reverend Dangle?”

“Dingle,” the Doctor corrected. “Yes. He’s venturesome too. It’s a funny world – Poor dear Sarah! – Poor old Dingle! – Well, well.”

Late that night, when the Grimbledon Fair had closed, Mr. Blossom, the ringmaster, came to the Doctor’s house in Puddleby.

After he had been shown by the light of a lantern the pushmi-pullyu grazing on the lawn, he came back into the library with the Doctor and said:

“How much do you want for that animal?”

“No, no, he’s not for sale,” said the Doctor.

“Oh, come now,” said the manager. “You don’t want him. Anyone could see you’re not a regular showman. I’ll give you twenty pounds for him.”

“No,” said the Doctor.

“Thirty pounds,” said Blossom.

Still the Doctor refused.

“Forty pounds – fifty pounds,” said the manager. Then he went up and up, offering prices that made the Cat’s-Meat-Man who was listening open his eyes wider and wider with wonder.

“It’s no use,” said the Doctor at last. “You must either take me with the animal into your circus or leave him where he is. I have promised that I myself will see he is properly treated.”

“What do you mean?” asked the showman. “Ain’t he your property? Who did you promise?”

“He’s his own property,” said the Doctor. “He came here to oblige me. It was to himself, the pushmi-pullyu, that I gave my promise.”

“What! – Are you crazy?” asked the showman.

Matthew Mugg was going to explain to Blossom that the Doctor could speak animals’ language. But John Dolittle motioned to him to be silent.

“And so, you see,” he went on, “you must either take me and the animal, or neither.”

Then Blossom said no, he wouldn’t agree to that arrangement. And to Matthew’s great disappointment and grief he took his hat and left.

But he had expected the Doctor to change his mind and give in. And he hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes before he rang the door-bell and said that he had come back to talk it over.

Well, the upshot of it was that the showman finally consented to all the Doctor asked. The pushmi-pullyu and his party were to be provided with a new wagon all to themselves and, although travelling as part of the circus, were to be entirely free and independent. The money made was to be divided equally between the Doctor and the manager. Whenever the pushmi-pullyu wanted a day off he was to have it, and whatever kind of food he asked for was to be provided by Blossom.

When all the arrangements had been gone into, the man said he would send the caravan here next day, and prepared to go.

“By the way,” he said, pausing at the front door. “What’s your name?”

The Doctor was just about to tell him, when he remembered Sarah’s request.

“Oh, well, call me John Smith,” said he.

“All right, Mr. Smith,” said the showman. “Have your party ready by eleven in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night,” said the Doctor.

As soon as the door had closed, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub, Jip, Too-Too and the white mouse, who had been hiding and listening in various corners of the house, all came out into the hall and started chattering at the top of their voices.

“Hooray!” grunted Gub-Gub. “Hooray for the circus!”

“My,” said Matthew to the Doctor, “you’re not such a bad business man after all! You got Blossom to give in to everything. He wasn’t going to let the chance slip. Did you see how quickly he came back when he thought the deal was off? I’ll bet he expects to make a lot of money out of us.”

“Poor old home,” sighed Dab-Dab, affectionately dusting off the hat-rack. “To leave it again so soon!”

“Hooray!” yelled Gub-Gub, trying to stand on his hind legs and balance the Doctor’s hat on his nose – “Hooray for the circus! – Tomorrow! – Whee!”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Doctor Is Discovered

Very early the next morning Dab-Dab had the whole house astir. She said breakfast must be eaten and the table cleared before seven, if everything was to be got in readiness for their departure by eleven.

As a matter of fact, the diligent housekeeper had the house closed and everybody waiting outside on the front steps hours before the wagon arrived. But the Doctor, for one, was still kept busy. For up to the last minute animal patients were still coming in from all parts of the countryside, with various ailments to be cured.

At last Jip, who had been out scouting, came rushing back to the party gathered in the garden.

“The wagon’s coming,” he panted – “all red and yellow – it’s just around the bend.”

Then everybody got excited and began grabbing their parcels. Gub-Gub’s luggage was a bundle of turnips; and just as he was hurrying down the steps to the road the string broke and the round, white vegetables went rolling all over the place.

The wagon, when it finally came in sight, was certainly a thing of beauty. It was made like a gypsy caravan, with windows and door and chimney. It was very gayly painted and quite new.

Not so the horse; he was quite old. The Doctor said that never had he seen an animal so worn out and weary. He got into conversation with him and found out that he had been working in the circus for thirty-five years. He was very sick of it he said. His name was Beppo. The Doctor decided he would tell Blossom that it was high time Beppo should be pensioned off and allowed to live in peace.

In spite of the newness of the van, Dab-Dab swept it out before she put the packages in it. She had the Doctor’s bedding tied up in a sheet, like a bundle of clothes for the laundry. And she was most careful that this should not get dirty.

When the animals and the baggage were all in, the Doctor got terribly afraid that the load would be too much for the old horse to pull. And he wanted to push behind, to help. But Beppo said he could manage it all right. However, the Doctor would not add to the weight by getting in himself. And when the door was shut and the window curtains drawn, so no one should see the pushmi-pullyu on the way, they set out for Grimbledon, with the man who had brought the wagon driving and the Doctor and the Cat’s-Meat-Man walking behind.

On the way through Puddleby Market-place, the driver stopped to get something at a shop. And while the caravan waited outside a crowd gathered about the wagon, wanting to know where it was going and what was inside. Matthew Mugg, his chest now swelling with pride, was dying to tell them, but the Doctor wouldn’t let him make any speeches.

They reached the Grimbledon Fair-grounds about two o’clock in the afternoon and entered the circus enclosure by a back gate. Inside they found the great Blossom himself, waiting to welcome them.

He seemed quite surprised, on the van’s being opened, to find the odd collection of creatures the Doctor had brought with him – he was particularly astonished at the pig. However, he was so delighted to have the pushmi-pullyu that he didn’t mind.

He at once led them to what he called their stand – which, he said, he had had built for them that very morning. This the Doctor found to be similar to the place where he had first spoken with Blossom. It was a platform raised three feet from the ground, so that the board-and-canvas room on the top of it could be seen. It had steps up to it, and a little way back from the front edge of the platform curtains covered the entrance to the room, so no one could see inside unless they paid to go in.

Across the front of it was a sign:

THE PUSHMI-PULLYU!
COME AND SEE THE MARVELOUS
TWO-HEADED ANIMAL
FROM THE JUNGLES OF AFRICA!
ADMISSION SIXPENCE

The red and yellow wagon (in which the Doctor’s party, with the exception of the pushmi-pullyu, were to live) was backed behind the “stand”. And Dab-Dab immediately set about making up beds and arranging the inside so it would be homelike.

Blossom wanted to have the pushmi-pullyu put on show at once, but the Doctor refused. He said any wild animal would need to rest after the journey from Puddleby. And he wished the timid beast to get used to the noisy bustle of circus life before he was stared at by a crowd of holiday-makers.

Blossom was disappointed, but he had to give in. Then, to the animals’ delight, he offered to show the Doctor around the circus and introduce him to the various performers. So after the pushmi-pullyu had been moved to his new home in the stand and the Doctor had seen that he was provided with hay and water and bedding, the Puddleby party started out to make a tour of the circus under the guidance of the great Alexander Blossom, ringmaster.

The main show took place only twice a day (at two in the afternoon and at six thirty at night), in a big tent in the middle of the enclosure. But all around this there were smaller tents and stands, most of which you had to pay extra to get into. Of these the Doctor’s establishment was now to form one. They contained all manner of wonders: shooting galleries; guessing games; wild men of Borneo; bearded ladies; merry-go-rounds; strong men, snake charmers; a menagerie, and many more.

Blossom took the Doctor and his friends to the menagerie first. It was a dingy third-rate sort of collection. Most of the animals seemed dirty and unhappy. The Doctor was so saddened he was all for having a row with Blossom over it. But the Cat’s-Meat-Man whispered in his ear:

“Don’t be starting trouble right away, Doctor. Wait a while. After the boss sees how valuable you are with performing animals you’ll be able to do what you like with him. If you kick up a shindy now we’ll maybe lose our job. Then you won’t be able to do anything.”

This struck John Dolittle as good advice. And he contented himself for the present with whispering to the animals through the bars of their cages that later he hoped to do something for them.

Just as they had entered a dirty man was taking around a group of country folk to show them the collection. Stopping before a cage where a small furry animal was imprisoned, the man called out:

“And this, ladies and gents, is the famous Hurri-Gurri, from the forests of Patagonia. ’E ’angs from the trees by ’is tail. Pass on to the next cage.”

The Doctor, followed by Gub-Gub, went over and looked in at “the famous Hurri-Gurri.”

“Why,” said he, “that’s nothing but a common opossum from America. One of the marsupials.”

“How do you know it’s a Ma Soupial, Doctor?” asked Gub-Gub. “She hasn’t any children with her. Perhaps, it’s a Pa Soupial.”

“And this,” roared the man, standing before the next cage, “is the largest elephant in captivity.”

“Almost the smallest one I ever saw,” murmured the Doctor.

Then Mr. Blossom suggested that they go on to the next show, Princess Fatima, the snake charmer. And he led the way out of the close, evil-smelling menagerie into the open air. As the Doctor passed down the line of cages he hung his head, frowning unhappily. For the various animals, recognizing the great John Dolittle, were all making signs to him to stop and talk with them.

When they entered the snake charmer’s tent, there were no other visitors there for the moment but themselves. On the small stage they beheld the Princess Fatima, powdering her large nose and swearing to herself in cockney. Beside her chair was a big shallow box full of snakes. Matthew Mugg peeped into it, gasped with horror, and then started to run from the tent.

“It’s all right, Matthew,” the Doctor called out. “Don’t be alarmed, they’re quite harmless.”

“What d’yer mean, harmless?” snorted the Princess Fatima, glaring at the Doctor. “They’re king cobras, from India – the deadliest snakes livin’.”

“They’re nothing of the sort,” said the Doctor. “They’re American blacksnakes – non-poisonous.” And he tickled one under the chin.

“Leave them snakes alone!” yelled the Fatima, rising from her chair – “or I’ll knock yer bloomin’ ’ead orf.”

At this moment Blossom interfered and introduced the ruffled Princess to Mr. Smith.

The conversation which followed (Fatima was still too angry to take much part in it) was interrupted by the arrival of some people who had come to see the snake charmer perform. Blossom led the Doctor’s party off into a corner, whispering:

“She’s marvelous, Smith. One of the best turns I’ve got. Just you watch her.”

Behind the curtains at the back somebody started beating a drum and playing a pipe. Then Fatima arose, lifted two snakes out of the box and wound them around her neck and arms.

“Will ze ladies and ze gentlemen step a little closair,” she cooed softly to her audience. “Zen zay can see bettair – zo!”

“What’s she talking like that for?” Gub-Gub whispered to the Doctor.

“Sh! I suppose she thinks she’s speaking with an Oriental accent,” said John Dolittle.

“Sounds to me like a hot-potato accent,” muttered Gub-Gub. “Isn’t she fat and wobbly!”

Noticing that the Doctor did not seem favourably impressed, the circus master led them out to see the other sideshows.

Crossing over to the strong man’s booth, Gub-Gub caught sight of the Punch and Judy show which is going on at that moment. The play had just reached that point where Toby the dog bites Mr. Punch on the nose. Gub-Gub was fascinated. They could hardly drag him away from it. Indeed, throughout the whole time they spent with the circus this was his chief delight. He never missed a single performance – and, although the play was always the same and he got to know it every word by heart, he never grew tired of it.

At the next booth a large audience was gathered and yokels were gasping in wonder as the strong man lifted enormous weights in the air. There was no fake about this show. And John Dolittle, deeply interested, joined in the clapping and the gasping.

The strong man was an honest-looking fellow, with tremendous muscles. The Doctor took a liking to him right away. One of his tricks was to lie on the stage on his back and lift an enormous dumb-bell with his feet till his legs were sticking right up in the air. It needed balance as well as strength, because if the dumb-bell should fall the wrong way the man would certainly be injured. Today when he had finally brought his legs into an upright position and the crowd was whispering in admiration, suddenly there was a loud crack. One of the boards of the stage had given way. Instantly down came the big dumb-bell right across the man’s chest.

The crowd screamed and Blossom jumped up on the platform. It took two men’s strength to lift the dumb-bell off the strong mans’ body. But even then he did not arise. He lay motionless, his eyes closed, his face a deathly white.

“Get a doctor,” Blossom shouted to the Cat’s-Meat-Man. “Hurry! He’s hurt hisself – unconscious. A doctor, quick!”

But John Dolittle was already on the stage, standing over the ringmaster, who knelt beside the injured man.

“Get out of the way and let me examine him,” he said quietly.

“What can you do? He’s hurt bad. Look, his breathing’s queer. We got to get a doctor.”

“I am a doctor,” said John Dolittle. “Matthew, run to the van and get my black bag.”

“You a doctor!” said Blossom, getting up off his knees. “Thought you called yourself Mr. Smith.”

“Of course, he’s a doctor,” came a voice out of the crowd. “There wur a time when he wur the best known doctor in the West Country. I know un. Dolittle’s his name – John Dolittle, of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Doctor Is Discouraged

The Doctor found that two of the strong man’s ribs had been broken by the dumb-bell. However, he prophesied that with so powerful a constitution the patient should recover quickly. The injured man was put to bed in his own caravan and until he was well again the Doctor visited him four times a day and Matthew slept in his wagon to nurse him.

The strong man (his show name was Hercules) was very thankful to John Dolittle and became greatly attached to him – and very useful sometimes, as you will see later on.

So the Doctor felt, when he went to bed that first night of his circus career, that if he had made an enemy in Fatima, the snake charmer, he had gained a friend in Hercules, the strong man.

Of course, now that he had been recognized as the odd physician of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, there was no longer any sense in his trying to conceal who he was. And very soon he became known among the circus folk as just “the Doctor” – or “the Doc.” On the very high recommendation of Hercules, he was constantly called upon for the cure of small ailments by everyone, from the bearded lady to the clown.

The next day, the pushmi-pullyu was put on show for the first time. He was very popular. A two-headed animal had never before been seen in a circus and the people thronged up to pay their money and have a look at him. At first he nearly died of embarrassment and shyness, and he was forever hiding one of his heads under the straw so as not to have to meet the gaze of all those staring eyes. Then the people wouldn’t believe he had more than one head. So the Doctor asked him if he would be so good as to keep both of them in view.

“You need not look at the people,” he said. “But just let them see that you really have two heads. You can turn your back on the audience – both ends.”

But some of the silly people, even when they could see the two heads plainly, kept saying that one must be faked. And they would prod the poor, timid animal with sticks to see if part of him was stuffed. While two country bumpkins were doing this one day the pushmi-pullyu got annoyed, and bringing both his heads up sharply at the same time, he jabbed the two inquirers in the legs. Then they knew for sure that he was real and alive all over.

But as soon as the Cat’s-Meat-Man could be spared from nursing Hercules (he turned the job over to his wife) the Doctor put him on guard inside the stall to see that the animal was not molested by stupid visitors. The poor creature had a terrible time those first days. But when Jip told him how much money was being taken in, he determined to stick it out for John Dolittle’s sake. And after a little while, although his opinion of the human race sank very low, he got sort of used to the silly, gaping faces of his audiences and gazed back at them – from both his heads – with fearless superiority and the scorn that they deserved.

During show hours, the Doctor used to sit in a chair on the front platform, taking the sixpences and smiling on the people as they went in – for all the world as though every one of them were old friends visiting his home. And, in fact, he did in this way re-meet many folks who had known him in years gone by, including the old lady with rheumatism, Squire Jenkyns and neighbours from Puddleby.

Poor Dab-Dab was busier than ever now. For in addition to the housekeeping duties she always had to keep one eye on the Doctor; and many were the scoldings she gave him because he would let the children in for nothing when she wasn’t looking.

At the end of each day Blossom, the manager, came to divide up the money. And Too-Too, the mathematician, was always there when the adding was done, to see that the Doctor got his proper share.

Although the pushmi-pullyu was so popular, the Doctor saw very early in his new career that it would take quite a time to earn sufficient money to pay the sailor back for the boat – let alone to make enough for himself and his family to live on besides.

He was rather sorry about this; for there were a lot of things in the circus business that he did not like and he was anxious to leave it. While his own show was a perfectly honest affair, there were many features of the circus that were faked; and the Doctor, who always hated fake of any kind, had an uncomfortable feeling that he was part of an establishment not strictly honest. Most of the gambling games were arranged so that those who played them were bound to lose their money.

But the thing that worried the Doctor most was the condition of the animals. Their life, he felt, was in most cases an unhappy one. At the end of his first day with the circus, after the crowds have gone home and all was quiet in the enclosure, he had gone back into the menagerie and talked to the animals there. They nearly all had complaints to make: their cages were not kept properly clean; they did not get exercise or room enough; with some the food served was not the kind they liked.

The Doctor heard them all and was so indignant he sought out the ringmaster in his private caravan right away and told him plainly of all the things he thought ought to be changed.

Blossom listened patiently until he had finished and then he laughed.

“Why, Doc,” said he, “if I was to do all the things you want me to I might as well leave the business! I’d be ruined. What, pension off the horses? Send the hurri-gurri back to his home? Keep the men cleaning out the cages all day? Buy special foods? Have the animals took out for walks every day, like a young lady’s academy? Man, you must be crazy! Now, look here: You don’t know anything about this game – nothing, see? I’ve given in to you in all you asked. I’m letting you run your part of the show your own way. But I’m going to run the rest of it my way. Understand? I don’t want no interference. It’s bad enough to have the strong man on the sick list. I ain’t going to go broke just to please your Sunday school ideas. And that’s flat.”

Sad at heart, the Doctor left the manager’s quarters and made his way across to his own caravan. On the steps of his wagon, he found the Cat’s-Meat-Man smoking his evening pipe. Close by, Beppo, the old horse, was cropping the scrubby grass of the enclosure by the light of the moon.

“Nice night,” said Matthew. “You look kind of worried, Doctor. Anything wrong?”

“Yes,” said John Dolittle, sitting down miserably on the steps beside him. “Everything’s wrong. I’ve just been talking to Blossom about improving conditions in the menagerie. He won’t do a single thing I ask. I think I’ll leave the circus.”

“Oh, come now,” said Matthew. ‘Why, you ain’t hardly begun, Doctor! Blossom doesn’t know yet that you can talk animal language even! Circuses don’t have to be bad. You could run one that would be a new kind; clean, honest, special – one that everybody in the world come to see. But you got to get money first. Don’t give up so easy.”

“No, it’s no use, Matthew. I’m doing no good here and I can’t stay and see animals unhappy. I never should have gone into the business.”

At this moment the old horse, Beppo, hearing his friend’s voice, drew near and pushed his muzzle affectionately into the Doctor’s ear.

“Hulloa,” said John Dolittle. “Beppo, I’m afraid I can be of no help to you. I’m sorry – but I am going to leave the circus.”

“But, Doctor,” said the old horse, “you’re our one hope. Why, only today I heard the elephant and the Talking Horse – the cob who performs in the big show – they were saying how glad they were that you had come. Be patient. You can’t change everything in a minute. If you go, then we’ll never get anything we want. But we know that if you stay, before long you will be running the whole show the way it should be run. We’re not worried as long as you’re with us. Only stay. And mark my words, the day will come when the new circus, ‘The Dolittle Circus,’ will be the greatest on earth.”

For a moment the Doctor was silent. And Matthew, who had not understood the conversation with the horse, waited impatiently for him to speak.

At last he arose and turned to go into the caravan.

“Well,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man anxiously, “are you going to stay?”

“Yes, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “It seems I’ve got to. Good night.”

At the end of that week the Grimbledon Fair was over and the circus had to move on to the next town. It was a big job, this packing up a large show for a long journey by road. And all day Sunday the enclosure was a very busy place. Men ran around everywhere shouting orders. The big tent and the little tents were pulled down and rolled up. The stands were taken apart and piled into wagons. The large space that had looked so gay was quickly changed into a drab, untidy mess. It was all very new to the Doctor’s pets; and though Dab-Dab joined in the general hustle of packing, the rest of them enjoyed the excitement and the newness of it no end.

One thing that amused them very much was the change in the appearance of the performers when they got out of their circus dress to travel. Gub-Gub was very confused, because he couldn’t recognize anybody any more. The clown took the white paint off his face. The Princess Fatima laid aside her gorgeous garments and appeared like a respectable charwoman ready for a holiday. The Wild Man of Borneo put on a collar and tie and talked quite naturally. And the Bearded Lady took off her beard, folded it up and packed it in a trunk.

Then in a long procession of caravans the circus set out upon the road. The next town to be visited was fifty miles off. This journey could not, of course, be covered in a single day, going at a walk. The nights were to be spent camping out by the roadside or in whatever convenient clear spaces could be found. So, beside the new amusement of seeing the country by day from a home on wheels, the animals had the thrill of spending the nights gypsy-fashion, wherever darkness found them.

Jip got lots of fun chasing the rats out of the ditches along the road and often going off across a meadow on the scent of a fox. The slowness of the circus’s pace gave him time for all sorts of small adventures; and he could always catch up. But Gub-Gub’s chief delight was guessing where they would spend the night.

This part of the life, the halting for sleep, seemed to be enjoyed by all. When the kettle was put on to boil over the roadside fire everyone cheered up and got talkative. Jip’s two friends, the clown’s dog and Toby, the Punch-and-Judy dog, always came around as soon as the procession stopped for the night, and joined the Doctor’s party. They, too, seemed to be much in favour of John Dolittle’s taking charge of the show or running a circus of his own. And when they weren’t amusing the family circle with wonderful stories of a show-dog’s life they kept telling the Doctor that a real Dolittle Circus would, to their way of thinking, be a perfect institution.

John Dolittle had always said that there were just as many different characters and types among dogs as there were among people – in fact, more. He had written a book to prove this. He called it Dog Psychology. Most metaphysicians had pooh-poohed it, saying that no one but a hair-brain would write on such a subject. But this was only to hide the fact that they couldn’t understand it.

Certainly these two, Swizzle, the clown’s dog, and Toby, the Punch-and-Judy dog, had very different personalities. Swizzle (to look at, he was nothing but a common mongrel) had a great sense of humour. He made a joke out of everything. This may have been partly on account of his profession – helping a clown make people laugh. But it was also part of his philosophy. He told both the Doctor and Jip more than once that when he was still a puppy he had decided that nothing in this world was worth taking seriously. He was a great artist, nevertheless, and could always see the most difficult jokes – even when they were made at his own expense.

It was Swizzle’s sense of humour that gave the Doctor the idea for the first comic papers printed for animals – when later he founded the Rat-and-Mouse Club. They were called Cellar Life and Basement Humour and were intended to bring light entertainment to those who live in dark places.

Toby, the other, was as different from his friend Swizzle as it is possible to be. He was a small dog, a dwarf white poodle. And he took himself and life quite seriously. The most noticeable thing about his character was his determination to get everything which he thought he ought to get. Yet he was not selfish, not at all. The Doctor always said that this shrewd business-like quality was to be found in most little dogs – who had to make up for their small size by an extra share of cheek. The very first time Toby came visiting to John Dolittle’s caravan he got on the Doctor’s bed and made himself comfortable. Dab-Dab, highly scandalized, tried to put him off. But he wouldn’t move. He said the Doctor didn’t seem to mind and he was the owner of the bed. And from that time on he always occupied this place in the caravan’s evening circle when he came to visit. He had won a special privilege for himself by sheer cheek. He was always demanding privileges, and he usually got them.

But there was one thing, in which Toby and Swizzle were alike; and that was the pride they took in their personal friendship with John Dolittle, whom they considered the greatest man on earth.

One night on the first trip between towns the procession had stopped by the side of the road as usual. There was a nice old-fashioned farm quite near and Gub-Gub had gone off to see if there were any pigs in the stye. Otherwise the Doctor’s family circle was complete. And soon after the kettle had been put on to boil along came Toby and Swizzle. The night was cool; so, instead of making a fire outside, Dab-Dab was using the stove in the caravan, and everybody was sitting around it chatting.

“Have you heard the news, Doctor?” said Toby, jumping up on the bed.

“No,” said John Dolittle. “What is it?”

“At the next town – Ashby, you know, quite a large place – we are to pick up Sophie.”

“Who in the world is Sophie?” asked the Doctor, getting out his slippers from behind the stove.

“She left us before you joined,” said Swizzle. “Sophie’s the performing seal – balances balls on her nose and does tricks in the water. She fell sick and Blossom had to leave her behind about a month ago. She’s all right now, though, and her keeper is meeting us at Ashby so she can join us again. She’s rather a sentimental sort of girl, is Sophie. But she’s a good sport, and I’m sure you will like her.”

The circus reached Ashby about nine o’clock on a Wednesday evening. It was to open to the public the first thing the following morning. So all through that night, by the light of flares, the men were busy hoisting tents, setting up booths, and spreading tanbark. Even after the pushmi-pullyu’s stand was put together and the Doctor’s family retired to rest, no one got any sleep; for the ground still shook with the hammers driving pegs; and the air was full of shouts and the spirits of work, till the dusk of dawn crept over the roofs of Ashby and showed the city of canvas that had been built in a night.

John Dolittle decided, as he climbed wearily from his sleepless bed that circus life took a lot of getting used to. After breakfast, leaving Matthew in charge of his stand, he set out to make the acquaintance of the performing seal.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Sophie, from Alaska

Sophie’s keeper, like the rest of the showmen, had by this time got his part of the circus in readiness to open to the public. The seal was accustomed to perform in the big tent twice a day, following the Pinto Brothers (trapeze acrobats) and the Talking Horse. But during the rest of the day she was a side-show like the pushmi-pullyu. Here in an enclosed tank she dived after fish for the amusement of anyone who paid threepence to come and see her.

This morning – it was still quite early – Sophie’s keeper was eating his breakfast outside on the steps when the Doctor entered the stand. Inside, a tank about twelve feet across had been let into the ground; and around it was a platform with a railing where visitors stood to watch the performance. Sophie, a fine five-foot Alaskan seal, with sleek skin and intelligent eyes, was wallowing moodily in the water of the tank. When the Doctor spoke to her in her own language, and she realized who her visitor was, she burst into a flood of tears.

“What is the matter?” asked John Dolittle.

The seal, still weeping, did not answer.

“Calm yourself,” said the Doctor. “Don’t be hysterical. Tell me, are you still sick? I understood you had recovered.”

“Oh, yes, I got over that,” said Sophie through her tears. “It was only an upset stomach. They will feed us this stale fish, you know.”

“Then what’s the matter?” asked the Doctor. “Why are you crying?”

“I was weeping for joy,” said Sophie. “I was just thinking as you came in that the only person in the world who could help me in my trouble was John Dolittle. Of course, I had heard all about you through the Post Office and the Arctic Monthly. In fact, I had written to you. It was I who contributed those articles on under-water swimming – you remember? – The Alaskan Wiggle, you know – double overhand stroke. It was printed in the August number of your magazine. We were awfully sorry when you had to give up the Arctic Monthly. It was tremendously popular among the seals.”

“But what was this trouble you were speaking of?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, yes,” said Sophie, bursting into tears again. “That just shows you how glad I am; I had forgotten all about it for the moment. You know, when you first came in I thought you were an ordinary visitor. But the very first word of sealish that you spoke – and Alaskan sealish at that – I knew who you were; John Dolittle, the one man in the world I wanted to see! It was too much, I—”

“Come, come!” said the Doctor. “Don’t break down again. Tell me what your trouble is.”

“Well,” said Sophie, “it’s this: While I—”

At that moment there was a noise outside, the rattling of a bucket.

“Sh! It’s the keeper coming,” whispered the Doctor quickly. “Just carry on with your tricks. I’m not letting them know I can talk to the animals.”

When the keeper entered to swab the floor, Sophie was frisking and diving for an audience of one: a quite little fat man with a battered high hat on the back of his head. The keeper just glanced at him, before setting to work, and decided that he was quite an ordinary person, nobody in particular at all.

As soon as the man had finished his mopping and disappeared again, Sophie continued:

“You know,” said the seal, “when I fell sick we were performing at Hatley-on-Sea, and I and my keeper – Higgins is his name – stayed there two weeks while the circus went on without us. Now, there’s a zoo at Hatley – only a small one – near the esplanade. They have artificial ponds there with seals and otters in them. Well, Higgins got talking to the keeper of these seals one day, and told him about my being sick. And they decided I needed company. So they put me in the pond with the other seals till I should recover. Among them there was an older one who came from the same part of the Behring Straits as I did. He gave me some very bad news about my husband. It seems that ever since I was captured he has been unhappy and refused to eat. He used to be leader of the herd. But after I was taken away he had worried and grown thin and finally another seal was elected leader in his place. Now he wasn’t expected to live.” (Quietly Sophie began to weep again.) “I can quite understand it. We were devoted to one another. And although he was so big and strong and no other seal in the herd ever dared to argue with him, without me, well, he was just lost, you know – a mere baby. He relied on me for everything. And now – I don’t know what’s happening to him. It’s just terrible – terrible!”

“Well, wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Don’t cry. What do you think ought to be done?”

“I ought to go to him,” said Sophie, raising herself in the water and spreading out her flippers. “I ought to be by his side. He is the proper leader of the herd and he needs me. I hoped I might escape at Hatley, but not a chance did I get.”

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “It’s an awful long way to the Behring Straits. How on earth would you get there?”

“That’s just what I wanted to see you about,” said Sophie. “Overland, of course, my rate of travel is very slow. If I could only have got away at Hatley I’d have been all right. Because, of course,” she added with a powerful swish of her tail that slopped half the water out of the tank, “once I reached the sea I’d be up to Alaska in no time.”

“Ah, yes,” the Doctor agreed, as he shook the water out of his boots. “I see you are a powerful swimmer. How far are we from the coast here?”

“About a hundred miles,” said Sophie. “Oh dear! Poor Slushy! My poor, poor Slushy!”

“Poor who?” asked the Doctor.

“Slushy,” said the seal. “That’s my husband’s name. He relied on me in everything, poor, simple Slushy. What shall I do? What shall I do?”

“Well, now listen,” said John Dolittle. “This is no easy matter, to smuggle you to the sea. I don’t say it’s impossible. But it needs thinking out. Perhaps I can get you free some other way – openly. In the meantime I’ll send word up to your husband by bird messenger and tell him to stop worrying, because you are all right. And the same messenger can bring us back news of how he is getting on. Now, cheer up. Here come some people to see you perform.”

A school mistress with a band of children entered, accompanied by Higgins, the keeper. As they came in a little fat man went out, smiling to himself. Soon the children were laughing with delight at the antics of the big animal in the tank. And Higgins decided that Sophie must now be feeling entirely recovered, for he had never seen her so sprightly or so full of good spirits before.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Messenger from the North

Late that night the Doctor took Too-Too with him and went to visit the seal again. “Now, Sophie,” said he when they had reached the side of the tank, “this owl is a friend of mine, and I want you to describe to him just where in Alaska your husband can be found. Then we’ll send him off to the seashore, and he will hand on your message to the gulls who are going northwestward. Let me introduce you: Sophie, this is Too-Too, one of the cleverest birds I know. He is particularly good at mathematics.”

The owl sat on the rail while Sophie told him exactly how Slushy could be reached and reeled off a long and loving message for her husband. When she had ended he said:

“I think I’ll make for Bristol, Doctor. It is about the nearest coast town. There are always plenty of gulls to be found in the harbour. I’ll get one to take this and pass it on to its destination.”

“Very good, Too-Too,” said the Doctor. “But we want to hurry it all we can. If you can find some sea-bird who is willing to take it the whole way as a special favour to me, it would be better.”

“All right,” said Too-Too, preparing to depart. “Leave the window of the caravan open, so I can get in. I don’t suppose I shall be back much before two in the morning. So long!”

Then the Doctor returned to his wagon and rewrote the last part of his new book, which was called Animal Natation. Sophie had given him a lot of helpful hints on good swimming style which made it necessary for him to add three more chapters.

He got so interested in this he did not notice how the time was passing; till, somewhere between two and three in the morning he suddenly found Too-Too, the night bird, standing on the table before him.

“Doctor,” said he, speaking low so he would not wake the animals. “You could never guess whom I met. You remember the gull who brought you the warning about Cape Stephen Light? Well, I ran into him in Bristol Harbour. I hadn’t seen him since the good old house-boat days. But I recognized him at once. I told him I was hunting for someone to take a message up to Alaska; and when he heard it was you who sent me, he said he would attend to it himself with pleasure. He doesn’t expect to be back under five days, though – at best.”

“Splendid, Too-Too, splendid!” said the Doctor.

“I am returning to Bristol Friday,” said the owl, “and if he isn’t back then, I’ll wait till he comes.”

The following morning John Dolittle told Sophie that her message had been sent on; and she was very pleased. For the present there was nothing further to be done but to wait for the gull’s return.

On Thursday (a day before the time Too-Too had planned to return to Bristol) the Doctor’s whole party were seated round the table in the caravan listening to a story from Toby, the Punch-and-Judy dog. Just as Toby paused breathless at the most exciting parts, there came a gentle tapping on the window.

“Booh!” said Gub-Gub – “How spookish!” And he crawled under the bed.

John Dolittle rose, drew back the curtains and opened the window. On the sill stood the gull who months before had brought him another message by night when he lived in the houseboat post office. Now, weather-beaten and weary, he looked more dead than alive. Gently the Doctor lifted him from the window-sill, and set him down on the table. Then they all drew near, staring at him in silence, waiting for the exhausted bird to speak.

“John Dolittle,” said the gull at last, “I didn’t wait for Too-Too to meet me in Bristol, because I thought you ought to know at once. The seal herd to which Sophie and her husband belonged are in a bad way – very bad. And it has all come about because Sophie was taken away and her husband Slushy lost the leadership. Winter has set in up there early this year – and my, such a winter! Blizzards, mountainous snowdrifts, the seas frozen months ahead of the usual time. I nearly died of the cold myself – and you know we gulls can stand awful low temperatures. Well, leadership for the seal herds is tremendously important in bad weather. They’re not much different from sheep – same as all animals that travel and live in packs. And without a big, strong boss to lead them to the open fishing and the protected wintering places, they’re just lost, that’s all – helpless. Now, it seems, ever since Slushy started to mope they’ve had one leader after another – and none of them any good. Rows and little revolutions going on in the herd all the while. And in the meantime the walruses and sea lions are driving them out of all the best fishing and the Esquimaux seal hunters killing them right and left. No seal herd can last long against the fur hunters up there if they haven’t got a good leader with wits enough to keep them out of danger. Slushy was the best they ever had, as strong as an ox. Now all he does is lie on an iceberg, mooning and weeping because his favourite wife’s been taken away. He’s got hundreds more, just as good-looking, but the only one he wants is Sophie, and there you are. The herd’s just going to pieces. In the days of Slushy’s leadership, they tell me it was the finest seal herd in the Arctic Circle. Now, most likely, with this extra bad winter setting in, it’ll be wiped right out.”

For fully a minute after the gull finished his long speech silence reigned in the caravan.

Finally John Dolittle said:

“Toby, does Sophie belong to Blossom or to Higgins?”

“To Higgins, Doctor,” said the little dog. “He does something as the same as you do; in return for letting the seal perform in the big ring, Higgins gets his stand in the circus free, and pockets whatever money he makes on her as a side show.”

“Well, that isn’t the same as me at all,” said the Doctor. “The big difference is that the pushmi-pullyu is here of his own accord and Sophie is kept against her will. It is a perfect scandal that hunters can go up to the Arctic and capture any animals they like, breaking up families and upsetting herd government and community life in this way – a crying shame! Toby, how much does a seal cost?”

“They vary in price, Doctor,” said Toby. “But I heard Sophie say that when Higgins bought her in Liverpool from the men who had caught her he paid twenty pounds for her. She had been trained on the ship to do tricks before she landed.”

“How much have we got in the money box, Too-Too?” asked the Doctor.

“All of last week’s gate money,” said the owl, “except one shilling and threepence. The threepence you spent to get your hair cut and the shilling went on celery for Gub-Gub.”

“Well, what does that bring the total to?”

Too-Too, the mathematician, cocked his head on one side and closed his left eye – as he always did when calculating.

“Two pounds, seven shillings,” he murmured, “minus one shilling and threepence leaves – er – leaves – two pounds five shillings and ninepence, cash in hand, net.”

“Good Lord!” groaned the Doctor, “barely enough to buy a tenth of Sophie! I wonder if there’s anyone I could borrow from. That’s the only good thing about being a people’s doctor. When I had a practice I could borrow from my patients.”

“If I remember rightly,” muttered Dab-Dab, “it was more often your patients that borrowed from you.”

“Blossom wouldn’t let you buy her even if you had the money,” said Swizzle. “Higgins is under contract – made a promise – to travel with the circus for a year.”

“Very well, then,” said the Doctor. “There’s only one thing to be done. That seal doesn’t belong to those men, anyhow. She’s a free citizen of the Arctic Circle. And if she wants to go back there, back she shall go. Sophie must escape.”

Before his pets went to bed that night the Doctor made them promise that for the present they would say nothing to the seal about the bad news the gull had brought. It would only worry her, he told them. And until he had helped her to get safely to the sea there was no need for her to know.

Then, until the early hours of the morning, he sat up with Matthew making plans for Sophie’s flight. At first the Cat’s-Meat-Man was very much against the idea.

“Why, Doctor,” said he, “you’ll get arrested if you’re caught. Helping that seal escape from her owner! They’ll call it stealing.”

“I don’t care that much,” said the Doctor snapping his fingers. “Let them call it what they like. Let them arrest me – if they catch me. If the case is taken to the courts, at least I’ll get a chance to say a word for the rights of wild animals.”

“They won’t listen to you, Doctor,” said Matthew. “They’ll say you’re a sentimental crank. Higgins would win easy. Rights of property and all that. I see your point, but the judge wouldn’t. He’d tell you to pay Higgins his twenty pounds for a lost seal. And if you couldn’t, you’d go to jail.”

“I don’t care,” the Doctor repeated. “But listen, Matthew: I wouldn’t want you to get mixed up in it if you don’t think it’s right. I shall have to use deception if I’m to be successful. And I should be very sorry to get you into trouble. If you would prefer to stay clear of it, say so now. But for my part, my mind is made up: Sophie is going to Alaska even if I have to go to jail – that will be nothing new. I’ve been in jail before.”

“So have I,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man. Was you ever in Cardiff Jail? By Jingo! that’s a rotten one! The worst I was ever in.”

“No,” said the Doctor. “I’ve only been in African jails – as yet. They’re bad enough. But let us get back to the point. Would you sooner not help me in this? It’s against the law – I know – even if I think the law is wrong. Understand, I shan’t be the least offended if you have conscientious objections to aiding and abetting me. Eh?”

“Conscientious objections, me eye!” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man, opening the window and spitting accurately out into the night. “O’ course, I’ll help you, Doctor. That old sour-faced Higgins ain’t got no right to that seal. She’s a free creature of the seas. If he paid twenty pounds for her, more fool him. What you say goes, Doctor. Ain’t we kind of partners in this here circus business? I think it’s a good kind of a lark meself. Didn’t I tell you I was venturesome? Lor’ bless us! I done worse things than help a performin’ seal to elope. Why, that time I was telling you of, when I was jailed in Cardiff – do you know what it was for?”

“No, I have no idea,” said the Doctor. “Some slight error, I have no doubt. Now let us—”

“It was no slight error,” said Matthew, “I—”

“Well, never mind it now,” said John Dolittle quickly. “We all make mistakes, you know.” (“It was no mistake, neither,” muttered Matthew as the Doctor hurried on.) “If you are quite sure that you will have no regrets about going into this – er – matter with me, let us consider ways and means. It will be necessary, I think, in order to avoid getting Blossom suspicious, for me to leave the circus for a few days. I will say I have business to attend to – which is quite true, even if I don’t attend to it. But it would look very queer if I and Sophie disappeared the same night. So I will go first, leaving you in charge of my show. Then a day – or better, two days – later, Sophie will disappear.”

“Also on business,” put in Matthew, chuckling. “You mean you’ll leave me the job of letting her out of her tank after you’re gone?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind,” said the Doctor.

“It’ll give me great pleasure,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man.

“Splendid!” said the Doctor. “I’ll arrange beforehand with Sophie where she is to meet me, once she’s clear of the circus. And then—”

“And then your job will begin in earnest,” laughed Matthew Mugg.

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

Planning the Escape

Although the plans for Sophie’s escape were of course kept a strict secret from any of the people in Blossom’s establishment, the animals of the circus soon got to know of them through Jip, Toby and Swizzle. And for days before the flight took place it was the one subject of conversation in the menagerie, in the stables and in the Doctor’s caravan.

When John Dolittle returned from telling Blossom that he was about to leave the circus on business for a few days, he found his own animals seated about the table in the wagon talking in whispers.

“Well, Doctor,” said Matthew, who was sitting on the steps, “did you speak to the boss?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I told him. It’s all right. I’m leaving tonight. I felt frightfully guilty, and underhanded. I do wish I could do this openly.”

“You’d stand a fat chance of succeeding, if you did!” said Matthew. “I don’t feel guilty none.”

“Listen, Doctor,” said Jip. “All the circus animals are tremendously interested in your scheme. They’ve asked if there’s anything they can do to help. When is Sophie going to get away?”

“The day after tomorrow,” said John Dolittle. “Matthew, here, will undo the door of her stand just after closing time. But listen, Matthew: you’ll have to be awfully careful no one sees you tinkering with the lock. If we should get caught we would indeed be in a bad fix then. Tinkering with locks makes it a felony instead of a misdemeanor, or something like that. Do be careful, won’t you?”

“You can rely on me, Doctor,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man, proudly puffing out his chest. “I’ve got a way of me own with locks, I have. No force, sort of persuasion like.”

“Get clear out of the way as soon as you have let her free,” said the Doctor, “so you won’t be connected with it at all. Dear me, how like a low-down conspiracy it sounds!”

“Sounds like lots of fun to me,” said Matthew.

“To me too,” said Jip.

“It’ll be the best trick that’s been done in this show for a long while,” put in Swizzle. “Ladies and Gentlemen: John Dolittle, the world-famous conjurer, will now make a live seal disappear from the stage before your eyes. Abracadabra, Mumble-and-Jabberer, Hoop la – Hey Presto! – Gone.”

And Swizzle stood on his hind legs and bowed to an imaginary audience behind the stove.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “even though it sounds underhanded, I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong – myself. They’ve no right to keep Sophie in this slavery. How would you and I like it,” he asked of Matthew, “to be made to dive for fish into a tub of dirty water for the amusement of loafers?”

“Rotten!” said Matthew, “I never did care for fish – nor water, neither. But look here, have you arranged with Sophie where she’s to meet you?”

“Yes,” said John Dolittle. “As soon as she gets clear of the circus enclosure – and don’t forget we are relying on you to leave the back gate open as well as Sophie’s own door – as soon as she’s out of the fence, she is to cross the road where she will find an empty house. Alongside of that there is a little, dark passage and in that passage I will be waiting for her. My goodness, I do hope everything goes right! It’s so dreadfully important for her – and for all those seals in Alaska, too.”

“And what are you going to do then,” asked Matthew, “when she’s got as far as the passage?”

“Well, it’s no use trying to plan too far as to detail. My general idea is to make for the Bristol Channel. That’s about our shortest cut to the sea from here. Once there, she’s all right. But it’s nearly a hundred miles as the crow flies; and as we’ll have to keep concealed most of the way I’m not expecting an easy journey. However, there’s no sense in meeting your troubles half way. I’ve no doubt we shall get along all right once she’s safely away from the circus.”

Many of the Doctor’s pets wanted to accompany him on his coming adventure. Jip tried especially hard to be taken. But in spite of his great desire to have the assistance of his friends, John Dolittle felt that he would arouse less suspicion if he left his entire family with the circus just as it was.

So that night, after a final talk with Sophie, he set out alone – on business. He took with him most of what money he had, leaving a little with Matthew to pay for the small needs of his establishment while he was away. His “business” as a matter of fact did not take him further than the next town – which journey he made by a stage coach. In those days, you see, although there were railways, to be sure, they were as yet very scarce. And most of the cross-country travelling between the smaller towns was still done in the old-fashioned way.

On his arrival at the next town he took a room in an inn and remained there the whole time. Two nights later he returned to Ashby after dark and, entering the town from the far side, made his way through unfrequented streets till he reached the passage which was to be his meeting place with Sophie.

Now all his pets, though they had not been given any particular parts to play in the plot of Sophie’s escape, were determined to do anything they could to help things on their own account – which, as you will see, turned out to be a good deal. And as they waited for the arrival of the appointed hour, their excitement (which Gub-Gub, for one, had hard work to conceal) grew every minute.

About ten o’clock, when the circus was beginning to close up, Too-Too stationed himself on the top of the menagerie where he could see everything that went on. He had arranged with the elephant and the animals of the collection to start a rumpus in the menagerie on a given signal – to attract, if necessary, the attention of the circus men away from the escaping seal. Gub-Gub gave himself the job of watching Blossom, and he took up a post underneath the ringmaster’s private caravan.

There was a full moon, and even after the circus lamps were put out there was still a good deal of light. The Doctor would have postponed the escape on this account until later, but he realized that the state of affairs among the Alaskan seals made it necessary for Sophie to get away as soon as possible.

Well, about an hour after Blossom had locked up the fence gates and retired to his caravan, Matthew slipped away from the pushmi-pullyu’s stand and sauntered off across the enclosure. Jip, also pretending he was doing nothing in particular, followed him at a short distance. Everyone seemed to be abed and not a soul did Matthew meet till he came to the gate the Doctor had spoken of. Making sure that no one saw him, the Cat’s-Meat-Man quickly undid the latch and set the gate ajar. Then he strolled away toward Sophie’s stand while Jip remained to watch the gate.

He hadn’t been gone more than a minute when along came the circus watchman with a lantern. He closed the gate, and, to Jip’s horror, locked it with a key. Jip, still pretending he was just sniffing round the fence after rats, waited till the man had disappeared again. Then raced off toward Sophie’s stand to find Matthew.

Now things had not turned out for the Cat’s-Meat-Man as easy as he had expected. On approaching the seal’s tank house, he had seen from a distance the figure of Higgins sitting on the steps smoking and looking at the moon. Matthew therefore withdrew into the shadow of a tent and waited till the seal’s keeper should go away to bed.

Higgins, he knew, slept in a wagon close to Blossom’s on the other side of the enclosure. But while he watched and waited, instead of Higgins going away, another figure, the watchman’s, came joined the man on the steps, sat down and started chatting. Presently Jip, smelling out Matthew behind the tent, came up and tried frantically to make him understand that the gate he had opened had been closed again and locked.

Jip had very little success in trying to make the Cat’s-Meat-Man understand him, and for nearly an hour Matthew stayed in the shadow waiting for the two figures on the steps of Sophie’s stand to move away and leave the coast clear for him to let the seal free. In the meantime John Dolittle in his narrow dark passage outside the circus enclosure wondered what the delay was and tried to read his watch by the dim light of the moon.

Finally Matthew decided that the two men were never going to bed. So, swearing under his breath, he crept away from the shadow of the tent and set off to seek Theodosia, his wife.

On arrival at his own wagon he found her darning socks by the light of the candle.

“Pst! – Theodosia,” he whispered through the window. “Listen.”

“Good Lord!” gasped Mrs. Mugg dropping her needlework. “What a fright you gave me, Matthew! Is it all right? Has the seal got away?”

“No, it’s all wrong. Higgins and the watchman are sitting on the steps talking. I can’t get near the door while they’re there. Go up and draw ’em off for me, will yer? Tell ’em a tent’s blown down or something – anything to get ’em away. They’re going to set there all night if something ain’t done.”

“All right,” said Theodosia. “Wait till I get my shawl. I’ll bring them over here for some cocoa.”

Then the helpful Mrs. Mugg went off and invited Higgins and the watchman to come to her husband’s wagon for a little party. Matthew would be along to join them presently, she said.

As soon as the coast was clear the Cat’s-Meat-Man sped up the steps of the seal’s stand and in a minute his nimble fingers had the door unlocked. Just inside lay Sophie, all ready to start out upon her long journey. With a grunt of thanks she waddled forth into the moonlight, slid down the steps and set off clumsily towards the gate.

Once more Jip tried his hardest to make Matthew understand that something was wrong. But the Cat’s-Meat-Man merely took the dog’s signals of distress for joy and marched off to join his wife’s cocoa party, feeling that his share of the night’s work had been well done.

In the meantime Sophie had waddled her way labouriously to the gate and found it locked.

Jip had then gone all around the fence, trying to find a hole big enough for her to get through. But he met with no success. Poor Sophie had escaped the captivity of her tank only to find herself still a prisoner within the circus enclosure.

Everything that had happened up to this had been carefully watched by a little round bird perched on the roof of the menagerie. Too-Too, the listener, the night seer, the mathematician, was more than usually wide awake. And presently, while Jip was still nosing round the fence trying to find Sophie a way out, he heard the whir of wings over his head and an owl alighted by his side.

“For heaven’s sake, Jip,” whispered Too-Too, “keep your head. The game will be up if you don’t. You’re doing no good by running round like that. Get Sophie into hiding – push her under the flap of a tent or something. Look at her, lying out in the moonlight there, as though this were Greenland! If anyone should come along and see her we’re lost. Hide her until Matthew sees what has happened to the gate. Hurry – I see someone coming.”

As Too-Too flew back to his place on the menagerie roof, Jip rushed off to Sophie and in a few hurried words explained the situation to her.

“Come over here,” he said, “Get under the skirt of this tent. So – Gosh! Only just in time! There’s the light of a lantern moving. Now lie perfectly still and wait till I come and tell you.”

And in his little dark passage beyond the circus fence John Dolittle once more looked at his watch and muttered:

“What can have happened? Will she never come?”

It was not many minutes after Matthew had joined the cocoa party in his own wagon that the watchman rose from the table and said he ought to be getting along on his rounds. The Cat’s-Meat-Man, anxious to give Sophie as much time as possible to get away, tried to persuade him to stay.

“Oh, stop and have another cup of cocoa!” said he. “This is a quiet town. Nobody’s going to break in. Fill your pipe and let’s chat a while.”

“No,” said the watchman – “thank ye. I’d like to, but I mustn’t. Blossom give me strict orders to keep movin’ the whole night. If he was to come and not find me on the job I’d catch it hot.”

And in spite of everything Matthew could do to keep him, the watchman took his lamp and left.

Higgins, however, remained. And while the Cat’s-Meat-Man and his wife talked pleasantly to him of politics and the weather, they expected any moment to hear a shout outside warning the circus that Sophie had escaped.

But the watchman, when he found the stand open and empty, did not begin by shouting. He came running back to Matthew’s wagon.

“Higgins,” he yelled, “your seal’s gone!”

“Gone!” cried Higgins.

“Gone!” said Matthew. “Can’t be possible!”

“I tell you she ’as,” said the watchman. “Er door’s open and she ain’t there.”

“Good heavens!” cried Higgins springing up. “I could swear I locked the door as usual. But if the gates in the fence was all closed she can’t be far away. We can soon find ’er again. Come on!”

And he ran out of the wagon – with Matthew and Theodosia, pretending to be greatly disturbed, close at his heels.

“I’ll go take another look at the gates,” said the watchman. “I’m sure they’re all right. But I’ll make double certain anyway.”

Then Higgins, Matthew and Theodosia raced off for the seal’s stand.

“The door’s open, sure enough,” said Matthew as they came up to it. “’Ow very peculiar!”

“Let’s go inside,” said Higgins. “Maybe she’s hiding at the bottom of the tank.”

Then all three of them went in and by the light of matches peered down into the dark water.

Meanwhile the watchman turned up again.

“The gates are all right,” he said – “closed and locked, every one of them.”

Then at last Matthew knew something had gone wrong. And while Higgins and the watchman were examining the water with the lamp, he whispered something to his wife, slipped out and ran for the gate, hoping Theodosia would keep the other two at the stand long enough for his purpose.

As a matter of fact she played her part very well, did Mrs. Mugg. Presently Higgins said:

“There ain’t nothing under the water. Sophie’s not here. Let’s go outside and look for her.”

Then just as the two men turned to leave Theodosia cried, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” said Higgins turning back.

“That – down there,” said Mrs. Mugg pointing into the dirty water. “I thought I saw something move. Bring the lantern nearer.”

The watchman crouched over the edge of the tank; and Higgins, beside him, screwed up his eyes to see better.

“I don’t see nothing,” said the keeper.

“Oh! Oh! I’m feeling faint!” cried Mrs. Mugg. “Help me. I’m going to fall in!”

And Theodosia, a heavy woman, swayed and suddenly crumpled up on the top of the two crouching men.

Then, splash! splash! – in fell, not Theodosia, but Higgins and the watchman – lamp and all.

• • • • •

•   2   •

“Animals’ Night” at the Circus

The white mouse was the only one of the Doctor’s pets that witnessed that scene in Sophie’s tank-house when Mrs. Mugg pushed the two men into the water by-accident-on-purpose. And for weeks afterward he used to entertain the Dolittle family circle with his description of Mr. Higgins, the seal keeper, diving for fish and coming up for air.

That was one of the busiest and jolliest nights the circus ever had – from the animals’ point of view; and the two men falling in the water and yelling for help was the beginning of a grand and noble racket which lasted for a good half hour and finally woke every soul in Ashby out of his sleep.

First of all, Blossom, hearing cries of alarm, came rushing out of his caravan. At the foot of the steps a pig appeared from nowhere, rushed between his legs and brought him down on his nose. Throughout the whole proceedings Gub-Gub never let Blossom get very far without popping out from behind something and upsetting him.

Next Fatima, the snake charmer, ran from her boudoir with a candle in one hand and a hammer in the other. She hadn’t gone two steps before a mysterious duck flew over her head and with one sweep of its wing blew the candle out. Fatima ran back, relit the candle and tried again to go to the rescue. But the same thing happened. Dab-Dab kept Fatima almost as busy as Gub-Gub kept Blossom.

Then Mrs. Blossom hastily donning a dressing-gown, appeared upon the scene. She was met by the old horse Beppo, who had a habit of asking people for sugar. She tried to get by him and Beppo made politely to get out of her way. But in doing so he trod on her corns so badly that she went howling back to bed again and did not reappear.

But, although the animals managed by various tricks to keep many people occupied, they could not attend to all the circus folk; and before long the watchman and Higgins, yelling murder in the tank, had attracted a whole lot of tent riggers and other showmen to Sophie’s stand.

Now, in the meantime, Matthew Mugg had reopened the gate in the fence. But when he looked around for Sophie she was nowhere to be seen. Jip and Too-Too, as a matter of fact, were the only ones who really knew where she was. Jip, however, with all this crowd of men rushing around the seal’s stand near the gate, was afraid to give Sophie the word to leave her hiding place. More of Blossom’s men kept arriving and adding to the throng. Several lanterns were lit and brought onto the scene. Everybody was shouting, one half asking what the matter was, the other half telling them. Mr. Blossom, after being thrown down in the mud by Gub-Gub for the sixth time, was hitting everyone he met and bellowing like a mad bull. The hubbub and confusion were awful.

At last Higgins, and the watchman were fished out of their bathtub, and highly perfumed with kerosene and fish, they joined the hunt.

The watchman and everyone was sure that Sophie must be somewhere near – which was quite true: the tent, under the skirt of which she was lying, was only thirty feet from her stand. But the gate by which she was to pass out was also quite near.

While Jip was wondering when the men would move away so he could let her go, Higgins cried out that he had found a track in the soft earth. Then a dozen lanterns were brought forward, and the men started to follow the trail that Sophie had left behind on the way to her hiding place.

Luckily, with so many feet crossing and recrossing the same part of the enclosure the flipper marks were not easy to make out. Nevertheless, even with Matthew doing his best to lead them off on a wrong scent, the trackers steadily moved in the right direction – toward the tent where poor Sophie, the devoted wife, lay in hiding with a beating heart.

John Dolittle, waiting impatiently in his little passage, had heard the noise of shouting from the circus. He knew that meant Sophie had got out from her stand. But as minute after minute went by and still she did not come to the meeting place the Doctor’s uneasiness increased a hundred-fold.

But his anxiety was no worse than Jip’s. Closer and closer the trackers came toward the spot where he had hidden the seal. The poor dog was in despair.

However, he had forgotten Too-Too the mathematician. From his lookout on the menagerie roof, away off on the far side of the enclosure, the little owl was still surveying the battlefield with a general’s eye. He was only waiting till he was sure that all the circus folk had left their beds to join the hunt and that there were no more to come. When he played his master stroke of strategy, he did not want any extra interference from unexpected quarters.

Suddenly he flew down to a ventilator in the menagerie wall and hooted softly. Instantly there began within the most terrible pandemonium that was ever heard. The lion roared, the opossum shrieked, the yak bellowed, the hyena howled, the elephant trumpeted and stamped his floor into kindling wood. It was the grand climax to the animals’ conspiracy.

On the other side of the enclosure the trackers and hunters stood still and listened.

“What in thunder’s that?” asked Blossom.

“Coming from the menagerie, ain’t it?” said one of the men. “Sounds like the elephant’s broke loose.”

“I know,” said another: “it’s Sophie. She’s got into the menagerie and scared the elephant.”

“That’s it,” said Blossom. “Lord, and us huntin’ for ’er over here! To the menagerie!” And he grabbed up a lantern and started to run.

“To the menagerie!” yelled the crowd. And in a moment, to Jip’s delight, they were all gone, rushing away to the other side of the enclosure.

All but one. Matthew Mugg, hanging back, pretending to do up his shoelace, saw Jip flash across to a small tent and disappear under the skirt.

“Now,” said Jip. “Run, Sophie! – Swim! Fly! Anything! Get out of the gate!”

Hopping and flopping, Sophie covered the ground as best she could while Jip yelped to her to hurry and Matthew held the gate open. At last the seal waddled out onto the road and the Cat’s-Meat-Man saw her cross it and disappear into the passage alongside the deserted house. He closed the gate again, and stamped out her tracks at the foot of it. Then he leaned against it mopping his brow.

“Holy smoke!” he sighed. “And I told the Doctor I done worse things than help a seal escape! If I ever—”

A knock sounded on the gate at his back. With shaking hands he opened it once more; and there stood a policeman, his little bull’s-eye lantern shining at his belt. Matthew’s heart almost stopped beating. He had no love for policemen.

“I ain’t done nothing!” he began. “I—”

“What’s all the row about?” asked the constable. “You’ve got the whole town woke up. Lion broke loose or something?”

Matthew heaved a sigh of relief.

“No,” he said. “Just a little trouble with the elephant. Got his leg caught in a rope and pulled a tent over. We ’ave ’im straightened out now. Nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, is that all?” said the policeman. “Folks was going around asking if the end of the world was come. Good night!”

“Good night, constable!” Matthew closed the gate for the third time – “And give my love to all the little constables,” he added under his breath as he set off for the menagerie.

And so at last John Dolittle, waiting, anxious and impatient, in the dark passage alongside the empty house, heard to his delight the sound of a peculiar footstep. A flipper-step, it should more properly be called; for the noise of Sophie travelling over a brick pavement was a curious mixture between someone slapping the ground with a wet rag and a sack of potatoes being yanked along a floor.

“Is that you, Sophie?” he whispered.

“Yes,” said the seal, hitching herself forward to where the Doctor stood.

“Thank goodness! What in the world kept you so long?”

“Oh, there was some mix-up with the gates,” said Sophie. “But hadn’t we better be getting out of the town? It doesn’t seem to me very safe here.”

“There’s no chance of that for the present,” said the Doctor. “The noise they made in the circus has woken everybody. We dare not try and get through the streets now. I just saw a policeman pass across the end of the passage there – luckily for us, just after you popped into it.”

“But then what are we going to do?”

“We’ll have to stay here for the present. It would be madness to try and run for it now.”

“Well, but suppose they come searching in here. We couldn’t—”

At that moment two persons with lanterns stopped at the end of the passage, talked a moment and moved away.

“Quite so,” whispered the Doctor. “This isn’t safe either. We must find a better place.”

Now, on the side of this alleyway there was a high stone wall and on the other a high brick wall. The brick wall enclosed the back garden belonging to the deserted house.

“If we could only get into that old empty house,” murmured the Doctor. “We’d be safe to stay there as long as we wished – till this excitement among the townsfolk dies down. Can you think of any way you could get over that wall?”

The seal measured the height with her eye.

“Eight feet,” she murmured – “I could do it with a ladder. I’ve been trained to walk up ladders. I do it in the circus, you know. Perhaps—”

“Sh!” whispered the Doctor. “There’s the policeman’s bull’s-eye again. Ah, thank goodness, he’s passed on! Listen, there’s just a chance I may find an orchard ladder in the garden. Now you wait here, lie flat, and wait till I come back.”

Then John Dolittle, a very active man in spite of his round figure, drew back and took a running jump at the wall. His fingers caught the top of it; he hauled himself up, threw one leg over and dropped lightly down into a flower-bed on the other side. At the bottom of the garden he saw in the moonlight what he guessed to be a tool-shed. Slipping up to the door, he opened it and went in.

Inside his groping hands touched and rattled some empty flower pots. But he could find no ladder. He found a grass-mower, a lawn-roller, rakes and tools of every kind, but no ladder. And there seemed little hope of finding one in the dark. So he carefully closed the door, hung his coat over the dirty little cobwebby window, in order that no light should be seen from the outside, and struck a match.

And there, sure enough, hanging against the wall right above his head, was an orchard ladder just the right length. In a moment he had blown out the match, opened the door and was marching down the garden with the ladder on his shoulder.

Standing it in a firm place, he scaled up and sat astride the wall. Next he pulled the ladder up after him, changed it across to the other side and lowered the foot-end into the passage.

Then John Dolittle, perched astride the top of the wall (looking exactly like Humpty Dumpty), whispered down into the dark passage below him:

“Now climb up, Sophie. I’ll keep this end steady. And when you reach the top get onto the wall beside me till I change the ladder over to the garden side. Don’t get flustered now. Easy does it.”

It was a good thing that Sophie was so well trained in balancing. Never in the circus had she performed a better trick than she did that night. It was a feat that even a person might well be proud of. But she knew that her freedom, the happiness of her husband, depended on her steadiness. And, though she was in constant fear that any minute someone might come down the passage and discover them, it gave her a real thrill to turn the tables on her captors by using the skill they had taught her in this last grand performance to escape them.

Firmly, rung by rung, she began hoisting her heavy body upward. The ladder, fortunately, was longer than the height of the wall. Thus the Doctor had been able to set it at an easier, flattish slope, instead of straight upright. With the seal’s weight it sagged dangerously; and the Doctor on the wall prayed that it would prove strong enough. Being an orchard ladder, for tree-pruning, it got very narrow at the top. And it was here, where there were hardly room enough for a seal’s two front flappers to take hold, that the ticklish part of the feat came in. Then, from this awkward situation Sophie had to shift her clumsy bulk onto the wall, which was no more than twelve inches wide, while the Doctor changed the ladder.

But in the circus Sophie had been trained to balance herself on small spaces, as well as to climb ladders. And after the Doctor had helped her by leaning down and hoisting her up by the slack of her sealskin jacket, she wiggled herself along the top of the wall beside him and kept her balance as easily as though it were nothing at all.

Then, while Sophie gave a fine imitation of a statue in the moonlight, the Doctor hauled the ladder up after her, swung it over – knocking his own high hat off in the process – and lowered it into the garden once more.

Coming down, Sophie did another of her show tricks: she laid herself across the ladder and slid to the bottom. It was quicker than climbing. And it was lucky she did slide. For the Doctor had hardly lowered the ladder to the lawn when they heard voices in the passage they had left. They had only just got into the garden in time.

“Thank goodness for that!” said the Doctor when the sound of footsteps had died away. “A narrow squeak, Sophie! Well, we’re safe for the present, anyway. Nobody would dream of looking for you here. Oh, I say, you’re lying on the carnations. Come over here onto the gravel. – So. Now, shall we sleep in the tool-shed or the house?”

“This seems good enough to me,” said Sophie, wallowing into the long grass of the lawn. “Let’s sleep outdoors.”

“No, that will never do,” said the Doctor. “Look at all the houses around. If we stay in the garden people could see us out of the top windows when daylight came. Let’s sleep in the tool-shed. I love the smell of tool-sheds – and then we won’t have to break open any doors.”

“Nor climb any stairs,” said Sophie, humping along toward the shed. “I do hate stairs. Ladders I can manage: but stairs are the mischief.”

Inside the tool-shed they found by the dim light of the moon several old sacks and large quantities of bass-grass. Out of these materials they made themselves two quite comfortable beds.

“My, but it’s good to be free!” said Sophie, stretching out her great, silky length. “Are you sleepy, Doctor? I couldn’t stay awake another moment if you paid me.”

“Well, go to sleep then,” said the Doctor. “I’m going to take a stroll in the garden before turning in.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

In the Deserted Garden

The Doctor, always fascinated by any kind of a garden, lit his pipe and strolled out of the tool-shed into the moonlight. The neglected appearance of the beds and lawns of this deserted property reminded him of his own beautiful home in Puddleby. There were weeds everywhere. John Dolittle could not abide weeds in flower-beds. He pulled one or two away from the roots of a rose-tree. Further along he found them thicker still, nearly smothering a very fine lavender bush.

“Dear me!” he said, tiptoeing back to the shed for a hoe and a basket. “What a shame to neglect a fine place like this!”

And before long he was weeding away by moonlight like a Trojan – just as though the garden were his own and no danger threatened him within a thousand miles.

“After all,” he muttered to himself as he piled the basket high with dandelions, “we are occupying the place – and rent free at that. This is the least I can do for the landlord.”

After he had finished the weeding he would have got the mower and cut the lawn – only that he was afraid the noise might wake the neighbours.

And when, a week later, the owner of the property rented the place to his aunt, that good lady entirely puzzled her nephew by writing to congratulate him on the way he had had his garden kept!

The Doctor, going back to bed after a hard night’s work, suddenly discovered that he was hungry. Remembering the apple-trees he had noticed behind a wistaria arbour, he turned back. But no fruit could he find. It had all been gathered or taken by marauding boys. Knowing that he would not be able to move about the garden after daylight came, he then started hunting for vegetables. But in this he had no better luck. So, with the prospect of a foodless day before him tomorrow, he finally went to bed.

In the morning the first thing Sophie said when she woke up was:

“My! I’ve been dreaming about the dear old sea all night. It’s given me a wonderful appetite. Is there anything to eat around, Doctor?”

“I’m afraid not,” said John Dolittle. “We’ll have to go without breakfast – and lunch, too, I fear. I dare not to try to get out of here by daylight. As soon as it gets dark, though, I may be able to go by myself and bring you some kippers or something from a shop. But I hope that late tonight they’ll have given up hunting for you and that we can both make for the open country and get on our way to the sea.”

Well, Sophie was very brave and made the best of it. But, as the day wore on they both got ravenously hungry. Somewhere near one o’clock in the afternoon, Sophie, suddenly said:

“Sh! Did you hear that?”

“No,” said the Doctor, who was looking for onions in a corner of the shed. “What was it?”

“It’s a dog barking in the passage – the other side of the garden wall. Come out from under the bench and you’ll hear it. Goodness! I do hope they’re not hunting me with dogs now. The game’s up if they do.”

The Doctor crawled out from under a potting table, came to the door and listened. A low, cautious bark reached his ears from over the wall.

“Good Heavens!” he muttered. “That’s Jip’s voice. I wonder what he wants.”

Not far from the shed there was a thick, branchy pear tree standing close to the wall. Making sure no one saw him from the windows of houses overlooking the garden, the Doctor sped across and got behind the tree.

“What is it, Jip?” he called. “Is anything wrong?”

“Let me in,” Jip whispered back. “I can’t get over the wall.”

“How can I?” said the Doctor. “There’s no door and I’m afraid the neighbours may see me if I move out in the open.”

“Get a rope and tie a basket on the end,” whispered Jip. “Then throw it over the wall behind the tree and I’ll get in it. When I bark, pull on the rope and haul me up. Hurry! I don’t want to be seen around this passage.”

Then the Doctor crept back to the tool shed, found a planting line and tied the garden basket on the end of it.

Returning to the cover of the tree, he threw the basket over the wall, but kept the end of the line in his hand.

Presently a bark sounded from the passage and he started hauling in the rope. When the basket reached the top of the wall on the other side Jip’s head appeared.

“Keep the rope tight, but tie it to the tree,” he whispered. “Then spread your coat out like an apron. I want you to catch some things.”

The Doctor did as he was told. And Jip threw down to him the contents of the basket: four ham sandwiches, a bottle of milk, two herrings, a razor, a piece of soap and a newspaper. Then he threw the empty basket onto the lawn.

“Now catch me,” said Jip. “Hold your coat real tight. Ready? One, two, three!”

“My goodness!” said the Doctor, as the dog took the flying dive and landed neatly in the coat. “You could perform in the circus yourself.”

“I may take it up some day,” said Jip carelessly. “Whereabouts in this place have you been living? In the cellar?”

“No. Over there in the tool shed,” whispered the Doctor. “Let’s slip across quietly and quickly.”

A minute later they were safe in the tool shed, Sophie was gulping a herring and the Doctor was chewing hungrily on a ham sandwich.

“You’re a marvel, Jip,” said he with his mouth full. “But how did you know we were here – and in need of food? Both of us were just starving.”

“Well,” said Jip, throwing the seal another herring, “after Sophie got out of the gate the excitement still went on inside the circus. Blossom and his men hunted around all night. Then we decided, from the people’s heads popping out of the windows, that the town, too, was pretty much disturbed by the rumpus. Too-Too was awfully worried.

“‘I do hope,’ he kept saying, ‘that the Doctor has not tried to get out into the country. He’ll surely be caught if he has. The thing for him to do for the present is to hide.’

“So, all night long we sat up expecting any minute to see you and Sophie dragged back into the circus. Well, morning came and still you hadn’t been captured – and, as far as I know, nobody suspects that you, Doctor, have had anything to do with it. But the circus folk were still searching even when daylight came, and Too-Too kept fussing and worrying. So I said to him, I said:

“‘I’ll soon tell you if the Doctor is still in Ashby or not.’

“And I went off on a tour of inspection. It was a damp morning and a good one for smelling. I made a circular trip right round the outside of the town. I knew that if you had left it by any means except flying I could pick up your scent. But nowhere did I cross the Dolittle trail. So I went back to Too-Too and I said:

“‘The Doctor hasn’t left Ashby yet – unless he went by balloon.’

“‘Good,’ says he. ‘Then he’s safe in hiding some place. He’s got wits, has the Doctor – in some things. Now, nose him out – and come back and tell me where he is. In the meantime I’ll have some food got ready for him. Both he and the seal will be hungry. They’ve neither of them had a thing probably since noon yesterday, and they’ll certainly have to stay where they are till late tonight.’

“So then I went smelling around inside the town and picked up your incoming trail from where the coach stops. And it led me first, as I expected, by roundabout side streets to the dark passage. But from there, to my surprise, it didn’t go on – just stopped dead. Sophie’s didn’t go on any further either. Well, I knew you couldn’t have crept down a rat hole or flown up in the air; and for a couple of minutes I was absolutely fogged. Then, suddenly, I got a whiff of tobacco smoke coming over the wall – I know the brand you smoke – and I was certain you were in the garden. But, if you ask me, I should say that both of you are pretty fine jumpers.”

The Doctor laughed as he started on a second sandwich, and even Sophie, wiping her fishy whiskers with the back of her flipper, smiled broadly.

“We didn’t jump the wall, Jip,” said John Dolittle. “We used that ladder over there. But how did you get this food here without being seen?”

“It wasn’t easy,” said Jip, “not by any means. Too-Too and Dab-Dab made up the sandwiches, and we got Sophie’s herrings from Higgins’ fish pail. The milk was delivered at our wagon by the usual dairyman. Then Too-Too said you’d surely like to see a newspaper – to pass the time – if you had to stay here all day; and I chose The Morning Gazette, which is the one we had often seen you reading. Then the white mouse said not to forget your razor and soap, because you hated to go without shaving. And we put them in. But all this stuff together weighed quite a lot – too much for me to carry in one trip. So I made two, hiding the first load behind an ash barrel in the passage till I could fetch the second. On the first journey I got stopped by an old woman – you see, I had the things rolled up in the newspaper, so they wouldn’t look so noticeable. ‘Oh, my,’ said the old lady, ‘look at the nice doggie carrying the newspaper for his master! Come here, clever doggie!’

“Well, I gave the old frump the slip and got away from her all right. And then on the second trip I met some more idiots – dog idiots. They caught the scent of the herrings I was carrying for Sophie and started following me in droves. I ran all round the town trying to get away from them and nearly lost the luggage more than once. Finally I put my package down and fought the whole bunch of them. – No, it wasn’t an easy job.”

“Goodness!” said the Doctor, finishing his last sandwich and opening the milk. “It’s wonderful to have such friends. I’m awfully glad you thought of the razor. I’m getting terribly bristly around the chin. – Oh, but I haven’t any water.”

“You must use milk,” said Jip. “Steady! Don’t drink it all. We thought of that, too, you see.”

“Humph,” said the Doctor setting down the half empty bottle. “That’s an idea. I never shaved with milk before. Ought to be splendid for the complexion. You don’t drink it, Sophie, do you? No. Oh, well, now we’re all fixed up.”

And he took off his collar and began to shave.

After he had finished, Jip said:

“Well, I must be leaving, Doctor. I promised them at the caravan I’d come and let them know how everything was going with you as soon as I could. If you don’t succeed in getting away tonight, I’ll be back again the same time tomorrow, with some more grub. The townsfolk have pretty much calmed down. But Higgins and Blossom haven’t given up the hunt yet by any means. So you will be careful, won’t you? You’re all safe and snug here. Better stay two days – or even three more, if necessary, rather than run for it too soon and get caught.”

“All right, Jip,” said the Doctor. “We’ll be careful. Thank you ever so much for coming. Remember me to everyone.”

“Me, too,” said Sophie.

“And tell Too-Too and the rest we are ever so grateful for their help,” the Doctor added as he opened the door of the shed.

Then they slipped across to the pear tree again. And after he had climbed into the branches of it, the Doctor poked Jip, inside the basket, over the wall and let him down on the string into the passage.

Nothing further of excitement happened for some hours. And though, from time to time, they heard the voices of people hunting for them in the passage and the streets around, a pleasant afternoon was spent by the two fugitives, the Doctor reading the paper and Sophie lolling thoughtfully on her bed.

After darkness began to fall John Dolittle could no longer see to read; so he and Sophie took to chattering over plans in low tones.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get away tonight, Doctor?” asked Sophie. “Surely, they’ll have given up hunting me by then, won’t they?”

“I hope so,” said the Doctor. “As soon as it’s dark I’ll go out into the garden and see if I hear anything. I know how anxious you are to be getting along on your trip. But try and be patient.”

About half an hour later the Doctor took the ladder, and mounting near the top of the garden wall, he listened long and carefully.

When he came back to Sophie in the tool shed he was shaking his head.

“There are still an awful lot of people moving about in the streets,” he said. “But whether they are circus men hunting you, or just ordinary townsfolk walking abroad, I can’t make out. We’d better wait a while longer, I think.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Sophie. “Are we never going to get further than this garden? Poor Slushy! I’m so worried.”

And she began to weep softly in the darkness of the shed.

After another hour had gone by the Doctor went out again. This time, just as he was about to climb the ladder, he heard Jip was whispering to him on the other side of the wall.

“Doctor, are you there?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Listen! Higgins and the boss have gone off somewhere with a wagon. Blossom just came and told Matthew to take on some extra jobs with the circus because he wouldn’t back for a while. Too-Too thinks it’s a grand chance for you to make a dash for it and get out of the town. Start in an hour, when the circus is in full swing and the men are all busy. Have you got that?”

“Yes, I heard you. Thank you, Jip. All right. We’ll leave in an hour.” And the Doctor looked at his watch. “Which way did Blossom go?”

“East – toward Grimbledon. Swizzle followed them out a ways and came back and told us. You make for the West. Turn to the left at the end of this passage and then double to the left again at the next corner. It’s a dark by-street and it leads you out onto the Dunwich Road. Once you reach that you’ll be all right. There aren’t many houses on it and you’ll be in the open country in no time. I’m leaving some more sandwiches here in the passage for you. Pick them up on your way out. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, I understand,” whispered the Doctor. Then he ran back to the shed with the good news.

Poor Sophie, when she heard they were to leave that night, stood up on her tail and clapped her flippers with joy.

“Now, listen,” said the Doctor: “if we meet anyone on the street – and we are pretty sure to – you lie down by the wall and pretend you’re a sack I’m carrying – that I’m taking a rest, you see. Try and look as much like a sack as you can. Understand?”

“All right,” said Sophie, “I’m frightfully excited. See how my flippers are fluttering.”

Well, the Doctor kept an eye on his watch; and long before the hour had passed he and Sophie were waiting at the foot of the ladder ready and impatient.

Finally, after looking at the time once more, the Doctor whispered:

“All right, I think we can start now. Let me go first, so I can steady the ladder for you, the way I did before.”

But, alas, for poor Sophie’s hopes! Just as the Doctor was half way up, the noise of distant barking, deep-voiced and angry, broke out.

John Dolittle paused on the ladder, frowning. The barking, many dogs baying together, drew nearer.

“What’s that?” said Sophie in a tremulous whisper from below. “That’s not Jip or any of our dogs.”

“No,” said the Doctor, climbing down slowly. “There’s no mistaking that sound. Sophie, something’s gone wrong. That’s the baying of bloodhounds – bloodhounds on a scent. And they’re coming – this way!”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Leader of the Bloodhounds

Jip, after his last conversation with the Doctor over the garden wall, returned to the caravan and his friends, feeling comfortably sure that now everything would go all right.

He and Too-Too were chatting under the table while Dab-Dab was dusting the furniture, when suddenly in rushed Toby, all out of breath.

“Jip,” he cried. “The worst has happened! They’ve got bloodhounds. That’s what Blossom and Higgins went off for. There’s a man who raises them, it seems, in the next village. They’re bringing ’em here in a wagon – six of ’em. I spotted them just as they entered the town over the toll-bridge. I ran behind and tried to speak to the dogs. But with the rattle of the wagon-wheels they couldn’t hear me. If they put those hounds on Sophie’s trail she’s as good as caught already.”

“Confound them!” muttered Jip. “Where are they now, Toby?”

“I don’t know. When I left them they were crossing the market place, on their way here at the trot. I raced ahead to let you know as quick as I could.”

“All right,” said Jip, springing up. “Come with me.”

And he dashed out into the night.

“They’ll try and pick up the trail from the seal’s stand,” said Jip as the two dogs ran on together across the enclosure. “Perhaps we can meet them there.”

But at the stand there were no bloodhounds.

Jip put his nose to the ground and sniffed just once.

“Drat the luck!” he whispered. “They’ve been here already and gone off on the trail. Listen, there they are, baying now. Come on! Let’s race for the passage. We may be in time yet.”

And away he sped like a white arrow toward the gate, while poor little Toby, left far behind, with his flappy ears trailing in the wind, put on his best speed to keep up.

Dashing into the passage, Jip found it simply full of men and dogs and lanterns. Blossom was there, and Higgins and the man who owned the hounds. While the men talked and waved the lamps, the hounds, six great, droopy-jowled beasts, with long ears and bloodshot eyes, sniffed the ground and ran hither and thither about the alley, trying to find where the trail led out. Every once in a while they would lift their noses, open their big mouses and send a deep-voiced howl rolling toward the moon.

By this time other dogs in the neighbourhood were answering their back from every backyard. Jip ran into the crowded passage, pretending to join in the hunt for scent. Picking out the biggest bloodhound, who, he guessed, was the leader, he got alongside of him. Then, still keeping his eyes and nose to the ground, he whispered in dog language:

“Get your duffers out of here. This is the Doctor’s business – John Dolittle’s.”

The bloodhound paused and eyed Jip haughtily.

“Who are you, mongrel?” he said. “We’ve been set to run down a seal. Stop trying to fool us. John Dolittle is away on a voyage.”

“He’s nothing of the kind,” muttered Jip. “He’s on the other side of that wall – not six feet away from us. He is trying to get this seal down to the sea, so she can escape these men with the lanterns – if you idiots will only get out of the way.”

“I don’t believe you,” said the leader. “The last I heard of the Doctor he was travelling in Africa. We must do our duty.”

“Duffer! Numbskull!” growled Jip, losing his temper entirely. “I’m telling you the truth. For two pins I’d pull your long ears. You must have been asleep in your kennel the last two years. The Doctor’s been back in England over a month. He’s travelling with the circus now.”

But the leader of the bloodhounds, like many highly trained specialists, was (in everything outside his own profession) very obstinate and a bit stupid. He just simply would not believe that the Doctor wasn’t still abroad. In all his famous record as a tracker he had never failed to run down his quarry, once he took up a scent. He had a big reputation, and was proud of it. He wasn’t going to be misled by every whipper-snapper of a dog who came along with an idle tale – no, not he.

Poor Jip was in despair. He saw that the hounds were now sniffing at the wall over which Sophie had climbed. He knew that these great beasts would never leave this neighbourhood while the seal was near and her fishy scent so strong all about. It was only a matter of time before Blossom and Higgins would guess that she was in hiding beyond the wall and would have the old house and garden searched.

While he was still arguing an idea came to Jip. He left the knot of bloodhounds and nosed his way carelessly down to the bottom of the passage. The air was now simply full of barks and yelps from dogs of any kind. Jip threw back his head and pretended to join in the chorus. But the message he shouted was directed over the wall to the Doctor:

“These idiots won’t believe me. For heaven’s sake tell ’em you’re here – Woof! Woof! WOO – !”

And then still another doggish voice, coming from the garden, added to the general noise of the night. And this is what it barked:

“It is I, John Dolittle. Won’t you please go away? Wow! Woof! Wow-ow!”

At the sound of that voice – to Blossom and Higgins no different from any of the other yelps that filled the air – the noses of all six bloodhounds left the ground and twelve long ears cocked up, motionless and listening.

“By ginger!” muttered the leader. “It is he! It’s the great man himself.”

“What did I tell you?” whispered Jip, shuffling toward him. “Now lead these men off toward the south – out of the town, quick – and don’t stop running till morning.”

Then the dog trainer saw his prize leader suddenly double round and head out of the passage. To his delight, the others followed his example.

“All right, Mr. Blossom,” he yelled, waving his lantern. “They’ve got the scent again. Come on, follow ’em, follow ’em! They’re going fast. Stick to ’em! – Run!”

Tumbling over one another to keep up, the three men hurried after the hounds; and Jip, to help the excitement in the right direction, joined the chase, barking for all he was worth.

“They’ve turned down the street to the south,” shouted the owner. “We’ll get your seal now, never fear. Ah, they’re good dogs! Once they take the scent they never go wrong. Come on, Mr. Blossom. Don’t let ’em get too far away.”

And in a flash the little dark passage, which a moment before was full and crowded, was left empty in the moonlight.

Poor Sophie, weeping hysterically on the lawn, with the Doctor trying to comfort her, suddenly saw the figure of an owl pop up onto the garden wall.

“Doctor! Doctor!”

“Yes, Too-Too. What is it?”

“Now’s your chance! The whole town’s joined the hunt. Get your ladder. Hurry!”

And two minutes later, while the hounds, in full cry, led Blossom and Higgins on a grand steeple-chase over hill and dale to the southward, the Doctor led Sophie quietly out of Ashby by the Dunwich Road, toward the westward and the sea.

Long afterwards, when Sophie’s mysterious escape from her circus career had become ancient history, John Dolittle often told his pets that if he had only known at the beginning what kind of a job it was to move a seal secretly over a hundred miles of dry land he doubted very much if he would have had the courage to undertake it.

The second half of his adventures with Sophie, in which none of his own animals took part, came, indeed, to be a favourite tale with the Dolittle fireside circle for many, many years – particularly one chapter. And whenever the animals were feeling in need of a cheerful yarn they always pestered the Doctor to re-tell them the part of his elopement with the seal which Gub-Gub called “the Grantchester Coach.” But we are going ahead of our story.

When Sophie and John Dolittle had travelled down the Dunwich Road as far as where the houses of Ashby ended and the fields of the country began, they both heaved a sigh of relief. What they had been most afraid of while still in the streets was being met by a policeman. The Doctor guessed that Higgins had probably applied to the police station and offered a reward for the return of his lost property. If he had, of course, all the town constables would be very much on the look-out for stray seals.

As they now plodded along the road between hedge-rows, the Doctor could tell from Sophie’s heavy breathing and very slow pace that even this bit of land travel had already wearied the poor beast. Yet he dared not halt upon the highway.

Spying a copse over in some lonely farming lands to his left, he decided that it would make a good, snug place in which to take a rest. He therefore turned off the road, found a hole in the hedge for Sophie to crawl through and led her along a ditch that ran up toward the copse.

Arriving at the little clump of trees and brambles, they found it excellent cover and crawled in. It was the kind of place where no one would be likely to come in month of Sundays – except perhaps stray sportsmen after rabbits, or children berry-picking.

“Well,” said the Doctor, as Sophie flopped down, panting within the protection of dense hawthorns and furze, “so far, so good.”

“My!” said Sophie, “but I’m winded. Seals weren’t meant for this kind of thing, Doctor. How far do you reckon we’ve come?”

“About a mile and a half, I should say.”

“Good Lord! Is that all? And it’s nearly a hundred to the sea! I tell you what I think we ought to do, Doctor; let’s make for a river. Rivers always flow to the sea. I can travel in water as fast as a horse can run. But much more of this highroad walking will wear holes in the sole of my stomach. A river’s the thing we’ve got to make for.”

“Yes, I think you’re right, Sophie. But where to find one? That’s the point. If we were anywhere near Puddleby now I could tell you at once. But I don’t know a thing about the geography of these parts. I ought to have remembered to bring a map with me. I don’t want to be asking people – not yet, anyway. Because I’m still supposed to be miles away from here, attending to business.”

“Well, ask some animal, then,” said Sophie.

“Of course!” cried the Doctor. “Why didn’t I think of that before? Now, what kind of a beast could best give us the information we want?”

“Oh, any sort of water creature will do.”

“I know; we’ll ask an otter. Otters are about your nearest relatives in England, Sophie. They travel and hunt in fresh water very much the way you do in salt. Now you stay here and take a good rest and I’ll go off and find one.”

It was about one o’clock in the morning when the Doctor returned to the copse. The noise he made entering woke Sophie out of a sound sleep.

With him he had brought a rather unusual animal. In odd, curving, graceful leaps this creature kept bounding up out of the high bracken that carpeted the copse to get a good look at Sophie. He seemed somewhat afraid of her, but very interested.

“Isn’t she large, Doctor!” he whispered. “Did you say she was related to us?”

“In a way, yes. Though, strictly speaking, she is a pinniped, while your people are musteloids.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad of it. She is so clumsy. And look, she hasn’t any hind legs – just sort of stubby things. Are you sure she won’t bite?”

Finally, the otter was persuaded that Sophie was harmless, and, drawing close, he talked pleasantly with this other furred fisherman from foreign parts.

“Now,” said the Doctor, “as I have told you, we are anxious to get down to the sea by the quickest and quietest way possible. And Sophie thinks that the best thing is make for some stream.”

“Humph!” said the otter. “She’s quite right, of course. But you’ve come to a pretty poor place for waterways. The only reason I stay in this neighbourhood is because there are no otter hounds here. I live and do my fishing in a few ponds. They’re not much good, but at least I’m not hunted by the packs. There are no decent rivers in these parts – certainly none that she could swim in to the sea.”

“Well, where do you recommend us to go, then?” asked the Doctor.

“I really don’t know,” said the otter. “You see, I travel so little myself. I was born in this district. And my mother always told me that this was the only safe place left in England for otters to live. And so I’ve stayed here – my whole life.”

“Well, could you get us some fish, then?” asked Sophie. “I’m famished.”

“Oh, surely,” said the otter. “Do you eat carp?”

“I’d eat anything just now,” said Sophie.

“All right. Wait a minute till I go down to my pond,” said the otter, and he turned around and bounded out of the copse.

In less than ten minutes he was back again with a huge brown carp in his mouth. This Sophie disposed of in a couple of gulps.

“Why don’t you ask the wild ducks, Doctor?” said the otter. “They travel no end, following the waterways up and down to the sea, feeding. And they always go by the quietest streams, where they won’t meet people. They could tell you.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” said John Dolittle. “But where can I get hold of any?”

“Oh, that’s easy. They’re always flying by night. Just go up on a hill some place and listen. When you hear them passing overhead, call ’em.”

So, leaving Sophie and her fresh-water cousin chatting quietly in the copse, the Doctor climbed up a ridge till he came to a high field, from where he could see the moonlit sky all around him. And after a minute or two he heard, a long way off, a faint quacking and honking – wild ducks on the wing. Presently, high above his head, he could make out a V-shaped cluster of little dots, heading seaward.

Putting his two hands to his mouth, like a trumpet, he sent a call hurtling upward. The cluster paused, broke up and started flying round in circles, coming downward – cautiously – all the time.

Presently in the copse Sophie and the otter stopped chatting and listened tensely to the sound of approaching footsteps.

Then the figure of John Dolittle stepped into the hiding place, with a lovely green and blue duck tucked comfortably under each arm.

“Well,” said the ducks, after the Doctor had explained the situation to them and asked their advice, “the nearest river, big enough to be of any use to a seal, is the Kippet. Unfortunately, there are no brooks or anything leading into it from here. To reach the valley of Kippet River you’ll have to cross about forty miles of land.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “That sounds bad.”

“Very bad,” sighed Sophie, wearily. “Poor Slushy! Such a time I’m taking to get to him. What kind of land is this which we’ve got to cross?”

“It varies a good deal,” said the ducks. “Some of it’s hilly; some of it’s flat; part of it standing crops; part of it heath. It’s very mixed travelling.”

“Dear me!” groaned Sophie.

“Yes,” said the ducks, “it would be easier, as far as the river, if you went by road.”

“But don’t you see,” said the Doctor, “I’m afraid of being met and stopped? That’s why we left the Dunwich Road. There are too many people who’ve heard of our escape around these parts.”

“But,” said the ducks, “you wouldn’t have to go back onto the Dunwich Road. Listen; if you follow that hedge on westward, it will lead you down onto another road, the old Roman road from Igglesby to Grantchester. Coaches use it, going north and south. You’re not likely to meet Ashby folks on that. Well, if you go along that road for about forty miles north you’ll come to the Kippet River. The highway crosses it at Talbot’s Bridge – just before you enter the town of Grantchester.”

“It sounds simple for a good walker,” said the Doctor. “But for Sophie it’s another matter. Still, I suppose it’s the best. Follow the Grantchester Road north as far as Talbot’s Bridge, and there take to the river, the Kippet – is that it?”

“That’s right,” said the ducks. “You can’t go wrong, once you reach the road. After you take to the stream you’d better make some more inquiries of other water fowl, because, although the Kippet will lead you to the sea, there are places on it where you must be careful.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. “You have been most kind. I thank you.”

Then the ducks flew off about their business and John Dolittle looked at his watch.

“It’s now two o’clock in the morning,” said he. “We have three hours more before daylight comes. Would you prefer, Sophie, to stay here and rest till tomorrow evening, or shall we push on and get as far as we can before dawn?”

“Oh, let’s push on,” said Sophie.

“All right,” said the Doctor, “come along.”

While they were making their way along the hedge toward the road, the little otter went off and got Sophie a large meal of fresh fish, to help strengthen her for her hard trip. About a mile below, at the end of a long field, he showed them a hole through another hedge, told them the road was just the other side of it, and bade them farewell.

Crawling through, they came out upon a fine highway that stretched away into the night on either hand, wide and well paved.

With a sigh of resignation from Sophie, they turned to the right and set off northward.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Passengers from Penchurch

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” said Sophie, after they had travelled for about an hour. This road is just as hard and knobby and scrapy as the other one. How far have we come now?”

“About another mile,” said the Doctor.

Sophie began to weep big tears into the white dust of the road.

“Always ’about another mile!’ I’m afraid I’m being a dreadful nuisance to you, Doctor.”

“Oh, not at all,” said John Dolittle. “Don’t be downhearted. We’ll do it yet. It’ll be easy going, once we reach the river.”

“Yes, but we are still thirty-nine miles from that,” said Sophie. “And I’m so worn out.”

The Doctor looked down at her and saw that, indeed, she was in a very exhausted state. There was nothing for it but to halt again.

“Come over here,” he said – “off the road – so. Now, lie down in this ditch, where you won’t be seen, and take a rest.”

Poor Sophie did as she was told, and the Doctor sat down upon a milestone, thinking hard. Although he was doing his best to cheer Sophie along, it was beginning to look, at this rate, as though they could never get as far as the river.

While he was pondering drearily over the difficulties of the situation, Sophie suddenly said:

“What’s that noise?”

The Doctor looked up and listened.

“Wagon wheels,” he said. “You’re quite safe where you are. Just keep still till it passes. You’ll never be seen in the ditch.”

The rumbling noise drew nearer, and presently, round a bend in the road, a light came in sight. Soon the Doctor could see that it was a closed carriage of some kind. As it drew level with him the driver stopped his horses and called out:

“Are you waiting for the coach?”

“Er – er,” the Doctor stammered – “oh, are you the coach?”

“We’re one of ’em,” said the man.

“Where do you go to?” asked the Doctor.

“We are the local,” said the driver; “Penchurch to Anglethorpe. D’yer want to get in?”

While he hesitated over an answer a wild idea came into the Doctor’s head.

“Have you got many passengers?” he asked.

“No, only two – man and his wife – and they’re asleep. Plenty o’ room inside.”

The carriage, lit within by a lamp which shone dimly through drawn curtains, had stopped a little beyond the Doctor’s milestone. The driver, from where he sat, could see neither Sophie’s hiding place, nor the back door of his own coach.

“Are your passengers from these parts?” asked the Doctor, lowering his voice.

“No, we come from Penchurch, I told you. What more would you like to know? If you want to get in, hurry! Can’t stay talking all night.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Wait just a second till I get my luggage.”

“Want any help?”

“No, no, no! Stay where you are. I can manage.”

Then the Doctor slipped behind the end of the coach and opened the door. A man and a woman, with their heads sunk upon their chests, were dozing in the far corner. Leaving the door open, the Doctor ran to the ditch, put his arms around Sophie, and lifted her huge weight bodily in his arms.

“We’ll cover part of the ground this way, anyhow,” he whispered as he carried her to the coach. “Keep as still and quiet as you can. I’m going to stow you under the seat.”

For entering the carriage, whose floor stood high above the level of the road, there were two little iron steps hung below the door sill. As the Doctor looked in the second time the passengers were still apparently sleeping. But in trying to mount the steps with his tremendous burden he stumbled noisily. The woman in the corner woke up and raised her head. The Doctor, Sophie’s flippers still clinging about his neck, stared, speechless.

“John!”

It was Sarah.

Mrs. Dingle fainted with a shriek into her husband’s arms. The horses bolted. The Doctor lost his balance entirely. And the coach rattled off into the night, leaving him seated in the road, with Sophie on his lap.

“Heigh ho!” he sighed, picking himself up wearily. “Of course, it would be Sarah! It might have been anyone else in the world, but it had to be Sarah. Well, well!”

“But what did you mean to do?” asked Sophie. “You could never have got me under the seat. There wasn’t room there to hide a dog.”

“Oh, well, I just acted on the spur of the moment,” said the Doctor. “I might have got you a few miles on your journey – if I hadn’t stumbled and woken Sarah. Bother it! But, you know, Sophie, I think that the coach idea is our best scheme, anyhow. Only we must arrange it a little differently; we must lay our plans with care. In one way it was a good thing it was Sarah. If it had been anyone else who had seen me carrying a seal they might have talked and set people on our track. But Sarah and her husband are ashamed of my being in the circus business and they won’t say anything, we may be sure.

“Now, listen: over in the east the sky is growing grey – look. It’s no use our trying to get further today. So we’ll hide you in those woods down there, and then I’ll go on alone to the next village and find out a few things.”

So they moved along the highway a short distance to where some pleasant woods bordered the road.

Entering the cover of these preserves, they found a nice place for Sophie to lie hidden. Then, when he had made her comfortable, the Doctor set out down the road just as the cocks in the nearby farms began crowing their first greeting to the morning sun.

After a walk of about two miles he came to a village with a pretty little ivy-covered inn, called “The Three Huntsmen.” Going in, he ordered breakfast. He had not had anything to eat since he had left the deserted garden. A very old waiter served him some bacon and eggs in the tap-room.

As soon as the Doctor had eaten he lit his pipe and began chatting to the waiter. He found out a whole lot of things about the coaches that ran up and down the Grantchester Road – what the different ones were like to look at, at what hour they were to be expected, which of them were usually crowded, and much more.

Then he left the inn and walked down the street till he came to the few shops the village had. One of these was a general clothier’s and haberdasher’s. The Doctor entered and asked the price of a lady’s cloak which was hanging in the window.

“Fifteen shillings and sixpence,” said the woman in charge of the shop. “Is your wife tall?”

“My wife?” asked the Doctor, entirely bewildered. “Oh, ah, yes, of course. Well – er – I want it long, anyway. And I’ll take a bonnet, too.”

“Is she fair or dark?” asked the woman.

“Er – she’s sort of medium,” said the Doctor.

“There’s a nice one here, with red poppies on it,” said the woman. “How would she like that?”

“No, that’s too showy,” said the Doctor.

“Well, they do say them flowery ones is right fashionable up to London just now. How would this do?”

And the woman brought forward a large, plain, black bonnet. “This is very genteel. I wear this kind myself.”

“Yes, I’ll take that one,” said the Doctor. “And now I want a lady’s veil – a heavy one, please.”

“Oh, mourning in the family?”

“Er – not exactly. But I want it pretty thick – a travelling veil.”

Then the woman added a veil to the Doctor’s purchases. And with a large parcel under his arm he presently left the shop. Next, he went to a grocery and bought some dried herrings for Sophie – the only kind of fish he could obtain in the village. And about noon he started back down the road.

“Sophie,” said John Dolittle, when he reached the seal’s hiding place in the woods, “I have a whole lot of information for you, some food and some clothes.”

“Some clothes!” said Sophie. “What would I do with clothes?”

“Wear them,” said the Doctor. “You’ve got to be a lady – for a while, anyhow.”

“Great heavens!” grunted Sophie, wiping her whiskers with the back of her flipper. “What for?”

“So as you can travel by coach,” said the Doctor.

“But I can’t walk upright,” cried Sophie, “like a lady.”

“I know. But you can sit upright – like a sick lady. You’ll have to be a little lame. Any walking there is to be done, I’ll carry you.”

“But what about my face? It isn’t the right shape.”

“We’ll cover that up with a veil.” said the Doctor. “And your hat will disguise the rest of your head. Now, eat this fish I’ve brought you and then we will rehearse dressing you up. I hear that the Grantchester coach passes by here about eight o’clock – that is, the night one does; and we’ll take that, because it’s less crowded. Now, it’s about a four hours’ ride to Talbot’s Bridge. During all that time you’ll have to sit up on your tail and keep still. Do you think you can manage that?”

“I’ll try,” said Sophie.

“Perhaps you’ll have a chance to lie down for a spell if we have the carriage to ourselves part of the way. Much will depend upon how crowded the coach is. It makes three stops between here and Talbot’s Bridge. But being a night coach, I don’t suppose it will take on many passengers – if we’re lucky. Now, let me try these clothes on you and we’ll see how you look.”

Then the Doctor dressed up Sophie, the performing seal, like a lady. He seated her on a log, put the bonnet on her head, the veil across her face and the cloak over the rest of her.

After he had got her into a human sitting position on the log it was surprising how natural she looked. In the deep hood of the bonnet her long nose was entirely concealed; and with the veil hung over the front of it, her head looked extraordinarily like a woman’s.

“You must be careful to keep your whiskers inside,” he said. “That’s very important. The cloak is quite long, you see – comes right down to the ground – and while you are seated and it’s kept closed in the front it will look quite all right in a dim light. You can keep it drawn together with your flippers – so. Now, you look just as though you had your hands folded in your lap – that’s the idea, splendid! So long as you can stay that way no one would take you for anything but a lady passenger. – Oh, look out! Don’t wiggle your head or the bonnet will fall off. Wait till I tie the ribbons under your chin.”

“How am I supposed to breathe?” asked Sophie, blowing out the veil in front like a balloon.

“Don’t do that,” said the Doctor. “You’re not swimming or coming up for air. You’ll get used to it after a while.”

“I can’t keep very steady this way, Doctor. I’m sitting on the back of my spine, you know. It’s an awfully hard position for balancing – much worse than walking on a ladder. What if I should slip down on to the floor of the coach?”

“The seat will be wider than this log and more comfortable. Besides, I’ll try to get you into a corner and I’ll sit close beside you – so you’ll be sort of wedged in. If you feel yourself slipping just whisper to me and I’ll hitch you up into a safer position. You look splendid – really, you do.”

Well, after a little more practise and rehearsing the Doctor felt that Sophie could now pass as a lady passenger. And when evening came it found him by the edge of the road, with a heavily-veiled woman seated at his side, waiting for the Grantchester coach.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Grantchester Coach

After they had waited about a quarter of an hour, Sophie said:

“I hear wheels, Doctor. And look, there are the lights, far down the road.”

“Yes,” said John Dolittle. “But it isn’t the coach we want. That’s the Twinborough Express – a green light and a white light. The one we want has two white lights in front. Step back a little further into the shadow of the hedge. Try not to walk on your cloak. You mustn’t get it muddy.”

A little while after the Twinborough Express had rattled by, along came another.

“Ah!” said the Doctor. “This is ours, the Grantchester coach. Now sit up by the side of the road here and keep perfectly still till I signal the driver. Then I’ll lift you in, and let’s hope we find a corner seat empty. Is your bonnet on tight?”

“Yes,” said Sophie. “But the veil is tickling my nose most awfully. I do hope I don’t sneeze.”

“So do I,” said the Doctor, remembering the cow-like bellow that seals make when they sneeze.

Then John Dolittle stepped out into the middle of the road and stopped the coach. Inside he found three passengers – two men at the far end and an old lady near the door. To his delight, the corner seat opposite the old lady was empty.

Leaving the door open, he ran back and got Sophie and carried her to the coach. The two men at the far end were talking earnestly together about politics. They took little notice as the lame woman was lifted in and made comfortable in the corner seat. But as the Doctor closed the door, and sat beside his companion he noticed that the old lady opposite was very interested in his invalid.

The coach started off, and the Doctor, after making sure that Sophie’s feet were not showing below the long cape, got out a newspaper from his pocket. Although the light from the oil lamp overhead was too dim to read by, he spread out the paper before his face and pretended to be deeply absorbed in it.

Presently the old lady leaned forward and tapped Sophie on the knee.

“Excuse me, my dear,” she began in a kindly voice.

“Oh, er” – said the Doctor, looking up quickly. “She doesn’t talk – er – that is, not any English.”

“Has she got far to go?” asked the old lady.

“To Alaska,” said the Doctor, forgetting himself – “er – that is, eventually. This journey we’re only going to Grantchester.”

Wishing people would mind their own business, the Doctor plunged again into his paper as though his life depended on his reading every word.

But the kindly passenger was not easily put off. After a moment she leaned forward once more and tapped the Doctor on the knee.

“Is it rheumatics?” she asked in a whisper, nodding toward Sophie. “I noticed that you had to carry her in, poor dear!”

“Er, not exactly,” stammered the Doctor. “Her legs are too short. Can’t walk. Can’t walk a step. Been that way all her life.”

“Dear me!” sighed the old lady. “How sad; how very sad!”

“I’m slipping,” whispered Sophie behind her veil. “In a minute I’m going to slide on to the floor.”

While the Doctor was putting away his newspaper and getting ready to hitch Sophie up higher, the old lady spoke again;

“What a nice sealskin coat she’s wearing!”

Sophie’s knee was sticking out through the cloak.

“Yes. She has to be kept warm.” said the Doctor, busily wrapping his invalid up. “Most important.”

“She’ll be your daughter, I suppose?” asked the old lady.

But this time Sophie spoke for herself. A deep roar suddenly shook the carriage. The tickling of the veil had finally made her sneeze. The Doctor was now standing up, but before he could catch her she had slid down on to the floor between his feet.

“She’s in pain, poor thing,” said the old lady. “Wait till I get out my smelling bottle. She’s fainted. I often do it myself, travelling. And this coach does smell something horrible – fishy-like.”

Luckily for the Doctor, the old lady then busied herself hunting in her handbag. He was therefore able, while lifting the seal back on to the seat, to place himself in between Sophie and the two men, who were now also showing interest in her.

“Here you are,” said the old lady, handing out a silver smelling bottle. “Lift up her veil and hold it under her nose.”

“No, thank you,” said the Doctor quickly. “All she needs is rest. She’s very tired. We’ll prop her up snugly in the corner, like this – so. Now let’s not talk, and probably she’ll soon drop off to sleep.”

Well, finally the poor Doctor got the little old lady to mind her own business and keep quiet. And for about an hour and a half the coach continued on its way without anything further happening. But it was quite clear that the men at the other end were puzzled and curious about his invalid. They kept glancing in her direction and talking together in whispers in a way that made him very uneasy.

Presently the coach stopped at a village to change horses. The driver appeared at the door and told the passengers that if they wished to have supper at the inn (in whose yard they had halted) they had half an hour to do so before they went on.

The two men left the coach, eyeing Sophie and the Doctor as they passed on their way out; and soon the old lady followed their example. The driver had now also disappeared and John Dolittle and his companion had the coach to themselves.

“Listen, Sophie,” the Doctor whispered. “I’m getting uneasy about those two men. I’m afraid they suspect that you are not what you pretend to be. You stay here now, while I go in and find out if they’re travelling any further with us.”

Then he strolled into the inn. In the passage he met a serving maid and asked the way to the dining room. She showed him an open door with a screen before it a little way down the passage.

“Supper will be served in a minute,” she said. “Just walk in and sit down.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “By the way, do you happen to know who those two men were who came in off the coach just now?”

“Yes, sir,” said the maid. “One of them’s the County Constable and the other’s Mr. Tuttle, the Mayor of Penchurch.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, and passed on.

Reaching the screen door, he hesitated a moment before entering the dining room. And presently, he heard the voices of the two men seated at a table within on the other side of the screen.

“I tell you,” said one in a low tone, there’ not the least doubt. They’re highwaymen, as sure as you’re alive. It’s an old trick, disguising as a woman. Did you notice the thick veil? As likely as not it’s that rogue, Robert Finch himself. He robbed the Twinborough Express only last month.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said the other. “And the short, thick villain will be Joe Gresham, his partner. Now, I’ll tell you what we’ll do – after supper let’s go back and take our seats as though we suspected nothing. Their plan, no doubt, is to wait till the coach is full and has reached a lonely part of the road. Then they’ll hold up the passengers – money or your life! – and get away before the alarm can be raised. Have you got your travelling pistols?”

“Yes.”

“All right, give me one. Now, when I nudge you – you tear off the man’s veil and hold a pistol to his head. I’ll take care of the shorter one. Then we’ll turn the coach about, drive back and lodge them in the village jail. Understand?”

While the Doctor was still listening the maid came down the passage again with a tray full of dishes, and touched him on the back.

“Go in, sir,” she said, “and sit down. I’m just going to serve supper.”

“No, thank you,” said the Doctor. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll go out into the air again.”

Luckily, on reaching the yard, he found it deserted. The horses had been taken out of the shafts and put into the stable. The new ones had not yet been hitched up to the coach. The Doctor sped across the yard and opened the door.

“Sophie,” he whispered, “come out of that. They think we’re highwaymen in disguise. Let’s get away – quick – while the coast is clear.”

Hoisting the seal’s huge weight in his arms, the Doctor staggered out of the yard with her. On account of the lateness of the hour there was no one in the road. All was still and quiet but for the rattle of dishes from the inn kitchen and the noise of watching from the stables.

“Now,” said he, putting her down, “we haven’t far to go. See, this place is the last in the village. Once we reach those fields and get beyond the hedge we should be all right. I’ll go ahead and find a place to get through, and you follow along as quick as you can. Give me your cloak and bonnet – that’s it. Now you can travel better.”

A few minutes later they were safe behind a high hedge, resting in the long grass of a meadow.

“My!” sighed Sophie, stretching herself out. “It’s good to be rid of that wretched cloak and veil. I don’t like being a lady a bit.”

“That was a narrow escape.” said the Doctor. “It’s a good thing I went in and overheard those men talking. If we had gone on with them in the coach we’d have been caught for sure.”

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll come hunting for us?” asked Sophie.

“Oh, maybe. But they’ll never look for us here. They take us for highwaymen, you see. And by the time they discover our escape they’ll probably think we’ve gone miles. We’ll wait here till the coach passes and then we needn’t worry.”

“Well,” said Sophie, “even if we are safe it doesn’t seem to me we are much better off than we were before.”

“But we’re this much farther on our way,” said the Doctor. “Have patience. We’ll do it yet.”

“How far have we come now?” asked Sophie.

“That village was Shottlake,” said the Doctor. “We’ve only got eighteen miles more to do to reach Talbot’s Bridge.”

“Well, but how are we going to travel? I can’t walk it, Doctor; I simply can’t – not eighteen miles.”

“S-h-h! Don’t speak so loud,” whispered John Dolittle. “They may be snooping around somewhere, looking for us. We’ll find a way – don’t worry. And, once we reach the river, the worst will be over. We must first wait till the coach goes by, though, before we can stir.”

“Poor Slushy!” murmured the Sophie, looking up at the moon. “I wonder how he’s getting on … will you try to take another coach, Doctor?”

“No. I think we’d better not. They may leave word at the inn and drivers will be on the lookout for a woman of your description.”

“Well, I hope they don’t find us here,” said Sophie. “It doesn’t seem to me we’re very well concealed. Good heavens! Listen – a footstep!”

The place where they lay was the corner of a pasture field. Besides the hedge which hid them from the road there was another, on their right, dividing their field from the next. Behind this they now heard a heavy footstep passing up and down.

“Keep still, Sophie!” whispered the Doctor. “Don’t move an inch.”

Presently the top branches of the hedge began to sway and the crackling of twigs reached their ears.

“Doctor,” said Sophie in a frightened whisper, “they’ve discovered us. There’s someone trying to get through the hedge!”

For a moment or two the Doctor was undecided whether to keep still or to run for it. He thought at first that if it was someone out looking for them he might not know exactly where they were, anyway, and would, perhaps, if they kept quiet, go to some other part of the hedge easier to pass through.

But the crackling of branches grew louder – only a few feet away from them. Whoever it was, he seemed determined to enter the field at that place. So, with a whispered word to Sophie, the Doctor sprang up and started off, running across the meadow, with the poor seal flopping along at his side.

On and on they went. Behind them they heard a crash as the hedge gave away, and then heavy footsteps beating the ground in pursuit.

From the sound the pursuer, whoever he was, was gaining on them. And presently the Doctor, fearing that as highwaymen they might be fired upon without warning, turned to look back.

And there, lumbering along behind them, was an old, old plough horse!

“It’s all right, Sophie,” panted the Doctor halting. “It isn’t a man at all. We’ve had our run for nothing. – Good lord, but I’m blown!”

The horse, seeing them stop, slowed down to a walk, and came ambling toward them in the moonlight. He seemed very decrepit and feeble; and when he came up Sophie saw with great astonishment that he was wearing spectacles.

“Heavens!” cried the Doctor. “It’s my old friend from Puddleby. Why didn’t you call to me, instead of chasing us across country? We expected you to shoot us in the back any minute.”

“Is that John Dolittle’s voice I hear?” asked the old horse, peering close into the Doctor’s face.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Can’t you see me?”

“Only very mistily,” said the plough horse. “My sight’s been getting awful bad the last few months. I saw fine for quite a while after you gave me the spectacles. Then I got sold to another farmer, and I left Puddleby to come here. One day I fell on my nose while ploughing, and after I got up my spectacles didn’t seem to work right at all. I’ve been almost blind ever since.”

“Let me take your glasses off and look at them,” said the Doctor. “Perhaps you need your prescription changed.”

Then John Dolittle took the spectacles off the old horse and, holding them up to the moon, peered through them, turning them this way and that.

“Why, good gracious!” he cried. “You’ve got the lenses all twisted. No wonder you couldn’t see! That right glass I gave you is quite a strong one. Most important to have them in proper adjustment. I’ll soon set them right for you.”

“I did take them to the blacksmith who does my shoes,” said the old horse, as the Doctor started screwing the glasses around in the frames. “But he only hammered the rims and made them worse then ever. Since I was brought to Shottlake I couldn’t come to you about them and, of course, our local vet doesn’t understand horse’s glasses.”

“There, now,” said the Doctor, putting the spectacles back on his old friend’s nose. “I’ve fixed them tight, so they can’t turn. I think you’ll find them all right now.”

“Oh, my, yes,” said the old horse, a broad smile spreading over his face as he looked through them. “I can see you as plain as day. Goodness! How natural you look – big nose, high hat and all! The sight of you does me good. Why, I can see the blades of grass by moonlight! You’ve no idea what an inconvenience it is to be shortsighted, if you’re a horse. You spend most of your grazing time spitting out the wild garlic that you chew by accident … . My, oh, my! You’re the only animal doctor there ever was!”

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

The Highwayman’s Double

“Is he a decent fellow, this farmer you’re working for now?” asked the Doctor, seating himself in the grass of the meadow.

“Oh, yes,” said the old horse. “He means well. But I haven’t done much work this year. He’s got a younger team for ploughing. I’m sort of pensioned off – only do odd jobs. You see, I’m getting pretty old – thirty-nine, you know.”

“Are you, indeed?” said the Doctor. “You don’t look it – nothing like it. Thirty-nine! Well, well! Yes, to be sure, now I recollect. You had your thirty-sixth birthday the same week I got you your spectacles. You remember the garden party we gave for you – in the kitchen garden – when Gub-Gub overate himself with ripe peaches?”

“Very well, I do. Ah, those were the days! Good, old Puddleby! But what’s this animal you have with you,” asked the plough horse as Sophie moved restlessly in the grass, “a badger?”

“No, that’s a seal. Let me introduce you: this is Sophie, from Alaska. We’re escaping from the circus. She has to go back to her country on urgent business, and I’m helping her get to the sea.”

“Sh!” said Sophie. “Look, Doctor, there’s the coach going by.”

“Thank goodness for that!” murmured John Dolittle as the lights disappeared down the road.

“You know,” said he, turning to the old horse again, “we’ve had a hard time getting even this far. Sophie has to keep concealed, and she can’t walk much. We are making for the Kippet River, at Talbot’s Bridge. We came by coach up to Shottlake, but we had to leave it. We were just wondering how we could continue our journey when you scared the life out of us behind that hedge.”

“You want to get to Talbot’s Bridge?” said the old horse. “Well, that should be easy. Listen; you see that barn up on the sky-line? Well, there’s an old wagon in it. There’s no harness but there’s plenty of ropes. Let’s run up there, and you can hitch me between the shafts, put your seal in the wagon and we’ll go.”

“But you’ll get into trouble,” said the Doctor, “taking your farmer’s wagon off like that.”

“My farmer will never know,” said the old horse, grinning behind his spectacles. “You leave the gate on the latch as we go out and I’ll bring the wagon back and put it where we found it.”

“But how will you get out of your harness alone?”

“That’s easy. If you knot the ropes the way I tell you, I can undo them with my teeth. I won’t be able to take you the whole way, because I couldn’t get back in time to put the wagon up before daylight comes. But I’ve got a friend about nine miles down the Grantchester Road, on the Redhill Farm. He gets put out to graze nights, like me. He’ll take you the rest of the way. It’ll be easy for him to get back to his place before anyone’s about.”

“Old friend,” said the Doctor, “you have a great head. Let’s hurry and get on our way.”

Then they climbed the hill to the barn. Inside they found an old wagon. The Doctor dragged it out. Then, getting down some ropes that hung coiled against the wall, he rigged up a kind of harness, with the help of an old collar, which he found thrown up in the manger. And when the plough horse had set himself between the shafts John Dolittle hitched him up, being careful to make all the knots exactly the way he was told.

Then he lifted Sophie into the wagon and they started off down the meadow towards the gate.

As they were going out the Doctor said:

“But suppose anyone should meet me driving a wagon in a high hat? Wouldn’t it seem sort of suspicious? Oh, look: there’s a scarecrow in the next field. I’ll borrow his hat.”

“Bring the whole scarecrow with you,” the old horse called after him as the Doctor started off. “I’ll need something as a dummy driver when I’m coming back. Folks would stop me if they thought I was straying around the country without a driver.”

“All right,” said the Doctor and he ran off.

In a few minutes he came marching back with the scarecrow on his shoulder. Then he set the gate on the latch, so the old horse could push it open on his return, threw the scarecrow up into the wagon and climbed in himself.

Next, he took the scarecrow’s tattered hat and put in on his own head, in place of his high one. Then he got into the driver’s seat, lifted the rope reins in his hands, called “Gee-up!” to his old friend between the shafts and they started off.

“You better keep your cloak and bonnet ready to slip on, Sophie,” said he. “Somebody might ask for a ride. And if we are compelled to give anyone a lift you’ll have to be a lady again.”

“I’d sooner be almost anything in the world than a lady,” sighed Sophie, remembering the tickling veil. “But I’ll do it if you say so.”

Thus, driving his own farm-wagon coach, with a scarecrow and a seal for passengers, John Dolittle successfully completed the next stage in his strange journey. They passed very few people, and no one asked for a ride. They had one anxious moment, however, when a gentleman armed with pistols in his saddle-holsters galloped up on a very fine horse and asked if they had seen anything of a man and a veiled woman along the road.

The Doctor, sitting on top of Sophie, leaned on the side of his wagon, with his scarecrow hat pulled well down over his eyes.

“I saw a couple getting into a field a few miles back,” he said, trying to talk like a yokel. “But I reckon they be a long ways from there by now.”

“That’ll be they, sure enough,” said the man putting spurs to his horse: “Finch and Gresham the highwayman. They boarded the coach below Shottlake. But they got away before we could arrest them. Never mind, we’ll get ’em yet. Good night!”

And he galloped off down the road.

“Poor Mr. Finch!” said the Doctor, as the old horse moved on. “I’m afraid we are not improving his reputation for him.”

“It’s a good thing I got you away from Shottlake,” said the old horse. “I reckon that fellow will set the whole country busy hunting for you now.”

“Their hunting won’t do us any harm back at Shottlake,” said the Doctor. “Good thing if they’re kept busy. But I hope you don’t get into trouble on your return to the farm.”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” said the old horse. “Even if I’m seen they’ll never guess how I got hitched up. Don’t bother about me. I’ll manage.”

A little further on the plough horse stopped.

“This is Redhill Farm on the right,” said he. “Wait till I call Joe.”

Then he went close to the hedge beside the road and neighed softly. Presently there was a scampering of hoofs and his friend, a much younger horse, poked his head over the hawthorns.

“I’ve got John Dolittle here,” whispered the plough horse. “He wants to get to Talbot’s Bridge in a hurry. Can you take him?”

“Why, certainly,” said the other.

“You’ll have to use a wagon of your own,” said the plough horse. “I must get mine back to the barn before my farmer wakes up. Got a cart or something anywhere about the place?”

“Yes, there’s a trap up in the yard. It’ll be faster than a wagon. Come over this side of the hedge, Doctor, and I’ll show you where it is.”

Then, hurrying lest daylight overtake them, they made the exchange. Madame Sophie was transferred from a farm wagon to a smart trap. The old plough horse, after an affectionate farewell from the Doctor, started back with his own wagon, driven by his scarecrow propped up on the front seat. At the same time John Dolittle and Sophie were carried at a good, swift pace in the opposite direction, towards the Kippet River.

It was not until some time afterward, when the Doctor revisited his old friend – in a way you will hear of later on – that he learned the story of that return journey which the plough horse made alone. About halfway back to his farm he met the gentleman with the pistols again, still galloping up and down the Grantchester Road, looking for Robert Finch, the highwayman. Recognizing the wagon and the driver whom he had met before, the rider stopped and asked some more questions. The driver of the wagon didn’t answer. The man repeated his questions. Still the driver sat motionless in his seat, saying not a word. Growing at last somewhat suspicious, the horseman leaned forward in his saddle and pulled the hat off the driver’s face.

The face was made of straw and rags!

The horsemen, seeing he had been fooled, felt sure that the man who drove the wagon the first time he met it must have been the real highwayman, and that this scarecrow driver was just another of Finch’s clever dodges to put the police on the wrong scent. Another wild story was added to the list of Finch’s wonderful pranks – in one night he had passed himself off as a woman and as a scarecrow!

Then, to mix things up still more, that same day at two o’clock in the morning the real Robert Finch held up and robbed the Ipswich coach, more than a hundred miles away. And how he got across England to do it in that short time is still one of the great mysteries in the history of highway robbery. John Dolittle had been quite right when he said that they were adding to Finch’s reputation!

On arriving at his own farm, the old horse found everyone in a great state of excitement. People are rushing wildly up and down the fields with lanterns. The scarecrow had been missed – so had the old wagon, so had the old horse. The farm labourers were following the wheel tracks across the meadow. As soon as the plough horse reached the gate he was surrounded by a mob with lamps and guns, all guessing and advising and chattering at once. But his owner, thinking he had been stolen and harnessed by the highwayman, did not blame him for the adventure. And for long afterward he was visited in his pasture and pointed out by the village gossips as the horse who had been driven by Finch’s scarecrow double.

In the meantime the Doctor and Sophie, in their trap, were spanking along the road in the direction of Talbot’s Bridge. And, although the horseman (he was the County Constable’s Assistant) galloped after them as hard as he could, he never overtook them, with the good start they had gained.

On reaching the river, the Doctor lifted Sophie out of the trap and dropped her over the bridge into the stream. Telling the Redhill horse to go back to his farm by a different way, lest he be met by the man again, John Dolittle leapt off the parapet of the bridge on to the bank. Then, while he ran along the stream beside her, Sophie, with gurgles of delight, plunged and darted through the river, catching all the fish she wanted on the way.

• • • • •

•   2   •

To the Sea by River

As they had expected, John Dolittle and Sophie now found that the worst part of their troublesome travelling was over. For one thing, the constant anxiety of being seen worried them no longer. If they met anyone on the banks of the stream Sophie just ducked under water till the danger was past, while the Doctor pretended he was fishing, with a willow wand for rod and a piece of string for line.

They still had a long way to go. The journey north to Talbot’s Bridge, you see, had not brought them any nearer to the coast.

The country through which the Kippet flowed was changeful scenery, but always beautiful and pleasant. Sometimes it was flat, sedgy meadowland, where the banks were boggy; sometimes the streams run through little forests and the shores were overhung with alders; and sometimes it passed close by a farm with fords, where cattle drunk. At these places the travellers would either wait till nightfall, lest they be seen, or if the depth of the river permitted, Sophie would do her swimming underwater while the Doctor would go around by the roads and meet her further down.

While the going was, for the most part, easy for a seal, it was by no means always simple for the Doctor. The hundreds of hedges he had to get through, the walls he had to climb, the bogs he had to cross, made his part of the journey a hard and slow one. Sophie had to slacken her pace constantly and do a lot of loitering and waiting in order that he might keep up with her.

“Look here, Doctor,” said she, about the middle of the second day when John Dolittle was resting on the bank, “it doesn’t seem to me there is really any need for you to come further. This going is so easy for me I can do the rest of the journey by myself, can’t I?”

“I think not,” said the Doctor, lying back and gazing up at the willows over his head. “We don’t know yet what sort of difficult places the river may run you into before it reaches the sea. We had better consult some other waterfowl, as the ducks said we should, before we go further.”

Just at that moment a pair of fine bitterns flew down into the stream not far away and started feeding. The Doctor called them and they came up at once to his side.

“Would you please tell us,” said John Dolittle, “how much further the river runs before it reaches the sea?”

“Counting all the bends and wiggles,” said the bitterns, “about sixty miles.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “Then we are barely halfway yet. What kind of country does it pass through? This seal wishes to swim all the way to the coast, and we must avoid having people see her on the way.”

“Well,” said the birds, “you will have plain sailing for another ten miles yet. But after that there are several places pretty dangerous for a seal to travel. The first one is Hobb’s Mill. It’s a water mill, you understand, and the stream is dammed up with a high dam, a weir and a big water wheel. She’ll have to leave the water at Hobb’s Mill and join it again below.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “we can do that, I imagine. Then, what’s the next trouble?”

“The next is a town. It isn’t a large one, but it has machinery buildings in it on the river bank. And the river is made to run into pipes to turn these machines, and if your seal went floating down the pipes she’d get all mixed up in the machinery.”

“I understand,” said the Doctor. “Then we’ll have to go around the town by land – after dark.”

“Go around to the right,” said the bitterns – “to the northward. On the other side the machinery-men’s houses spread out a long way.

“After that you’ll be all right till you get very nearly to the sea. But there you will meet with another town – a port. Your seal can’t possibly swim through that town because the river flows over many little waterfalls and rapids right where the houses and bridges are thickest. So as soon as you come in sight of the port you had better leave the stream again, and make for the seashore at some lonely place to the north of it. You won’t have far to go, but you’ll have to do some stiff climbing, for the coast thereabouts is all high cliffs. If you get safely past the port without being caught your troubles will be over.”

“Well, thank you very much,” said the Doctor. “This knowledge will be most helpful to us. Now, I think we had better be getting on our way.”

Then after wishing John Dolittle good luck, the bitterns went back to their feeding, and the Doctor proceeded along the bank with Sophie swimming in the river.

They reached Hobbs’s Mill just as evening was coming on. As soon as the Doctor had explored around the buildings to see that all was quiet and nobody abroad, Sophie got out of the stream and hobbled across a couple of meadows and joined the river below the mill-race on the other side. There they waited till the moon rose, and soon, with sufficient light for the Doctor to see his way along the shore, they went on again.

Coming in sight of the machinery town of which the bitterns had spoken, John Dolittle left Sophie with orders to duck under water if anyone should pass that way, and went forward into the town to explore and get some food for himself.

Although most of the shops were shut at this hour, he managed to buy some sandwiches and fruit at a hotel. In making these purchases he noticed that his supply of money was getting very low. Indeed, he had only just enough to pay for what he had bought. However, never having bothered much about money, this did not disturb him. And after spending his last twopence to get his boots cleaned – they were frightfully muddy from all this boggy walking – he proceeded to explore a way for Sophie to come around the town by land.

The journey she would have to make on foot proved to be quite a long one. But the Doctor found a way over a chain of ponds, waterlogged meadows and a little brook which ran into the Kippet about two miles the other side of the town.

By the time he returned to Sophie the night was nearly passed, and they had to hurry to reach the river again before daylight came.

With Sophie safely back in the stream, John Dolittle decided he had better take a little sleep before going on. Sophie, too, was pretty weary, in spite of her anxiety to push on with all possible speed. So, asking a little moor-hen, who had her nest in the bank of the stream to mount guard and wake them on the approach of danger, they both took a nap – Sophie sleeping in the water, with her head poked out onto a stump, and the Doctor propped against a willow tree on the shore.

The sun was high in the heavens when he awoke, to find the moor-hen plucking at his sleeve.

“There’s a farmer driving a team across the meadow,” whispered the little bird. “He’ll come right by here. He might not take any notice of you, but Sophie he couldn’t miss. Get her to stick her head under the water. She’s snoring like a foghorn, and I can’t wake her up.”

After the Doctor had made Sophie disappear beneath the water, and the danger of discovery was past, they started off once more and travelled all day and the following night toward the sea.

Gradually the landscape changed to a kind of scenery which, so far, they had not met with on their journey. The country, open turfy downs where sheep grazed, got rollier and hillier. And, finally, on the evening of the next day, they saw the lights of the seaport town twinkling in the distance. The land either side of it sloped upward to cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel.

A little further down the stream roads ran either side of the river, presumably going into the town. Along these, every once in a while, coaches and carriages passed them on their way to the port.

Feeling that it would be unwise to go further by water, they now left the stream for the last time and hit out across country.

The Doctor made Sophie keep her bonnet on, and he had her cloak ready to throw over her at any minute, because there were many roads to cross, and farmhouses to pass upon the way.

About a mile had to be covered before they would reach the top of the long slope and come in sight of the sea beyond the cliffs. Picking out a line which would miss most of the barns on the downs, they proceeded steadily and slowly forward. On this upland country they met with many stone walls. And, though they were low enough for the Doctor to jump, they were too much for Sophie to manage and the Doctor had to lift her over.

She did not complain, but the uphill going was telling on her terribly. And when at last they came to a level stretch at the top, and the wind from the Channel beat in their faces, Sophie was absolutely exhausted and unable to walk another step.

The distance now remaining to the edge of the cliffs was not more than a hundred yards. Hearing the voices of people singing in a house near by, the Doctor began to fear that they might yet be discovered – even with the end of their long trip in sight. So, with poor Sophie in a state of utter collapse, he decided there was nothing for it but to carry her the remainder of the journey.

As he put the cloak about her he saw the door of the house open and two men come out. Hurriedly he caught the seal up in his arms and staggered with her toward the edge of the cliffs.

“Oh,” cried Sophie when they had gone a few yards, “look, the sea! How fresh and nice it sparkles in the moonlight. The sea, the sea at last!”

“Yes, this is the end of your troubles, Sophie,” the Doctor panted as he stumbled forward. “Give my regards to the herd when you reach Alaska.”

At the edge John Dolittle looked straight downward to where the deep salt water swirled and eddied far below.

“Good-by, Sophie,” he said with what breath he had left. “Good-by, and good luck!”

Then, with a last tremendous effort, he threw Sophie over the cliff into the Bristol Channel.

Turning and twisting in the air, the seal sped downward – her cloak and bonnet, torn off her by the rushing air, floating more slowly behind. And as she landed in the water the Doctor saw the white foam break over her and the noise of a splash gently reached his ears.

“Well,” he said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, “thank goodness for that! We did it, after all. I can tell Matthew that Sophie reached the sea and I didn’t go to jail.”

Then a cold shiver ran down his spine. A heavy hand had grasped his shoulder from behind.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Sir William Peabody, J. P.

John Dolittle, turning about slowly, found a large man grasping his collar. He wore some kind of a sailor-like uniform.

“Who are you?” asked the Doctor.

“Coastguard,” said the man.

“What do you want? Let go of my coat.”

“You’re arrested.”

“What for?”

“Murder.”

While the Doctor was still trying to recover from his astonishment he saw more people coming across the downs from the lonely house which he had already noticed. When they came close he saw they were two men and a woman.

“Have you got him, Tom?”

“Yes. Caught ’im right in the act.”

“What was it?”

“A woman,” said the coastguard. “I grabbed him just as he threw her over the cliff. Jim, you run down to the station and get the boats out. You may be in time to save her yet. But I doubt it. I’ll take him along to the quod. You come on down there or send me word, if you find anything.”

“It’ll be his wife,” said the woman, peering at the Doctor in awe and horror. “Murdered his wife! You Bluebeard! Maybe he’s a Turk, Tom – from Constanti-what-d’yer-call-it. They always throw their wives in the Phosphorus when they’ve done with ’em.”

“No, ’e ain’t no Turk,” said the coastguard. “’E talks English.”

“Then he ought to be still more ashamed of ’is-self,’ said the woman – “much more than if he’d been brought up to such habits – pore creature!” (She gazed over the edge of the cliff with a shudder.) “I wonder will they find ’er. Seems to me almost as though I could see something floating on the water down there. Pore creature! Well, that’s the end of her troubles. Maybe she’s better off than she was, married to him, the brute!”

“It wasn’t my wife,” said the Doctor sullenly.

“Who was it then?” asked the coastguard. “It was some women – ’cause I seen you carrying her in your arms.”

To this the Doctor decided, after a moment of thought, to say nothing. Now that he was arrested he would probably have to admit in the end that it was Sophie he had thrown into the sea. But until he was compelled in court to tell the whole story it seemed wiser to keep silence.

“Who was it?” the man repeated.

Still the Doctor said nothing.

“It was his wife all right,” said the woman. “He has a wicked eye. I’ll bet he has five or six wives stowed away somewhere – waiting for their doom, pore things.”

“Well, he don’t have to answer,” said the coastguard. “It’s my duty to warn you,” he said very grandly, turning to the Doctor, “that anything you say may be used in evidence against you. Now let’s go down to the court-house.”

Fortunately for the Doctor it was by this time well on into the early hours of the morning. And when after crossing the downs they finally made their way into the town they found the streets deserted. The woman had not accompanied them. And the Doctor and his coastguard reached the court-house without meeting a single soul.

Just as they were about to enter the police station next door, Jim, the other coastguard man, ran up and joined his companion with Sophie’s wet cloak on his arm and her bonnet in his hand.

“We couldn’t find the body, Tom,” said he, “but these clothes was floating at the foot of the cliff. I’ve left Jerry Bulkley in the boat still searching. I brought these down to you ’cause I thought you might want ’em.”

“Yes, they’ll be needed in evidence,” said the other, taking the things from him. “Better go back and carry on with the search. I’ll come and join you as soon as I’ve got the prisoner locked up.”

Then the poor Doctor was taken into the police station; and after his name and various particulars about him were written down in a big book he was placed in a little stone cell with some bread and water and left to his meditations.

As the noise of the clanging door and rattling bolts died away John Dolittle noticed the grey light of dawn creeping in at a little barred window at his elbow.

“Heigh-ho!” he sighed, gazing round the bare stone walls. “Jail again! I congratulated myself too soon. I wonder was Matthew ever in this prison.”

Where the morning sun fell in a patch upon the wall he noticed some letters and signs scratched in the stone by former prisoners. He crossed the cell and examined them. Among them he found a very badly made “M. M.”

“Yes,” he said, “Matthew’s been here, too. Seems proud of it. Well, well – it’s a funny world.”

Picking up the loaf which had been provided for him, he broke it in half and ate a couple of mouthfuls. He was very hungry.

“What good bread!” he murmured. “Quite fresh. I must ask the jailer where he gets it. The bed isn’t bad either,” he added, punching the mattress. “I think I’ll take a nap. Haven’t had a decent sleep in I don’t know how long.”

Then he took his coat off, rolled it up for a pillow and lay down.

And when, about ten o’clock in the morning, the superintendent of police entered with a tall white-haired gentleman they found the prisoner stretched on his cot snoring loudly.

“Humph!” murmured the old gentleman in a low voice. “He doesn’t look very dangerous, does he, Superintendent?”

“Ah,” said the other, shaking his head, “it only shows you, Sir William, what a life of crime will do. Fancy being able to sleep like that after throwing his poor wife into the sea!”

“Well, leave us alone for a little while,” said the older man. “Come back in about a quarter of an hour. And, by the way, you need not mention my visit here to anyone – not for the present.”

“Very good, Sir William,” said the superintendent. And he went out locking the door behind him.

Then the white-haired old gentleman went over to the cot and stood looking down a moment into the Doctor’s peaceful face.

Presently he shook the sleeper gently by the shoulder.

“Dolittle,” he said. “Here – John, wake up!”

Slowly the Doctor opened his eyes and raised himself on his elbow.

“Where am I?” he said drowsily. “Oh, yes, of course, in jail.”

Then he stared at the man who stood beside him. And at last a smile spread over his face.

“Heavens above! It’s Sir William Peabody,” said he. “Well, well, William! What on earth brings you here?”

“I might still more reasonably ask you how you come to be here,” said the visitor.

“My goodness!” murmured the Doctor. “It must be fifteen years since I’ve seen you. Let me see: the last time was when we both got pretty angry – you remember? – arguing for and against fox hunting. Have you given it up yet?”

“No,” said Sir William. “I still hunt two days a week. That’s all I can manage now with my court duties and other things. They made me a Justice of Peace about five years ago.”

“Well, it ought to be stopped,” said the Doctor with great earnestness, “altogether. You can say what you like, but the fox is not given a square deal. One fox against dozens of dogs! Besides, why should he be hunted? A fox has his rights, the same as you and I have. It’s absurd: a lot of grown men on horses, with packs of hounds, roaring across country after one poor little wild animal.”

The old gentleman sat down on the bed beside the Doctor, threw back his head and laughed.

“Same old Dolittle,” he chuckled. “Did anyone ever see the like? In jail, charged with murder, the first thing he does when I come to see him is try and open a discussion about fox hunting. Ever since I’ve known you, John – even when you were a scrubby little boy at school studying beetles under a magnifying glass – you’ve been the same. Listen: I haven’t come here to argue about the rights of foxes. As I told you, I’m a J. P. You’re due to appear before me for examination in about an hour. What I want to hear is your version of this charge that is brought against you. You are accused of murdering your wife. I happened to notice your name on the police book. From what I remember of you, I can well understand your killing any woman who was mad enough to marry you. But the part I don’t believe is that you ever had a wife. What’s it all about? They tell me you were seen throwing a woman into the sea.”

“It wasn’t a woman,” said the Doctor.

“What was it then?”

The Doctor looked down at his boots and fidgeted like a schoolboy caught doing something wrong.

“It was a seal,” he said at last, “a circus seal dressed up as a woman. She wasn’t treated properly by her keepers. And she wanted to escape, to get back to Alaska and her own people. So I helped her. I had the very dickens of a time bringing her across country all the way from Ashby. I had to disguise her as a woman so we could travel without arousing suspicion. And the circus folk were out after me. Then just as I got her here to the coast and was throwing her into the sea, so she could swim back to her native waters, one of your coastguard men saw me and put me under arrest. – What are you laughing about?”

Sir William Peabody, who had been trying to suppress a smile throughout the Doctor’s story, was now doubled up with merriment.

“As soon as they said it was your wife,” he gurgled when he had partly recovered, “I knew there was something fishy about it. And there was, all right! You do smell terribly.”

“Seals have to smell of fish,” said the Doctor in an annoyed tone. “And I was compelled to carry her part of the way.”

“You’ll never grow up, John,” said Sir William shaking his head and wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Now tell me: how far back on this trip of yours were you and the lady you eloped with seen? Because although we can certainly get you out of charge of wife murder, it may not be so easy to clear you on the charge of stealing a seal. Were you followed down here, do you think?”

“Oh, no. We were not bothered by the circus folk after we got away from Ashby. Then at Shottlake we got taken for highwaymen and caused a little sensation when we travelled by coach. But after that nobody suspected anything till – till—”

“Till you threw your lady-love over the cliff,” Sir William put in. “Did anyone see you being brought in here?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “No one down here knows anything about it except the three coastguardsmen and a woman – the wife of one of them, I suppose. The streets were quite empty when I was brought to the jail.”

“Oh, well,” said Sir William, “I think we can manage it. You’ll have to stay here till I can get the charge withdrawn. Then get away from this part of the country as quick as you can.”

“But what about the coastguard folk?” asked the Doctor. “Are they still hunting for the body?”

“No, they’ve given it up now,” said Sir William. “They brought back your victim’s cloak and bonnet. That was all they could find. We’ll say you were just throwing some old clothes into the sea – which is partly true. When I explain matters to them they won’t talk – and even if they do, it isn’t likely their gossip will ever reach your circus people. But listen, Dolittle: do me a favour and don’t bring any more menageries down here to throw over our cliffs, will you? It would get hard to explain if you made a habit of it. Besides you’ll spoil the circus business. Now you stay here till I’ve fixed things up officially; and as soon as they let you out, get away from this district. Understand?”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Thank you. But listen, Will, about that fox hunting. Supposing you were in the fox’s—”

“No,” said Sir William rising. “I refuse to re-open the argument now, John. I hear the superintendent coming back. We have too many foxes in this country. They need to be kept down.”

“Quite a nice prison you have here, Will,” said the Doctor as the superintendent opened the door. “Thanks for calling.”

When Sir William and the superintendent had disappeared the Doctor fell to walking up and down his cell for exercise. He began to wonder how things were getting on with his household in his absence. And he was still thinking over the animals’ idea of a reformed circus when, about half an hour later, a police-sergeant appeared at the door, extraordinarily polite and gracious.

“The superintendent presents his compliments, Doctor,” he said, “and apologizes for the mistake that was made. But it was not our department’s fault. It was the coastguards who made the arrest. Very stupid of them, very. The charge is now withdrawn, Sir, and you are free to go whenever you wish.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “I think I’ll go now. It’s a nice prison you have here – almost the best I was ever in. Tell the superintendent he needn’t apologize. I’ve had a most refreshing sleep – so well ventilated. It would make a splendid place for writing – undisturbed and airy. But unfortunately I have matters to attend to and must leave right away. Good day to you.”

“Good day, Sir,” said the sergeant. “You’ll find the exit at the end of the passage.”

At the front door of the police station the Doctor paused.

“My goodness!” he muttered. “I haven’t any money to pay the coach back to Ashby. I wonder if Sir William would lend me a guinea.”

And he turned back. But at the superintendent’s office he was told that the Justice of Peace had gone off hunting for the day and wouldn’t be back till tomorrow morning.

Once more he set out to leave the station. But at the door he paused again.

“I might as well take the rest of my loaf with me,” he murmured. “It belongs to me after all – and I’ll need it if I’m to get to Ashby without a penny in my pockets.”

And he hurried back to his cell.

He found a policeman putting the place in order.

“Excuse me,” said the Doctor. “Don’t let me disturb your sweeping. I just came back for something I left behind me. Ah, there it is – my loaf! Thank you. Excellent bread you have here.”

And after enquiring at the superintendent’s office on the way out for the name of the baker who supplied the police station, John Dolittle sallied forth to freedom with half a loaf under his arm.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Nightshade the Vixen

Penniless, but happy, the Doctor walked through the seaport town till he reached the market place in the centre. At this point three big highways met: one from the North, one from the South and one from the East.

After admiring the Town Hall – it was a very beautiful and ancient building – the Doctor was about to set off along the road to the eastward. But he had not gone more than a pace or two before he paused, thinking. It occurred to him that it would be wiser if he found some other way to return to Ashby than that by which he had come.

He, therefore, changed his direction and swung off along the road to the South, intending to work his way back round to Ashby by some route where he would run no risk of meeting the people who had seen him in the coach or the Shottlake inn.

It was a pleasant morning. The sun was shining, sparrows chirping; and he felt as he strutted down the road with his loaf of bread under his arm that in such weather it was a pleasure to be alive.

Before long he had left the last houses of the town behind and found himself in the open country. About noon he came to a cross-roads where a sign post, pointing down a very pretty little country lane, read, “To Appledyke, ten miles.”

“That looks a nice road,” said the Doctor to himself. “And it runs in the right direction for me. I like the sound of Appledyke too.”

So, although he was not very far yet from the seaport town which he had left, he struck off eastward along the country lane to Appledyke.

Soon he decided it was lunch time and looked about him for a brook where he might get a drink of clean water to wash down his dry-bread meal. Over to his right he saw a place where the land dipped downward into a hollow filled with trees and bushes.

“I’ll bet there’s a brook down there,” the Doctor murmured. “It is certainly most delightful country, this.”

Then he climbed over a stile and set off across the meadows which led down into the hollow.

He found his brook all right; and the banks of it, shaded by the trees, formed the most charming picnicking ground anyone could wish for. After he had taken a drink the Doctor with a grateful sigh sank down on the grass at the foot of a spreading oak, took out his loaf and began to eat.

Presently he saw a starling hopping around near him, and he threw him some crumbs. While the bird was eating them the Doctor noticed that one of his wings seemed queer, and on examining it he found that the feathers were all stuck together with tar. The tar had hardened and the wing would not spread open the way it should. John Dolittle soon put it right and the bird flew off about his business. After his lunch the Doctor felt that before going on his journey he would like to rest a while in this pleasant spot. So he leaned back against the trunk of the oak tree and soon he fell asleep to the music of the murmuring brook.

When he awoke he found four foxes, a vixen with three cubs, sitting patiently beside him waiting till he should finish his nap.

“Good afternoon,” said the vixen. “My name is Nightshade. Of course, I’ve heard a lot about you. But I had no idea you were in the district. I’ve often thought of coming all the way to Puddleby to see you. I’m awfully glad I didn’t miss you on this visit. A starling told me you were here.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, sitting up, “I’m glad to see you. What can I do for you?”

“One of these children of mine,” the vixen pointed toward her three round little cubs who were gazing at the famous Doctor in great awe, “one of the children has something wrong with his front paws. I wish you would take a look at him.”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Come here, young fellow.”

“He has never been able to run properly,” said the mother as John Dolittle took the cub on his lap and examined him. “It has nearly cost us all our lives, his slow pace, when the dogs have been after us. The others can run beautifully. Can you tell me what’s the matter with him?”

“Why, of course,” said the Doctor, who now had the cub upside down on his knees with its four big paws waving in the air. “It’s a case of flat feet. That’s all. The muscles of the pads are weak. He can get no grip of the ground without good pad muscles. You’ll have to exercise him morning and night. Make him rise on his toes like this: One, two! One, two! One, two!”

And the Doctor stood up and gave a demonstration of the exercise which in a person strengthens the arches of the feet and in a fox develops the muscles of the paw pads.

“If you make him do that twenty or thirty times every morning and every night I think you’ll soon find his speed will get better,” said the Doctor.

“Thank you very much,” said the vixen. “I have the greatest difficulty making my children do anything regularly. Now you hear what the Doctor says, Dandelion: every morning and every night, thirty times, up on your toes as high as you can go. I don’t want any flat-footed cubs in my family. We’ve always been – great heavens! Listen!”

The mother fox had stopped speaking, the beautiful brush of her tail straight and quivering, her nose outstretched, pitiful terror staring from her wide open eyes. And in the little silence that followed, from over the rising ground away off to the north-eastward, came the dread sound that makes every fox’s heart stand still.

“The horn!” she whispered through chattering teeth. “They’re out! It’s th – th – the huntsman’s horn!”

As he looked at the trembling creature John Dolittle was reminded of the occasion which had made him an enemy of fox-hunting for life – when he had met an old fox one evening lying half dead with exhaustion under a tangle of blackberries.

As the horn rang out again the poor vixen began running around her cubs like a crazy thing.

“Oh, what shall I do?” she moaned. “The children! If it wasn’t for them I could perhaps give the dogs the slip. Oh, why did I bring them out in daylight to see you? I suppose I was afraid you might be gone if I waited till after dark. Now I’ve left our scent behind us, all the way from Broad Meadows, as plain as the nose on your face. And I’ve come right into the wind. What a fool I was! What shall I do? What shall I do?”

As the horn sounded the third time, louder and nearer, joined by the yelping of hounds in full cry, the little cubs scuttled to their mother and cowered under her.

A very firm look came into the Doctor’s face.

“What pack is this?” he asked. “Do you know the name of it?”

“It’s probably the Ditcham – their kennels are just the other side of Hallam’s Acre. It might be the Wiltborough, over from Buckley Downs – they sometimes hunt this way. But most likely it’s the Ditcham – the best pack in these parts. They were after me lats week. But my sister crossed my trail just below Fenton Ridge and they went after her – and got her. There’s the horn again! Oh, what a fool I was to bring these children out in daylight!”

“Don’t worry, Nightshade,” said the Doctor. “Even if it’s the Ditcham and the Wiltborough together, they’re not going to get you today – nor your children either. Let the cubs get into my pockets – come on, hop in, young fellows – so. Now you, Nightshade, come inside the breast of my coat. That’s the way – get further around toward the back. And you can stick your feet and your brush into the tail-pocket. And when I’ve buttoned it up like this – see? – you will be completely covered. Can you breathe all right back there?”

“Yes, I can breathe,” said the vixen. “But it won’t do us much good to be out of sight. The hounds can smell us – that’s the way they run us down – with their noses.”

“Yes, I know,” said the Doctor. “But the men can’t smell you. I can deal with the dogs all right. But you mustn’t be seen by the men. Keep as still as a stone, all four of you – don’t move or try to run for it, whatever happens.”

And then John Dolittle, with his coat bulging with foxes in all directions, stood in a little clearing in the wooded hollow and awaited the oncoming of the Ditcham Hunt in full cry.

The mingled noises of the dogs, men, horns and horses grew louder. And soon, peeping through the crossing branches of his cover, the Doctor saw the first hounds come in view at the top of the ridge. For a moment the leaders paused and sniffed the wind. Then in a bee-line for the bottom of the hollow they came on down, stretched at full speed. Over the ridge and after them came the rest of the pack; and close behind the dogs rode the men, in red coats on fine, swift horses.

Ahead of most of the huntsmen galloped one man, old, lean and white-haired – Sir William Peabody, the Master of the Foxhounds. Half way down the slope he turned in his saddle and called to a man on a grey mare close behind him.

“Jones, they’re making for the spinney. Don’t let the leaders break into it before we’ve got it surrounded. Watch Galloway; he’s rods ahead. Mind, he doesn’t put the fox out the other side – Watch Galloway!”

Then the man on the grey mare spurted ahead, cracking a long whip and calling “Galloway! Here, Galloway!”

As the Doctor peered through the foliage he saw that the leading hound was now quite close. But, wonderfully trained to the huntsmen’s command, Galloway suddenly slackened his pace within a few yards of the trees and remained, yelping and barking, for the others to come up.

Over the ridge more riders came pouring – fat parsons on stocky cobs, country squires on hacks, ladies on elegant, dainty thoroughbreds – all the gentry of the neighbourhood.

“My goodness!” murmured the Doctor. “Was there ever anything so childish? All this fuss for a poor little fox!”

As the hounds, under the guidance of the men with long whips, spread, yelping, around all sides of the spinney, the people called and shouted to one another and the noise was tremendous.

“We’ll get him,” bellowed a fat farmer on a pony. “Hounds have gone all around now and scent don’t go on. It’s a killing, sure. Wait till Jones lets ’em into spinney. We’ll get him!”

“Oh, no, you won’t,” the Doctor muttered, the firm look coming back into his face. “Not today, my fat friend – not today.”

The dogs, impatient and eager, sniffed and ran hither and thither, waiting for permission to enter the little patch of woods and finish the hunt.

Suddenly a command was given and instantly they leapt the underbrush from all sides.

John Dolittle was standing in his clearing, with his hands over his pockets, trying to look all ways at once at the moment when the hounds broke in. But he had not known from which direction the vixen had entered and left her scent behind. And suddenly, before he knew it, four heavy dogs had leapt on his back, and he went down on the ground, simply smothered under a tangled pile of yelping, fighting foxhounds.

Kicking and punching in all directions, the Doctor struggled to his feet.

“Get away!” he said in dog language. “Lead the hunt somewhere else. This fox is mine.”

The hounds, spoken to in their own tongue, now had no doubt as to who the little man was that they had knocked down.

“I’m awfully sorry, Doctor,” said Galloway, a fine, deep-chested dog, with a tan patch over one eye. “We had no idea it was you. We jumped on you from behind, you know. Why didn’t you call to us while we were outside?”

“How could I?” said the Doctor irritably, pushing away a dog who was sniffing at his pocket. “How could I – with you duffers making all that din? Look out, here come the huntsmen. Don’t let them see you smelling around me. Get the pack out of here, Galloway, quick.”

“All right, Doctor. But it smells to me as though you had more than one fox in your pockets,” said Galloway.

“I’ve got a whole family,” said the Doctor. “And I mean to keep them, too.”

“Can’t you let us have even one of them, Doctor?” asked the hound. “They’re sneaky little things. They eat rabbits and chickens, you know.”

“No,” said the Doctor, “I can’t. They have to get food for themselves. You have food given you. Go away – and hurry about it.”

At that moment Sir William Peabody came up.

“Great heavens! Dolittle!” he exclaimed. “Haven’t you left these parts yet? Did you see the fox? Hounds headed right down into this hollow.”

“I wouldn’t tell you, Will, if I had seen him,” said the Doctor. “You know what I think of fox-hunting.”

“Funny thing!” muttered Sir William as he watched the dogs lurching about among the brush uncertainly. “They can’t have lost the scent, surely. They came down here as firm as you like. Curious! – oh, heavens! I know what it is: they’ve followed your rotten fish smell – the seal! Good Lord!”

At that moment a cry came from the huntsmen that the hounds had found another scent and were going off to the southward. Sir William, who had dismounted, ran for his horse.

“Hang you, Dolittle!” he shouted. “You’ve led the hounds astray. I should have kept you in jail.”

The few dogs remaining within the spinney were now melting away like shadows. One of the fox cubs stirred in the Doctor’s pocket. Sir William had already mounted his horse outside.

“Goodness, I forgot again!” muttered the Doctor. “I must get that guinea. – I say, Will!”

Then John Dolittle, his pockets full of foxes, ran out of the spinney after the Master of the Hunt.

“Listen, Will!” he called. “Would you lend me a guinea? I haven’t any money to get to Ashby with.”

Sir William turned in his saddle and drew rein.

“I’ll lend you five guineas – or ten – John,” said the magistrate, “if you’ll only get out of this district and stop putting my hounds on false scents. Here you are.”

“Thanks, Will,” said the Doctor, taking the money and dropping it in his pocket on top of one of the cubs. “I’ll send it back to you by mail.”

Then he stood there by the edge of the spinney and watched the huntsmen, hallooing and galloping, disappear over the skyline to the southward.

“What a childish sport!” he murmured. “I can’t understand what they see in it. Really, I can’t. Grown men rushing about the landscape on horseback, catawauling and blowing tin horns – all after one poor, little wild animal! Perfectly childish!”

• • • • •

•   5   •

“The Dolittle Safety Packet”

Returning to the side of the brook within the shelter of the trees, the Doctor took the foxes out of his pocket and set them on the ground.

“Well,” said the vixen, “I had often heard that you were a great man, John Dolittle, but I never realized till now what a truly marvelous person you were. I don’t know how to thank you. I’m all overcome – Dandelion, get away from that water!”

“There is no need for thanks,” said the Doctor. “To tell you the truth, I got quite a thrill myself out of diddling old Will Peabody – even if I did borrow money off him. I’ve been trying to get him to give up fox-hunting for years. He thinks that the hounds followed my scent down by mistake.”

“Ah, they’re not easily fooled, those dogs,” said the vixen. “Galloway – that big beast who did all the talking – he’s a terror. Nose as sharp as a needle. It’s a poor lookout for any fox whose scent he crosses.”

“But you’ve been hunted before and got away, haven’t you?” asked the Doctor. “They don’t always run the quarry down.”

“That’s quite true,” said the vixen. “But we only escape by luck when weather conditions or some odd chance is in our favour. The wind, of course, is a terribly important thing. If the hounds pick up our scent to the windward and begin the hunt up-wind, as we call it, there’s hardly any chance of our getting away – except when the country has plenty of cover and we’ve got start enough to come around and get behind them, where their scent blows toward us, instead of ours toward them. But the country is usually too open to give us a chance to do that without being seen.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “I understand.”

“Then sometimes,” the vixen went on, “the wind will change when the hunt’s in full cry. But such luck is a rare thing. Still, I remember one time when it saved my life. It was October, dampish weather – the kind the huntsmen like. There was a gentle breeze blowing. I was crossing over some meadows close to Thorpe Farm, when I heard them. As soon as I got their direction I saw I was on the bad side of the wind, and, out in flat, uncovered country, I was going to have a fiend of a run for it if I was to get away. I knew the neighbourhood real well, and I said to myself as I let out at full gallop, ‘Topham Willows. It’s my only chance.’

“Now, Topham Willows was a big, dense patch of old neglected preserves about fifteen miles away to the West. It was the nearest decent over there was. But a long, long stretch of bare fields and downs lay between me and it. However if I once reached it I knew I’d be all right. Because it was brambly, tangly, and thick, no men or horses could enter it and it was too big to be surrounded by the pack.

“Well, I went away for all I was worth, hoping to lengthen my start on them at the outset. The hounds sighted me at once. And a ‘View, hullo-o-a!’ went up for the riders. Then the whole hunt came after me like the Devil on horseback. After that it was one long, steady, pounding, cruel run for fifteen miles. The only screens that lay this side of Topham Willows were a few low stone walls. And no fox would be fool enough to try and take cover behind them. I just leapt them on the run, and each time my brush topped the walls another ‘View, hullo-o-a!’ broke from the hunt.

“About three miles this side of the Willows I got a sort of cramp in my heart. My eyes went queer and I couldn’t see straight. Then I stumbled over a stone. I got up and staggered on. Topham Willows was in sight, but my speed was going. I had opened the run with a pace too fast.”

Nightshade, the vixen, paused in her story a moment, her ears laid back, her dainty mouth slightly open, her eyes staring fixedly. She looked as though she saw that dreadful day all over again, that long terrible chase, at the end of which, with a safe refuge in sight, she felt her strength giving out as the dogs of Death drew close upon her heels.

Presently in a low voice, she went on:

“It looked like the finish of me. The hounds were gaining – and with lots of breath left. And then! – suddenly the wind changed!

“‘Gosh!’ I thought to myself, ‘if I only had a ditch or hedge handy now! I’d give them the slip yet! But, of course, in the open, in full view like that, scent didn’t matter so much. I stumbled on. Then suddenly I noticed a ridge over to my left. On top of it were a few bracken patches – small, but quite a number of them, dotted about here and there. I changed direction, left the bee line on the Willows and made for the ridge. I still had a short lead on the dogs. I shot into the bracken, and for the first time in fourteen miles I was out of view from my enemies. Then I ran from patch to patch, leaving my scent all over the place. Next I raced off down the other side of the ridge, found a ditch leading toward the Willows, popped into it and doubled back in my old direction.

“By that time my pace was little better than a crawl, but, as I’d expected, as soon as I was out of sight the changing wind had got the dogs all confused. Peeping out of my ditch as I staggered along it toward the Willows, I saw them rushing from patch to patch among the bracken on top of the ridge. If the wind had been still blowing off me toward them, some of them would certainly have hit my trail down to the ditch, where the scent was hottest, and cut me off from the cover I was making for.

“But that short halt, while they fooled around among the bracken, trying to re-find the scent, gave me time to reach the cover I had come so far to find. And as I crept, blown and dead beaten, into the tangle of Topham Willows, I flung myself down to rest and thanked my lucky stars for the wind that changed – just in time to save my life.”

“Well, well,” said the Doctor, as the vixen ended her story, “that’s very interesting. From what you say, I suppose that if one could only deal with the hounds’ sense of smell it would always be easy for you to get away from them, eh?”

“Oh, of course,” said the vixen. “In nearly all hunting country a fox could find enough cover to keep out of the reach of the dogs if it wasn’t for their horribly keen noses. We nearly always hear them, or see them, a good way off – long before they see us. If you could only put the hounds on the wrong scent, the fox could get away every time.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “Well, now I have an idea. Supposing a fox was made to smell like something else, instead of a fox – some strong smell which dogs didn’t like – no pack of hounds would follow such a trail, would it?”

“No, I shouldn’t think so – so long as they didn’t know it was a fox that was carrying it. And, even then, maybe they wouldn’t follow it if it was a smell they hated enough.”

“That’s just what I mean. Such a thing would be a scent-blind. It would – if we could only get it sufficiently powerful – entirely cover up your natural scent. Now, look here,” said the Doctor, pulling a thick, black wallet out of his pocket, full of neat little bottles: “this is a pocket medicine case. Some of these medicines have a strong pungent smell. I’ll let you sniff one or two.… Try this.”

The Doctor pulled the stopper from one of the tiny bottles and held it to the vixen’s nose. She started back after one sniff.

“My gracious!” she barked. “What a powerful odour. What’s the name of it?”

“That’s spirits of camphor,” said the Doctor. “Now, try another. This is eucalyptus. Smell.”

The vixen put her nose to the second bottle. And this time she sprang back three feet with a yelp.

“Great heavens! It gets in your eyes! That’s worse – and stronger yet. Cork it up, Doctor, quick!” she cried, rubbing her nose with her front paws. “It makes me weep tears.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “But, listen: both these medicines, although they are so strong, are quite harmless – so long as you don’t drink them. People use them for colds in the head and other things. That shows you. Now, do you suppose a dog would keep away from a smell like that?”

“I should say he would,” Nightshade snorted. “He’d run a mile from it. Any dog who got a whiff of that wouldn’t be able to smell straight for the rest of the day. Dogs have to be more particular about their noses – especially hunting dogs.”

“Fine!” said the Doctor. “Now, look: when this little bottle is corked tightly and rolled in a handkerchief, so, no odour remains about it at all. See, you can take it in your mouth and carry it. Try – just to be sure that it’s all right.”

Gingerly the vixen took the rolled handkerchief, with the little bottle inside, in her mouth.

“You see?” said the Doctor, taking it back from her, “it’s quite harmless and you can smell nothing while it is like that. But supposing you were to place the handkerchief on the ground and drop a heavy stone on top of it: the glass bottle inside would be broken, the medicine would run out and soak into the handkerchief and the smell would be very strong. You understand me so far?”

“Quite,” said the vixen; “quite – Dandelion, stop playing with my tail. How can I attend to what the Doctor’s saying? Go over to that tree and do your exercises.”

“And then,” John Dolittle went on, “if you were to lie down on the wet handkerchief and roll in it, you too would smell very strong – of the medicine. After that, I think, we could safely say that no hounds would follow you. For one thing, they wouldn’t know what it was when they crossed your trail; and, for another, as you say, it is so strong that they’d run a mile to get away from it.”

“They certainly would,” said the vixen.

“Very well. Now, I’ll give you one of these bottles. Which will you have? Would you prefer to smell of camphor or eucalyptus?”

“They’re both pretty bad,” said Nightshade. “Could you spare the two of them?”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor.

“Thank you. Have you got two handkerchiefs, as well?”

“Yes. Here they are – a red one and a blue one.”

“That’s splendid,” said the vixen. “Then I can make the cubs smell of camphor and myself of eucal – euca—”

“Eucalyptus,” said the Doctor.

“It’s a pretty name,” said the vixen. “I’ll call my other son that. I never could think of a nice name for him – Dandelion, Garlic and Eucalyptus.”

“The three sons of Nightshade,” added the Doctor, watching the round cubs gamboling over the roots of an oak. “Very pretty – has almost a Roman, a classic sound. But, listen: you must be very careful how you wrap the handkerchiefs around the bottles. If you don’t do it properly you might get yourself cut by the broken glass inside. Make sure that the wrapping is thick and paddy. I’ve got a piece of string in my pocket. Perhaps I’d better wrap the bottles myself and tie them up for you.”

Then John Dolittle fixed up the bottles in the proper manner and handed over his new invention, the fox’s safety packets, to Nightshade, the vixen.

“Now, remember,” he said, “to carry them always with you, and as soon as you hear the hounds smash them with a stone and get the medicine well soaked into your back. Then I think you’ll be safe from any dogs – even from Galloway.”

Well, John Dolittle, after the vixen and her family had thanked him many times for his kind services, left them with their new scent-destroyers and continued on his journey toward Ashby.

But he little guessed, as he made his way out of the hollow – and Nightshade, with her family, trotted off to their lair – what an important effect this new idea of his was to have.

That very evening, on their way homeward, the vixen and her cubs were scented by the hounds who were returning to that part of the country, after a fruitless afternoon’s search for foxes.

As soon as she realized that the dogs were on her trail, Nightshade put her packages on the ground and kicked stones against them. Instantly the air was filled with powerful medicinal odours.

In spite of the fact that the smell made her eyes run tears, the vixen rolled in one, while she made the cubs soak themselves in the other.

Then, reeking like a chemist’s shop, choking and gasping to get away from their own smell, the four of them raced off across a wide pasture toward home. The hounds, to the leeward, seeing them in the open, cut across from a field the other side of a hedge, hoping to head them off before they reached the bushes at the foot of the pasture.

For the hounds this was easy, because Nightshade, with the flat-footed Dandelion to look after, couldn’t put out her full speed.

On came the dogs, the famous Galloway, as usual, in the lead. The huntsmen, seeing the chances of a kill after a dull day’s sport, cheered and put spurs to their horses.

But in spite of the wind’s being the wrong way, the leading dogs suddenly stopped within about five paces of their quarry.

“What’s the matter with Galloway, Jones?” Sir William shouted to the man on the grey mare. “Look, he’s sitting down, watching the foxes run away!”

Then suddenly the fitful evening wind swung to the eastward and blew a gust back toward the hunt. The pack, like one dog, turned tail and scattered, terrified, out of the pasture. Even the horses pricked up their ears and snorted through their noses.

“My heavens, what a stench!” cried Sir William. “Some chemical or other. What is it, Jones?”

But the man on the grey mare was galloping across country, trying to get his pack together, cursing and cracking his long whip.

Peacefully and undisturbed, Nightshade reached her lair that night and put her cubs to bed. As she did so she kept murmuring to herself: “He’s a great man – a very great man.”

But the next day, when she went out to get food for her family, she met another fox. This neighbour, as soon as he smelt her, didn’t even say good morning, but also ran, as if she were the plague.

Then she found her new odour something of an inconvenience as well as a blessing. None of her relatives would come near her, and she and her camphory-eucalyptus cubs were not allowed in any other foxes’ lairs. But after a while it got around in fox society that Nightshade the vixen could go where she liked without ever being hunted by dogs. Then John Dolittle began to get requests by mysterious animal messengers for more eucalyptus. And he sent hundreds of little bottles, rolled in handkerchiefs, to that part of the world. Before long every single fox in the neighbourhood was supplied with, and always carried, his “Dolittle Safety Packet” when he went abroad in the hunting season.

Well, in the end the result was that the famous Ditcham pack went out of existence.

“It’s no use,” Sir William said, “we can’t hunt foxes in this district unless we can breed and train a pack of eucalyptus hounds. And I’ll bet my last penny, it’s Dolittle’s doing. He always said he’d like to stop the sport altogether. And, by George! so far as this county is concerned, he’s done it!”

• • • • •

Part Four

•   1   •

Back to the Circus

And now, with money in his pocket to pay for a ride, John Dolittle set about finding a coach that would carry him back in the direction of Ashby.

At the village of Appledyke his little country lane led him on to a bigger highway running north and south. Making inquiries of the village blacksmith, he found that coaches plied this road and that he could expect one to pass in about half an hour. So, after buying some toffee at the one small shop which Appledyke could boast of the Doctor settled down to wait, munching his sweetmeats to pass the time.

About four o’clock in the afternoon a coach came along and took him to the next large town. From there he caught a night coach going east; and in the early hours of the following morning he was back within ten miles of Ashby again.

The remainder of the journey he thought he had better do on foot for safety’s sake. So after he had a shave and a breakfast and a rest at an inn, he set out to walk the short remaining distance.

He had not gone more than about a mile before he came upon some gypsies camped by the side of the road. One old woman among them hailed him, offering to tell his fortune. The Doctor didn’t want his fortune told, but stopped to chat. In the course of conversation he mentioned Blossom’s Circus. The gypsies then told him that it was no longer at Ashby, but had left for the next town.

On his asking for the right road to take to reach the next town, the gypsies told him that a man with a wagon, who was on his way to join Blossom’s circus, had passed them only half an hour ago. If he hurried on, they said, he might easily overtake him, as his horse was a slow walker.

The way from here to the town where the circus would next perform was rather a complicated cross-country journey; and the Doctor thought it would be much easier if he had someone with him who knew the way. He therefore thanked the gypsies and hastened on to try and catch the man who was bound, like himself, for Blossom’s Circus.

By making inquiries of the wayfarers along the road, the Doctor was able to follow the route the man had taken. And about noon he came up with him halted at the roadside taking his lunch.

His wagon was very peculiar. All four sides of it were covered with signs. “Use Doctor Brown’s Ointment,” “Have Your Teeth Pulled by Doctor Brown,” “Doctor Brown’s Syrup Cures All Liver Complaints,” “Doctor Brown’s Pills” do this – “Doctor Brown’s Liniment” does that, etc.

After reading all the advertisements with much medical interest, John Dolittle went up to the fat man who was eating bread and cheese by the roadside.

“Pardon me!” said he politely. “Am I addressing Doctor Brown himself?”

“That’s me,” said the man with his mouth full. “What can I do for you? Want a tooth pulled?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “But I understand you are going to join Blossom’s Circus. Is that so?”

“Yes. I’m meeting it at Stowbury. Why?”

“Well, I was on my way to the same destination,” said the Doctor. “I thought, perhaps, I might accompany you – if you have no objection.”

Doctor Brown said he had no objection, and after he had finished his lunch he invited John Dolittle into his wagon while he got ready to hitch up. The inside of the wagon seemed to be principally used for making the medicines which were advertised on the outside. And the most important things in their preparation were, as far as Doctor could see, lard and salad oil. Brown himself seemed a vulgar sort of person – not in the least like a real doctor. And presently John Dolittle began asking him questions about where he had got his medical degree; at what hospital he had learned dentistry, etc. Brown didn’t like this at all and seemed rather annoyed at the Doctor’s cross-examination.

Finally John Dolittle came to the conclusion that the man was most likely nothing but a quack selling fake medicines. He decided he would sooner go on alone. So, without waiting for Brown, he set off down the road ahead of him on foot.

The way the Doctor first knew that he was nearing the circus was by hearing Jip’s bark in the distance. The sound was joined by two other barks. And presently, rounding a bend in the highway, he found Jip, Toby and Swizzle all yapping about the foot of a tree, up which they had chased a black cat. Still further down the road he saw the tail end of the wagon-train winding on its way.

As soon as he came in view the dogs forgot all about the cat and came racing down the road.

“Doctor! Doctor!” yelped Jip. “How did everything go off? Did Sophie get away?”

Then the three of them jumped all over him, and he had to answer a hundred questions at once. From beginning to end he told the story of his adventurous journey to the sea. And when a little later he overtook the circus train and reached his own wagon he had to tell it all over again for the benefit of the rest of his delighted family.

Dab-Dab hustled around and prepared a meal right away – a sort of tea-and-supper-combined arrangement; and she kept the rest of the household busy pulling out the bed linen to be aired, so that the Doctor should have dry sheets to sleep in.

Then Matthew Mugg got wind of his great friend’s arrival, and he came and joined the party, and the story had to be told a third time.

“It was a great piece of work, Doctor,” said he – “couldn’t have gone better. Blossom never got the least suspicious that you was in it at all.”

“What’s happened to Higgins?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, ’e’s doing honest work now. Took a stable-man’s job in Ashby. Good thing, too! ’E’s no loss to the circus business anyhow.”

“Has Blossom put on any extra turn to take Sophie’s place?” asked the Doctor.

“No,” said Matthew. “We were short ’anded for a bit. But Hercules the strong man is back on the job now and the show’s as good as ever.”

“And we’ve made lots of money with our part of it, Doctor,” cried Too-Too. “How much do you think the pushmi-pullyu took in last week?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Twelve pounds nine shillings and sixpence!”

“Great heavens!” cried the Doctor. “That’s enormous – twelve pounds a week! That’s more than I ever made in the best days of my practice. Why, we’ll soon be able to retire at that rate!”

“What do you mean, retire, Doctor?” asked Toby, pushing his head up onto the Doctor’s knee.

“Well, we hadn’t meant to stay in the business for good, you know,” said John Dolittle. “I have work of my own to look after in Puddleby – and – and – oh, heaps of things to attend to.”

“I see,” said Toby sadly. “I thought you were going to stay with us for quite a while.”

“But how about the Dolittle Circus, Doctor?” asked Swizzle. “Aren’t you going to try that idea – the reformed show we talked about?”

“It’s a great notion, Doctor,” Jip put in. “All the animals are crazy about the scheme. They’ve been working out the details of their own part of the performance.”

“And what about our theatre, Doctor – ‘The Animals’ Own Theatre’?” Gub-Gub put in. “I’ve written a play for it since you’ve been gone. It’s called The Bad Tomato. I do the comic fat lady’s part. I know my lines by heart already.”

“And what about the house in Puddleby? That’s what I’d like to know?” said Dab-Dab, angrily brushing the crumbs off the table. “All you animals ever think of is having a good time. You never think of the Doctor and what he wants. You never think of the house going to ruin back there and the garden turning into the jungle. The Doctor has his own work and his own home and his own life to attend to.”

A little silence followed the housekeeper’s furious outburst, and Toby and Swizzle rather shamefacedly retired under the table.

“Well,” said the Doctor at last, “there is something in what Dab-Dab says. I do think as soon as the pushmi-pullyu has made enough to pay back the sailor for his boat – and a little to spare – we ought to think about leaving the business.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Toby. “The Dolittle Circus would have been such a wonderful show!”

“Heigh ho!” said Gub-Gub. “And I would have been simply splendid as a fat lady. I always thought I ought to have been a comic actor.”

“Huh!” snorted Dab-Dab. “Last week you said you ought to have been a greengrocer.”

“Well,” said Gub-Gub. “I could be both – a comic greengrocer. Why not?”

That same night Blossom’s Circus entered the town of Stowbury. And, as usual, before dawn the next morning the tents had been set up and everything got in readiness for showing.

As soon as the news of the Doctor’s arrival got about, Mr. Blossom came to see him. And from all appearance John Dolittle decided that no suspicions had been aroused in the mind of the ringmaster by his “business” trip.

Another caller at the Doctor’s stand that morning was Hercules the strong man. Hercules had never forgotten the kind attention shown him at the time of his accident, and he was glad to find that his friend had returned. His pleasant chat was cut short, however, when he suddenly discovered that it was time for him to give his first performance. The Doctor accompanied him back to his stand.

While returning across the circus enclosure the Doctor noticed, as he passed the tent of Fatima the snake charmer, a strong odour of chloroform. Fearing an accident might have happened, he went inside and found that Fatima was out at the moment. Within the tent the smell was stronger, and it seemed to be coming from the snake box. The Doctor looked into the box and found the six snakes in an almost unconscious state from the drug. One of them still had sense enough left to tell the Doctor, in answer to his questions, that Fatima always dosed them with chloroform on hot days, when they were too lively, in order to make them easier to handle for her performance. They hated it, the snake said, because it gave them headaches.

On this pleasant, sunny morning the Doctor had forgotten, for a moment, the wretched condition of many of the animals which had so often sickened him of the whole circus business. This piece of senseless cruelty threw him into a boiling rage and he hurried off at once to look for Blossom.

He found him in the big tent and Fatima with him. The Doctor firmly demanded that the custom of chloroforming the snakes be forbidden. Blossom merely smiled and pretended to be busy with other matters, while Fatima hurled a lot of vulgar language at the Doctor’s head.

Discouraged and sad, John Dolittle left the tent, intending to return to his own wagon. The gates were now open and the crowds were coming in thick and fast. The Doctor was wondering how American blacksnakes would manage in the English climate if he contrived their escape, when he noticed a throng of visitors collecting about a platform down at the other end of the enclosure.

At this moment Matthew came up and joined him, and together they started toward the platform. On this the Doctor now saw his acquaintance, Doctor Brown, delivering a lecture about the wonders of his pills and ointments, which could cure in one dose all the ailments known to mankind.

“What arrangement has this fellow with Blossom?” the Doctor asked of Matthew.

“Oh, he pays him a rake-off,” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man. “Blossom gets so much on all he takes in. He’s going on with us to the next three towns, I hear. Doing a good trade, ain’t he?”

Indeed, Doctor Brown was very busy. Country yokels, after listening to his noisy medical lectures, were buying his wares right and left.

“Go and get me a pot of that ointment, will you, Matthew?” said the Doctor. “Here’s some money – and get me a box of the pills as well.”

“All right,” said Matthew with a grin. “But I don’t reckon you’ll find them much good.”

The Cat’s-Meat-Man returned with the purchases and the Doctor took them to his wagon. There he opened them, smelled them, examined them and tested them with chemicals from his little black bag.

“Rubbish and bunkum!” he cried when he had ended. “This is just highway robbery. Why did I ever go into this rotten show business? Matthew, get me a step-ladder.”

The Cat’s-Meat-Man went out, disappeared behind some tents and presently returned with the step-ladder.

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, putting it on his shoulder and marching off toward the platform. There was a dangerous light in his eyes.

“What are you going to do, Doctor?” asked Matthew, hurrying after him.

“I’m going to give a medical lecture myself,” said the Doctor. “Those people are not going to pay their money for quack rubbish if I can help it.”

Jip, who was sitting at the door of his wagon, suddenly pricked up his ears and sprang to his feet.

“Toby,” he called over his shoulder, “the Doctor’s going over to the patent medicine man’s platform. He’s got a step-ladder. He looks awfully mad about something. There’s going to be a row, I fancy. Get Swizzle and let’s go and see the fun.”

John Dolittle on reaching the crowd at Brown’s lecture stand set up his step-ladder right opposite to the speaker, and Matthew Mugg cleared a space around it so the audience shouldn’t knock it over while the Doctor climbed it.

At the moment of his arrival Brown was holding up in his left hand a pot of ointment.

“This preparation which I ’old in my ’and, ladies and gentlemen,” he bawled, “is the greatest remedy in the world for sciatica, lumbago, neuralgia, ague and gout. It ’as been hendorsed by all the leadin’ physicians. It is the same what is used by the royal family of Belgium and the Shah of Persia. One application of this marvelous remedy will—”

At this point another voice, still more powerful, interrupted the lecture. The people all turned around, and there behind them, perched on a step-ladder stood a little round man with a battered high hat on his head.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the Doctor, “what this man is telling you is not true. His ointment contains nothing but lard mixed with a little perfume. His pills are no good either. I do not recommend you to buy any.”

For a moment there was a dead silence. While Doctor Brown was trying to think up something to say, the voice of a woman, Fatima the snake charmer, was heard from the edge of the crowd.

“Don’t you listen to him,” she yelled pointing a fat finger at John Dolittle. “He’s nothing but a showman. He doesn’t know anything about medicines. Push ’im orf ’is ladder.”

“Just a minute,” said the Doctor, addressing the crowd again. “It is true that I am in the show business – for the moment. But I am a medical graduate of the University of Durham. I am prepared to stand by what I have said. These preparations which this man is trying to sell you are worthless. Also I have grave doubts about his education in dentistry and I do not advise any of you to have your teeth touched by him.”

The crowd now began to get restless. Several people had already purchased Brown’s wares and these could now be seen making their way to the platform and demanding their money back. Brown refused it and tried to make another address to his audience in answer to the Doctor’s statements.

“Listen,” yelled John Dolittle from his ladder. “I challenge this man to produce a medical degree or credentials of any kind to prove that he is a qualified doctor or dentist. He is a quack.”

“You’re a fake yourself,” yelled Brown. “I’ll have the law on you for libel.”

“Push ’im down!” howled Fatima. “Mob ’im!”

But the people did not seem inclined to follow her orders. Presently the Doctor was recognized by one of his old patients among the audience – just as he had been in the case of strong man’s accident some weeks before. A little old lady suddenly waved an umbrella above the crowd.

“That’s John Dolittle,” she shouted, “who cured my son Joe of whopping cough back in Puddleby ten years ago. Like to die he was. He’s a real doctor – none better in the West Country. T’ other’s a quack. Ye be fools if ye turn a deaf ear to what John Dolittle tells ye.”

Then other voices were heard here and there among the crowd. The general restlessness increased. More people struggled forward to Brown’s platform to bring back the wares they had bought. A growing murmur arose.

“Mob ’im! Knock ’im down!” yelled Fatima, trying to make herself heard.

Doctor Brown thrust aside two men who had climbed up onto his stand for their money, came to the edge of the platform and opened his mouth to begin another medical lecture.

But a large, well-aimed turnip suddenly sailed across the heads of the audience and hit him squarely in the face. The mobbing had begun – but it wasn’t directed against John Dolittle. Soon carrots, potatoes, stones, all manner of missiles, were flying through the air.

“Grab ’im!” yelled the crowd. “He’s a crook.”

And the next moment the whole audience surged toward the platform yelling and shaking their fists.

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Patent Medicine Riots

John Dolittle himself grew a little alarmed as he saw what an ugly mood the crowd was now beginning to show. When he had first mounted his ladder and interrupted the quack doctor’s lecture he had meant to do no more than warn the people against buying fake medicines. But as he watched the throng swarm over the platform, wrecking and smashing it on the way, he began to fear for Brown’s safety.

When the riot was at its height the police arrived. Even they had considerable difficulty in calming the crowd. They had to use their clubs to make them listen at all. There were many broken heads and bloody noses. Finally the police saw that their only chance of restoring order would be to clear the circus enclosure together.

This was done – in spite of the people’s objection that they had only just come in and wanted their admission money back before they left. Then the circus was ordered by the police to remain closed until further instructions.

It was not long before the further instructions were forthcoming. Much indignation had been aroused throughout the respectable town of Stowbury over the whole affair. And the Mayor sent word to Blossom about noon that he and the aldermen would be obliged to him if he would pack up his circus and take it out of their town immediately.

Brown had escaped and got away across country long before this. But that wasn’t the end of the affair so far as John Dolittle was concerned. Blossom, already annoyed, became so furious when the Mayor’s order was brought that everybody thought he was going to have a fit. Fatima had been railing against the Doctor to him all the morning; and on hearing the last bit of news, which meant considerable loss, he got almost black in the face.

Many of the showmen were with him when the policeman delivered the order. On them too Fatima had been working, trying to arouse bad feeling against the Doctor.

“Blast it!” yelled Blossom, rising to his feet and reaching for a thick walking stick that stood behind his wagon door. “I’ll teach him to get my circus closed up! Come on, some of you fellows!”

With waving fists Fatima and four or five of the showmen standing near followed the ringmaster as he marched off toward the Doctor’s stand.

Both Jip and Matthew had also been hanging around Blossom’s wagon. They too now departed, Jip running ahead to warn the Doctor and the Cat’s-Meat-Man going off in a wholly different direction.

On their way to the Doctor’s wagon, Blossom and his party of vengeance were joined by several tent riggers and others. By the time they arrived at his door they numbered a good dozen. To their surprise the Doctor came out to meet them.

“Good afternoon,” said John Dolittle politely. “What can I do for you?”

Blossom tried to speak, but his anger was too much for him – nothing more than spluttering gurgles came from his throat.

“You’ve done enough for us already,” shouted one of the men.

“We’re going to do for you now,” screamed Fatima.

“You’ve got the show turned out of the town,” growled a third; “one of the best places on the road. You’ve cost us a week’s pay.”

“You’ve been doing your best to put my show on the blink,” snarled Blossom, finding his voice at last, “ever since you’ve been with us. But, by Jiminy, you’ve gone too far this time!”

Without further words the group of angry men, led by the ringmaster, rushed upon the Doctor and he went down under a football scrum of kicking feet and punching fists.

Poor Jip did his best to drag them off. But it was little help he could give against twelve such enemies. He couldn’t see the Doctor at all. He was beginning to wonder where Matthew was when he saw the Cat’s-Meat-Man running toward the fight from the other side of the enclosure. And beside him ran an enormous man in pink tights.

On reaching the scrum the big man began pulling off the showmen by their feet or hair and tossing them aside as though they were wisps of straw.

Finally Hercules the strong man – for it was he – had thinned the fight down to two, Blossom and the Doctor. These still rolled upon the ground trying to throttle one another. With a hand the size of a leg of mutton, Hercules, grasped the ringmaster by the neck and shook him like a rat.

“If you don’t be’ave yourself, Alexander,” he said quietly, “I’ll slap your face and knock your brains out.”

There was a little silence while the rest of the showmen picked themselves up from the grass.

“Now,” said Hercules still grasping Blossom by the collar, “what’s this all about? What are you all settin’ on the Doc for? Ought to be ashamed – a good dozen of yet – and him the littlest of all!”

“He went and told the people that Brown’s ointment wasn’t no good,” said Fatima. “Got ’em all worked up, asking for their money back. Called him a fake in front of the audience – and ’im the biggest fake that ever walked himself.”

“You’re a nice one to talk about fakes,” said Hercules. “Didn’t I see you painting bands on your pore harmless snakes last week – to make ’em look like real deadly ones? This man’s a good doctor. He couldn’t ’ave mended my busted ribs for me if he wasn’t.”

“He’s got the show turned out of the town,” growled one of the men. “We had our thirty-mile trip from Ashby for nothing – and another forty-mile ahead of us before we take in a penny. That’s what your precious Doctor has done for you!”

“He’s not going any further with my show,” spluttered Blossom. “I’ve taken about all I’m going to stand from him.”

He wriggled himself out of the strong man’s grasp and advancing toward the Doctor shook a finger in his face.

“You’re fired,” he yelled. “Understand? You leave my show today – now.”

“Very well,” said the Doctor quietly. And he turned away toward the door of his wagon.

“Just a minute,” Hercules called after him. “Do you want to go, Doctor?”

John Dolittle paused and turned back.

“Well, Hercules,” he said doubtfully, “it’s rather hard to answer the question.”

“What he wants ’as got nothing to do with it,” said Fatima. “The boss ’as fired ’im. That settles it. ’E’s got to go.”

As the Doctor looked into the jeering eyes of this woman that hated him, he thought of the snakes who were in her care. Then he thought of several other circus animals whose condition he had hoped to improve – of Beppo, the old wagon horse who should have been pensioned off years ago. And while he hesitated Swizzle pushed his damp nose up into his hand and Toby plucked at the tail of his coat.

“No, Hercules,” he said at last. “All things considered, I do not want to go. But if I’m sent away there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?”

“No,” said the strong man. “But there’s something others can do about it. Look here” – he spun Blossom around by the shoulder and shook an enormous fist under his nose. “This man’s an honest man. Brown was a crook. If the Doctor goes, I go too. And if I go, my nephews, the trapeze acrobats, will come with me. And I’ve a notion that Hop the clown will join us. Now how about it?”

Mr. Alexander Blossom, proprietor of “The Greatest Show on Earth,” hesitated, chewing his moustache in dismay and perplexity. With Sophie the seal gone, deserted by the strong man, the trapeze brothers, his best clown and the pushmi-pullyu, his circus would be sadly reduced. While he pondered, Fatima’s face was a study. If looks could have killed, both Hercules and the Doctor would have died that day twice over.

“Well,” said the ringmaster at last in quite a different voice, “let’s talk this over friendly-like. There’s no end for hard feelings – and no sense in breaking up the show just because we’ve come a cropper in one town.”

“If I stay,” said the Doctor, “I insist that no more fake medicines be sold while I am with you.”

“Huh!” snorted Fatima. “See what he’s goin’ to do? ’E’s beginnin’ again. ’E’s goin’ to tell you how to run your show.”

“Also,” said the Doctor, “I shall require that this woman no longer have the handling of snakes or any other animals. If you want to keep me, she must go. I will buy her snakes from her myself.”

Well, in spite of Fatima’s screaming indignation, matters were at last arranged peaceably. But that night, when Too-Too was sitting on the steps of the wagon listening to a brother owl who was hooting him from the town cemetery, Dab-Dab came out and joined him, with tears in her eyes.

“I don’t know what we’ll ever do with the Doctor,” she said wearily. “Really I don’t. He has taken every penny we had in the money box – the whole twelve pounds nine shillings and sixpence which we had saved up to go back to Puddleby with. And what do you think he has gone and spent it on? He’s bought six fat snakes with it!” (Dab-Dab burst into a renewed flood of tears.) “And he – he – has put them in my flour bin to keep till – till he can get a proper bed for them!”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Nino

After the departure of Fatima, the snake-charmer, John Dolittle liked the life of the circus a good deal better. It had mostly been the thought that he was not doing anything to help the animals that had made him so often speak against it. But now that he had sent Sophie back to her husband; freed the snakes from a life of slavery and chloroform, and forbidden the selling of quack medicines, he began to feel that his presence here was doing good.

And then Blossom, ever since the medical lecture riot, had shown him a great deal more respect. The ringmaster had always known that he had a good thing in the pushmi-pullyu. And if it had not been for his blind rage on being turned out of the town by the Mayor, and for Fatima’s eternal nagging against the Doctor, he would never have dreamed of trying to get rid of him at all.

John Dolittle’s own popularity with the circus people themselves was in the end improved greatly by the incident at Stowbury. In spite of the fact that she had successfully turned many of the showmen against the Doctor, Fatima herself had always been disliked by almost everyone. And when it became known that the Doctor had brought about her departure he was very soon forgiven for the loss caused by the circus being ordered out of the town.

However, his real power and influence with the show people did not properly begin until the day that the Talking Horse fell sick.

The circus had moved on to a town called Bridgeton, a large manufacturing centre, where good business was expected by Blossom. The animals and clowns and bareback riders and the rest had made their usual procession through the streets; big bills were posted all over the place, and when the enclosure was opened to the public great throngs of people had crowded up to the gates. It looked like one of the best weeks the circus had ever known.

At two o’clock the show at the big tent (for which an extra sixpence was charged) was to begin. Outside the entrance a large sign was set up showing the program: “Mademoiselle Firefly, the Bareback Rider; the Pinto Brothers, Daring Trapeze Artists; Hercules, the Strongest Man on Earth; Hop, the Side-Splitting Clown, and His Comedy Wonder-Dog, Swizzle; Jojo, the Dancing Elephant,” and (in large letters) “NINO, the World-Famous Talking Horse.”

Now this Nino was just an ordinary, cream-coloured cob who had been trained to answer signals. Blossom had bought him from a Frenchman; and with him he had bought the secret of his so-called talking. In his act he didn’t talk at all really. All he did was to stamp his hoof or wag his head a certain number of times to give answers to the questions Blossom asked him in the ring.

“How many do three and four make, Nino?” Blossom would say. Then Nino would stamp the floor seven times. And if the answer was yes, he would nod his head up and down, and if it was no, he would shake it from side to side. Of course, he didn’t know what was being asked of him at all, as a matter of fact. And the way he knew what answers to give was from the signals that Blossom made to him secretly. When he wanted Nino to say yes, the ringmaster would scratch his left ears; when he wanted him to answer no, he would fold his arms and so on. The secret of all these signals Blossom kept jealously to himself. But, of course, the Doctor knew all about them because Nino had told him how the whole performance was carried on.

Now, in advertising the circus Blossom always put Nino, the World- Famous Talking Horse, before all the other turns in importance. It was a popular performance and the children loved shouting questions down to the little plump cob and seeing him answer with his feet or his head.

Well, on the circus’s first day in Bridgeton, a little before the show in the big tent was to begin, the Doctor and the ringmaster were in the clown’s dressing-room talking. Suddenly in rushed the head stableman in a great state of excitement.

“Mr. Blossom,” he cried. “Nino’s sick! Layin’ in his stall with ’is eyes closed. The show’s due to begin in fifteen minutes and I can’t do nothing with ’im – can’t even get ’im on his feet.”

With a hearty curse Blossom rushed out and tore away in the direction of the stables, while the Doctor followed him on the run.

When they got to Nino’s stall Blossom and the Doctor found the horse in a bad state. His breathing was fast and heavy. With difficulty he was made to stand up on his feet, but for walking even a few steps he seemed far too shaky and weak.

“Darn the luck!” muttered the manager. “If he can’t perform it will queer the whole week’s showing. We’ve posted him as the start turn. The crowd will want to know about it if they don’t see him.”

“You’ll have to make a speech and explain,” said the Doctor. “That horse has a bad fever. I doubt if he can leave his stall today.”

“Good heavens, man, he’ll have to!” cried Blossom. “We’ll likely have the audience asking for its money back if he don’t appear. We can’t have any more riots like—”

At that moment a boy came up.

“Five minutes to two, Mr. Blossom. Pierce wants to know if you are all ready.”

“Hang it!” said the manager. “I can’t take the ring for the first turn. I must get Nino fixed up before I can come on.”

“We ain’t got nobody else, Sir,” said the boy. “Robinson ’asn’t got back yet.”

“Lord, what a day!” groaned the manager. “Well, the show can’t open without a ringmaster, that’s sure. And I can’t leave Nino yet. I don’t know what—”

“Excuse me, governor,” said a voice behind him. And turning, Blossom looked into the crossed eyes of Matthew Mugg.

“Couldn’t I take your place, boss?” said the Cat’s-Meat-Man, “I know your whole line of talk by heart. I could introduce the turns – same as you – and nobody know the difference.”

“Well,” said Blossom looking him up and down, “you’re about the scrubbiest ringmaster I ever see’d. But beggars can’t be choosers. Come with me – quick – and I’ll give you these clothes.”

Then, while the Doctor turned his attention to Nino, Blossom and Matthew made off on the run for the dressing rooms. There, with the aid of Theodosia (who put a large swift pleat in Blossom’s riding breeches) and a little rouge and a false moustache from the clown’s make-up box, Mr. Mugg was transformed from a cat’s-meat-man into a ringmaster. The ambition of his life was realized at last. And as he swaggered into the ring and looked up at the sea of faces around him his chest swelled with dignity; while Theodosia, watching him through a slit in the tent-flap, glowed with wifely pride and prayed that the pleat in his riding breeches would hold till the show was over.

In the meantime from an examination of Nino the Doctor became certain that there was no hope of his recovering in time to perform that day. He went and got some large pills from his black bag and gave him two. Presently Blossom, now dressed in a jersey and flannel pants, joined him.

“You can’t have this horse perform today, Mr. Blossom,” said the Doctor, “nor for a week, probably, at last.”

“Well,” said the ringmaster, throwing up his hands in despair, “we’re just ruined – that’s all – ruined! That row up in Stowbury got into the papers, and now if we have another frost here, we’re done for. And if Nino don’t go on, the crowd’s going to ask for their money back, sure as you’re alive. He’s the star turn. We might manage if we had another act to put on in his place, but I haven’t a blessed thing for an extra. And it was a short program, anyhow. We’re ruined. Darn it, I never saw such a run of rotten luck!”

Poor Blossom seemed genuinely crestfallen. While the Doctor looked at him thoughtfully, a horse in the stall next to Nino’s neighed softly. It was Beppo, the veteran wagon horse. A smile came into the Doctor’s face.

“Look here, Mr. Blossom,” said he quietly, “I think I can help you out of this trouble, but if I do you’ve got to promise me a few things. I know a good deal more about animals than you suppose I do. I’ve given up the best part of my life to studying them. You advertised that Nino understood you and could answer any questions you put to him. You and I know that’s not so, don’t we? The trick was done by a system of signals. But it took the public in. Now I’m going to tell you a secret of my own which I don’t boast about because nobody would believe me if I did. I can talk to horses in their own language and understand them when they talk back to me.”

Blossom was staring down moodily at the floor while the Doctor spoke. But at last words he gazed up at John Dolittle frowning.

“Are you crazy?” he said, “or didn’t I hear straight? Talk to animals in their own language! Look ’ere: I’ve been in the show business thirty-seven years, knocked around with animals ever since I was a nipper. And I know there ain’t no such thing as a man talking with a horse in horse language. You got a cheek to tell me a yarn like that – me, Alexander Blossom!”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Another Talking Horse

“I am not telling you a yarn,” said the Doctor quietly. “I am telling you the truth. But I can see that you will not believe me till I prove it to you.”

“You bet I won’t,” sneered Blossom.

“Well, there are five horses in this stable, aren’t there?” asked the Doctor. “And none of them can see me here where I stand, can they? Now if you will ask me to put some question to any one of them I will endeavour to give you his answer.”

“Oh, you’re crazy!” said Blossom. “I ain’t got time to fool with you.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “My intention was to help, as I told you. But, of course, if you don’t want my assistance, then that ends the matter.”

He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The noise of clapping sounded from the big tent.

“Ask Beppo,” said Blossom, “what’s the number of the stall he’s in.”

Beppo’s was the second from the end. On his door was marked a large “2” in white paint.

“Do you wish to have him tell me the answer in horse language?” asked the Doctor, “or shall I have him tap the number?”

“Have him tap the partition with his foot, Professor,” sneered Blossom. “I don’t know no horse grammar; and I couldn’t tell, t’other way, whether you are faking or not.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. And from where he stood, quite invisible to Beppo, he made some snuffy breathing noises – rather as though he had a cold in his head. Immediately two taps sounded from stall No. 2.

Blossom’s eyebrows went up in surprise. But almost immediately he shrugged his shoulders.

“Pshaw!” Could easily ’ave been an accident. Maybe he just fell against the partition. Ask ’im – er – ask ’im ’ow many buttons I ’ave on my waistcoat – the one your cross-eyed assistant is wearing in the ring now.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. And he made some more snuffly noises, ending with a gentle whinny.

But this time, unintentionally, he did not include Beppo’s name in his message. Now all the five horses in that stable knew Blossom’s waistcoat very well, of course. And each one thought the question was being asked of him. Suddenly from every stall six sharp rags rang out, and even poor Nino, lying in the straw with eyes closed, stretched out a hind leg and weakly kicked his door six times. Mr. Blossom’s eyes looked as though they were going to pop out of his head.

“Now,” said the Doctor smiling, “in case you should think that that was accidental too, I will ask Beppo to pull down the rag you see there hanging on his partition and to throw it up in the air.”

In response to a few more words of horse language the rag, whose end hung over the top of the partition, suddenly disappeared. The Doctor had not moved. Blossom ran down the stable to look inside stall No. 2. There he found the aged wagon horse tossing the rag up in the air and catching it – rather like a school girl playing with a handkerchief.

“Now do you believe me,” asked the Doctor.

“Believe you!” cried Blossom. “I believe you’re the Devil’s younger brother. Just the same, you’re the man I want, all right. Come on down to the dressing room and let’s put some togs on you.”

“Just a minute,” said the Doctor. “What do you mean to do?”

“Dress you up,” said Blossom, “of course. You’re going to do a turn for us, ain’t yet? Why you could take any cab horse and make a Nino of him. You said you was going to help me?”

“Yes,” answered John Dolittle slowly, “and I will – after, as I told you, you have promised me a few things. I am willing to make Beppo provide your ring with a talking horse on certain condition. Nino’s act doesn’t come on till the end of the show. We have a half-hour to talk this over in.”

“There’s no need,” cried Blossom, all excited. “I’ll promise you any bloomin’ things. Why, if you can talk animals’ language we’ll make a fortune in a season! Lor’ bless us! I never believed you could do it. You ought to ’ave joined the show business years ago. You’d ’ave bin a rich man by now – instead of a broken-down country doctor. Come on over and we’ll pick you out some nifty togs. Can’t go on in them baggy trousers; people ’ud think you’d never bin on a horse in your life.”

Blossom and the Doctor left the stable and made their way across to the dressing rooms where out of some of the well-travelled trunks the ringmaster began pulling costume after costume and piling them on the floor. Whilst he was going through the gaudy clothes the Doctor laid down the conditions under which he would give the performance.

“Now, Mr. Blossom,” said he, “ever since I have been with your concern I have noticed certain things that were distasteful to my ideas of honest business and the humanitarian treatment of animals. Some of these I have brought to your attention and in almost all cases you refused to listen to me.”

“Why, Doctor,” said Mr. Blossom, yanking a pair of red Persian trousers out of a trunk, “how can you say such a thing? Didn’t I get rid of Brown and Fatima because you objected to ’em?”

“You parted with them because you had to,” said the Doctor, “not to oblige me. I have felt very uneasy about being part of a show which I did not consider strictly honest. It would take a long time to go into all the details. For the present, the bargain I am going to strike with you is this: Beppo, the horse I will use for the talking act, is far too old to work. He has been in service now thirty-five years. I want him, as a reward for this help which he will give you, to be pensioned off for the remainder of his days, made comfortable and given the kind of life he likes.”

“I agree. Now how would this do?”

Blossom held up a cavalier’s jerkin against the Doctor’s chest. “No – too small. You ain’t very high from the ground, but you’re full-sized around the middle, all right.”

“The other thing I want you to do,” the Doctor went on, as Blossom turned back to the trunk for another costume, “is to put your menagerie in proper order. The cages are not cleaned often enough; some of the animals have not sufficient space for their needs, and many of them never get the kinds of food they like best.”

“All right, Doc, we’ll do anything in reason. I’ll let you draw up a set of rules for the menagerie-keeper and you can see that he toes the line. ’Ow would you like to be a Western cowboy?”

“I wouldn’t,” said the Doctor. “They are inconsiderate to their cattle. And I don’t approve of that silly business of flapping a hat in a horse’s eyes to make him buck. Then, for the rest, I shall from time to time expect you to make many minor reforms for the animals’ comfort. I shall expect you to treat my suggestions reasonably and cooperate with me for their welfare. What do you say?”

“I say it’s a go, Doc,” said Blossom. “We ain’t begun yet. If you stay with my outfit for a year – with your gift of talking to animals – why! – I’ll make every other circus look like a two-penny peepshow. – Oh, my! ’Ere’s the very thing – a cavalry uniform – Twenty-first Huzzars. Just your size. Medals and all! Suits your complexion, too.”

This time Blossom held a bright scarlet tunic over the Doctor’s bosom and beamed on him with delight.

“Ever seen anything so nifty!” he chuckled. “My word! I tell yer – we’ll make this town sit up! Could you get these things on your feet?”

“Oh, I dare say,” said the Doctor, taking a gaudy pair of military riding boots from the ringmaster and sitting down to unlace his own. At that moment the door opened and a stable boy came in.

“Joe, you’re just in time,” said Blossom. “Run over to the stables and give Beppo a rub down with the currycomb. He’s going to do an act.”

“Beppo!” cried the boy incredulously.

“That’s what I said, block-’ead!” shouted Blossom. “And put the green ’alter on ’im with the white rosettes – and braid ’is tail with a red ribbon. Hop about it!”

As the lad disappeared the clown with Swizzle entered for a short rest between acts. The Doctor, in smart regimental breeches and top boots, was now buttoning up the scarlet tunic about his chin.

“’Ow’s my cross-eyed understudy doing?” asked Blossom.

“Governor, he’s a wonder!” said Hop, sinking into a chair. “A born ringmaster. You never heard such a voice. He’s got a gift of the gab, all right. Ready with a joke if anybody slips; cracking quips with the audience – I tell you, governor, you’ve got to look to your laurels if you leave him with the ladies for long. Who’s the military gentleman? My hat, it’s the Doctor! What’s he going to do?”

At this moment another lad ran in.

“Only ten minutes before the last act goes on, Mr. Blossom,” he cried.

“All right,” said Blossom. “We can do it. Here’s your sword-belt, Doctor. How’s the crowd, Frank?”

“Great!” said the boy. “Pleased as Punch! They brought the whole grammar school down at the last minute. And the Soldier’s and Sailors’ Home is coming tonight. People standing two deep in the aisles. It’s the biggest business we’ve played to this year.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Star Turn Gives a Great Performance

Tremendous excitement now prevailed behind the scenes in Blossom’s “Mammoth Circus.” As the clown, Hop, opened the dressing room door to go back into the ring, mingled cheers and hand-clapping, the noise of a big audience’s applause, reached the ears of John Dolittle and the manager.

“Listen, Hop,” said Blossom, “pass the word to Mugg as you go back in that Nino is going to play anyway – in substitute – and the Doc here is doing the part of the trainer. Mugg can give ’em the introduction patter just the same. Tell ’im to lay it on thick. It’s going to be the greatest little turn we ever showed – better than Nino at his best.”

“All right, governor,” said the clown grinning through his paint. “But I wish you had picked a better-looking horse.”

At the last moment one of the Doctor’s shoulder straps was found to be loose. Only two minutes now remained before his act was due. Someone flew off and found Theodosia and with frantic haste she put it right with a needle and thread. Then, complete in his gay and wonderful uniform, the Doctor ran out of the dressing room to join his partner, Beppo, whose bridle was being held at the entrance to the big tent by the boy, Frank.

Poor Beppo did not look nearly as smart as the Doctor. Years of neglect and haphazard grooming could not be remedied by one curry-combing. His coat was long and dingy-looking, his mane straggly and unkempt. In spite of the smart, green and white headstall and the red ribbon in his plaited tail, he looked what he was: an old, old servant who had done his work faithfully for many, many years and got little credit or thanks for it.

“Oh, I say, Beppo!” the Doctor murmured in his ear as he took the bridle from Frank. “Anyone would think you were going to a funeral. Brace up! Draw your head back, high. That’s it. Now blow out your nostrils. – Ah, much better!”

“You know, Doctor,” said Beppo, “you mightn’t believe it, but I come of a very good family. My mother used to trace her pedigree way back to the battle-charger that Julius Caesar used – the one he always rode when he reviewed the Praetorian Guard. My mother was very proud of it. She took first prizes, she did. But when the heavy battle chargers went out of fashion all the big military horses got put to draught work. That’s how we came down in the world. Oughtn’t we to rehearse this act a bit first? I’ve no idea of what I’m expected to do.”

“No, we haven’t time now,” said John Dolittle. “We are liable to be called on any minute. But we’ll manage. Just do everything I tell you – and put in an extras you think of yourself. Look out, you’re drooping your head again. Remember your Roman ancestor. Chin up – that’s the way. Arch your neck. Make your eyes flash. Look as though you were carrying an emperor who owned the earth. – Fine! That’s the style! Now you look great.”

Within the big canvas theatre, Mr. Matthew Mugg, ringmaster for a day, was still covering himself with glory, bossing “The Greatest Show on Earth” with creditable skill and introducing the performers with much oratory and unusual grammar. He was having the time of his life and making the most of it.

In between the turns of the Pinto Brothers and the Strong Man, he saw Hop return into the ring and recommence his antics which always so delighted the children. As the crown did a somersault past the ringmaster’s nose, Matthew heard him whisper:

“The boss is putting on another talking horse with the Doctor playing the trainer. He wants you to introduce him the same as Nino.”

“Right you are,” Matthew whispered back. “I’ve got the idea.”

And when Jojo, the dancing elephant, had bowed himself out amidst a storm of applause, the ringmaster stepped to the entrance flap and himself led forward the next, the star, turn.

For a moment old Beppo, accompanied by a short stout man in cavalry uniform, seemed a little scared to find a sea of faces staring down at him.

Motioning to the strange-looking performers to remain by the edge of the ring a moment, Matthew advanced into the centre. With a lordly wave of the hand he silenced the wheezy band who were still finishing Jojo’s last dance. And in the quiet that followed he looked up at the audience and filled his lungs for his last and most impressive speech.

“Ladies and gentleman,” roared Ringmaster Mugg, “we ’ave now harrived at the last and most himportant act in our long and helegant program. You ’ave all ’eard. I’m sure, of Nino – Nino, the world-famous Talking Horse, and his gallant owner, the dashing Cossack cavalry officer, Captain Nicholas Pufftupski. There they are, ladies and gentlemen; you see them before you in the flesh. Kings and queens have travelled miles to witness their act. Only two months ago, when we are playing in Monte Carlo, we ’ad to turn away the Prime Minister of England because we ’adn’t got a seat for ’im in the ’ouse.

“Nino, ladies and gentlemen, is very old. He came originally from the back steppes of Siberia. His present owner, Major Pufftupski, bought ’im from the wandering Tartar tribes. Since then ’e ’as been through fifteen wars – which accounts for his wore-out appearance. This is the self-same ’orse what Colonel Pufftupski rode when, single ’anded ’e drove Napoleon out of Moscow and saved Russia from fallin’ under the hiron ’eel of Bonaparte. And the centre one of them three medals you see ’anging on the Brigadier’s chest is the one the Czar gave ’im as a reward for ’is brave hact.”

“Oh, stop his nonsense, Matthew,” whispered the Doctor coming up to him, dreadfully embarrassed. “There’s no need to—”

But the eloquent ringmaster hurried on with thunderous voice:

“So much, ladies and gentlemen, for the military career of this remarkable ’orse and ’is brave owner. General Pufftupski is a modest man and he forbids me to tell you about ’is other medals what was given ’im by the King of Sweden and the Empress of China. I now pass on to the hextraordinary hintelligence of the animal you see before you. On ’is way back from chasing Napoleon out of Russia, Count Pufftupski was took prisoner – and ’is ’orse, the famous Nino, with ’im. During their himprisonment they became very hintimate. So much so that at the end of the two years while they was captives of the French, Nino and ’is owner could talk to one another freely – the same as you and I might do. If you don’t believe what I say you can prove it for yourselves. All you ’ave to do is to ask any question of Nino through his owner and it will be answered – if it ’as an answer. The Field Marshal talks all languages except Japanese. If any Japanese ladies or gentlemen in the audience wants to ask questions they’ll ’ave to turn ’em into some other language first. Marshal Pufftupski will open ’is performance with this marvelous ’orse with a few tricks just to show you what they can do. Ladies and gentlemen, I ’ave great pleasure in introducing to you the Archduke Nicholas Pufftupski, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, and ’is battle charger, the one and only, world-famous NINO.”

As the band played a few opening chords the Doctor and Beppo stepped forward to the centre of the ring and bowed. A tremendous burst of applause came from the people.

It was a strange performance, the only one of its kind ever given to a circus audience. The Doctor, when he entered the ring, had no definite idea of what he was going to do – neither had Beppo. But the old, old veteran knew that the performance was going to win him comfort and freedom from work for the rest of his days. Every once in a while during the course of the act he would forget his noble ancestry and slump back into his usual weary, worn-out appearance. But on the whole, as Hop said afterward, he made a much better-looking show horse than anyone had expected; and so far as the audience was concerned, his success surpassed anything Blossom had ever exhibited.

After doing a few tricks Colonel Pufftupski turned to the people and offered (in remarkably good English) to make the horse do anything they asked. Immediately a little boy in front row cried out:

“Tell him to come over here and take my hat off.”

The Doctor made a sign or two and Beppo went straight to the boy, lifted the cap from his head and put it into his hand. Then numberless questions were shouted by the audience, and to every one Beppo gave an answer – sometimes by tapping the floor, sometimes by shaking his head, and sometimes by word of mouth which the Doctor translated. The people enjoyed it so much that Blossom, watching through a slit outside, thought they’d never be done. And when at last the gallant Pufftupski led his horse out of the ring the audience clapped and cheered and called to him again and again to come back and receive their applause.

The news of the wonderful success of the circus’s first performance in Bridgeton, mostly brought about by the marvelous Talking Horse, quickly spread through the town. And long before the evening show was due people were lined up outside the big tent, four deep, waiting patiently to make sure of seats; while the rest of the enclosure and all the side shows were packed and thronged so tight that you could hardly move through the crowds.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Beppo the Great

The money, over the spending of which poor Dab-Dab had so worried, was soon replaced in the Dolittle savings box. The addition of six snakes to the Doctor’s household was not an expensive one in upkeep – even though the good housekeeper continued to plead and argue with John Dolittle for the ousting of what she called the messy, squirmy creatures. But during the days at Bridgeton the throngs that crowded into the enclosure left so many sixpences at the booth of the “Two-headed animal from the jungles of Africa” that soon Too-Too prophesied the record takings of the Ashby week would be easily beaten.

“I estimate, Doctor,” said he, putting his mathematical head on one side and closing his left eye, “that in six days we should easily make sixteen pounds – and that’s not allowing for any extra business on the market day or Saturday.”

“And most of that you can put down to the Doctor’s act with Beppo,” said Jip. “If it wasn’t for that turn, and the talk it has made, the crowds wouldn’t be half so big.”

Finding what a success John Dolittle’s performance was making, Blossom came to him after the first showing and begged him to keep it up for the whole of the week that the circus stayed at Bridgeton.

“Well, but look here,” said John Dolittle, “I’ve promised Beppo that he would be pensioned off for obliging you in your emergency. I don’t know how soon Nino will be able to work again; but I did not say anything to Beppo about acting all week. I supposed you would put something else in our place as soon as you had time to look around.”

“Good Lord, Doctor!” said Blossom. “I couldn’t find anything to take the place of your act if I looked around for a year. There’s never been anything like it since the circus was invented. The news of it has gone all over the town – and a good ways outside of it, too. They say folks are coming all the way from Whittlethorpe to see your turn. Listen, can’t you ask Beppo to oblige us? It ain’t heavy work for ’im. Tell ’im we’ll give ’im anything ’e likes – asparagus for breakfast and a feather bed to sleep in – if ’e only says the word. My outfit, with the sideshows and all, is taking in pretty near fifty pounds a day now. Never saw such business! If this keeps up we shan’t ’ave to stay in the game long before we’re all on easy street.”

There was something of contempt in the Doctor’s face as he looked at Blossom and paused a moment before answering.

“Oh, yes,” he said rather sadly, “you’re willing enough to treat your poor old servant well now, aren’t you? – now he is bringing you in money. For years and years he has worked for you and never even got his coat brushed in return – just enough hay and oats to keep him going. Now you’ll give anything in the world. Money! Bah! It’s a curse.”

“Well,” said Blossom, “I’m helping to make up for it now, ain’t I? It ain’t ’eavy work, answering questions and doin’ tricks. You go and talk to ’im, Doctor. Lord bless me! Don’t it sound queer ? – me asking you to go and talk to ’im – and twenty-four hours ago I didn’t know there ever was such a thing as talking to ’orses!”

“Except with a whip,” said John Dolittle. “I wish I could put you in his place and make you work thirty-five years for Beppo in return for hay and water and a lot of beating and neglect. All right, I’ll put your request before him and see what he says. But remember, his decision is to be final. If he refuses to give one single performance more I shall hold you to your promise – a comfortable home for him and a good pasture to graze in for the rest of his life. And I almost hope he’ll say no.”

The Doctor turned on his heel and leaving the ringmaster’s wagon set off toward the stables.

“Poor old Beppo!” he murmured. “His ancestor carried Julius Caesar in military reviews – heard the legions cheer the conqueror of the world who sat astride his back! Poor old Beppo!”

When he entered the stables he found the wagon horse gazing out of the window of his stall at the pleasant fields that lay beyond the circus enclosure.

“Is that you, John Dolittle?” said he, as the Doctor opened the door. “Have you come to take me away?”

“Beppo,” said John Dolittle, putting his hand on the veteran’s gaunt and bony back, “it seems you are now a great man – I mean a great horse.”

“How’s that, Doctor? I don’t understand.”

“You’ve become famous, Beppo. This is a funny world. And we humans, I often think, are the funniest animals in it. Mr. Blossom has just found out after you have been in his service for thirty-five years, how valuable and intelligent you are.”

“In what way valuable?”

“Because you talk, Beppo.”

“But I’ve always talked.”

“Yes, I know. But Mr. Blossom and the world didn’t know until I proved it to them in the circus ring. You have made a great sensation, Beppo, just on the eve of your retirement. Now, they don’t want you to retire. They want you to continue being wonderful – just talking, the way you’ve always done.”

“It sounds crazy, doesn’t it, Doctor?”

“Perfectly. But you have suddenly become so valuable to Blossom that he will give you asparagus for breakfast, a valet to brush your coat and another to curl your mane if you’ll only stay and act for him for the rest of the week.”

“Humph! That’s what it means to be famous, does it? I’d sooner be turned out into a nice big field.”

“Well, Beppo, you are to suit yourself – at last, after thirty-five years of suiting other people. I’ve told Blossom I’m going to hold him to his bargain. If you don’t want to do it, say so. You shall retire today if you wish.”

“What would you advise me to do, Doctor?”

“There is this about it,” said John Dolittle, “if you give Blossom what he wants now, we may be able to get you what you want – that is, more exactly what you want – later. You see, he has no farm of his own to put you on; he would have to get a farmer to graze you and take care of you for him. And besides, he will probably be better disposed toward me and some plans I have for the other animals.”

“All right, Doctor,” said Beppo. “Then that settles it. I’ll do it.”

There was no happier man in the world than Alexander Blossom when John Dolittle came and told him that Beppo had consented to act all the week. He at once got handbills printed and had them sent to the neighbouring towns and given away in the streets. These told the public that the World-Famous Talking Horse was to be seen at Bridgeton for only four remaining days, and that those who did not miss the chance of a lifetime had better hurry up and come to “Blossom’s Mammoth Circus.”

The Doctor was caused considerable embarrassment during the special parades through the streets which were arranged for Beppo by having himself pointed out as the Archduke Pufftupski, the famous horse’s owner and trainer. For this absurd title, which Matthew had bestowed on the Doctor, the manager insisted on his sticking to.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week were each record-breakers for Blossom’s box office. For the first time in his life the ringmaster had to turn people away from the gates of his circus. The crowding of the enclosure reached a point where he was afraid to let any more in. The police of Bridgeton had to lend him nearly their whole force to keep the throngs in order and to see that no accidents happened in the crush.

Nothing succeeds like success. It was only necessary to have the news go through the town that people were being turned away, to make twice the number clamour for admission. “Bridgeton Week” came to be spoken of among the show folk for a long time afterward as the outstanding period in the circus’s whole career.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Perfect Pasture

In the meantime John Dolittle was making Blossom fulfill the other parts of his bargain. It was not long after the circus had opened at Bridgeton that the elephant sent Jip for the Doctor because he was suffering from an acute attack of rheumatism – brought on by living in an exceedingly damp and dirty stable.

The poor creature was in considerable pain. The Doctor, after examining, prescribed massage. Blossom was sent for and ordered to buy a barrel of a special costly kind of balm. A few weeks before, of course, the ringmaster would have flatly refused to go to such an expense for his animal’s comfort. But now, with John Dolittle bringing him in the biggest business that his show had ever seen, he was ready to do almost anything to please him. The balm was sent for right away and then the Doctor demanded six strong men to help him.

Massaging an elephant is no light work. A large audience gathered in the menagerie to watch the six men and the Doctor crawling over the elephant’s body, rubbing and pummelling the ointment into his hide till the sweat ran from their foreheads.

Then the Doctor ordered a new stable built for the big creature, with a special kind of wooden floor with drainage under it and a lot of other up-to-date features. And, although this work was also expensive, carpenters were brought in and it was completed in three hours. The result was that the elephant got well in a very short time.

The Doctor also drew up rules for the menagerie-keeper which improved the condition of all the other animals. And in spite of the fact that the keeper grumbled a good deal about “running a zoo like a beauty parlour,” Blossom made him understand that he would be discharged immediately if the Doctor’s new regulations were not strictly obeyed.

Poor Nino was still pretty sick. He was getting better, but his recovery was dreadfully slow. The Doctor visited him twice a day. But Blossom now realized that the cob’s act, which had always been done under his own guidance, could never take the place of the far finer performance of Beppo and the Doctor. Beppo, his age and appearance notwithstanding, was a much cleverer horse than Nino.

Well, the week wore on toward its end. John Dolittle had made arrangements with Blossom that after the last performance on Saturday he and Beppo were to leave and go away to a certain farmer who had agreed to keep the old horse in good grazing for the remainder of his days. He was to have all the oats he wanted and white radishes (a delicacy that Beppo was particularly fond of) twice a week. The Doctor and Beppo were going to inspect this farm, and if they didn’t like it, another one to their satisfaction was to be found.

The last performance was over; the big tent was being pulled down and the Doctor and Beppo were all ready for their departure. The old horse’s luggage consisted of a blanket (a new one that Doctor had made Blossom buy as a farewell present) which he wore. The Doctor’s luggage was his little black bag and a small bundle, which was also carried on Beppo’s back. John Dolittle was standing at the gate, his hand on Beppo’s bridle waiting for Matthew, who had run back to the wagon to get some sandwiches which Dab-Dab was preparing.

Presently he saw Blossom hurrying across the enclosure in a great state of excitement. A little way behind walked a short, very smartly-dressed man.

“Listen, Doc,” panted the ringmaster coming up, “I’ve just had the biggest offer I ever got in my life. That toff coming along is the proprietor of the Manchester Amphitheatre. He wants my outfit to show in his theatre – one of the biggest in the country – week after next. And ’e especially wants Beppo. What do you think he guarantees us? A hundred pounds a day! And maybe more if—”

“No!” the Doctor interrupted firmly, holding up his hand. “Beppo may not have many more years to live, but what he has he’s going to spend in comfort. Tell that to your manager. Beppo retires – today – from the circus business for good.”

And without waiting for his sandwiches, he led the old horse out of the enclosure and hurried down the road.

Beppo and John Dolittle had not gone very far before they were overtaken by Too-Too.

“Doctor,” said the owl, “I came after you to let you know about the money.”

“Too-Too,” John Dolittle replied, “at the present moment the subject of money is more than usually distasteful to me. Beppo and I are trying to get away from the very smell of it.”

“But just think what you can do with money, Doctor,” said Too-Too.

“Yes, that’s the trouble with the beastly stuff. It’s the power of it that makes it such a curse.”

“Dab-Dab asked me,” Too-Too went on, “to come and let you know how much the pushmi-pullyu had made this week at Bridgeton, because she thought perhaps you might think of retiring to Puddleby when you heard. I only just got it figured out – deducting Blossom’s share and the bills we owe the tradespeople. It was a big piece of arithmetic, I can tell you. My estimate was way off. Instead of sixteen pounds, we made twenty-six pounds, thirteen shillings and tenpence, clear profit.”

“Humph,” murmured the Doctor. “It’s a large amount, but not enough for us to retire on, Too-Too. Still it would go quite a long way toward it. Tell Dab-Dab to keep it safely for me and we will talk over the matter when I get back. I am returning tomorrow, you know. Good-by – and thank you very much for bringing me the news.”

Now, the Doctor had in his pocket the address of the farmer to whom they were going. Imagine his surprise on reading his destination to find that it was the same farm as the one where his old friend, the plough horse, lived!

There were hearty greetings, a good deal of astonishment and much joy at the meeting. The old plough horse, beaming through his green spectacles, was introduced to Beppo and Beppo was introduced to him. It was curious that although the Doctor had known the plough horse for so long he had never heard his name. And it was only on introducing the two old horses to one another that he learned it for the first time. It was Toggle.

“You know,” said the plough horse, “I am tremendously glad to see you both, but I am a little sorry, for Beppo’s sake, that it was to this farm that Blossom sent him. The farmer himself is a very decent follow, but this pasture I have here leaves a good deal to be desired.”

“But we don’t have to stay here,” said the Doctor. “I told Blossom that if it did not meet with Beppo’s approval he must find another. In what way is this place unsuitable? Is the grass bad?”

“No,” said Toggle, “the grass is all right – a little rank in August if there’s much rain, but it’s sweet enough most of the year. But the meadow slopes the wrong way. You see, this hillside is facing northeast. It’s only in midsummer that you get any sun. It stays behind the hill the rest of the year. Then the prevailing wind is a cold northeaster that blows across the meadow, and there’s little protection from it – except along that hedge over there and one soon eats up that bit of grass.”

“Well, tell me,” said the Doctor, turning to Beppo, “what, for you, would be the ideal, the most attractive place for an old horses’ home?”

“The place I’ve always dreamed of,” said Beppo, gazing across the landscape with a wistful look in his old eyes, “is like this – part of it is sloping and part of it is flat. Slopes are such a nice change: the grass is nearer to your nose, and the flats are restful to get back to after the slopes. Then it has trees, big spreading trees with fat trunks – the kind horses love to stand under and think – after a hearty meal. It has a copse where herbs and wild roots grow, the sorts we love to nibble for a change – especially the wild mint, which is soothing to the stomach when you’ve eaten too much. It has good water – not a muddy, little pond, but a decent brook where the water is always sparkling and clear. In a hollow it has a nice old shelter with a dry floor and a mossy, tiled roof that doesn’t let the rain in. The pasture varies: some places are firm, croppy turf; others are deep, luscious, long hay-grass with buttercups and fragrant wild flowers mixed in it. At the top of the hilly part you can get a view of the sunsets to the westward and the south. And on the summit there is a good firm post to scratch your neck on. I love to watch the sun go down as I scratch my neck of an evening. The whole place is protected with good fences from snappy dogs and worrisome people. It is quiet. It is peaceful. And that, John Dolittle, is the place where I would spend my old age.”

“Humph!” murmured the Doctor when Beppo had ended. “Your description sounds delightful – almost like the place where I’d wish to spend my own old age – though I suppose I’d want a little more furniture than a scratching post. Toggle, do you know of a pasture such as this that Beppo speaks of?”

“I do, indeed, Doctor,” said Toggle. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

Then the plough horse led them over the brow of the hill and down the other side a way. Here, facing the sunny southward, they looked over a farm gate into the loveliest meadow you ever saw. It was almost as if some fairy had made old Beppo’s wish come true, for it was the retreat he had described in every detail: there was the clump of great elm trees; there was the copse and the sparkling brook; there was the snug shelter in the hollow; and on the summit of the slope, against the red glow of the setting sun, stood the post for Beppo to scratch his neck on.

“This is it, Doctor,” said Beppo quietly. “This is the spot – just as I had always planned it. No horse could ask for any better place to pass his old age.”

“It’s wonderful,” said the Doctor, himself entirely captivated by the beauty of the scene. “It has character, that meadow. Does this land belong to your farmer, Toggle?”

“No,” said the plough horse. “I’ve often tried to break in here and graze. And I did get through the hedge, once or twice, but the owner always chased me out again. It belongs to a farmer who lives in the little house down there with the red roof.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “I wonder how much a piece of ground like that would cost.”

“Not very much, I shouldn’t think,” said Toggle. “Although it is large, the farmer has never raised anything but hay on it.”

“But, Doctor,” said Beppo, “why buy it? I thought you said Blossom was going to pay for my pensioning off.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “But he has only agreed to pay for your board and lodging. I’ve always had an idea I’d like to start a Home for Retired Cab and Wagon Horses. And this place is such an ideal one for aged horses that I thought, if I could, I’d buy it. Then we would form ‘The Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association’ and you could keep the place for your own for good.”

“What a marvelous idea!” cried both horses together.

“But have you got enough money, Doctor?” asked Beppo. “Jip often told me that you were as poor as a church mouse.”

“That is so – more or less,” the Doctor agreed. “Money with me has always been a most uncertain thing. But, as you heard Too-Too come and tell me shortly after we had left the circus, I am now some twenty-six pounds to the good. I owe a sailor a lot of money for a boat, but his need is not so urgent as your own – I sent a bird to find out, so I know. I can make some more money later on to pay him with. Of course, twenty-six pounds is not enough to buy a piece of land that big, outright. But perhaps the farmer will let me pay so much down and the rest by installments every year. If he will, it become yours right away and nobody can take it away from you – unless I fail in my payments. Now, you two wait here and I’ll go and see him about it.”

Leaving the two horses by the gate, the Doctor set off across country for the little red-roofed house that Toggle had pointed out.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association

Now, the farmer who owned the land which the Doctor wished to buy was, at the moment when John Dolittle knocked upon his door, sitting at his parlour table talking to Toggle’s farmer. He was sorely in need of twenty pounds to buy seed potatoes with. But Toggle’s farmer, with many apologies, had been compelled to refuse him because he himself was very short of money at this time. It was this conversation which the Doctor’s call interrupted.

The farmer was very hospitable and invited John Dolittle to come in and sit down at the table with his other guest. Mugs of fragrant cider were brought in by the host’s wife. Then the Doctor described the piece of ground which Toggle had shown him and asked if it was for sale. And as it was one which the farmer seldom used he immediately said yes, it was. For how much, the Doctor asked. For one hundred and twenty pounds, the farmer told him.

“Well,” said the Doctor. “I only have twenty-six pounds at present. Suppose I gave you that down and promised to pay the rest in twenty-pound installments every six months: would you let me have it?”

The farmer, seeing a chance of getting his seed potatoes, was going to agree at once, but the other, Toggle’s farmer, broke into the conversation.

“What be you going to use the land for, stranger?” he asked. “You ain’t thinkin’ of puttin’ up no glue factory, I hope.”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “I want to make it into a rest farm for old horses – just a grazing ground. Practically nothing will be altered.”

The two farmers thought the stranger must be crazy. But, as he and the plan he proposed seemed harmless enough, they readily gave in.

“By the way,” said the Doctor, still speaking to Toggle’s owner, “you have a friend of mine at your farm, a plough horse; he wears spectacles which I gave him years ago when he lived in Puddleby.”

“Oh, aye,” said the farmer. “I know ’un – Toggle. A queer beast, that. ’E wouldn’t be parted from them specs for anything. What about ’im?”

“He is too old to work, isn’t he?” said the Doctor. “You let him graze now most of the time, I understand. He wishes to use this same pasture with the horse I have brought today. Will you let him?”

“That I will,” said the farmer. “But how come you to know all this about my cattle?”

“Oh, well,” said the Doctor, looking sort of embarrassed, “I have ways of my own knowing what horses want. I’m a naturalist.”

“Sounds like you was an unnaturalist to me,” said the farmer, winking at his neighbour.

After a little discussion on how the first money would be sent, the bargain was closed and the Doctor was told that now, so long as his part of the arrangement was fulfilled, the land belonged to him.

“Not to me,” he said as he rose and bade the farmers farewell. “The land belongs to the Association. I am turning it over to the horses themselves.”

Having inquired of his host where he could find a carpenter, the Doctor left. And when, a half hour later, the two farmers walked across the field together they saw the strange naturalist and the carpenter busily putting up a large signboard in the middle of the pasture. On it was written in big letters:

REST FARM

THIS LAND IS THE PROPERTY OF THE RETIRED CAB AND WAGON HORSES’ ASSOCIATION.
TRESPASSERS AND VICIOUS DOGS WILL BE KICKED.

BY ORDER,

( Signed, on behalf of the Committee.)

BEPPO, President.

TOGGLE, Vice-President.

NOTE — MEMBERSHIP FREE.
FOR ADMISSION APPLY AT THE GATE

Well, after seeing the first two members of “The Association” enter into possession of their new quarters, John Dolittle bade Beppo and Toggle farewell and set off on his return journey.

As he passed down the road he looked back many times to watch the two old veterans prancing around their beautiful new home. The sight warmed his heart and he smiled as he hurried on.

“I’m not sure,” he murmured to himself, “but I think that is almost the best job I ever did. Poor creatures! They are happy at last, growing young again after a life of hard work. I must establish some more institutions like that. I’ve one or two in mind. The Rat and Mouse Club, for instance. I’d like to see that started. Of course, I shall get in a frightful row over this from Dab-Dab when she finds out that I’ve spent all the money again. Oh, well, it’s worth it. I’ll send some London cab horses down to join them as soon as I get to the city again. Humph!” – (the Doctor paused and looked back) – “There they are – at it still – Beppo rolling down the hill and Toggle splashing through the brook. – Great heavens! I forgot all about the radishes. Why didn’t Beppo remind me?”

He hurried back. On the way he met a lad playing in the road. Questioning him, he found he was the son of a farmer who had sold the land.

“Would you like to earn a shilling a week?” asked the Doctor.

“I’d like to earn a shilling a month,” said the boy. “I want to save up and buy some skates for next winter. I’ve only got ninepence so far.”

“Do you know how to grow radishes?”

“Yes,” answered the boy. “That’s easy. They’re about the only thing I can grow.”

“Very good,” said John Dolittle. “Now, you see that meadow where the horses are – and the shelter at the bottom? Well, I’ve just bought that land from your father. It’s to be a home for horses. If you’ll plant me a radish bed behind the shelter, the white kind, you know, I’ll pay you a shilling a week for keeping it in order. Are you willing?”

“I should say I am, Sir!” cried the boy.

“All right. Here’s your first shilling – and here’s a penny to buy a packet of seed with. I appoint you head gardener to the Rest Farm. You’re now on the payroll of the Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association. Make the radish bed fairly big, because I may be sending down some more horses later. When the radishes are ripe, you make them up into bunches and hand them out to the members twice a week. And don’t forget to plant new seed every so often, to keep up the supply. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now give me your Christian name,” said the Doctor, “and I’ll send you your wages every week. And if you should have to leave your job – to go away or anything – get your father to write me a letter. He knows how to reach me.”

The boy, pleased as Punch with his good luck, gave the Doctor his name, took his money and ran off to get a spade and fork and start his new work.

“Well, so that’s that,” the Doctor murmured as he hurried on toward Bridgeton. “Now, I must try to think out a way to break the news gently to Dab-Dab that our money-box is emptied again.”

The Rest Farm which the Doctor established that day continued to flourish and grow for many years. And another worry was added to the many which harassed Dab-Dab, the careful housekeeper. For not only had the Doctor bound himself to send the farmer twenty pounds every six months, but he further reduced the Dolittle fortunes by buying, every once in a while, some specially old and weary horse which he would meet on the streets. He bought them from cab drivers, from rag-and-bone men, from all sorts of people. Poor Dab-Dab used to be terrified when she saw a gypsy wagon come in sight on the road. For gypsies’ horses were always particularly thin and scrawny-looking, and it was almost certain that the Doctor would try to buy the poor creatures from men who were much better skilled than he in shrewd bargaining.

All these old waifs and wrecks of horses the Doctor would send down to the Rest Farm to be made free members of the Association. Beppo’s and Toggle’s partnership grew into quite a family circle of old cronies – horses from all walks of life. And many were the interesting tales of bygone days told beneath the big trees of an evening or around the post on top of the hill. Here the old fellows would stand in line, waiting to scratch their necks, watching the beauty of the peaceful landscape grow dim in the red glow of the setting sun.

And still the membership list grew longer and longer. The boy who kept the radish garden sent a letter to the Doctor, saying he had had to enlarge the bed and needed help. He had a school friend, he wrote, who was also saving up to buy skates. Would the Doctor employ him too?

The Doctor did; and the payroll of the Association advanced to two shillings a week. John Dolittle paid a visit to the farm after it had been going for about three months. On consulting with the committee (five of the oldest veterans), he found that money was required for repairing fences and keeping the ditches clear beneath the hedges. Some of the members needed their hoofs trimmed (they didn’t bother to wear shoes, of course). So he arranged with the lad he had first appointed as gardener to extend the radish bed considerably, in order that quite a large crop of vegetables could be grown – more than was needed for the members.

The lad had a good head for business and this was done; and two more friends of his were employed for the extra work. Then the money that was made by selling the vegetables was used to form a “Fencing and Farriers’ Fund,” – to hire hedgers and ditchers and blacksmiths every so often to keep the fences in repair and to trim the members’ hoofs.

Paying the extra boys, of course, took still more from the Dolittle money box – and added still more to the worries of Dab-Dab the housekeeper.

“What’s the use?” cried Too-Too one evening when they were discussing accounts – “what’s the use of my doing all this double-entry bookkeeping – making my head fairly ache with arithmetic? It doesn’t do any good to calculate how much the Doctor has – or to estimate how much he’s going to have. No matter what it is, he spends it all!”

• • • • •

Part Five

•   1   •

Mr. Bellamy of Manchester

By getting a lift on the road in a fast trap that overtook him, John Dolittle reached the circus late that night, instead of early the following morning, as he had expected. And the first thing that Matthew Mugg said to him as he entered the wagon was:

“Blossom told me he wanted to see you as soon as you got in. That toff from Manchester is still with him.”

Thereupon the Doctor immediately left his own wagon and set out for that of the ringmaster. Jip asked could he come along, and the Doctor said yes.

The circus was now all packed up ready for departure early tomorrow morning. As John Dolittle approached Blossom’s caravan he saw a light in the window. It was very late – after midnight.

Within he found the ringmaster sitting at the little table with the smartly dressed man whom he had seen earlier in the day.

“Good evening, Doctor,” said the ringmaster. “This gentleman is Mr. Frederick Bellamy, proprietor and manager of the Manchester Amphitheatre. He has something ’e’d like to say to you.”

The Doctor shook hands with Mr. Bellamy, who at once leant back in his chair, put his thumbs in the armholes of his white waistcoat and began:

“I have delayed my return to Manchester, Doctor Dolittle – in spite of urgent and pressing business – in order to discuss with you an engagement which I had offered to Mr. Blossom this afternoon. I witnessed your act with the Talking Horse and was greatly interested in it. Mr. Blossom tells me that he tried to get you to consent to take part in his show’s performance in my theatre, but that you refused – took the horse away to put him grazing.”

The Doctor nodded, and Mr. Bellamy went on:

“I then supposed that the deal was off, because – I don’t mind telling you – without your turn I would not be interested in this circus. But Mr. Blossom has persuaded me to remain and talk with you myself. He assured me that the intelligence of the performance was not in that particular horse, but in your own unusual powers with animals – that you could give as good a show with any horse. He tells me, though I confess I can hardly believe it, that you can actually communicate with animals in their own language. Is that so?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, looking uncomfortable, “I’m sorry that Mr. Blossom told you this. I don’t claim it, or talk of it, myself, because I find that people don’t usually believe me. But, – yes, it is true. With most animals I can converse freely.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Bellamy. “Most extraordinary! That being the case, we had thought that perhaps you would be willing to do us an act with some other animal, or animals, in place of the horse that you have just taken away. My idea is to make it something more elaborate – to have it form the bigger, more important part of Mr. Blossom’s show. It is something quite new, this gift of yours. And, properly put on, it ought to make a great sensation. Of course, you understand, it would be well paid for – very, I might say. Would you consider it?”

“I haven’t any other turn worked out at the moment,” said the Doctor. “I am somewhat new to this business. My idea of shows with animals is that they must always be done with the consent and willing cooperation of the animals themselves.”

“Oh, quite, quite,” said Mr. Bellamy. “It is very late now. Suppose you think it over until tomorrow. I cannot catch the coach tonight. And if you consider it, let me know in the morning, eh?”

As the Doctor made his way back to his own wagon, Jip who had listened to the conversation with great interest, trotted by his side.

“Doctor,” said he, “this seems to me a grand chance for us to do our play – just your own family – me, Too-Too, Gub-Gub, Toby, Swizzle, and perhaps the white mouse. You know, you said you would let us try it some time – ‘The Animals’ Theatre.’ You write a comic play for us – Gub-Gub’s is no good – sort of vegetable knockabout. You write a play of your own – for animals – something high class. And we’ll act it. I’m sure it will make a great sensation in Manchester. It’s a big city. And we’ll have a real intelligence audience.”

In spite of the lateness of the hour, John Dolittle found, when he went back to his own wagon, that all his pets were sitting up waiting to see him and to hear the story of his day’s doings.

Jip immediately told them of the interview with the Manchester manager and his own idea of providing an act by getting up an animal play. This was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm and applause from everyone, down to the white mouse.

“Hooray!” gurgled Gub-Gub. “At last I’m to be an actor. And, just think, I shall make my first appearance in Manchester!”

“Don’t go so fast,” said the Doctor. “We don’t know yet that there will be a play. It may not be possible. It doesn’t follow because a play amuses you that it will amuse your audience.”

Then began a heated argument among the animals about plots for plays – about what kind of things amused people.

“Let’s do Cinderella,” cried the white mouse. “Everybody knows that, and then I can be one of the mice that the witch turned into footmen.”

“Let’s do Little Red Riding Hood,” said Swizzle. “Then I can play the wolf.”

The discussion became so general and interested that the Doctor thought this would be a good time to break the news to Dab-Dab that he had spent the twenty-six pounds.

This he did. And the evening was spoilt for the housekeeper.

“Doctor, Doctor!” she sighed, shaking her head. “What shall I do with you? You’re not to be trusted with money – really, you’re not. Oh, dear, we’ll never get back to Puddleby, I suppose.”

But the others, wrapped up in their new interest, brushed the matter aside as though it were nothing.

“Oh,” said Gub-Gub, airily, “we’ll soon make some more. What is money? Poof! Look here, Doctor, why don’t we do Beauty and the Beast? Then I can act the part of the Beauty.”

“Great heavens!” cried Jip. “What an idea! No; listen, Doctor: you write the play yourself – because you know what will interest people.”

“Why don’t you let the Doctor go to bed?” asked the Dab-Dab angrily. “He has had a long day. And it’s time you were all asleep yourselves.”

“My gracious!” said the Doctor, looking at his watch. “Do you know what time it is? It is two o’clock in the morning…. Go to bed, all of you.”

“Oh, we’re travelling tomorrow, Doctor,” said Gub-Gub. “It doesn’t matter what time we get up. Let us stay a little longer. We have to settle on what play we are going to give.”

“No, you don’t,” said Dab-Dab – “not tonight. The Doctor’s tired.”

“No, I’m not tired,” said John Dolittle.

“Well, it’s bad for them to stay up late. There’s nothing like early bed as a habit.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Doctor. “But myself, I don’t like getting into habits, you know.”

“Well, I do,” said Dab-Dab – “when they’re good ones. I like regular people.”

“Do you, Dab-Dab? That’s why you’re such an excellent housekeeper. There are two kinds of people: those who like habits and those who don’t. They both have their good qualities.”

“You know, Doctor,” Gub-Gub put in, “me – I always divide people into the pickle-eaters and the plain feeders – those who like chutneys and sauces on their food and those who like everything plain.”

“It’s the same idea, Gub-Gub,” the Doctor laughed. “Those that like change in their lives and those that like sameness. Your chutney-eaters are the change-lovers and your plain-fooders are the er – housekeepers. Myself, I hope to grow more adaptable as I grow older.”

“What’s adaptable, Doctor?” asked Gub-Gub.

“It would take too long to explain now. Go to bed. We’ll talk about the play in the morning.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Animal Plays

When the Dolittle household awoke next morning they found that the wagon was moving. This was nothing new for them. It only meant that the circus had got under way very early while they were still asleep – as it often did in moving from town to town. It was a part of the life, this, that Gub-Gub greatly enjoyed – waking in the morning and looking out of the window to see what kind of new scene lay around their moving home.

Gub-Gub used to boast that this showed he was a born traveller, that he loved change, like the Doctor. As a matter of fact, he was really by nature much more like Dab-Dab; for no one loved regular habits, especially regular meals, more than he. It was just that the gipsy life provided a continuous and safe sort of adventure for him. He liked excitement, but comfortable excitement, without hardship or danger.

Matthew Mugg came in while the family was still at breakfast.

“Doctor,” said he, “that Mr. Bellamy is still with the outfit. Said he might as well come along with us, as we was going the same way as him. But, if you ask me, I reckon the real reason is because he’s afraid he may lose sight of you. He’s just crazy to get you do a turn at his theatre – don’t care nothin’ about the rest of Blossom’s show. But he’s willin’ to pay any amount to get you to give a performance of your own with animals.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “it isn’t as easy as it sounds, Matthew. My own pets here are anxious to do a play. I wrote a sort of comedy last night after they had gone to bed. But, of course, it will have to be rehearsed over and over before it is in shape for him to see it. The animals must know their parts properly. You might go forward and tell him, will you, that I will try to rehearse it while we are travelling, and that I will let him see it tomorrow, if we are far enough on with it.”

“All right,” said Matthew, and he stepped out of the back of the moving wagon and ran forward to overtake the ringmaster’s caravan with his message.

Doctor Dolittle had, as you know, written plays before for animals – dozens of them. I have told you of his very famous little book called One-Act Plays for Penguins. He had also written longer dramas for monkeys and others. But all these had been intended for audiences of animals and were written in animal languages. The penguin plays were (and are still, so far as I know) performed during the long winter nights in the open-air theatres of the Antarctic, where the vast audience of quaint birds sit around on the rocks in solemn groups, clapping their flipper-like wings when anything said by the actors strikes them as particularly sensible.

The plays for monkeys were of a much lighter kind. They preferred comedies and farces to the more serious and thoughtful drama that the penguins liked. The monkey plays were enacted in clear places in the jungle and the audience sat in the trees all about. The seats in the boughs right over the stage were the most expensive in the monkey theatres. And a family box, which consisted of a whole branch of a tree, cost as much as a hundred nuts. There was a special rule that families occupying these places should not throw their nutshells or banana peels down onto the performers’ heads.

So, you see, John Dolittle was quite experienced as a playwright for animals. But the thing needed by Mr. Bellamy, which was to be shown to an audience of people, had to be different, because people don’t understand animal languages. And after much thought the Doctor decided to do away with language altogether. The whole play was to be action. And he called it The Puddleby Pantomime.

The rehearsals for the pantomime were greatly enjoyed by everyone except Dab-Dab. The poor housekeeper, who had herself a part to play in it, was continually stopping the performance to row someone about upsetting the furniture or breaking the teacups or pulling down the curtains.

The inside of the wagon was very close quarters, as you can easily imagine, for acting a play. Added to this, the caravan was moving all the time; and whenever the horse who was pulling it went around a curve or a sharp bend in the road everybody on the stages sat down on the floor; and a squawk from Dab-Dab would show that some new piece of damage had been done to her home. But the rest of the animals got almost as much fun out of the accidents in rehearsal as they did out of the play itself.

The pantomime was just like the old-fashioned Harlequinade. Toby played the part of Harlequin, Dab-Dab was Columbine, Gub-Gub was Pantaloon, Swizzle was the policeman and Jip was Pierrot . The dance by Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot caused a lot of merriment, because whenever the dancers were on the tips of their toes, that was certain to be the time when the wagon would give an extra bad lurch and throw the dancers under the bed.

Swizzle, as the policeman, was always arresting poor Pierrot (Jip) and anybody else he met. For a club he used a cucumber – until he broke it in half over Pantaloon (Gub-Gub), whom he was supposed to chase all around the wagon for stealing the string of sausages. Then the prisoner took the policeman’s club away from him and ate it. And the Doctor decided to put that idea into the real show and to use a cucumber in Manchester.

Coming on and off the “stage” was very difficult, because the performers had to go out of the door and stand on the narrow steps while the wagon was still going. Gub-Gub, in his part of the comic Pantaloon, had a hard time. He had to make many entrances and many exits – bounding in and out with the red-hot poker or the string of sausages. And in spite of the Doctor’s warning him repeatedly to go out carefully, he always forgot that the wagon was moving, and, making his flying exit, he almost invariably fell out of wagon, upside down, into the road. Then the rehearsal would have to be stopped while Mr. Pantaloon picked himself up and ran after his moving theatre to get on the stage again.

The piece was gone through four or five times during that morning while the circus was travelling on to the next town. And when the train of wagons halted for the night the Doctor sent word to Mr. Bellamy that, although the act was still very imperfect and no customers ready yet, he could come and see if it would do.

Then the pantomime was performed again, this time on the solid ground by the side of the road, before an audience of Mr. Bellamy, Blossom, Matthew Mugg and the strong man. On this stage, that stood still instead of lurching from side to side, the piece went much better; and, although Pantaloon got a bit mixed up and popped on and off the stage many times too often, the audience clapped loud and long when it was over and declared it one of the most amusing shows they had ever seen.

“Perfectly splendid!” cried Mr. Bellamy. “It’s just the thing we want. With a little more rehearsing and proper clothes, that should make a great hit. Nobody can say this act it not enjoyed by the animals that take part in it. Now, I’m going on to Manchester this evening. And after Mr. Blossom has played his week in Little Plimpton he’ll bring you on to my theatre to open the beginning of the following week. Monday the seventeenth. In the meantime, I’ll do some advertising. And I think we can promise you an audience worth playing to.”

The circus’s week at Little Plimpton was chiefly occupied by the Dolittle household in preparing and rehearsing the Puddleby Pantomime for its showing in Manchester. As for the pushmi-pullyu, the useful Matthew Mugg took entire charge of his stand, leaving the Doctor free to take care of the play.

Day after day the act was gone through until everyone knew his part perfectly and there seemed no possible chance of a mistake. The Doctor wanted the whole performance to be done by the animals, without himself or any person appearing on the stage from beginning to end. During the rehearsals accidents and odd things happened which gave the Doctor ideas, many of which he put into the play itself, as he had done with the cucumber. Then, too, several of the actors thought up comic notions of their own while the show was being tried out. And if they were good enough John Dolittle put them into the pantomime. For these reasons the act toward the end of rehearsals was much longer and quite a little different from what it had been when shown to Mr. Bellamy. It was much better, too. Gub-Gub thought it so comical that often in the middle of it he would get a giggling fit over his own funniness and be so doubled up with mirth that he couldn’t go on with his part.

Theodosia Mugg was very busy during these days, making the costumes. Fitting suits of clothes to animals is not easy. Gub-Gub gave the most trouble. At the first dress rehearsal he came on with his suit upside down, and his wig back-to-front. He had his hind legs through the sleeves of the coat, wearing them as pants. His makeup, too, gave a lot of extra work to the stage manager. Mr. Pantaloon liked the taste of grease paint and he would keep licking his chops during the performance. So of course the rouge on his cheeks very soon got smeared all around his mouth and made him look as though he had been eating bread and jam.

But Pantaloon’s greatest trial was his trousers. When at last they did make him understand how his suit was to be worn, he at first fastened his trousers to a belt. But his stomach was so round and smooth his belt would keep slipping off it. And at the first few dress rehearsals whenever he ran on to the stage (always chased by the policeman, of course), as often as not he would lose his pants on the way and arrive on the stage wearing only a coat and a wig.

Then Theodosia made a special pair of suspenders for him to keep his pants up with, and the Doctor always inspected his dressing himself.

A similar accident happened frequently at the beginning to Dab-Dab, who acted part of Columbine. Theodosia had made her a very cunning little ballet skirt of stiff pink net. But the first time she wore it, the dainty web-footed toe-dancer, doing an especially high kick in her dance with Harlequin, kicked her skirt right over her partner’s head. The excitement was added to considerably when Pantaloon, who had just rushed in, picked up the skirt, and put it on himself in place of the pants he had lost, as usual, in his hurried entrance.

So, as you can easily imagine, Stage Manager Dolittle and Theodosia, the mistress of the wardrobe, had their hands pretty full. Acting as people was hard enough for the animals by itself; but acting in clothes that they were not accustomed to wearing was a tremendous job, when only a week could be taken for rehearsing. Many times the Doctor was in despair over the costuming part of it. However, Theodosia worked out a lot of very cunning dodges, by means of secret buttons, hooks, elastics and tapes, to hold the clothes and hats and wigs in place. Then by making the actors wear their costumes all day long the Doctor finally got his performers so they could move, and run and dance in clothes as easily as they could without them.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Poster and the Statue

The day the circus moved to Manchester was a great one for the Dolittle household. None of the animals except Jip had been in a real large city before. On the way there Gub-Gub was constantly at the window of the caravan, watching the road and shouting out words over his shoulder to the others when anything new or wonderful came in sight.

Mr. Bellamy’s show place was situated on the edge of the city. It was a big amusement park, with all sorts of sideshows of its own and a large theatre building in the centre. Prizefights, wrestling matches, brass band contests and all manner of entertainments were held in a large open-air place behind the theatre. It was oval in shape and had seats banked up high all around it. This it was that had given it its name, the Amphitheatre, because it was like the great open-air theatres of the Romans.

To Mr. Bellamy’s amusement park the citizens of Manchester came out in thousands when they were in need of recreation – especially Saturday afternoons and in the evenings. At night the whole place was lit up with strings of little lights, and very gay and pretty it looked.

The park was so big that Blossom’s “Mammoth Circus” could fit into one corner of it and not be seen. The ringmaster was greatly impressed.

“Lor’ bless me,” he said to the Doctor, “this is the way to run the show business all right – on a grand scale. Bellamy must be rolling in money. Why, the theatre building alone could hold three times as many people as we can fit into our big tent!”

Blossom’s Circus party, feeling dreadfully small and unimportant in such a huge concern, were guided to a place where they could halt and settle down. Shortly after the horses were stabled and the great Mr. Bellamy himself turned up. The first thing he inquired for was the Puddleby Pantomime troupe.

“As for the rest of your show,” he said to Blossom, “I’ll leave you this corner of the grounds, and you can set up and do what business you can on your own. We get the bigger crowds after five o’clock in the evening and all Saturday afternoon – when we usually run a prizefight over in the arena. But Doctor Dolittle’s company I am going to take care of separately. Of course, I’ll pay the money through you, as I told you, and you divide it in whatever way you two arrange. But from now on he and his animals are under my management, you understand, and are not to be interfered with by anybody else. That’s what we agreed on, isn’t it?”

Then while Blossom and his men got their own sideshows set up the Dolittle household and its wagon were taken off to another part of the grounds – close to the theatre – and given a space within a high fence, where they could settle down in comfort.

Here they found a few other tents and caravans, the homes of various special performers taking part in the daily, or rather nightly, show which was given in the theatre. Dancers they were, tight-rope walkers, singers and what not.

After the beds were made up and the Dolittle wagon put in order, the Doctor suggested a walk through the city. Jip and Gub-Gub at once asked could they come, and the Doctor consented. Dab-Dab thought she ought to remain behind and finish unpacking and to get food cooked for supper.

Then when the Doctor had been over to make sure that Matthew Mugg had got the pushmi-pullyu comfortably settled he set out, accompanied by Gub-Gub and Jip, to see the sights of Manchester.

To reach the city proper they had to walk about half a mile through districts of ordinary houses and gardens which surrounded the big town.

Of course, John Dolittle and Jip, having been in London more than once, knew what a regular city looked like. But Gub-Gub, when they entered the thronged streets, teeming with traffic, bordered by grand shops and buildings, was greatly impressed.

“What a lot of people!” he murmured, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “And just look at the cabs! I didn’t know there were so many in the world – following one another down the street like a parade. And such splendid vegetable shops! Did you ever see such enormous tomatoes! Oh, I like this place. It’s much bigger than Puddleby isn’t it? And much gayer. Yes, I like this town.”

They came to an open place, a big square, with especially fine stone buildings on all sides of it. Gub-Gub wanted to know all about each of them, and the Doctor had to explain what a bank was, and a corn exchange and a municipal hall, and many more.

“And what’s that?” asked Gub-Gub, pointing to the middle of the square.

“That’s a statue,” said the Doctor.

It was a very grand monument of a man on horseback. And Gub-Gub asked who he was.

“That’s General Slade,” said the Doctor.

“But why do they put a statue up to him?”

“Because he was a famous man,” answered the Doctor. “He fought in India – against the French.”

They passed out of this square and a little further on entered another, a smaller one, with no statue in it. As they were crossing it Gub-Gub suddenly stopped dead.

“Great heavens, Doctor!” he cried. “Look!”

At the far side of the square, on a hoarding, was an enormous poster – a picture of a pig dressed as Pantaloon, holding a string of sausages.

“Why, it’s me, Doctor!” said Gub-Gub, hurrying toward it.

And sure enough, written across the top in large letters was: “The Puddleby Pantomime. A Mystery. Come and see the Unique Harlequinade. Bellamy’s Amphitheatre. Next Monday.”

The manger had been as good as his word. He had had an artist make pictures of the characters in the Doctor’s play and posted them all over the city.

They couldn’t get Gub-Gub away from it. The idea of coming into this big town and finding his own pictures on the walls and himself a famous actor already, entirely fascinated him.

“Perhaps they’ll put up a statue of me next,” he said – “like the general. Look, there’s room for one here. They haven’t got any in this square.”

As they went through the streets they found more pictures of their show – some of Dab-Dab, poised on her toes in a ballet skirt; some of Swizzle, with a policeman’s helmet on his head. But whenever they passed one of Pantaloon they had the hardest work dragging Gub-Gub away. He would have sat in front of it all night, if they had let him, admiring himself as a famous actor.

“I really think you ought to speak to the Mayor about my statue, Doctor,” said he, as he sauntered homeward with his nose carried high in the air. “Perhaps they’ll want to move the general into a smaller square and put me in the larger one.”

On the morning of Monday, the day when the Pantomime was to make its first appearance before the public, there was a dress rehearsal of it and the rest of the show to be given in the theatre. This was what is known as a variety show. There were a number of different acts, dancers, singers, jugglers, and so forth. They came on to the stage in turn and went through their performance, with the orchestra playing the proper music for each one.

At the sides of the stage there were little frames, and at the beginning of each act footmen in livery came out and pushed big cards into them. These cards had the name of the new act on them, and were displayed in this way so that the audience could read what was coming. The Doctor suggested that with the Puddleby Pantomime the card-changing should be done by animals, instead of footmen. Mr. Bellamy thought it was a splendid idea. And while the Doctor was wondering what animals he could get Too-Too suggested that he be given the job.

“But we need two,” said the Doctor. “You see how the footmen do it – like soldiers. They march out with the cards in their hand – just as though they were drilling, go to each side of the stage – pull the old card out and stick the new one in.”

“That’s all right, Doctor,” said Too-Too. “I can soon get another owl and we’ll make a better pair than those footmen. You wait till I take a hunt around the country outside the city.”

Too-Too flew off, and before half an hour had passed he was back again with another owl who was the dead image of himself, and the exact same size. Then stools were placed on the corners of the stage, so that the little birds could reach the frames and the owl footmen were drilled in their parts.

Even the musicians in the orchestra, accustomed to seeing wonderful things done on the stage, were astonished when Too-Too and his brother owl appeared from behind the curtains. They were really much smarter at the job than the footmen in velvet. Like two clockwork figures, they hopped onto the stools, changed the cards, bowed to the imaginary audience and retired.

“My!” said the bass fiddler to the trombone player. “Did you ever see the like? You’d think they’d been working in a variety hall all their lives!”

Then the Doctor, who was himself quite a musician, discussed with the conductor what kind of music should be played while the pantomime was going on.

“I want something lively,” said John Dolittle, “but very, very soft – pianissimo the whole time.”

“All right,” said the conductor. “I’ll play you the thing we do for the tight rope walkers – sort of tense.”

Then he tapped his desk with his baton to make the orchestra get ready, and played a few opening bars. It was exciting, trembly music, played very, very quietly. It made you think of fairies fluttering across lawns in the moonlight.

“That’s splendid,” said the Doctor, as the conductor stopped. “Now, when Columbine begins to dance I want the minuet from Don Juan – because that’s the tune she has always practised to. And every time Pantaloon falls down have the percussion give the bass drum a good bang, please.”

Then the Puddleby Pantomime was gone through on a real stage, with a real orchestra and real scenery – the last dress rehearsal. Gub-Gub found the glare of the footlights dazzling and confusing. But he and all the actors had by this time done the piece so often that they could have played it in their sleep. And the show went with a dash from beginning to end, without a single accident or slip.

When it was over Mr. Bellamy said:

“Just one thing more: when the audience is here your actors will be called out before the curtain. You’ll have to show them how to take the call.”

Then the performers were rehearsed in bowing. The five of them trooped on again, hand in hand, bowed to the empty theatre and trooped off.

In the course of their eventful lives the animals of Doctor Dolittle’s household had had many exciting times. But I doubt if anything ever happened to them which they remembered longer or spoke of afterward more often than their first appearance before the public in the famous Puddleby Pantomime.

I say famous because it did, in fact, become very famous. Not only was it reported in the newspapers of Manchester as a sensational success, but it was written up in those magazines devoted to stagecraft and theatrical news, as something entirely new to the show business. Lots of acts with animals dressed as people had been done before, of course – some very good. But in all of them the performers never knew just why they did the things they did, nor the meaning of most of their act. Whereas the Doctor, being able to converse with his actors in their own language, had produced a play which was entirely perfect, down to the smallest detail. For instance, he had spent days in showing Toby how to wink one eye, and still longer in getting Pantaloon to throw back his head and laugh like a person. Gub-Gub used to practise it in front of a mirror by the hour. Pigs have their own way of laughing, of course, which most people don’t know of; and that is just as well, because sometimes they find humans very amusing. But to have animals laughing and frowning and smiling at the right places in a play – perfectly naturally and exactly the way people would do it – was something that had never been seen on the stage before.

Good weather and Mr. Bellamy’s advertising had brought a large crowd out to the amusement park Monday evening. Long before the show was due to start the theatre was beginning to fill.

Of the Dolittle troupe, waiting their turn behind the scene, no one was more anxious than the Doctor himself. None of his animals, with the exception of Swizzle, had ever performed before a real audience before. And it did not follow that because they had acted all right with only Mr. Bellamy and a few others looking on, they would be just as good when facing a packed theatre.

As he heard the first few notes of the orchestra tuning up their instruments the Doctor peeped through the curtain into the audience. He could see nothing but faces. There did not seem to be room to get another in anywhere, but still the people crowded up to the big entrances at the end of the long hall, trying to find standing room in the aisles – or even outside of the doorways, where, on tiptoe, they could still get a glimpse of the stage.

“Doctor,” whispered Dab-Dab, who was also peeping, “this at last ought to make us rich. Blossom said that Mr. Bellamy had promised him one hundred pounds a day – and more, if the audiences were larger than a certain number. It would be impossible for it to be bigger than this. You couldn’t get a fly into that theatre, it’s so packed. What are they stamping and whistling for?”

“That’s because, the show is late in beginning,” said the Doctor, looking at his watch. “They’re impatient. Oh, look out! Let’s get off the stage. They’re going to pull the curtain up. See, there’s the singing couple in the wings, ready to do the first act. Come on hurry! Where’s Gub-Gub got to? I’m so afraid that wig of his will slip out of place. – Oh, here he is. Thank goodness, it’s all right – and his pants, too. Now, all of you stay here and keep together. Our show goes on as soon as this act is over. Stop licking your face, Gub-Gub, for heaven’s sake! I won’t have time to make you up again.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Fame, Fortune – and Rain

Stage Manager Dolittle’s anxiety about his company’s behaviour before a real audience turned out to be unnecessary. The lights and the music and the enormous crowd, instead of scaring the animals, had the effect of making them act the better. The Doctor said afterward that they had never done as well in rehearsal.

As for the audience, from the moment that the curtain went up they were simply spellbound. At the beginning many people would not believe that the actors were animals. They whispered to one another that it must be a troupe of boys or dwarfs, with masks on their faces. But there could be no disguising the two little owls who had opened the show by marching out like soldiers with the announcement cards. And as the pantomime proceeded even the most unbelieving of the audience could see that no human actors, no matter how well trained and disguised, could move and look like this.

At first Gub-Gub was an easy favourite. His grimaces and antics made the audience rock with laughter. But when Dab-Dab came on, opinion was divided. Her dance with Toby and Jip simply brought down the house, as the saying goes. She captivated everybody. And it was really marvelous, considering how ungainly she usually was in her movements, to see with what grace she did the minuet. The people clapped, stamped the floor, yelled “Encore!” and just wouldn’t let the show go on till she had done her dance a second time.

Then a lady in the front row threw a bunch of violets onto the stage. Dab-Dab had never had flowers thrown at her before and didn’t know what to make of it. But Swizzle, an old actor, understood. Springing forward, he picked up the bouquet and handed it with a flourish to Columbine.

“Bow!” whispered the Doctor from the wings in duck language. “Bow to the audience – to the lady who threw the bouquet!”

And Dab-Dab curtsied like a regular ballerina.

When the curtain came down at the end and the music of the orchestra blared out loud, the applause was deafening. The company trooped on hand in hand and bowed again and again. And still the audience called them back. Then the Doctor made them take the calls separately. Gub-Gub did antics and made faces; Swizzle took off his helmet and bowed; Toby sprang into the air with harlequinish agility; Jip struck tragic Pierrot-like attitudes, and Dab-Dab once more brought down the house by pirouetting across the stage on her toes, flipping kisses to the audience with the tips of her wings.

More bouquets were thrown to Columbine and a bunch of carrots to Pantaloon – which he started eating before he left the stage.

Mr. Bellamy said he had never seen such enthusiasm in the theatre since he had owned it. And he immediately asked Blossom if he would be willing to renew the engagement for a second week.

When the other turns were over and the audience left the theatre Gub-Gub went out into the hall to look at the stage from the seats. There he found many programs scattered around the floor. He asked the Doctor what they were. And he was delighted when he was shown his own name printed there as playing the part of Pantaloon.

“Humph!” said he, folding it carefully. “I must keep this. I think I’ll put it in my menu album.”

“Don’t you mean your stamp album?” asked the Doctor.

“No,” said Gub-Gub. “I gave up collecting stamps some time ago. I collects menus now. They’re much better fun to look at.”

The Dolittle household, now that they were encamped near the theatre, did not see so much of their old friends of the circus. Nevertheless, the Doctor frequently went across the amusement park to see how Matthew and the pushmi-pullyu were getting on. And Hop the clown, Hercules and the Pintos often visited the theatre to see the pantomime and to make tea at the Dolittle wagon.

The extraordinary success of the Doctor’s play continued throughout the week – the crowds growing greater, if anything, with each performance. It became necessary to secure seats a long way in advance if you wanted to see the show, a thing which had only happened once before at the Amphitheatre when a world-famous violinist had played there.

Wealthy gentlemen and elegant ladies called at the Doctor’s little wagon almost every evening to congratulate him and to see and pet his marvelous animal actors. Gub-Gub got frightfully conceited and put on no end of temperamental airs, often refusing to see his admirers if they called during the hour he was accustomed to take for his nap.

“Famous artists have to be very careful of themselves,” he said. “I am only at home to callers between ten and twelve in the morning. You better have that printed in the newspapers, Doctor.”

One lady brought an autograph album for him to sign, and with the Doctor’s help, he put a very clumsy “G. G.” in it for her and the picture of a parsnip, which, he said, was his family crest.

Dab-Dab, although she had become just as famous, was much more easily interviewed by visitors. Immediately after each performance she could be seen bustling about her household duties in the wagon, often still wearing her ballet skirt while she made beds or fried potatoes.

“That pig makes me tired,” she said. “What’s the use of our putting on airs? None of us would be famous if it hadn’t been for the Doctor. Any animal could do what we do if they had him to teach them. By the way, Doctor,” she added, spreading the tablecloth for supper, “have you been to see Blossom about the money?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “Why bother yet? The first week is hardly over. And I understand the pantomime is to run a second one. No, I haven’t seen Blossom in – let me see – not in three days.”

“Well, you ought to. You should go and get your share of the money every night.”

“Why? Blossom is a trustworthy man.”

“Is he?” said Dab-Dab, putting the salt-cellars on the table. “Well, I wouldn’t trust him further than I could see him. If you take my advice, you’ll get your money each night. There must be a lot owing to you, especially since they put the pantomime on twice a day instead of only in the evening.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor. “Don’t worry. Blossom will bring me the money as soon as he has his accounts straightened out.”

The housekeeper during the next few days frequently asked John Dolittle to see about this matter, but he never would. And even after the first week was over and the second nearly so Blossom had not come forward with the Doctor’s share, nor, indeed, was he often seen by any member of the Dolittle household. The pushmi-pullyu had also done well with his sideshows, and, as the money made by this was quite sufficient for living expenses, the easy-going Doctor, as usual, refused to worry.

Toward the end of the second week the fame of the Puddleby Pantomime had become so great and so many people had called to interview the Doctor and his company that it was decided to give an at home [open house party] and to invite the public to tea.

Then for a whole morning the good housekeeper was more than usually busy. Over two hundred printed cards of invitation had been sent out. Mrs. Mugg was called in to help. A large number of small tables were set about the wagon; the inside of the caravan was decorated with flowers; lots of tea and cakes were prepared and at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon the gates of the little enclosure beside the theatre were thrown open to visitors.

All the animals, some of them dressed in their pantomime costumes, then acted as hosts and sat around at the tables, sipping tea with the elegant ladies and gentlemen who were anxious to meet them. It was a farewell party, for the next day the whole of Blossom’s Circus was to leave. The Mayor of the city came and the Mayoress and a number of newspaper reporters, who made sketches in their notebooks of Hostess Dab-Dab pouring tea and Gub-Gub handing around cakes.

The next day, after one of the most successful visits of its career, the circus packed up and moved out of Manchester.

The town they went to was a small one, some twelve miles to the northeast. Rain began to fall as the wagons arrived at the show ground and the work of setting up was very disagreeable for everyone. For, besides the wretched, steady drizzle, the dirt underfoot soon got worked up into mud with the constant tramping of feet.

The rain continued the next day, and the next. This, of course, was a terrible thing for the circus business, because nobody came to see the show.

“Well, never mind,” said the Doctor, as his family sat down to breakfast on the third rainy morning. “We made plenty of money in Manchester. That should tide us over a bad spell easily.”

“Yes, but you haven’t got that money yet, remember,” said Dab-Dab, “though goodness knows I’ve told you often enough to ask Blossom for it.”

“I saw him this morning,” said John Dolittle, “just before I came in to breakfast. It’s quite all right. He says it was such a large amount he was afraid to keep it on him or in his wagon. So he put it in a bank in Manchester.”

“Well, why didn’t he take it out of the bank when he left,” asked Dab-Dab, “and give you half of it?”

“It was a Sunday,” said the Doctor. “And, of course, the banks were closed.”

“But what does he mean to do about it, then?” asked the housekeeper. “He isn’t going to leave it there, is he?”

“He’s going back today to fetch it. He was just starting off on horseback when I spoke to him. I didn’t envy him his ride in the rain.”

Now, running a circus is an expensive thing. The animals have to be fed, the workmen and performers have to be paid and there are a whole lot of other expenses for which money must be handed out hourly. So that during these rainy days, when no people came and the enclosure stood wet and empty instead of making money, “The Mammoth Circus” was losing it every day – every hour, in fact.

Just as the Doctor finished speaking the menagerie keeper, with his coat collar turned up against the rain, poked his head in at the door.

“Seen the boss anywhere around?” he asked.

“Mr. Blossom has gone into Manchester,” said John Dolittle. “He expects to be back about two in the afternoon, he told me.”

“Humph!” said the man. “That’s a nuisance.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I want money for rice and hay – for the menagerie,” said the keeper. “The boss said he’d give me some this morning. The corn dealer’s brought the feed. ’E won’t leave it unless he gets his money. And my animals need the stuff bad.”

“Oh, I suppose it slipped Mr. Blossom’s mind,” said the Doctor. “I’ll pay the bill for you and get it from him when he returns. How much is it?”

“Thirty shillings,” said the keeper – “two bales of hay and fifty pounds of rice.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Too-Too, give me the money box.”

“There you are! There you are!” Dab-Dab broke in, her feathers all ruffled up with anger. “Instead of getting the money from Blossom that he owes you, you are paying his bills for him! The animals’ feed isn’t your concern. What’s the use? What’s the use? Blossom getting richer and you getting poorer; that’s you, all over.”

“The animals must be fed,” said the Doctor, taking the money from the box and giving it to the keeper. “I’ll get it back, Dab-Dab. Don’t worry!”

The rain grew heavier and heavier all that morning. This was the circus’s fourth day in this town. Hardly a penny had been taken in at the gates since the tents had been set up.

The Doctor, ever since his performance with Beppo at Bridgeton, had been looked upon by the show folk with an almost superstitious respect. Any man, they felt, who could talk the language of animals must know more about them than a mere ringmaster like Blossom. The Doctor had little by little made great changes throughout the management of the whole concern – though there still remained a tremendous lot that he wished to alter. Many of the performers had for some time considered him as the most important man in the circus and Blossom as just a figurehead.

The menagerie keeper had hardly left before another man turned up wanting money for some other of the daily expenses of the show. And throughout that morning people kept coming to the Doctor with tales that Blossom had promised them payment at a certain time. The result, of course, was that before long the Dolittle money box (which had been quite well filled by the pushmi-pullyu’s exhibition the last two weeks) was empty once more.

Two o’clock in the afternoon came – three o’clock – and still Mr. Blossom hadn’t returned.

“Oh, he must have been delayed,” said the Doctor to Dab-Dab, who was getting more anxious and more angry every minute. “He’ll be here soon. He’s honest. I’m sure of that. Don’t worry.”

At half-past three Jip, who had been out nosing around in the rain, suddenly rushed in.

“Doctor!” he cried. “Come over to Blossom’s wagon. I think there’s something wrong.”

“Why, Jip? What’s the matter?” said the Doctor, reaching for his hat.

“Mrs. Blossom isn’t there,” said Jip. “At first I thought the door was locked. But I pushed it, and it wasn’t. There’s nobody in it. His trunk is gone – and nearly everything else, too. Come over and look. There’s something queer about this.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Mr. Blossom’s Mysterious Disappearance

Jip’s words brought a puzzled frown into the Doctor’s face. Slowly he put on his hat and followed the dog out into the rain.

On reaching Blossom’s wagon he found everything as Jip had described it. There was no one within. Every article of value had been taken away. A few torn papers lay scattered on the floor. In the inner room, Mrs. Blossom’s private boudoir, the same situation met the Doctor’s eyes. The whole place looked as though those who lived there had left in a hurry, to be gone a long time.

While John Dolittle was still gazing confusedly around him someone touched him on the shoulder from behind. It was Matthew Mugg.

“Looks kind of bad, don’t it?” he said. “Blossom didn’t have to take his trunk and all to go and get his money out of the bank. If you was to ask me, I’ve a kind of a notion that we ain’t goin’ to see our good, kind manager no more. Eh?”

“Well, Matthew,” said the Doctor, “we mustn’t jump to conclusions. He said he’d be back. He may have been delayed. As to his trunk and things, they’re his own. He has a right to do what he wants with them. It would be wrong to pass any judgments until we have more evidence than that.

“Humph!” muttered the Cat’s-Meat-Man. “O’ course, you always did hate to think anybody crooked. Still, I think you can say good-by to the money you earned in Manchester.”

“We haven’t any proof, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “And listen: if what you suspect is true, it’s going to be a very serious matter for all the people in the circus. Please don’t say anything of your suspicions for the present, will you? There is no need to get the show folk excited until we really know. Now, will you please saddle up a horse quietly and go into Manchester for me? See Mr. Bellamy and ask him if he knows anything of what has become of Blossom. Get back here and bring me word as soon as you can, will you?”

“All right,” said Matthew, turning to go. “But I don’t think Mr. Bellamy’ll know any more of where our manager’s gone than what you do. ’E’s probably on ’is way to the Continong by now.”

Jip, after listening to this conversation, slipped away and joined the other animals in the Doctor’s own wagon.

“Fellows,” he said, shaking the wet out of himself, “Alexander Blossom has skidaddled .”

“Good heavens!” cried Too-Too. “With the money?”

“Yes, with the money – drat him!” growled Jip. “And there was enough coming to the Doctor to keep us in comfort for the rest of our days.”

“I knew it!” groaned Dab-Dab, throwing out her wings in despair. “I told the Doctor not to trust him. I guessed him to be a fishy customer from the start. Now he’s wallowing in luxury while we scrape and pinch to pay the bills he left behind.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” cried Gub-Gub. “So much the better if he’s gone. Now we’ll have a real circus – The Dolittle Circus – which the animals have always hoped for. Good riddance to Blossom – the crook! I’m glad he’s gone.”

“What you don’t know,” said Dab-Dab, turning on the pig severely, “would fill a library. How is the Doctor to run a circus without a penny in his pocket? How is he going to pay wages – ground rent? How is he going to feed the animals and himself? It costs pounds and pounds a day to keep a circus going, you pudding, you! And look at the rain – coming down as though it never meant to stop! And the whole show just standing here and not a soul coming to see it! And wagon loads of animals eating up pounds of money a day! And the payroll of dozens of men mounting higher every minute. ‘Glad he’s gone!’ – you – you sausage!”

After Matthew had gone, the Doctor remained within the shelter of Blossom’s deserted wagon, thoughtfully watching the rain splatter into the muddy puddles outside. Presently he sat down on an old packing case and lit his pipe. From time to time he took out his watch and looked at it, frowning.

After half an hour had gone by he saw Hercules, dressed in ordinary clothes, approaching across the enclosure. He was running to avoid the rain. Reaching the wagon, he sprang within, and then shook his wet overcoat outside the doorway.

“I hear the boss has skipped,” he said. “Is it true?”

“I have no idea,” said the Doctor. “He is late in returning from Manchester. But something may have detained him.”

“Well, I hope he comes soon,” said Hercules. “He owes me a week’s wages. And I need it.”

The strong man sat down and he and the Doctor fell to chatting about weather and weather signs.

Not many minutes later along came Hop the clown, with his dog, Swizzle. Evil news travels fast. He, too, had heard a rumour that Blossom had deserted the circus. The Doctor tried again to excuse the ringmaster, and insisted that he be not suspected till proof was obtained.

Then, rather awkwardly and without much interest, the conversation continued about the weather.

Next, the Pinto Brothers, trapeze artists, arrived with mackintoshes thrown over their gawdy tights. They also wanted to know where Blossom was, and why they hadn’t received the pay which they had been promised would be given them this morning.

The Doctor, growing more and more distressed, hoping Blossom would turn up any minute, began to find it hard to keep the talk on any other subject but the mysterious disappearance of the manager.

At last the foreman of the tent riggers joined the circle.

“It looks rummy to me,” he said when he had been told all there was to be told – “I got three children and a wife to keep. ’Ow are they going to live if I don’t get no wages? My missus ain’t got enough food in the wagon for another meal.”

“Yes,” said one of the Pinto Brothers. “And we got a new baby in my family. If Blossom’s running off with the money we ought to let the police know.”

“But we have no proof he is running off,” said the Doctor. “He may arrive any minute.”

“And he may not, Doctor,” Hercules put in. “If he is a queer one, by the time you get your proof he’ll be in China, maybe – where nobody can get at him. It’s nearly six now. The Pintos are right. What are we standing around here for, guessing and wondering? At least we ought to send somebody into Manchester to find out what we can.”

“I have sent somebody in,” said the Doctor. “Matthew Mugg, my assistant, has gone.”

“Humph!” said one of the acrobats. “So you got kind of suspicious yourself, Doctor, eh? What time did you send him?”

The Doctor looked at his watch again.

“About four hours ago,” said he.

“Time to get there and back,” grunted Hercules. “’E couldn’t find no trace of ’im, I’ll warrant. Boys, it looks to me like we was ditched, all right…. Lord! I wish I had ’im here. I’d make Mr. Blossom look like the last rose of summer.”

And the strong man’s ham-like hands went through the action of twisting the top off something.

“But ’e’s left an awful lot of property behind,” said the tent-rigger. “I don’t yet understand what made ’im skip at this stage of the game.”

“What e’ left behind – besides unpaid bills,” said Hercules, “ain’t nothing compared with what ’e took with ’im. ’Eaven only knows what ’e got from Bellamy for the Doctor’s show – biggest takings this outfit ever saw. And all ’e give us was excuses – kept puttin’ off payin’ us for some fake reason or other – for three weeks back. I reckon ’e ’ad it in ’is mind to clear out all the time – ’ad it planned as soon as ’e saw a big haul in sight.”

“Well, what are we going to do?” asked Hop.

“Yes, that’s the question,” said the Pintos. “What are we going to do now?”

“We got to find another manager,” said Hercules. “Someone to take over the outfit and get us out of this hole.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Doctor Becomes Manager of the Circus

It was curious to see how, as soon as the strong man spoke of a new manager, all the eyes of the little crowd gathered in the wagon turned upon John Dolittle.

“Doctor,” said Hercules, “it looks to me like you’d got to be the new boss. And if anybody was to ask me. I’ll say you’d make a pretty good one. How about it, boys?”

“Aye! Aye!” they all cried. “The Doc’s the man.”

“That being the case,” said Hercules, “in the name of the staff of the Greatest Show on Earth, I present you, Doctor, with the circus of the late lamented Alexander Blossom. From now on, with us, your word is law.”

“But – good heavens!” the Doctor stammered. “I don’t know anything about circus management, and, besides, I—”

“Oh, yes, you do,” Hercules broke in. “Wasn’t it your act with Beppo that made the big week at Bridgeton? And wasn’t it you what got the circus brought to Manchester? Why, bless me, you can talk to the bloomin’ animals! We ain’t worried. Meself, I’ve a kind of an idea we’ll make more money under you than ever we made – or lost – under Blossom. You go ahead and manage.”

“Yes,” said Hop. “That’s right, Doctor. Lord only knows what’s going to happen to us if you don’t. We’re in the soup – dead broke. And you’re the one to pull us out.”

For a full minute the Doctor did not answer – just sat, thinking, on his packing case. At last he looked around at the miserable waiting group and said:

“Very well. I had not intended going into this business for long when I started. But I certainly can’t get out of it now – not only on your account, but on account of my own animals and my responsibility to them. For I, too, am – er – dead broke. If you want me to manage for you, I’ll try it. But I’m going to do it a little differently from Blossom’s way. I’m going to run the circus on a cooperative basis – that is, instead of wages, we will all take our share of the money made, after expenses are paid. That means that when business is bad you will get very little – may even have to pay a little; and when business is good you will do well. Also, I claim the right to dismiss anyone from the circus without notice at any moment.”

“That’s the idea!” said Hercules. “That’s the way a circus should be run – everybody partners in the business, but one man boss.”

“But listen,” said the Doctor. “For the beginning it’s going to be hard work and very little money. We haven’t got a cent in hand, and until the rain stops we shan’t make a penny. What’s worse, we will probably run into debt for a while – supposing, even, that we can get anybody to give us supplies on credit. Are you willing?”

“You bet we are!” … “We’re with you, Doc!” … “Nobody’s going to grumble!” … “You’re the right boss!” they cried. And immediately the appearance of the whole crowd had changed from miserable gloom to hopeful smiles and enthusiasm.

In the midst of this arrived Matthew Mugg, with Mr. Bellamy himself.

“I’m terribly sorry to hear of this,” said Mr. Bellamy, addressing the Doctor. “I gave that scoundrel Blossom two thousand pounds. He has cleared out with the whole lot, it seems – even left tradespeople unpaid in the city. It was their coming to me that first told me of his crookedness; and then your Mr. Mugg arrived. I’ve put the police on Blossom’s trail, but I don’t think there’s the least chance of their catching him. You had better come back to Manchester, and I will give you space at the Amphitheatre Park until you have made enough to carry on.”

“Hooray!” yelled Hop. “And, look, the rain has stopped! Our luck has changed. Hooray for the Dolittle Circus.”

“Pardon me!” said a small, polite voice from the door. “Is Doctor Dolittle here?”

Everyone turned; and there stood a small man in the entrance. Behind him the sun was now shining brightly.

“I am John Dolittle,” said the Doctor.

“How do you do,” said the little man. “I have been sent on a special mission by a firm of theatrical producers. I am instructed to make you an offer. They wish you to bring your troupe to London next month – if you have not been already booked.”

“Hah!” cried Hercules. “What did I tell you, boys? First minute he’s manager he gets an offer from Manchester and another from London. Three cheers for the Doctor!”

It was a day of great rejoicing for both the animals and the people of the circus when the Doctor took over the management. As soon as the news got around the enclosure, tent-riggers, stable boys, performers – everybody, in fact, who was part of the establishment – came to the Doctor to congratulate him and to say how glad they were to be under his direction. With the stopping of the rain a general cheerfulness and bustle began. And the very first thing done was the taking down of the “Blossom’s Mammoth Circus” sign over the main entrance and erecting in its place the “Dolittle Circus” – a more modest title, but one which was to become far greater and better known than Blossom’s had ever been.

Mr. Bellamy was very kind. Realizing that the Doctor and everyone had been left practically penniless, he offered to help the new management with loans of money or in any other way he could. However, John Dolittle was most anxious to avoid getting the circus further into debt than it already was, and all he asked of Mr. Bellamy was to visit some of the tradespeople of this town with him and ask them to give him credit, to trust him for a while. Mr. Bellamy was, of course, very well known for miles and miles around Manchester. And the local corn-dealer, grocer, butcher and the rest were perfectly willing, when he asked them, to give the Doctor provisions and to wait for their money till the circus had made enough to pay its bills.

For the same reason, to avoid getting into debt, the Doctor decided not to move back to Manchester, but to keep the show where it was for the present. And with better weather the attendance soon began to be quite considerable. Mr. Bellamy’s arrival and his visit to the tradespeople of the town were a good advertisement for the Dolittle Circus. Another advertisement better still was, curiously enough, Blossom’s theft and disappearance. No sooner had it become known in Manchester that the ringmaster had run away with a large sum of money than the newspapers took it up and wrote long stories of how the famous Puddleby Pantomime had been robbed and left stranded in a small town twelve miles from the city. The story was reprinted in country papers. And suddenly the people of this same small town woke up to the fact that they had the Puddleby Pantomime in their midst and hadn’t noticed it (on account of the rain) till they read of it in the papers.

Then, of course, everybody began talking of the robbery and everybody wanted to go and see the pantomime and the Doctor and the famous animal actors who had made such a sensation in Manchester. And the next thing the whole town was tramping in at the gates of the Dolittle Circus.

As I have said, it was not a large town, but for the three days the business was good enough to enable the Doctor to pay all the bills off and to buy more provisions on which to keep going. There was even a little over to pay everybody a small – very small – amount of wages.

Too-Too, the expert accountant, was busier now than he had ever been. For not only did he keep record of how much the pushmi-pullyu made, but he kept the books for the whole circus. This, with the Doctor’s new “cooperative” arrangement, was no easy task. Strict account of all money paid out to tradespeople had to be carefully entered, and the profits left divided among all the people of the circus in proportion to the amount of work they did. For instance, some of the tent-riggers and wagon-drivers who really only worked one or two days a week did not get so large a share as the side-show performers who were at work all the week. But everyone got more when business was good, and less when it was bad.

Although nearly the whole staff were glad to have the Doctor’s management and willingly stayed on with the circus even in the distressful conditions under which the new management began, there were, nevertheless, one or two malcontents who wanted large wages right away before the debts and bills were paid. These, as a matter of fact, were people that the Doctor was glad to part with anyway. And as soon as he could raise the money to pay them off he sent them about their business. The Dolittle Circus began, in consequence, somewhat smaller than the Blossom Circus ended, but it began along strictly honest lines and with every man and animal in it united, hopeful and contented under the new management.

• • • • •

•   7   •

Matthew Mugg, Assistant Manager

Another member of the staff, besides Too-Too, the accountant, to be more than usually occupied in the first days of the Dolittle Circus was Dab-Dab, the housekeeper.

“You know,” said she to Too-Too and Jip one night, “all this looks very nice – and I certainly don’t want to be a kill-joy – but I wish we had someone else besides the Doctor to take care of the business end of things. He is fine where working out of new animal shows is concerned. As a stage manager no one could be better. But I know what’s going to happen: all the other partners, Hercules and Hop and the Pintos and the rest, are going to get rich; and the Doctor is going to stay poor. Why, only last night he was talking about sending the opossum back to Virginia. He wants to climb trees, it seems – in the moonlight – and we haven’t got the right kind of trees or moonlight here. I told him the moon in England is just as good as it is in Virginia. But he says it isn’t – not green enough. Heaven only knows how much his ticket to America would cost. Yet I’m certain that as soon as the Doctor has the price of it he’ll send him. He spoke of the lion and the leopard, too – says the big hunting animals should never be kept in confinement. I do wish we had some other man as well – somebody with good business sense – who could keep an eye on the Doctor’s schemes.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Jip. “But I have great hopes of Matthew Mugg, myself. He isn’t nearly such a fool as he looks.”

“He’s a very kind fellow,” Swizzle put in. “Almost every time he meets me or Toby he pulls a bone or something out of his pocket and gives it to us.”

“Oh, yes,” said Jip. “That used to be his profession – cat’s-meat-man, you know. He has a good heart. And I think, Dab-Dab, you’ll find he has a pretty good business head, too. It was he who arranged about the next three towns we’re going to. The Doctor didn’t know how to book the circus ahead or where to go next or anything about touring a circus around the country. He consulted Matthew. And Mugg went off at once to the next town and found out when the fair week was usually held and arranged for fodder supply and renting a show ground and everything. And he’s just crazy about the circus business. I’ve often heard him boasting to gipsies and the like along the road that he’s the partner of John Dolittle, M.D. – the famous showman. He knows how to advertise, too – and that’s important in this game. It was Matthew who got the Doctor to have those big posters printed. I hear they’re already stuck up in every street in Tilmouth, our next town. Yes, I’m quite helpful about Matthew. He’s a good man.”

The Dolittle Circus was an entirely new kind of circus. Now that he had the control of things in his own hands the Doctor proceeded to bring about the reforms and changes that he had so often wished for in the days of Blossom’s management.

It was, as Jip had said, a good thing that Matthew was there to keep an eye on the Doctor. Otherwise he would most likely have begun by letting his new ideas run away with him. Certainly the average circus-going public had never seen anything like his show before. For one thing, John Dolittle insisted on the strictest politeness from all attendants. For another, he would allow no form of misrepresentation, as he called it. Ordinarily, circus folk had often been accustomed to say that their shows were “the greatest on earth,” that their animals were “the only ones in captivity” – or something similarly extravagant and exaggerated.

This the Doctor would not permit. He said he wanted everything advertised just as it was, in order that the public should not be misled or cheated into paying to see something which they didn’t see. To this, at the beginning, Matthew Mugg objected. He said you could never get a good crowd unless you “played it up big.” But he soon found that the Doctor was right. When the people got to realize that whatever was promised in the Dolittle advertisements would be actually provided, the new circus earned a reputation for honesty that brought people in a way that nothing else would.

Another thing that worried Matthew in the first days of the Doctor’s management was his insistence on providing tea, free, for the public.

“Why, Doctor,” he said, “you’ll be ruined! You can’t serve tea for thousands of people without charging them for it. This ain’t a hotel – or a Widow’s and Orphans’ Home!

“Matthew,” said the Doctor, “the people who come to visit my show are, in a way, my guests. Some of them come long distances – with babies to carry. Afternoon tea is a nice custom. I hate to go without it myself. It won’t cost so much when we buy the tea and sugar by the hundredweight. Theodosia can make it.”

So afternoon tea for all visitors became an institution. And shortly after another one was added: that of free packets of peppermints for the children. And what the Doctor prophesied came true. In one town where the Dolittle Circus crossed paths with another, a much bigger show, the Doctor’s concern did twice the business that the other one did, because the people knew that they’d be given tea and treated honestly and politely.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Dolittle Circus

It was six weeks before the show was due to appear in London. The first town to be visited on the way there was Tilmouth. And it was here that the Doctor once more got put in prison – but only for one night. This is how it came about.

The animals, as I have said, were, if anything even more pleased to exchange Blossom for the Doctor as a boss than were the human performers. And one of the first things that John Dolittle did, as soon as a little extra money was made, was to go round and ask all the animals if they had any complaints to make. Of course, there were plenty. To begin with, nearly every creature in the menagerie wanted his den re-painted. So the Doctor had all the cages done over, each in the colours that its owner preferred.

Not long after the Doctor had had the menagerie done up, he received another complaint. This, indeed, was one that he had often heard before. The lion and the leopard were weary of confinement. They longed to get out of their narrow cages and stretch their legs in freedom.

“Well, you know,” said John Dolittle, “myself, I don’t approve of keeping you shut up at all. If I had my way I’d ship you back to Africa and let you go free in the jungle. But the trouble is the money. However, as soon as I get enough together I will attend to it.”

“If we could only get out a few minutes each day,” said the lion, looking wistfully over the Doctor’s shoulder toward the rolling hills of the countryside, “it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“No,” said the leopard, “that would make life bearable. Oh, I’m sick of the four walls of this wretched box!”

The tone of the leopard’s voice was so pathetic and the lion’s face so sad the Doctor felt that something just had to be done right away.

“Look here,” he said, “if I let you out for a run every evening would you promise me something?”

“Anything,” said the two together.

“Would you come back at the end of half an hour? Honestly?”

“We would.”

“And would you promise solemnly not to eat any people?”

“On our word of honour.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Then every evening after the show is over I’ll open your cages and you can run free for half an hour.”

So this, too, like the afternoon tea and the children’s peppermints, became a custom of the Dolittle circus. The menagerie animals were put upon their honour and allowed to run free every evening provided they came back of their own accord. It worked surprisingly well for quite a while. The show people soon realized that the animals were acting up to their promise and could be trusted not to molest anyone. And even Theodosia got used to the idea of meeting a lion or a leopard roaming through the enclosure after dark on his way back to his den when his evening run was over.

“It is quite proper,” said the Doctor. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They work all day, the same as we do – being on show. They deserve a little freedom and playtime at night.”

Of course, the animals, when they went beyond the circus fence, were careful to keep out of the way of people because they didn’t want to scare them – and people didn’t interest them anyway. They were, in fact, heartily sick of them, having them gazing and staring in at the cages all day. But one evening when the circus had moved to a new town a rather serious thing happened. Matthew came rushing to the Doctor’s wagon about ten o’clock and said:

“Governor, the lion hasn’t come back! I went round to lock up just now and found the cage empty. And it’s more than an hour since I let him out.”

“Good heavens!” cried the Doctor, jumping up and dashing off toward the menagerie with Matthew at his heels, “I wonder what’s wrong. He certainly wouldn’t have run away after giving me his promise. I hope no accident has happened to him.”

On reaching the menagerie, the Doctor went to the leopard’s cage and asked him if he knew where the lion was.

“I think he must have got lost, Doctor,” said the leopard. “We started out together and went for a stroll across that moor to the eastward. But it was new country to us. We came to a stream and couldn’t get across. He went up stream and I went down, looking for a shallow place where we could get over to the other side. I had no luck. The stream got wider and deeper the further I went along the bank. Then I heard the church clock strike and I realized it was time to be getting back. I expected to find the lion here when I got home. But he wasn’t.”

“You didn’t meet any people?” the Doctor asked.

“Not a soul,” said the leopard. “I passed a farm but I went round it to avoid scaring anyone. He’ll find his way back. Don’t worry.”

The Doctor stayed up all that night waiting for the lion to return. He even went out into the country and hunted along the stream that the leopard had spoken of. But no trace of the missing animal could he found.

Morning came and still no lion. And the Doctor was very worried. However, the opening of the circus kept his mind occupied. The people came thronging in and good business claimed everyone’s attention.

At tea time, as was his custom, John Dolittle acted as host to his visitors and Theodosia was kept running back and forth waiting on the many little tables crowded with holiday-makers in their Sunday clothes.

Suddenly, just as the Doctor was passing among the tables to offer a lady a dish of cakes, he spied Mr. Lion strolling into the circus through the main gate. At the moment everybody was busy eating and drinking, and the Doctor hoped that the lion, who was quietly making for the menagerie, would reach his den before he was seen by the guests. But, alas! a party, a farmer and his family, coming out of the side show, ran right into the lion before he got to the menagerie door. There was a scream from a farmer’s wife who grabbed her children and ran. The farmer threw his walking stick at the lion and also ran. Then for a couple of minutes pandemonium reigned. Women shrieked, tables were overturned and finally some stupid person in the crowd fired a gun. The poor lion, thoroughly frightened, turned about and ran for his life.

The excitement now partly died down, but the people were far too upset to stay and enjoy the circus any further and very soon they all went off home and the enclosure was deserted.

So Mr. Lion, after his brief reappearance, was again missing; and the Doctor feared that now, terrified at his reception, he would be harder to find than ever.

John Dolittle was arranging search parties to go out and hunt when two policemen came to the circus and put him under arrest. He was charged, they told him, with keeping wild animals at large and endangering the public. Furthermore, the lion, it seemed, had broken into a chicken yard and eaten all the chickens. As the Doctor was marched through the town to the jail the owner of the chickens followed him, calling him names and telling him how much he owed him.

The Doctor spent the night in prison. But in the meantime the lion had taken refuge in the cellar of a bakery and neither the baker nor anybody else dared go down to him. Everybody in the house was scared to go to bed. Messages were sent to the circus to send someone to take the lion away. But the wily Matthew Mugg, although he knew the lion was easily handled by those who knew him, told the people that the Doctor was only one who dared go near him and they better hurry up and let him out of jail if they wanted the lion taken away.

So early the next morning they came and set the Doctor free. Then he went down into the cellar and talked to the lion.

“I’m fearfully sorry, Doctor,” said he, “but I lost my way out on that moor. I wandered around all over the place. And it wasn’t until the next day that I found my own tracks and made my way back to the circus. I tried to slip into the menagerie without being seen. But when that fool started firing a gun I got scared and ran for it.”

“But the chickens?” said the Doctor. “I thought you promised me not to molest anything when you were out?”

“I only promised not to eat people,” said the lion. “I had to eat something. I was starved to death after wandering around that moor all night. How much are they charging you for the chickens?”

“One pound, ten shillings and sixpence,” said the Doctor. “Eleven at half a crown apiece.”

“It’s highway robbery,” said the lion. “They were the toughest old things I ever tasted. And anyway I only ate nine.”

“Well, in future,” said the Doctor, “I think I had better accompany you on your walks.”

Then he led the lion home. And the terrified townsfolk watched through the cracks of doors as the dread animal strolled down the street at John Dolittle’s heels as meek and quiet as a lamb.

And now that the Doctor could give the animals the kind of consideration he wished, he really enjoyed the life himself a good deal. And poor Dab-Dab began to feel that her chance of getting him away from it, back to his own life at Puddleby, grew dimmer and more distant every day.

John Dolittle’s chief occupation in his spare time was, as I have told you, thinking out new and interesting animal shows. And in doing this he always kept the children particularly in mind as an audience, and designed his plays and entertainments more for them than for the grown-ups. The success of the Talking Horse and the Puddleby Pantomime showed him that his knowledge of animal languages could be put to great use here. The snakes which he had bought from Fatima, for example, were later trained by him to give a little show of their own. Instead of a snake-charmer’s tent with a stupid fat woman in it, pretending to be something that she wasn’t, the Dolittle Circus had a side show where the snakes gave their own performance, entirely unaided by any person. To the tune of a music box they danced a very peculiar but graceful sort of dance. It was something like a mixture between a quadrille and a game of cat’s cradle. On a little stage of their own they glided about on their tails in time to the music, bowing to their partners, doing the grand chain, looping into knots with one another, drilling like soldiers and doing a hundred fascinating things that people had never seen snakes do before.

Indeed, as time went on, the Dolittle Circus’s animal side shows were almost without exception run independently by the animals themselves. There were a great number of them and each one was descriptive of that particular animal’s special quality. The snakes’ entertainment, for instance, was designed to show off their gracefulness; for, in John Dolittle’s opinion, the snake was the most graceful creature in the world. The elephant, on the other hand, did feats of strength, instead of silly balancing tricks for which he wasn’t suited.

“You don’t want people in an animal performance,” the Doctor said to Matthew one day. “Hercules and Hop and the acrobats, they’re different. Those are shows, given by people, where the human performers are the whole thing. But what’s the sense in seeing a stupid man in uniform driving a lion through hoops with a whip? People seem to think that animals have no ideas to express. If they’re left to themselves they can give much better shows on their own, once they’re told what kind of things amuse a human audience – especially in the funny shows. The animal sense of humour is far superior to the human. But people are too stupid to see the funniness of things that animals do to amuse one another. And in most cases I have to bring them down to our level – to have them make their style of jokes rather – er – crude and broad. Otherwise people mightn’t understand them at all.”

And so, you see, the Dolittle Circus was indeed quite different from any other. The Doctor’s kind and hospitable treatment of all who came to see his show made it more like a sort of family gathering than a strictly business matter.

There were no rules, or hardly any. And if little boys wanted to see “behind the scenes,” or to go into the elephant’s stall and pet him, they were personally conducted wherever they wished to go. This alone gave the circus a quality quite individual. And whenever the wagon-train moved on its way, the children would follow it for miles along the road and for weeks after would talk of nothing but when it would come back again to visit their town. For children everywhere were beginning to regard the Dolittle Circus as something peculiarly their own.

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s
Caravan

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PART ONE

1 … The Animal Shop
2 … The White Persian
3 … An Animal Biography
4 … Pippinella Takes Her First Journey
5 … The New Home
6 … An Adventurous Career
7 … Freedom
8 … John Dolittle’s Fame
9 … The Show for London
10 … On the Road
11 … The Caravan Reaches London
12 … Voice Trials
13 … The History of Bird Music
14 … The Finding of Twink

PART TWO

1 … The Doctor Is Disguised
2 … The Release of the Blackbirds
3 … The Doctor’s Return
4 … Mr. Harris’s Past
5 … Scenery, Costumes, and Orchestra
6 … The Prima Donna Disappears

7 … The First Performance of “The Canary Opera”

8 … The Drama of Pippinella’s Life
9 … A Triumph and a Success
10 … Animal Advertising
11 … Gub-Gub’s Eating Palace
12 … The Animals’ Treat

PART THREE

1 … The Princess’s Dinner Party
2 … Jip and the Perfume Manufacturer
3 … The Ways of Advertisement
4 … The Pocket Horse
5 … The Dolittle Circus Staff Holds a Meeting
6 … Ways of Spending Money
7 … The Opening of the Animals’ Bank
8 … News of Puddleby
9 … The Legend of the Jobberjee Ghosts
10 … The Dolittle Circus Folds Its Tents

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

The Animal Shop

This book of the memoirs of Doctor Dolittle has been called the Caravan because it is in part a continuation of the Circus and the adventures that he met with in his career as a showman. Moreover, on his arrival in London the headquarters of the Dolittle household became the Doctor’s caravan on Greenheath (just outside the city), where his surgery and animal clinic continued their good work. And this too made that name for the book seem proper and in place.

It will be remembered that shortly after John Dolittle was elected as the new manager of the circus he had received a special invitation from some theatre owners in London to come and put on a show for them. And while he was still taking the circus to small towns and working to get enough cash in hand to put the circus on its feet again, he was continually trying to think up some good and original show to put on in London.

He was most anxious that his company’s first appearance in the big city should be a success. The staff of the Dolittle Circus now consisted of Matthew Mugg, assistant manager; Hercules the strong man; the Pinto brothers, trapeze artists; Hop the clown; Henry Crockett, the Punch-and-Judy man; Theodosia Mugg, mistress of the wardrobes; and Fred, a new menagerie keeper whom the Doctor had recently hired. Then of course there were the animals: the lion, the leopard, and the elephant – the big animals that constituted the important part of the menagerie; several smaller beasts, such as the opossum (known as the “hurri-gurri”); the pushmi-pullyu; the snakes; the Doctor’s own animal household (Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the pig, Too-Too the owl, Dab-Dab the duck, and the white mouse); and a few other oddments.

The way the Doctor finally hit upon an idea for an unusual show for London was rather curious. Like many important things, it began from a small chance happening.

One evening, when the show had moved to a moderate-sized market town, the Doctor went for a walk with Matthew Mugg and Jip. They had been busy all day getting the circus set up and the Doctor had not yet had an opportunity to see the town. After going through the main streets, they came to an inn that had tables and chairs set outside before the door. It was a warm evening and the Doctor and Matthew sat down at the inn tables to drink a glass of ale.

While they were resting and watching the quiet life of the town, the song of a bird reached their ears. It was extraordinarily beautiful, at times tremendously powerful, at others soft and low and mysterious – but always changing. The singer, whoever he was, never repeated himself.

The Doctor had written books on bird songs and he was interested.

“Do you hear that, Matthew?” he asked.

“Great, ain’t it?” said the cat’s-meat man. “Must be a nightingale – up on them big elms by the church there.”

“No,” said the Doctor, “that’s no nightingale. That’s a canary. He is singing scraps of a nightingale’s song which he has picked up – and parts of many others, too. But he has a canary’s voice, for all that. Listen: now he’s imitating a thrush.”

They sat a while longer and the bird ran through a wonderful range of imitations.

“You know, Matthew,” said the Doctor, “I think I’d like to have a canary in the wagon. They’re awfully good company. I’ve never bought one because I hate to see birds in cages. But with those who are born in captivity I suppose it’s really all right. Let’s go down the street and see if we can get a glimpse of this songster.”

So after the Doctor had paid for the ale they left the tables and walked along toward the church. But before they reached it they saw there were several shops to pass. Presently the Doctor stopped.

“Look, Matthew,” said he. “One of those shops is an animal shop. That’s where the canary is. I hate animal shops; the poor creatures usually look so neglected. The proprietors always keep too many – more than they can look after properly. And they usually smell so stuffy and close – the shops, I mean. I never go into them now. I don’t even pass one if I can help it.”

“Why?” asked Matthew.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “ever since I became sort of known among the animals, the poor beasts all talk to me as soon as I go in, begging me to buy them – birds and rabbits and guinea pigs and everything. I think I’ll turn back and go around another way, so I won’t have to pass the window.”

But just as the Doctor was about to return toward the inn the beautiful voice of the song bird burst out again and he hesitated.

“He’s marvellous,” said John Dolittle, “simply superb!”

“Why not hurry by with just one eye open?” said Matthew. “Maybe you could spot the bird without stopping.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. And putting on a brisk pace, he strode toward the shop. In passing it he just gave one glance in at the window and hurried on.

“Well,” asked Matthew, as the Doctor paused on the other side, “did you see which bird it was?”

“Yes,” said John Dolittle. “It’s that green canary near the door, the one in the small wooden cage, marked three shillings. Listen, Matthew, go in and buy him for me. I can afford that much, I think. I dare not go myself. Everything in the place will clamour at me at once. I have an idea those white rabbits recognized me already. You go for me…. Don’t forget – the green canary in the wooden cage near the door, marked three shillings. Here’s the money.”

So Matthew Mugg went into the store with the three shillings, while the Doctor waited outside the window of the shop next door.

The cat’s-meat man wasn’t gone very long – and when he returned he had no canary with him.

“You made a mistake, Doctor,” said he. “The bird you spoke of is a hen and they don’t sing. The one we heard is a bright yellow cock, right outside the shop. They want two pounds ten for him. He’s a prize bird, they say, and the best singer they ever had.”

“How extraordinary!” said the Doctor. “Are you sure?”

And, forgetting his intention of not being seen by the animals in the shop, he moved up to the window and pointed again to the green canary.

“That’s the bird I meant,” he said. “Did you ask about that one? Oh, Lord! Now I’ve done it. She has recognized me.”

The green canary near the door end of the window, seeing the famous Doctor pointing to her, evidently expected him to buy her. She was already making signs to him through the glass and jumping about her cage with joy.

The Doctor, quite unable to afford two pounds ten for the other bird, was beginning to move away. But the expression on the little green canary’s face as she realized he didn’t mean to buy her after all was pitiful to see.

John Dolittle had not walked with Matthew more than a hundred yards down the street before he stopped again.

“It’s no use,” said he. “I’ll have to buy her, I suppose – even if she can’t sing. That’s always the way if I go near an animal shop. I always have to buy the most wretched and most useless thing they have there. Go back and get her.”

Once more the cat’s-meat man went into the shop and presently returned with a small cage covered over with brown paper.

“We must hurry, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “It’s nearly teatime and Theodosia always finds it hard to attend to it without our help.”

On reaching the circus the Doctor was immediately called away on important business connected with the show. He asked Matthew to take the canary to the wagon, and he was himself occupied with one thing and another until suppertime.

And even when he finally returned to his wagon his mind was so taken up with the things of the day that he had forgotten for the moment all about the canary he had bought. He sank wearily into a chair as he entered and Too-Too, the owl who kept the circus’s accounts, immediately engaged him in a financial conversation.

But the dull discussion of money and figures had hardly begun before the Doctor’s attention was distracted by a very agreeable sound. It was the voice of a bird warbling ever so softly.

“Great heavens!” the Doctor whispered. “Where’s that coming from?”

The sound grew and grew – the most beautiful singing that John Dolittle had ever heard, even superior to that which he had listened to outside the inn. To ordinary ears it would have been wonderful enough, but to the Doctor, who understood canary language and could follow the words of the song being sung, it was an experience to be remembered.

It was a long poem, telling of many things – of many lands and many loves, of little adventures and great adventures, and the melody, now sad, now gay – now fierce, now soft, was more wonderful than the finest nightingale singing at his best.

“Where is it coming from?” the Doctor repeated, completely mystified.

“From that covered cage up on the shelf,” said Too-Too.

“Great heavens!” the Doctor cried. “The bird I bought this afternoon!”

He sprang up and tore the wrapping paper aside. The song ceased. The little green canary peered out at him through the torn hole.

“I thought you were a hen,” said the Doctor.

“So I am,” said the bird.

“But you sing!”

“Well, why not?”

“But hen canaries don’t sing.”

The little green bird laughed a long, trilling, condescending sort of laugh.

“That old story – it’s so amusing!” she said. “It was invented by the cocks, you know – the conceited males. The hens have by far the better voices. But the cocks don’t like us to sing. They peck us if we do. Some years ago a movement was started – ‘Singing for Women,’ it was called. Some of us hens got together to assert our rights. But there were an awful lot of old-fashioned ones – old maids, you know – who still thought it was unmaidenly to sing. They said that a hen’s place was on the nest – that singing was for men only. So the movement failed. That’s why people still believe that hens can’t sing.”

“But you didn’t sing in the shop?” said the Doctor.

“Neither would you – in that shop,” said the canary. “The smell of the place was enough to choke you.”

“Well, why did you sing now?”

“Because I realized, after the man you sent came in a second time, that you had wanted to buy that stupid yellow cock who had been bawling out of tune all afternoon. I knew, of course, that you only sent the man back to get me out of kindness. So I thought I’d like to repay you by showing you what we women can do in the musical line.”

“Marvellous!” said the Doctor. “You certainly make that other fellow sound like a second-rate singer. You are a contralto, I see.”

“A mezzo-contralto,” the canary corrected. “But I can go right up through the highest soprano range when I want to.”

“What is your name?” asked the Doctor.

“Pippinella,” the bird replied.

“What was that you were singing just now?”

“I was singing you the story of my life.”

“But it was in verse.”

“Yes, I made it into poetry – just to amuse myself. We cage birds have a lot of spare time on our hands, when there are no eggs to sit on or young ones to feed.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “You are a great artist – a poet and a singer.”

“And a musician!” said the canary quietly. “The composition is entirely my own. You noticed I used none of the ordinary bird songs – except the love song of the greenfinch at the part where I am telling of my faithless husband running off to America and leaving me weeping by the shore.”

Dab-Dab at this moment came in to announce that supper was ready, but to Gub-Gub the pig’s disgust the Doctor brushed everything aside in the excitement of a new interest. Diving into an old portfolio, he brought out a blank musical manuscript book in which he sometimes wrote down pieces for the flute, his own favourite instrument.

“Excuse me,” he said to the canary, “but would you mind starting the story of your life all over again? It interests me immensely.”

“Certainly,” said the little bird. “Have my drinking trough filled with water, will you please? It got emptied with the shaking coming here. I like to moisten my throat occasionally when I am singing long songs.”

“Of course, of course!” said the Doctor, falling over Gub-Gub in his haste to provide the singer with what she wanted. “There! Now, would you mind singing very slowly? Because I want to take down the musical notation and the time is a little complicated. Also, I notice you change the key quite often. The words I won’t bother with, for the present, because I couldn’t write both at once. I will ask you to give me them again, if you will, later. All right. I’m ready whenever you are.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The White Persian

Then the Doctor sat down and wrote page after page of music while the green canary sang him the story of her life. It was a long song, lasting at least half an hour. And during the course of it Gub-Gub interrupted more than once with his pathetic –

“But, Doctor, the supper’s getting cold!”

When she had finished John Dolittle carefully put away the book he had been writing in, thanked the canary, and prepared to have supper.

“Would you care to come out of your cage and join us?” he asked.

“Have you any cats?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “I don’t keep any cats in the wagon.”

“Oh, all right,” said the canary. “Then if you’ll open my door, I’ll come out.”

“But you could easily get away from a cat, couldn’t you,” asked Jip, “with wings to fly?”

“I could if I was expecting it or knew where it was,” said the canary, flying down onto the table and picking up a crumb beside the Doctor’s plate. “Cats are most dangerous when you can’t see them. They are the only really skilful hunters.”

“Huh!” grunted Jip. “Dogs are pretty good, you know.”

“Excuse me,” said the canary, “but dogs are mere duffers when compared with cats in the hunting game – I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but duffers is the only word I can use. You are all very fine at following and tracking – even better than cats at that. But for getting your quarry by the use of your wits – well, there! Did you ever see a dog sit and watch a hole in the ground for hours and hours on end, silent and still as a stone – waiting, waiting for some wretched little mouse or other creature to come out? Did you ever know a dog with the patience to do that? No. Your dog, when he finds a hole, barks and yelps and scratches at it – and of course the rat, or whatever it is, doesn’t dream of coming out. No, speaking as a bird, I’d sooner be shut in a roomful of dogs than have a single cat in the house.”

“Did you ever have any unpleasant experience with them?” asked the Doctor.

“Myself, no,” said the canary. “But that was solely because of someone else’s experience with one. It taught me a lesson. I lived once in the same house with a parrot. One day the woman who owned us got a fine, silky, white Persian. She was a lovely creature – to look at. The old parrot said to me the morning the cat came, ‘She looks like a decent sort.’

“‘Pol,’ said I, ‘cats are cats. Don’t trust her – never trust a cat.’”

“I wonder if that’s what makes them the way they are,” said the Doctor, “—the fact that no one ever trusts them. It’s a terrible strain on anybody’s character.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said the canary. “Our woman trusted this cat – even left her in the room with us at night. My cage was hung high up on a chain, so I wasn’t afraid of her reaching in to me with her claws. But poor old Pol, one of the most decent old cronies that ever sat on a perch, he had no cage at all – just one of those fool stands they make for parrots – a crossbar perch and a long chain on his ankle. He wouldn’t believe that this sweet creature in white was dangerous, until one day she tried to climb up the pole of his stand and get at him. Well, a parrot’s a pretty good fighter when the fight’s a fair one, and he gave her more than she bargained for. She retired from the fray with a piece bitten out of her ear.

“‘Now, will you believe me?’ I said. ‘And, listen: she’s going to get you yet – if there’s any way to do it that she and the devil can think up between them. Whatever you do, don’t go to sleep while she is in the room. She’s scared of you now, while you’re facing her. But she won’t be scared of you as soon as you’re off your guard. One spring and a bite on the neck from her and Polly won’t want any more crackers. Remember – don’t go to sleep when she is in the room.’ “

The green canary paused a moment in her story to hop across the table and take a drink out of Gub-Gub’s milk bowl – which greatly astonished that member of the household. Then she cleaned her bill against the cruet stand and proceeded:

“I couldn’t tell you how many times I saved that foolish parrot’s life. An easygoing bird, he loved regularity. He was a bachelor, making a great ceremony of all the little habits of his daily round. And he just couldn’t bear to have anything interfere with them. He would be ruffled and sulky for days if the maid missed giving him his bath on Saturday afternoon or his piece of orange peel at Sunday breakfast. One of his little customs was to take a nap every day after lunch. I warned him over and over again that this was dangerous unless the doors and windows were shut and the cat outside. But the force of habit, years and years of bachelor regularity, were too strong for him. And I believe he would have taken that nap if the room had been full of cats.”

The canary picked up another crumb, munched it thoughtfully and went on:

“I often think there was something fine about that parrot’s independence. He had principles and nothing was allowed to change them. In the meantime that horrible cat was waiting for her chance. Often and often when Pol was dozing off I’d see her come sneaking toward his stand along the floor or creep across a table near enough to spring from. Then I’d give a terrific loud whistle and the parrot would wake up. And the cat would slink away, looking daggers at me for spoiling her game.

“As for the mistress we had, it never entered her empty head that the cat was a dangerous customer. One day a friend of hers asked if she wasn’t afraid to leave the beast around when she had no cage over the parrot.

“‘Oh, tut, tut!’ said she. ‘Pussums wouldn’t hurt my nice Polly, would ums, Pussums?’

“And then that silky hypocrite would rub her neck against the old lady’s dress and purr as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Well, I did my best. But the day came when even I was outwitted by the she-devil in white. The old lady had gone to visit friends in the country and let the maid take the day off while she was away. Both the parrot and I were given double rations of seed and water, the house was locked, and the keys put under the mat. The door of the parlour, where we were always kept, was closed, and I thanked my stars that for this day, anyhow, my friend should be safe.

“About noon a thunderstorm came up and the wind howled around the house dismally. And presently I saw the door of our room blow open. It had not been properly latched – just closed carelessly.

“‘Don’t go to sleep, Pol,’ I said. ‘That cat may come in any moment!’

“Well, for a long time she didn’t. And after an hour I decided that the cat must have been shut in another room somewhere and that it was all right and I needn’t worry. After his lunch Pol went sound asleep; and presently, feeling sort of drowsy myself, I too took a nap.

“I dreamed all sorts of awful things – monstrous cats leaping through the air, parrots defending themselves with swords and pitchforks – all manner of terrible stuff. At the most tragic moment in the worst dream I thought I heard a thud on the floor and suddenly woke up, wide awake, the way one does with nightmares. And there on the floor lay Pol, stone dead, and squatting on the carpet on the far side of him, staring up at me with a devilish smirk of glee on her horrible face, sat the white cat!”

The canary shivered a little and rubbed her bill with her right foot, as though to wipe away the memory of a bad dream.

“I was too horrified to say a word,” she presently continued, “and I began to wonder whether the abominable wretch would eat my poor dead friend. But not a bit of it. She didn’t want him for food at all. She got three square meals a day from the old lady, the daintiest morsels in the house. She just wanted to kill – to kill for the fun of killing. For three months she had watched and waited and calculated. And in the end she had won. With another grin of triumph in my direction, she slowly turned about, left the body where it lay, and stalked toward the door.

“‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘there’s one thing: she can’t escape the blame. At least the old lady will know her now for what she is, the murderess!’

“And then a curious thing happened. It reminded me of something my mother used to believe: that cats are helped by the devil. ‘It would be impossible for them to be so fiendishly clever without,’ she used to say. ‘Never try to match your wits against a cat! They are helped by the devil.’

“I had never believed it, myself. But that afternoon I came very near believing it. Now, mark you, with that door blown open, anyone would know that it was the cat who had come in and killed the parrot, wouldn’t they? But with that door shut – the way the old lady had thought she left it – and the cat outside of the room – no one could possibly suspect ‘sweet pussums.’ So then I felt quite certain that this time the cat was going to get in a good, stiff row. Now comes the queer business; no sooner had she passed into the hall outside than the wind began again, howling and moaning about the house. And, to my horror, I saw the door slowly closing. Faster and faster it swung forward, and then with a bang that shook the house from cellar to garret, it slammed shut. The last glimpse I got of the hall outside showed me ‘sweet pussums’ squatting on the floor, still grinning at me in triumph. After that, I think you will admit, it was pardonable to believe that she was helped by the devil. For, mind you, if the wind had come two minutes earlier it would have shut her inside the room, instead of out.

“Of course, when the old lady came home she just couldn’t understand it. There lay the parrot on the floor, his neck broken (the cat had done it very neatly and cleverly – just one spring, a bite, and a twist); the windows were shut; the door was shut.

“Finally that stupid old woman said that perhaps boys had got in, probably down the chimney, wrung the parrot’s neck and escaped, leaving no tracks. The mystery was never solved. She was frightfully upset, weeping all over the place – after it was too late.

“‘Oh, well,’ she sobbed, ‘anyhow, I have my canary left – and my sweet pussums.’

“And then that she-devil came up to her, purring, to be petted, and the old woman gave her a saucer of milk! No, never, never trust a cat.”

“They’re funny creatures,” said the Doctor. “There’s no gainsaying that. And their curious habit of killing even when they’re not hungry is very hard to explain. Still, it’s in their nature, I suppose, and one should never judge anyone without making allowances for the nature he was born with. You have been through some very interesting experiences, I see. When you were singing me the story of your life I was so busy getting the music down that I couldn’t pay much attention to the words. After we have finished supper, would you mind telling it to me over again?”

“Why, certainly,” said the canary. “I’ll tell it to you conversationally – without music.”

“Yes, I think that would be better,” said the Doctor. “You can then put in all your adventures in detail, without bothering to make the lines scan and rhyme. Gub-Gub, as soon as you have finished that plateful of beechnuts we will let Dab-Dab clear away.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

An Animal Biography

It was thus through the coming of the little green canary that the Doctor wrote the first of his animal biographies. He had frequently considered doing this before. He claimed that in many instances the lives of animals were undoubtedly more interesting – if only they were properly written – than the lives of some of our so-called great men. He had even thought of writing a series, or a set, of books called Great Animals of the Nineteenth Century, or something like that. But so far he had not met many whose memories were good enough to remember all the things in their lives that make a biography interesting.

Gub-Gub, disappointed that no statue had been erected to him in Manchester, had often begged the Doctor to write his life for him, feeling certain that of course everybody would want to read it. But John Dolittle and his pets knew Gub-Gub’s life by heart already. And, while the Doctor felt that it would make good comic reading, Gub-Gub himself refused to have it written that way, now that he was a famous actor.

“I want a dignified biography,” said he. “I may be funny on the stage – very funny. But in my biography I must be dignified.”

“Pignified, you mean,” growled Jip. “Your biography would be just one large meal after another – with stomachaches for adventures. Myself, I’d sooner read the life of a nice, round, smooth stone.”

So this branch of the Doctor’s natural history writing had remained untouched till the appearance of Pippinella, the canary who came to join his family circle under such curious circumstances. Pippinella, the Doctor often said, was a born biographer, for she had a marvellous memory for the little things that made a story interesting and real. And John Dolittle, in the preface to this the first of his Private Memoirs of Distinguished Animals was careful to say that the entire book was Pippinella’s own, he merely having translated it from Canary into English.

Those who read it declared it most interesting. But, like so many of the Doctor’s works, it is now out of print and copies of it are almost impossible to obtain. One of the reasons for this was that the ordinary booksellers wouldn’t keep it. “Pooh!” they said. “The Life of a Canary! What kind of a life could that be – sitting in a cage all day?”

And as a consequence of their stupidity the book was only sold at the taxidermists’ shops, naturalists’ supply stores and odd places like that. Probably that is why copies are so hard to find to-day. In its final completed form, under the title of The Life of Coloratura Pippinella, Contralto Canary, the story contained much of the bird’s life that was lived after she joined the Dolittle household. Moreover, the Doctor went through the manuscript with the authoress several times and got her to tell him more about many little incidents and details which he thought would be of interest to the general public. All this went to make it quite a long book. I have not space to set it down for you here just as the Doctor wrote it, but I will tell it you in part, at all events, as Pippinella herself related it to John Dolittle and his family circle.

“People,” Pippinella began, when Gub-Gub had finally ceased fidgeting, “might think that the biography of a cage canary would be a very dull monotonous story. But, as a matter of fact, the lives of cage-birds are often far more varied and interesting than those of wild ones. I have heard the lives of several wild birds, and they were mostly exceedingly dull and monotonous.

“Very well, then, I will begin at the beginning,” Pippinella began, “I was born in an aviary, a private one, occupied by our family and a few others. My father was a bright lemon-yellow Harz Mountains canary and my mother was a greenfinch of very good family. My brothers and sisters – there were six of us altogether, three boys and three girls – were about the same as me to look at, sort of olive-green and yellow mixed up. Of course, until our eyes were open the thing that concerned us chiefly was getting enough food. Good parents – and ours were the most conscientious couple you ever saw – give their children when they are first hatched about fourteen meals a day.”

“Huh!” muttered Gub-Gub. “That’s more than I ever got.”

“Sh!” said the Doctor. “Don’t interrupt.”

“Pardon me, Pippinella,” said John Dolittle, “but that is a point that has often interested me. How do young birds know, before their eyes are open, when their parents are bringing food? I’ve noticed that they all open their mouths every time the older birds come back to the nest.”

“We tell it, I imagine, by the vibration. Our parents stepping on to the edge of the nest is something that we get to recognize very early. And then, although our eyes are closed, we see the shadow that our parents make leaning over the nest coming in between us and the sunlight.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, making a note. “Please continue.”

“As you may have observed,” Pippinella went on, “young birds talk and peep and chirp almost as soon as they are out of the egg. That is one of the big differences between bird children and human children: you see before you talk, and we talk before we see.”

“Huh!” Gub-Gub put in. “Your conversation can’t have much sense to it then. What on earth can you have to talk about if you haven’t seen anything yet?”

“That,” said the canary, turning upon Gub-Gub with rather a haughty manner, “is perhaps another important difference between bird babies and pig babies: we are born with a certain amount of sense, while pigs, from what I have observed, never get very much, even when they are grown up. No, this blind period with small birds is a very important thing in their education and development. You ask me what they talk about. Nothing very much. I and my brothers and sisters used to swap guesses with one another on what the world would look like when our eyes would open. But the value of that time lies in this: having to do without our eyes, we develop what we call our sixth sense. It is rather hard to explain. But Too-Too will tell you that it is something well known and recognized among all birds. When we talk of birds having sense we always mean sixth sense.”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor put in, “but would you go into that a little further?”

“Certainly,” said the canary. “But, as I told you, it’s frightfully hard to explain. You were speaking just now of the parents approaching the nest and the young ones opening their mouths. Well, even before they actually step on the nest we soon get to know that they are there without seeing or hearing them. And then birds are awfully busy with their ears during this time. They do a lot of listening. And, being unable to see, they get to be much better hearers than if they had the use of their eyes as well. We listened to everything with the greatest care, trying to learn from it what the world was going to look like – even to the mice scratching behind the panellings and the boughs of the trees in the garden tapping the windowpane near our cage.

“That’s a strong wind, isn’t it, Father?’ we would say. There are many twigs scratching on the glass.’

“‘Yes, children,’ he would answer. ‘It’s a north wind. It is only the north and the northeast winds that press the jasmine up against the window. The others blow it away from the house.’

“Then, after that, you see, we could tell just by the tune the bough-tips played upon the panes which way the wind was blowing and how strong it was. But much of our education we got without knowing the why or the wherefore at all. That is perhaps the best explanation of the sixth sense: just knowing a thing without knowing why or how you know it. Of course, in many matters the wild birds are much cleverer than we are. At geography, for instance: bird geography is all done by the sixth sense. But then, of course, we cage birds don’t get much chance to study that. But at other things we are ahead of them a long way. Especially about people. You’d be surprised what a good judge of character most housebred canaries are. Altogether, as a grown-up bird, I’ve often astonished myself at what a lot I know – and how I know it, I couldn’t tell you to save my life. But I’m convinced that a great deal of the most important part of my education came to me, as it does to all of us, during that time when we lie in the nest with our eyes closed, trying to guess, by hearing and smelling and feeling, what the world is going to look like.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “That is very interesting. Pray pardon my interruption. But these things are important to me as a naturalist. Please continue with your story.”

“It is quite an exciting moment,” Pippinella continued, “for young birds when they first open their eyes. They usually stay awake most of the night before, lest they sleep past the time and their brothers and sisters crow over them that they saw the world first.

“Well, with us the day came in due course; and, myself, I was slightly disappointed. You must remember that for us cage birds the world was the inside of a room, instead of an open meadow, hedgerow, or leafy forest. Of course, we had known something of what it was going to look like from asking our parents. But no matter how well a thing is described to you, you always form your own idea of it, more or less wrong. Very well, then. Our world, we discovered, was a long room, sort of parlour and conservatory combined – a pleasant enough place, containing flowerpots, palms, some furniture and several cages of birds. By day a woman attended to us, supplying our parents with chopped egg and cracker crumbs, which they fed to us youngsters. At night a man, who apparently owned us, came in to inspect everything. He seemed a decent sort of fellow and evidently had our welfare at heart because he was forever scolding the woman for neglecting to clean cages, to change the water in the troughs, or to give the birds fresh lettuce.

“Raising prize singing-birds was this man’s hobby. He had other cages in other rooms because we could hear the birds singing. And when the doors were open my father would sing back to them and carry on conversations with them about the woman, the quality of the new supply of seed, the temperature in the conservatory, and any odd gossip about the household.

“There was another family of young ones in a cage close to ours. And our parents used to chat with the other parents – my mother always boasting that we looked a much healthier brood than theirs.

“The man had two children of his own, and they would come into the conservatory occasionally to look at us and to play with toys on the floor. Their games provided us with entertainment and we were glad to have them, because most days the conservatory was rather quiet.

“My father was evidently quite a fine singer. And now and then, when he wasn’t helping my mother shovel food into us hungry children, he’d sit on the edge of the nest and sing. He had a tremendous voice. But, for my part, I can’t say that I enjoyed it much. At that close range it was simply earsplitting and we used to beg Mother to make him stop.

“Once he was taken away from us for a whole day. And Mother told us he had gone to a canary show, to see if he was a good enough singer to get a prize. And when the man brought him back to us in the evening there was great excitement throughout the house. All the family came in, talking. Father had won the first prize at the show! After that he used to sing louder than ever, and it was no use our asking Mother to stop him because she was even prouder of his success than he was. In between songs, he told us all about the show and what the judges said and what sort of canaries he had had to sing against.

“It was a funny life – not nearly as dull as you’d think. As we got our feathers and grew bigger, I used to look out of the window at the spring trees budding in the garden. Every once in a while I’d see a finch fly by and I’d get a sort of vague hankering to be out in the open, living a life of freedom. But one day I saw a hawk swoop down on a poor lame sparrow and carry him off. With a shudder I nestled down among my brothers and sisters and thanked my stars that I lived indoors. After all, I decided, there was a good deal to be said for this cage life, where we were protected from cats and birds of prey, given comfortable quarters and the best of food.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Pippinella Takes
Her First Journey

“The thing,” Pippinella continued, “that most interested every bird born at that house was whether he was going to be kept, sold, exchanged, or given away. For this man, while he did not run a regular shop, had many friends who were also interested in canaries. He seems to have been quite well known, for some of these people came long distances to see him and his birds. His place wasn’t big enough to keep all the families that were born there. So when the young ones grew up and got their full feathers he would pick out those that he wanted to keep himself. These were such as had good voices or who were prettily marked. The others he would sometimes exchange, sometimes give away, and sometimes sell. He never kept very many hens.

“One evening, about two weeks after we had left the nest and were hopping and pecking for ourselves, my parents were talking this matter over together. And of course we youngsters, since it was a subject that very deeply concerned us, were listening intently. Said my mother:

“I’m afraid he will probably get rid of most of this brood. Nearly all his space is taken up and he seems to prefer those birds over in the next cage – though what he can see in the scrawny, long-necked little brats I don’t know. I wouldn’t exchange one of our babies for the whole batch.’

“‘Well,’ said my father, ‘so far as the welfare of our own is concerned, it will be just as well if he does let them go – especially if they go separately.’

“‘Why?’ I asked.

“‘Because you always get better cared for in houses where you are the only canary kept. In any place where they have an awful lot to look after, the treatment is usually slipshod and negligent. The worst of all are the animal shops. They are notoriously bad. You don’t get your cage cleaned out more than once a week; you get put anyplace, sometimes in the hot sun, sometimes in an awful draught. And the noises and the smells are dreadful. No, I hope, for your sake, you don’t get sent to an animal shop.’

“‘But, Father,’ I said, ‘it’s all right if you get bought right away, isn’t it?’

“‘Yes, but you seldom are, if you’re a hen,’ he said. ‘People don’t often come to an animal shop to buy hen canaries.’

“‘Why?’ I asked again.

“‘Because they don’t sing,’ said he.

“You notice he said ‘don’t sing,’ not ‘can’t sing.’ I am afraid I’ve always been something of a rebel. Maybe I ought to have been born a cock. Anyway, that evening I felt particularly aggrieved at this stupid, unfair, old-fashioned custom.

“‘Father, I think that’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘You know very well that hens are born with just as good voices as cocks. But merely because it isn’t considered proper for them to sing they have to let their voices spoil for want of practise when they’re young. I think it’s a crying shame.’

“Then my mother joined in.

“‘How dare you speak to your father like that, you brazen hussy!’ she cried. ‘What are the girls coming to these days, I’d like to know? Go and stand down in the corner of the cage!’

“And she gave me a box on the ear with her wing that knocked me right off the perch.

“Well, although I had been reprimanded, I was by no means repentant. I saw that just because hens were not supposed to sing I and my sisters stood a good chance of being packed off to some wretched, crowded animal shop, instead of being bought by some private person who would treat us decently. And I determined to practise my singing secretly, so as to develop my voice and become just as valuable as my brothers.

“Well, in spite of frequent peckings, I continued to exercise my voice quietly when the others were busy eating or talking together. Finally the man who owned us noticed that I often got sat upon by the rest of my family and I was put in a separate cage. After that I could sing as long and as loud as I wanted to and all that the others could do was to make rude remarks from across the room about the quality of my voice.

“And then one day the bird fancier, our owner, brought in a friend of his to see us. He wanted to make this friend a present of a canary, it seemed, and he offered him his choice out of the two new families of birds. I liked the man’s face and I was determined he should pick me out, if I could make him. He was evidently rather taken with the colouring of the other family and he lingered around their cage quite a while. But I sang my loudest and my best and presently I saw I had caught his attention. He came over to my cage and asked the fancier if I, too, was part of the new broods. On hearing that I was, he said he would like to have me.

“Then, to my great delight, the fancier went and got a small travelling cage to lend his friend, until he could buy a bigger one for me. Into this I was changed and wrapping paper was put around and I couldn’t see anything more after that.

“However, my parents and brothers and sisters could still hear me through the paper. They wished me goodbye and good luck. Then I felt my cage lifted up off the table and the first journey of my life began.

“Of course, I wondered, inside my paper-covered carriage, where I was being taken and what my new home would be like. From the motion, a curious jerky sort of swing, I guessed I was still being carried by someone walking. But soon I was put down again, just for a moment, and the suddenly cooling air told me I was outside the house. Next I heard the stamping of a horse’s feet, and then I was lifted up again, high. After that a new kind of motion began and, from the swing of it and the regular beating of hoofs, I knew I was being carried on horseback.

“I felt the wind blowing through my paper covering. Soon the scent of the ripe corn and poppies reached me and I knew that my owner was now beyond the town, out in the open country. I had never been in the country before, but my father had, when being taken to shows, and he had told me something about it.

“It was a cold ride, bumpy and uncomfortable. With the jolting motion of the saddle pommel on which my cage was held every bit of the water and seed out of my troughs got spilled all over the cage – and me, too.

“Presently the horse’s pace slowed down and, hearing now the echoes of his hooves thrown back from near at hand, I guessed that we had entered the streets of another town. I wondered if this was the place where I was to live or if my owner would ride on through it. I heard sparrows chattering, pigeons cooing, dogs barking, people talking and calling. I hoped we would stay here. It seemed a nice, cheery place, from the sounds of it.

“And sure enough, presently, to my great delight, that awful riding motion ceased. I felt my cage being handed down and taken by other hands. Somebody – a woman – was greeting my man on the horse. The air suddenly grew warm and a door slammed shut. I was inside a house – a house of many smells, most of them nice, comfortable, foody smells. My cage was set upon a table. Several voices were now chattering around me, some of them children’s. Fingers began clawing at my wrapping paper, to undo it. The string was cut with a ponk like the twang of a guitar. And then – at last – I could see.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The New Home

“The room,’ Pippinella continued, “in which I found myself was quite different from any I had ever seen before. But then, of course, I had only seen one other, so far – the fancier’s conservatory. This place was pretty large, with lots and lots of chairs in it, a ceiling of big smoked beams and funny pictures on the walls of men in scarlet jackets galloping across country on horseback. A pair of stag’s horns were hung over the door. And above the fireplace there was an enormous dead fish in a glass box.

“Gathered about my cage stood four or five people, men, women, and children, all with fat, round faces and red cheeks. They were staring at me with great curiosity and – to judge from their smiles – with some admiration. I guessed them to be the family of my new owner. Presently another cage was brought and I was changed into it. It was quite roomy and decent inside, and I was glad to get into it after the little crampy one that had been so messed up by the journey.

“Then there was evidently a good deal of discussion among the family about where I should be put. One pointed to one place and another to another. Finally it was decided to hang my cage in the big bay window which looked out on to a forecourt, or front yard.

“Of course, you must understand that up to this time I had never seen very much of people. I was exceedingly young. At the fancier’s all I ever saw, with very few exceptions, was one person at a time. But in this house it was entirely different. People in twos and threes were around, talking all the time. And, watching and listening to them the whole day, I soon began to understand many words of their language. Even that first day I guessed from signs and other things that the largest boy of the family was asking his mother if he could have the job of looking after me. Finally his mother consented – to my great sorrow later, because he was the most forgetful monkey that ever walked. Many was the time that he forgot to refill my water trough and I’d go thirsty for a whole day before he found it out. He was always dreadfully sorry when he discovered his mistake, but that didn’t do me any good.

“At first I was very much puzzled about this house. The family seemed to be positively enormous. All day long new batches that I had never seen before, men, women, and children, kept arriving, some on horseback, some on foot, some in carriages. They would take meals in the dining room, and often sleep upstairs in the bedrooms overnight. Then they’d go away again and different ones would take their place. There was somebody arriving and somebody going away all the time.

“Then I decided these could not all belong to the family, and I supposed that my new owner was a man of many friends. Heaven only knows how long I would have gone on believing that if I had not one day had my youthful ignorance enlightened by a chaffinch. It was a warm afternoon and the bay window had been opened. I saw a chaffinch passing and repassing, with bits of horsehair in his mouth. He was busily building a nest in one of the poplars in the yard. I had not spoken to a bird since I had left my own family, so I hailed him, and he came over close to the window and chatted a while.

“This seems an awfully funny house,’ I said. ‘Who’s this man who has so many friends coming to visit him all day long?’

“‘No one could mistake you for anything but a newborn cage-bird,’ said the chaffinch with a laugh. ‘They aren’t his friends. This isn’t a private house. This is an inn, an hotel, where people pay to stop and eat. Haven’t you noticed that big carriage that rattles into the yard every evening at five o’clock? Well, that’s the coach from the north. And the one that comes early in the morning is the night coach from the south. Haven’t you seen them changing horses? This is a regular coaching-inn, one of the busiest spots in the country.’

“And very soon I decided that in my first venture away from the protection of my mother’s wing I had been very lucky. Good fortune had given me a home that any cage bird could envy. I have often looked back with pleasure upon the nice, cheerful bustle of that inn. If you must be a cage bird – if you have to be deprived of the green forests and the open freedom of the skies – then it is good to be in close touch with the world. And there, one was certainly that.

“Something new was happening all the time. Men went over this road not only to the capital but to foreign lands – for it was the highway to a great port from where ships sailed to the seven seas. Travellers coming and going brought news from everywhere. And the daily coaches always delivered the newspapers from the north, south, east, and west.

“All this I witnessed from my little cage. And when the summer weather came I used to be put outside every morning, high up on the wall beside the door. From there I could see down the road a long way. And the daily coaches were visible to me quite a while before they could be seen by anyone else. When the weather was dry I could tell them by the cloud of dust far, far off; and then I’d sing a special song that I made up. It began ‘Maids, come out; the coach is here.’ And though nobody understood the words of it, all the maids and the porters of the hotel soon got to know the tune. And whenever they heard me sing it they’d know the mail coach would arrive in a few minutes and they’d all get ready to receive the guests. The maids would take a last look at the dining room tables; the porters would come to the door for the valises and luggage; and the stable boys would open the yard gate and get ready the fresh horses to change for the tired ones coming in. It gave me quite a thrill on a quiet drowsy afternoon to suddenly wake that inn up to a bustle and life, just by singing my song, ‘Maids, Come Out; the Coach Is Here.’ In that way, you see, I was not only in touch with the world but I was, in a manner, an active part of it. For though I lived in a cage I felt myself a responsible member of the hotel staff.

“Another thing that is very important for a cage bird, if he is to lead a happy life, is that he shall like people. Most wild birds look upon people as just something to be afraid of and think they are all the same, like stones or beans. They’re not. They’re all different. There’s just as much difference in people as there is in sparrows or canaries. But you can’t make a wild bird believe that.

“I had not lived very long at that inn before I made a great number of very excellent friends – among the people. One I remember particularly: the old driver who drove the night coach from the north. He was what is called a very famous whip – that is he could drive a four-in-hand coach with great skill. Every evening when he brought his great lumbering carriage into the yard, he’d call to me from his box, ‘Hulloa, there, Pip!’ And he’d crack his long whip with a sound like a pistol shot. Then the hostlers would all come running out to change horses, polishing up the harness, washing the mud off the traces – as busy as bees putting everything shipshape for the next stage of the journey. I made up another song for that nice, jolly-faced old driver – his name was Jack. And every evening when he cracked his whip I’d sing it to encourage the busy stable boys at their work around the coach. It was meant to sound like the jingle of harness and the shish-shish-shish of a curry comb. And it ended sudden and sharp: “Jack! – Crack!’

“Old Jack always brought me a lump of sugar in his pocket – never, never forgot. And on his way in to get his own supper he’d poke it into the bars of my cage and take out the old one which he had left there yesterday. He was one of the best friends I ever had, was Jack, the driver of the night coach from the north.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

An Adventurous Career

As I have already said, Pippinella’s life was quite a long story. And since this book is to be a history of the Doctor’s adventures, I feel it would be wiser if I told the rest of the contralto canary’s career in my own words, rather than in the longer form in which she narrated it herself to the Dolittle household in the caravan.

Certainly few cage birds, indeed few people, ever experienced so many thrills in the space of a short lifetime. From the inn where she had been so happy she was bought and taken away by a nobleman who stopped there on his way to his country estate. Arriving at a very gorgeous castle she was presented to the nobleman’s wife and lived for some weeks in that lady’s little boudoir at the top of a high tower.

Here she was introduced to an entirely different kind of life from what she had seen at the inn. From the grand silver cage into which she had been put, she saw trouble brewing all around her. The nobleman (a marquis) owned many square miles of land, whole towns, coal mines, factories, and whatnot. His wife, the kind marchioness in whose boudoir Pippinella lived, was unhappy. The canary sang songs to her to cheer her up – “The Harness Jingle” which she had composed for old Jack, the driver of the night coach from the north, and the merry call, “Maids, Come Out; the Coach Is Here.”

She heard rumours of riots in the factory towns and the mines. The workers were discontented. One day when both the marquis and the marchioness were away, a mob attacked the castle, sacked it, and set fire to it. The dogs and horses belonging to the estate were rescued by the workers themselves. But not so poor Pippinella. In her silver cage hung outside the tower window hundreds of feet above the ground, she was overlooked and left on the wall of the blazing building. Unable to escape, she saw the flames slowly but surely rising through the castle, floor by floor.

But just as all chance of rescue seemed most hopeless she heard the sound of drums coming up the valley. A regiment of soldiers had been sent to put down the riot and save the estate. The workers fled. The fire was put out and Pippinella, the only living thing left in the gutted building, was rescued by the soldiers.

After this dramatic escape she was made the regimental mascot and travelled with the military wherever they went. She was treated extremely well, as an individual of great importance who would bring good luck so long as she survived. From place to place she went, always riding in her cage on top of the baggage wagon, while the Fusiliers (the regiment to which she had been attached) put down riots and disturbances in various small towns round about.

During this period she composed another air – a marching song for the soldiers of whom she had grown very fond; and it began “Oh, I’m the midget mascot, I’m a feathered fusilier.”

The day came when the soldiers were sent to a certain town to put down an uprising of the workers. They were commanded to fire on the crowd, which was unarmed. They did not openly rebel against orders. But being really in sympathy with the workers they allowed themselves to be defeated. The baggage-wagon on which the mascot Pippinella travelled was captured. And the contralto canary found herself suddenly transferred from the position of a pampered regimental pet to the possession of a labouring man who had won her in a raffle.

This man later attempted to escape from the town after it was besieged by fresh troops who had come to reinforce the defeated Fusiliers. With him he took a companion and Pippinella. On the way out through the sentry lines he was shot. And though he managed to escape and drag himself several miles into the country he finally died of his injuries, and the canary passed into the possession of his companion.

Pippinella’s new owner was apparently a coal miner and it was his intention to get to the next town and seek work in the coalpits. He begged a ride on a grocer’s wagon and finally reached his destination.

The next chapter in Pippinella’s story is a very strange and mournful one. It was apparently the custom in many mines to have canaries underground where the men worked. They were placed high up above the workers’ heads on the walls of the galleries and tunnels. The idea was that the deadly gas, which is sometimes a source of great danger to the miners, would begin by gathering against the ceiling of the tunnels. Thus the behaviour of these birds was supposed to give warning to the miners when they were in danger.

After some weeks of this dark and gloomy life Pippinella saw an old lady coming through the mines on a visit. She was very interested in the presence of the canary here and asked if she could buy her. The price she offered was large and the miner who owned her jumped at the chance of making so much money. The old lady took Pippinella back to her home with her and a new and brighter life began.

It was springtime and Aunt Rosie (as Pippinella came to call her new owner) decided that her canary must have a mate and rear a brood. So a gentleman canary of very smart appearance was bought at the local livestock shop and introduced to Pippinella. She found him very stupid, she told the Doctor, but of a kind and thoughtful disposition. But the most remarkable thing about him was his voice. Pippinella considered herself (and rightly so, too) a good judge of bird voices. But she assured John Dolittle that among tenor canaries she had never heard, before or since, the equal of her first husband. His name was Twink.

Many quiet domestic weeks now followed during which Pippinella and Twink raised a lusty brood of young canaries to full growth. The youngsters were all given away, when they were old enough, to Aunt Rosie’s friends. And finally Pippinella and her husband found themselves alone again.

It was at Aunt Rosie’s home that Pippinella made the acquaintance of the man who had the greatest influence on her life. He was a window cleaner. Her cage had always hung in the window. And while this man polished the panes he would whistle to the canary and she would talk back to him. Pippinella said she knew at once that he had character – that he wasn’t just an ordinary person, and that he probably only cleaned windows to make his bread and butter. Aunt Rosie, though she was kindhearted, Pippinella had found a rather tiresome woman. To the canary’s great delight, she was eventually presented to the window cleaner as a gift.

It was no very terrible sorrow to her to leave Twink, who, while he was the greatest singer on earth, had proved a very dull mate. Pippinella went off with her window cleaner in high glee.

Her new home was a strange one. The window cleaner lived in an old broken-down windmill. He was away most of the day cleaning windows to earn his daily bread. But he used to work far into the night writing. He seemed to be very secretive about this writing, always hiding his manuscripts in a hole under the floor when he was finished.

One day he went off as usual to his work. By this time spring was coming again and he had set Pippinella’s cage on a nail outside the window of the mill. It hung a good twenty feet from the ground. The hour came for his usual return, but he did not show up. Darkness came on – and still he had not come back. Two days went by, and still no window cleaner.

The canary’s food was by this time of course long since exhausted. She felt something must have happened to her master and there was every chance, since he lived entirely alone, of her starving to death.

However on the third night, toward the morning hours, a great storm came up and her cage was finally blown off the nail in the mill tower and sent crashing to the ground. It broke in halves. The canary was unharmed; and suddenly, as the dawn showed in the east, she found herself, for the first time in her career, free!

• • • • •

•   7   •

Freedom

Pippinella spent some time describing to the Doctor what that freedom meant. At first she rejoiced greatly: she could go where she wished, do as she liked. But, born and bred a cage bird, she soon found that life in the open held more dangers than comforts for one who was not experienced in it. When she attempted to make her way through the hedges like other birds she got her wings all tangled up in the blackberry brambles. She was chased by a cat, weasels, and hawks. She did not know where to look for wild seed. Flights longer than a few yards tired her dreadfully. Much of her time was spent cowering in the holes of the mill tower to escape her enemies of the air and earth.

Then came along a greenfinch. Pippinella, you will remember, was a green canary, crossbred. The greenfinch had seen her escaping from a hawk and saved her life by drawing off that deadly enemy upon himself so she could escape. In the calm beauty of a spring evening he made love to her and offered to show her how the life of the wild should be lived. Pippinella was touched. This greenfinch had saved her life. She went off with him. They were to build a nest and raise a brood.

Many leagues they travelled, seeking the ideal spot for the nest that should be worthy of their romance. Often in those days she heard her lover sing that famous melody which later became well known, through her, to human audiences. She called it then “The Love Song of the Greenfinch in the Spring.” Meanwhile her mate coached her in all the arts of the wild life, which she, as a cage bird, was ignorant of.

Those were idyllic days as Pippinella described them to the Doctor. But tragedy and sorrow lay ahead. One evening when she returned after seeking nesting materials (they had found the ideal place for their home in a little bay where the sea rolled in in gentle waves and the wild flowering bushes hung low down over the sandy shores) she discovered her mate in conversation with a full-bred greenfinch, a lady of his own race. Pippinella knew at once, she told the Doctor, that the end of her romance had come. However, she tried to behave in a ladylike manner and when introduced to the greenfinch damsel she was careful to be polite and courteous. The three birds roosted for the night on the limb of a flowering hawthorn bush. But Pippinella knew she wasn’t wanted – after all, she was only a mongrel, a cage bird.

Very early, before the dawn had wakened her companions, she quietly left the hawthorn bush and betook herself to the shore. There on the sands she determined to fly to foreign lands, to forget – and start life anew.

By this time she had already begun to weary of the wild life – of the freedom that has so many dangers for the cage bird. She wanted to find her old friend the window cleaner. It could not be that he was dead! And if he was alive, maybe he needed her. Her motherly instinct was aroused. Very well then, she would leave her faithless lover, with his greenfinch hussy. And scouring foreign lands beyond the sea, maybe she’d meet her old friend. With him she would return to the life of captivity in which she had been born, and be useful and happy.

From this point on, her life story became one long series of adventures. Crossing the ocean without a wild bird’s knowledge of geography and navigation was of course in itself a foolhardy thing to attempt. Moreover, she had as yet very little endurance for long-distance flying. She was no sooner beyond the sight of land than she was lost and exhausted. She took refuge on some floating gulfweed till a passing curlew gave her directions as to how to reach the nearest land.

Following these instructions she finally came to Ebony Island, a jungle-covered mountainous piece of land only a few miles square. After she had recovered from her fatigue she examined the island and found it a pleasant enough place. She was treated kindly by the native birds, many cock finches vying for her affections. But she is still too brokenhearted over her lover’s faithlessness and she encourages none of them. She does not even tell them where she came from and she remains a sort of woman of mystery among the bird society of the island.

She fills in her time composing many new and beautiful songs. But after a few weeks she discovers that all her new songs are sad – none of them jolly, like the “Maids, Come Out,” or stirring, like “I’m the Midget Mascot.” Wondering why this is, she decides that she is still mourning for her friend the window cleaner. She has an uncanny and unexplainable feeling all the time when she is flying about the island that he is near her, or that he has been here before her.

At length, just as she is about to leave she discovers the window cleaner’s dustrag tied to a pole at the summit of one of the island’s hills. She is quite certain it is the towel that he dried the windows with because she knew every detail of it, and it has a mended tear in exactly the right place.

Hunting around in the neighbourhood of this signal station (for the cloth had been clearly set up as a flag to attract the attention of passing ships), she finds a cave where her old friend had lived and other traces of his presence.

He must have been shipwrecked and cast away on this island, she thinks. What shall she do now? She sees a ship passing some miles away to westward. She fears her own ignorance of navigation; but following this ship she must surely be brought to land – possibly back to England, where she had last seen her friend.

She sets off. But as soon as she is well out from the shores of the island, a heavy rain squall drives her forward past the ship like a leaf in the wind. Her only hope of safety is to take refuge on the ship itself while there is yet time. This she does, and is immediately captured by one of the crew. She is put into a cage and placed in the ship’s barbershop. There is another canary there who tells her all the gossip of the ship.

This new life was not a bad one. She was treated well and the business of the barbershop, where passengers came to be shaved and have their hair cut, provided a constant entertainment. During these days she taught the other canary to sing and she composed an amusing song that she called “The Razor Strop Duet.” It imitated the clip-clop of a razor being sharpened and the tinkling of a shaving brush in a lather mug. Pippinella sang the contralto part of the duet and the other canary the soprano.

Still she was always hoping to escape, to get back to her friend the window cleaner.

One day a great excitement is started aboard ship by the sighting of a raft. The ship’s course is changed and the castaway upon the raft (a strange, ragged individual with thick beard grown all over his face) is rescued and brought on board. He is in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion and is at once put to bed by the ship’s doctor. For several days, neither Pippinella nor the passengers see any more of him.

But after a week he comes to the barbershop to have his dense beard shaved off. When this is done Pippinella at once recognizes him as the window cleaner! She whistles familiar calls to him frantically as he goes to leave the shop and he recognizes his own canary’s voice.

After some argument and trial by test, his ownership of her is established and she is removed to his private cabin. There he sets to work writing his biography and Pippinella herself gets the idea for the first time of composing her own life story in song. And it was that autobiography in music that she had sung to the Doctor when he first brought her home to his caravan.

On the ship’s arrival at the next port the window cleaner goes ashore to seek passage on another ship, which shall take him and Pippinella back to England.

And so at last they reached their home shores and the window cleaner at once proceeded to the windmill. He left the canary in her cage outside while he went around to the back to find a way into his old home. In his absence a tramp appeared and, hiding Pippinella’s cage beneath his ragged coat, made off with her before the window cleaner returned.

Thus, after finding her old master again under most dramatic and extraordinary conditions, she was parted from him again at the very moment of their returning to the old place they had shared as home together for so many happy months.

After a few more changes of ownership Pippinella, the great contralto canary, was sold to the animal shop from which Matthew Mugg purchased her for the Doctor.

• • • • •

8   •

John Dolittle’s Fame

At this point Gub-Gub, who had been fidgeting to say something for a long time, demanded to know what became of the window cleaner when he left the mill the first time and how he came to be floating about on a raft in the ocean. But Jip and Dab-Dab silenced him and bade him let Pippinella tell her story her own way.

“Well, that is practically all there is of it,” said the canary. “The rest is in the animal shop.”

“Humph! And quite enough, too, I should say – for one life,” muttered the Doctor, stretching his cramped hand that had written steadily at high speed for over two hours. “But there are one or two more small things I’d like to get down, Pippinella. Would you sing us that song again? I want to get the words. I already have the music written out. I mean The Greenfinch’s Love Song.’”

“Certainly,” said Pippinella. “But my voice isn’t what it used to be, you know.”

As the canary threw back her head to sing Matthew Mugg entered the wagon, and at a sign from the Doctor for silence, took a place at the table and prepared to listen.

When the little contralto prima donna warbled in a whispering tremolo the opening notes of that short but thrilling melody, the whole company was instantly spellbound. At no point did the song, as Pippinella rendered it, reach full voice. Throughout it was subdued, caressing, almost like someone humming a lullaby a long way off beneath his breath. Then it seemed as though the singer were moving still farther away, hunting, searching, seeking through enchanted forests – now hopeful, now sad again; now distant, now near. It was all the mystery and beauty of the world packed into a little crooning tune. Quieter yet it grew, softer and farther away, and as it faded it rose in pitch and finally died out on a top note in a muffled but bell-like trill.

Then for a few moments there was complete silence in the wagon.

“Oh, my,” gulped Gub-Gub at last. “Isn’t it wonderful! It reminded me of dew-spangled cauliflowers glimmering palely in the moonlight.”

Matthew Mugg, the cross-eyed cat’s-meat man, who always said he did not care for music, turned to John Dolittle.

“Doctor,” he said, “nobody ain’t heard nothing like that never before. That bird’s a marvel. And by Jiminy, why don’t we make this the act for London?”

“That was what I planned to do, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “The Canary Opera: I have a feeling it will be the best show we ever put on – the most artistic animal performance ever seen. It is all here. The story of the opera will be Pippinella’s own life. You couldn’t have a better libretto. The prima donna will be the lady herself. We will take London by storm.”

“Oh, not a doubt of it,” said Matthew, blowing out his chest. “We’ll bowl ’em right over. We’ll put all the other opera-mongers out of business.”

“Of course,” the Doctor went on, “the details, such as choruses, orchestra, scenery, and costumes, we can work out later. But the main things are here: Pippinella’s voice and Pippinella’s story. In them we have the makings of a great performance.”

“But look here,” squealed Gub-Gub. “You’re always blaming me for interrupting. Now you’re all doing it. Pippinella hasn’t finished yet. I want to know how she came to be in the animal shop where the Doctor bought her.”

“You’re quite right, Gub-Gub,” said John Dolittle. “Pardon us, Pippinella. I was carried away. Matthew’s remark about the London performance set me going. Please proceed with your autobiography.”

And as he sharpened his pencil and turned over a new page in his notebook, Pippinella got back onto the tobacco box and prepared to continue the story of her life.

“It often seems sort of queer to me when I look back on it,” she went on, “that I had never heard of you before, John Dolittle. Of course, if I had been a regular wild bird I could not have helped it. But you must remember that, while I had led a very eventful life, it had been spent more among people than among animals. Even when I had my liberty I did not, as I told you, mingle much with other wild birds. Still, it is curious, nonetheless, that I had not at least heard your name.

“Well, one day in the animal shop while I sat dejectedly on the one dirty perch that our cage boasted of, thinking of the window cleaner – wondering, as usual, how he was getting on – I heard the other birds in our cage conversing.

“‘Just look,’ said one mangy hen to another, ‘at that miserable thrush across the shop there. The little box they’ve put him in is so small he can scarcely turn around without crumpling his tail against the wall.’

“‘Yes,’ said another. ‘And the poor blackbird next to him is worse off still. His place hasn’t been decently cleaned out since he came here. He’s ill, too.’

“‘I wish,’ said the first, ‘that the Doctor would come. I’m so sick of this miserable place.’

“‘And if he ever did,’ said the other, ‘why do you suppose he’d pick you out of all the beasts, birds, and fishes gathered here? One can’t expect him to buy the whole stock!’

“Then another untidy bird who was eating at the seed trough joined in the conversation with her mouth full.

“‘I’ll tell you what we ought to do,’ she piped. ‘When John Dolittle comes, since he can’t buy us all, we ought to ask him to set up a canary shop that’s managed properly.’

“‘And what kind of a shop would that be?’ asked the others.

“‘Well, for one thing,’ said the little hen, ‘it should only have the kind of cages that we approve of and proper, decent attendance for every bird in it. But, most important of all, the birds should be allowed to select their own buyer. If a customer came in whose face you didn’t like, you wouldn’t have to be sold to him.’

“‘Oh, what’s the use of talking,’ said the first one. ‘The Doctor won’t come. I’ve been in this place for over a year and he’s never shown up. They say he’s afraid to come to animal shops – hardly ever goes near them.’

“‘Why?’ asked the little hen.

“‘He can’t bear to see the animals and birds badly cared for. They all yell at him as soon as he appears, imploring him to buy them. Of course, he can’t. Hasn’t got enough money – never has any money, apparently. And, understanding the language of animals as he does, he is merely made miserable by the visits without doing any good.’

“‘Well,’ said the little hen, ‘you can’t tell. He might come someday. And when he does, I’m going to ask him to buy me.’

“So far I had taken no part in the conversations. I had felt too unhappy for gossip, to tell you the truth. Hadn’t opened my mouth, hardly, since I had been put in. But this talk interested me.

“‘Who is this doctor?’ I asked.

“They all looked at me in surprise.

“‘The Doctor,’ said one. ‘Doctor Dolittle, of course.’

“‘And who is he?’ I asked.

“‘Great heavens!’ said the little hen. ‘Can it be that you have never heard of him? Why, he is the only real animal doctor living. Talks all languages, from canary to elephant. I didn’t know there was any creature left in the world who hadn’t heard of him.’”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Show for London

“And after that I very soon discovered from bits of odd conversation that drifted to me from all parts of the shop that every creature there, John Dolittle, had one hope always in his mind, and that was that someday you would walk in and buy him.”

“Alas!” murmured the Doctor. “I wish I could. But what your neighbour told you was true: I just dread to go near an animal shop.”

“Well,” continued Pippinella, “my long story is nearly ended. After that I, too, joined the band of hope. Day after day and week after week I watched the door, like the rest, to see you come in. From the other birds I made inquiries to find out exactly what you looked like, so that I could recognize you at once, although I had never seen you before, if by chance you should someday come.

“Later I was given a separate cage and put in the window. And one day – I shall never forget it – I saw your high hat go past the shop. I made all kinds of signals, but you were not looking. You hurried on, afraid to be seen. But you had already been recognized by half the creatures in the place. I shared the general disappointment when you passed on without entering. Then the man with you came back. At once the news was shouted from cage to cage and pen to pen that he was your assistant and was making a purchase for you. But of course he didn’t know bird talk and I couldn’t make him understand the message I wanted carried to you. But at last you yourself reappeared and looked in the window. I shouted as loud as I could, but was unable to make you hear through the glass. You started to go away again. I fluttered and made signals. I saw that you noticed me. But still you went away. A terrible feeling of despair came over me. And then your assistant re-entered the shop. You can’t imagine my delight when I saw that he was pointing to my cage and telling the proprietor that he wanted to buy me. The rest of the story you know. I was sorry for all those poor creatures I left behind – the ones whom you didn’t buy. But, oh, goodness! I was glad to leave that smelly place and get back once more among people who treated me like a friend, instead of just as something to be sold.”

There was a little silence after Pippinella stopped speaking – the only thing audible was the scribbling of the Doctor’s pencil as he wrote the last words in his notebook of the contralto canary’s autobiography.

“Well,” said he at last. “It’s a wonderful story, Pippinella. You have been through a great deal. Someday – who knows? – when we have made more money with the circus, I may yet set up the Canaries’ Own Bird Shop along the lines suggested by your cage mates whom you had to leave behind. There is no reason why cage birds should not be allowed to pick their own buyers. I think your friend’s idea is a very good one. We must see what can be done. And now I have a favour to ask you…. Where did Matthew go, Jip? I didn’t see him leave the wagon.”

“I think he’s over at the menagerie, Doctor,” said Jip.

“All right,” said the Doctor, turning to Pippinella again. “If you will wait here a minute till I go and fetch my assistant, Mr. Mugg, I would like to put a request before you for your consideration.”

“Oh, dear!” Gub-Gub sighed as the Doctor left the wagon. “I’m so sorry the story’s over.”

“But it isn’t over,” said the white mouse. “Pippinella’s story isn’t finished while Pippinella is still alive. We’ve only heard the part which belongs to the past. There still remains that part which belongs to the future. After all, it’s much better to feel that you are living a good story than that you are just telling one.”

“Yes,” said Gub-Gub. “I suppose so. Still – you can make it so much more exciting when you’re only telling it. Myself, for instance, when I have daydreams about food – twenty-course meals, you know – they are so much better than the lunches and dinners I ever get in real life. Real life, I find, is not nearly so thrilling – seldom runs to more than boiled beef and cabbage and rice pudding.”

“You have a romantic soul,” growled Jip. “Food – always food!”

“Well,” said Gub-Gub, “there’s lots of romance in food if you only knew it. Did you ever hear of Vermicelli Minestrone?”

“No,” said the white mouse. “What is it – a soap?”

“Certainly not,” Gub-Gub retorted. “Vermicelli Minestrone was a poet – a famous food poet. He married Tabby Ochre. It was a runaway match. But she stuck to him through thick and thin. People said she was a colourless individual and would stick to anything. But he loved her dearly and they were very happy. They had two children – Pilaf and Macaroni. He was a great man, was Minestrone. His library consisted of nothing but cookerybooks – cookerybooks of every age and in every language. But he wrote some beautiful verses. His Spaghetti Sonnets, hisHominy HomiliesHominy Homilies, his Farina Fantasies – well, you should read them. You would never say again there was no romance in food.”

“It’s a sort of cereal story,” groaned Jip; “mushy – Ah, here comes the Doctor back, with Matthew.”

A moment later Doctor Dolittle, accompanied by Matthew Mugg, re-entered the wagon. With an air of business, they immediately closed the door and sat down at the table.

“Now, Pippinella,” said the Doctor, “I want to talk something over with you which you have already heard Matthew and myself refer to. It is The Canary Opera. The story of your life, one of the most interesting accounts I have ever listened to, would make an excellent libretto for a musical production of an entirely new kind. We have, as you know, been invited to come to London and perform there. We want to give them something new and something good. The Canary Opera strikes us as just the thing. You will, of course, take the leading part – the heroine, the prima donna. We would have to have a cast of singing birds to support you – especially good voices for the principal roles and many others to form the choruses. Will you help us? Would you be willing to go into this?”

Pippinella put her head on one side and thought a moment.

“Why, of course,” she said at last. “I’d be delighted.”

“Splendid!” cried the Doctor, “splendid! Then in that case, Matthew, I think we will cancel the rest of our engagements with the small towns and get under way for London as soon as ever it can be managed.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

On the Road

Great was the excitement among the animals of the Dolittle household when it became known that the circus was setting out for London earlier than had been planned. Even the thrilling weeks in Manchester (of which Gub-Gub, for one, never ceased to recall the details) took a second place when compared with this invitation to visit the capital.

“It’s the biggest city in the world,” the white mouse kept saying. “The Dolittle Circus is becoming a pretty important concern, you may be sure, when they send for us especially to come all this way. Maybe the Queen and the people of the Court will come and see the show.”

Jip, who had been there before, could not help boasting of his knowledge. And the others would sit around him by the hour while he related the wonders of the great town and answered the hundreds of questions that were put to him.

Matthew Mugg left that same night. And, with a letter for the London managers in his pocket, he set out to make arrangements ahead for the coming of the Dolittle Circus. The Doctor felt it would be as well to put The Puddleby Pantomime, which they had staged before Pippinella came, in rehearsal again and to play that in London as well as The Canary Opera. And then, if at the last minute it should prove impossible to put on the opera, the pantomime could be made the principal act.

So Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Too-Too, and the three dogs, Jip, Toby, and Swizzle, filled up the few days of waiting by going over their parts and dances and making sure they remembered the pantomime without a hitch from beginning to end.

Much to Gub-Gub’s dismay, he found that his figure had greatly altered since he was last on the stage. He had grown much fatter. He could hardly get into his clothes at all, and at the first rehearsal buttons kept flying off him in all directions and seams gave way with loud cracks. What was worse, he found that walking on the hind legs for him was now almost impossible. With all this weight in front, he was top-heavy.

“What shall I do, Doctor?” he asked, almost in tears.

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “if you want to play in the pantomime there’s only one thing to be done: you’ll have to diet.”

“To dye it! – To dye what?”

“No, no. To diet,” the Doctor repeated. “That is, to eat only special things, things that don’t make you fat.”

Gub-Gub’s face fell.

“What things?” he asked.

“You will have to give up vegetables,” said the Doctor. “Stick to rice and that kind of thing.”

“Give up all vegetables?” asked Gub-Gub: “Parsnips? Potatoes? Turnips? Beets?”

At each one the Doctor shook his head.

“What is life without vegetables?” asked Gub-Gub tragically.

“To beet or not to beet,” Swizzle whispered into Jip’s ear. “To diet – perchance to dream—” Swizzle, the old circus dog, remembered a good deal of Shakespeare which his master. Hop the Clown, used frequently to misquote in the ring.

“Oh, well,” said Gub-Gub. “I suppose it has to be. The things we actors have to give up for our art! Maybe I can make up for it after the show is over.”

Three days later Matthew Mugg rejoined the circus and told the Doctor that matters had been satisfactorily arranged in London. A camping-ground had been booked and the managers, while impatient to have the Doctor’s show as soon as possible, were quite willing to wait till he had got every detail as he wanted it.

Then began the big business of packing up the circus. That, of course, was no extraordinary thing for them, whose life for so long had been one of continual shifting from town to town. But this occasion was a very special one, and on this trip they planned to do more miles per day than usual, so as to get to London as soon as possible.

The first real stop was to be Wendlemere. And the Doctor intended to get his own wagon there in one day, if it could be done with a change of horses. But, of course, sixty miles without a night’s rest was too much for the others. Hercules, the strong man, was to bring on the remainder of the train the following day. Matthew was to travel in the Doctor’s wagon.

So, very early in the morning, when the rest of the circus was barely awake, Doctor Dolittle’s caravan set out along the road to Wendlemere. About halfway they changed their horses at a village inn and took on fresh ones, which had been sent ahead of them the day before. The old ones were left behind, to get a good rest and be picked up by Hercules on the morrow. All these details had been arranged by Matthew Mugg, who at this part of the circus business, was as good as three men rolled into one.

With the fresh horses, they reached Wendlemere easily a little after dark, and pitched camp for the night just outside of it, on a strip of turf bordering the road.

“This town,” said the Doctor, as Dab-Dab began to set the table for supper and Jip to scurry around the hedges after sticks for the fire, “is famous for its buns. The Wendlemere buns are almost as well known as the Banbury cakes or the Melton Mowbray pies.”

“Humph!” said Gub-Gub. “Did you say buns? How would it be if you should send Matthew in to get us a few, Doctor? It’s only just dark and the shops will still be open.”

“Buns,” said the Doctor, “are very bad for the figure. If you want to play the part of Pantaloon, Gub-Gub, you will have to leave pastry alone for the present. It’s dreadfully fattening.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed the pig. “Vegetables and pastry and everything off the list! All I get is boiled rice and thin soup. Dear, dear! How I shall eat when the show is over! It’s funny how some towns get well known for certain kinds of food, isn’t it? You know, I heard of a place once which became famous for secondhand joints. Yes, they had a whole lot of hotels there which always wanted new, uncut joints on the sideboard. So as soon as a sirloin of beef or a saddle of mutton had been used for one meal it was sent back to the second-hand joint merchant, to be sold over again. It’s curious.”

“Very skewerious, I should say,” muttered Too-Too. “You’re frightfully well informed – on food.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Gub-Gub proudly. “I intend to write a book on it some day – ‘The History of Eating.’”

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Caravan
Reaches London

In talking over with Pippinella where good bird voices for the other principal parts in the opera could be obtained, the Doctor had agreed with her that if they could only get her husband, Twink, the leading tenor role would be very well filled. There was not much hope that he could be found. But the Doctor had before leaving made a special visit to Aunt Rosie to see if he could borrow Twink for the opera. He was told that the great tenor had been given away. Following the scent still farther, he found the bird had next been sold to an animal shop in Wendlemere. It was for this reason that the caravan was proceeding to London by this route, which was not as short as the one usually followed by the stage-coaches.

The next day the Doctor, taking Matthew and Pippinella with him, set out for the animal shop in the town. John Dolittle himself did not venture inside, but sent Matthew, with Pippinella in her cage beneath his arm, to find out what they could about Twink.

The proprietor seemed a decent enough little man, anxious to give any information he could. He was unable, however, to remember selling the bird which the cat’s-meat man described. He said he sold in the course of six months a great number of singing birds and it was quite impossible for him to remember this one among so many. Then Matthew and Pippinella went around all the cages, to see if by chance Twink still remained in the shop. It had been arranged that Pippinella should give a loud whistle if she recognized her husband, so that Matthew should know which one to buy. But, as she had suspected, he had gone. Pippinella questioned several of the other birds, and they said they remembered him quite well. He had been sold, they thought, to a man who seemed to be a dealer from some other town – because he had bought up quite a number of good singers, Twink among them. But where he came from they did not know.

There seemed nothing further to be done. So they left the shop and rejoined the Doctor down the street, and Pippinella reported the results of their visit.

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “it’s too bad he’s gone. But I do not give up hope. I shall have to send Matthew to several shops to get some of the birds we will require for the opera, and it is just possible that he may run across your husband in the course of making his purchases. I will have you go with him, so that you can help him.”

Then they proceeded back to the wagon, where they found breakfast all cooked and laid out for them by the thoughtful Dab-Dab. After they had eaten they waited where they were for the rest of the circus to join them. And a little after noon the first caravan, in charge of Hercules the strong man, came in sight down the road.

The remainder of the day was spent in resting up the horses for the next stage of the journey and in rehearsing The Puddleby Pantomime. Toward evening Gub-Gub suggested that the Doctor take him and the dogs for a walk. He was anxious to get his weight down as soon as possible, and he preferred doing it by exercise, he said, rather than by too much of this dieting, which was not at all to his liking.

So John Dolittle took them all for a brisk walk along the country roads. And Jip, Swizzle, and Toby put up a hare out of a hedge and gave him a fine cross-country run – pretending they didn’t hear the Doctor calling them to leave the poor thing in peace.

Gub-Gub, bent on reducing his figure, joined in the chase. But he had a very hard time keeping up with the dogs and darting through the small holes in the hedges. And he hadn’t gone across more than a couple of fields before an enormous sheepdog belonging to a farmer joined the hunting party and took the pig for the quarry instead of the hare. Poor Gub-Gub, who had set out hunting, was chased in a breathless state of exhaustion all the way home to the wagon, where he told the Doctor that, on the whole, he thought dieting had advantages over exercise as a means of reducing the figure.

Theodosia, Matthew Mugg’s quiet but very useful wife, kept what she called the Diary of the Dolittle Circus. Her ordinary duties were light, those of wardrobe woman, hostess at the regular afternoon tea, and general helper. In odd moments, when she wasn’t sewing buttons on for Gub-Gub or wrapping up the packets of peppermints for the children, she took great pleasure in setting down the daily doings of the show. Her mastery of the arts of reading and writing were greatly and constantly admired by her husband, who was not, as you know, very well educated. And later, as a matter of fact, Theodosia’s diary proved itself useful to John Dolittle himself on more than one occasion, when he wanted to know on what date his circus had visited such and such a town or some other detail in his life as a showman.

Well, in due time the caravan reached the great town of London (amid terrific excitement among the Dolittle animal household). It was met by Matthew and was at once set up on the campground he had hired for it on Greenheath, just outside the city. And that day Theodosia entered in her journal as a red-letter date, marking the beginning of preparations for the Canary Opera, the work which John Dolittle considered the greatest achievement of his career as a showman.

Without delay the Doctor turned his attention to the problem of getting chorus birds for his show. And the first thing he did was to consult Cheapside. He felt that wise bird, so thoroughly familiar with all the resources of his native city, could give him the best advice on the birds available within the limits of London.

“What I need, Cheapside,” said he, “is, firstly, some good canary voices for the principal parts, and secondly, a great number of birds for the choruses.”

“What sort of birds?” asked the sparrow.

“Well, that’s just the point,” said the Doctor. “There are several choruses. I have not yet decided on what they shall be. I thought I would find out from you what would be possible here in London.”

“Humph!” said Cheapside thoughtfully. “I reckon the first thing to do would be to go around the zoo and take a look at the collections. You won’t be able to buy any there, of course. But, then, after you’ve picked out the kinds you think suitable, I’ll see what can be done in the way of supply. O’ course, for good singers we’d better try the bird shops.”

“Well, that Matthew will have to do,” said the Doctor. “But I think what you say sounds sensible. And if you are at liberty this afternoon I’ll take a run up to the zoo with you and see if we can decide upon the best kinds of chorus birds for our show.”

“Right you are, Doc,” said Cheapside. “I ain’t got nothing special to do today. The missus asked me to get ’er some greens for this evening, but I can pick them up in Regents Park. I’ll be glad of the change. Ain’t been to the zoo in weeks. You know, I used to live there once.”

“What, inside the zoo?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, not in the cages,” said Cheapside. “But I was one of the Regents Park gang when I was a nipper. It’s a good place for sparrows – quiet, except Sundays and Bank Holidays. I used to ’ang around the zoo enclosure a good deal. I know the place inside out, keepers and naturalists and bobbies and all. I’ll be glad to take you over it.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Let us have lunch and get on our way.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

Voice Trials

On their way to Regents Park, John Dolittle and Cheapside were joined by Becky, the cockney sparrow’s wife. They all began by taking tea, when they had arrived within the zoological gardens, at one of the little teahouses that catered to visitors. Here the two birds, sitting on the table beside the Doctor’s cup, stuffed themselves with cake crumbs and entertained him with many amusing stories of the days when they had lived here in the zoological gardens.

After their tea was finished they started out on their trip around the zoo. Although John Dolittle did not intend to visit more than the bird collections, he had in the course of his inspection to pass many cages and enclosures for animals. These so interested him that Cheapside had the hardest work to get him away from them. And Becky said more than once that it would surely be dark before the Doctor had seen all the birds.

“What is that little creature?” the Doctor asked as his guides tried to hurry him by a pen containing some slim furred animal.

“Oh, that’s the genet,” said Cheapside. “Nifty-looking little cove, ain’t ’e? See them smart stripes down ’is sides? ’E always reminds me of some trim old maid what wears ’er ’air just so. Can’t abide ’avin ’is cage untidy. ’E ’as tidiness on the brain. ’E’s kept awful busy poking the peanuts back through the wire what the children push into ’im. ’E doesn’t eat ’em. But that don’t make no difference to the folks what comes to zoos. They think that everything in menageries eats peanuts. They’re a bright lot, the public. They’d feed peanuts to a marble clock, they would. Yes, poor Mr. Genet spends ’alf ’is day tidying up ’is cage after the public ’as left, and the other ’alf brushing ’is ’air and cleaning ’is nails.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “Not a very exciting life. Still, I suppose it’s something to occupy the time. It must hang heavy in a zoo.”

“A feller like the genet would find something to do in the Sahara Desert,” said Cheapside, “—probably tidying up the sand there. Now, the next cage, Doctor, is the laughing kingfishers. They’re light’earted birds – guaranteed to liven up a funeral. ’Ow would they do for choruses, do you think? Fine, strong voices, they ’ave.”

“Humph! They’re not very musical, are they?” said the Doctor as a dozen of the queer birds suddenly burst into hearty roars of merriment to show they appreciated the great man’s visit.

“Yes, but they’d be fine for the comics,” said Cheapside. “Was it a comic opera you was contemplatin’?”

“Er – not exactly,” said the Doctor, “though, to be sure, there will be some comedy parts in it. But there the laughter ought to come from the audience, not from the stage. Let us go across to the big aviary over there.”

This, when they reached it, proved to be a very beautiful place. It was a cage a good thirty feet high, fifty long, and forty wide. Within, quite large trees were growing, and it had a pond and rocks and plants and everything. A great number of different birds were flying around or dabbling in the water or settling in the boughs. There were flamingos, herons, gulls, ducks – birds of all sizes, shapes, and colours. It was a very pretty picture.

Picking out the ones whose appearance for stage purposes struck him as suitable, the Doctor called them over to him in turn and conversed with them through the wire. He got all of them to sing a few notes for him, so as to try out the pitch of their voices. And Mr. and Mrs. Cheapside had hard work concealing their laughter when huge birds that never sang a note in their lives opened their big bills and let out strange, deep grunts and gurgles.

“Lor’ bless us, Becky!” tittered Cheapside, holding his wing over his face. “Seems to me as if the Doc would do better with Gub-Gub as a baritone. If it was me, I’d give some of these blokes a job as a fog ’orn.”

Before they left the aviaries and started back for Greenheath the Doctor had practically decided on two choruses at all events: one of pelicans (bassos) and one of flamingos (altos). Cheapside said he knew of a rich man living on the other side of London who had a magnificent private park given over entirely to birds and waterfowl. The sparrow added that he would go there first thing tomorrow morning to see if there were any pelicans or flamingos in the collection.

The next day he came back to the caravan with the news that fifteen fine pelicans lived in the private park belonging to the rich man he had spoken of. And as soon as the Doctor had an opportunity to get away he went and called upon their owner and asked permission to borrow them. It happened that this man, although he was very wealthy, was a naturalist himself. Rare birds and orchids were his two hobbies. Finding in John Dolittle a scientist after his own heart, he showed him over his whole estate. And the Doctor spent a most enjoyable afternoon inspecting acres of greenhouses filled with gorgeous orchids and touring through the immense private park where a great number of birds lived happily in a semiwild state. He was able to give the rich naturalist a great deal of information and advice on the proper preparation of thickets and ponds and nesting retreats for his different species of birds.

The Doctor was still full of all he had seen when he returned to his caravan in the evening.

“My goodness, Dab-Dab,” said he as he sat down to supper, “that’s my idea of a nice life – being able to spend all the money you want on your hobbies. Most rich men fritter their money away on theatres and cards and all manner of stupid stuff. Wealthy scientists are rare. That man deserves a great deal of credit for spending his time and his fortune on natural history. I’ve never wanted to be rich, but, by George, I came near to wishing it this afternoon when I saw the perfectly lovely place that man has up there.”

“If you had been in his shoes you would have spent the fortune twenty-five years ago,” said Dab-Dab sourly. “I sometimes think you should have been married – and had a strict, economical wife.”

“But what would have been the good of that?” said John Dolittle. “Then I wouldn’t have been able to do anything I want. Well, now, cheer up, Dab-Dab. Maybe we’ll make so much money with The Canary Opera that not even I will be able to spend it all.”

“I used to hope for that – once,” said Dab-Dab, gazing sadly out of the window. “But you’ve made so many fortunes and lost them again. Puddleby and the dear old house and garden have grown to be just a dream – just a dream. Heigh-ho! What’s the use? I suppose we’ll be travelling circus folk now for the rest of our days.”

There were real tears in the housekeeper’s eyes. For months and months now she had been hoping that the Doctor would turn his face homeward and get back to the little house with the big garden. But always something new turned up in this showman business that kept putting off his return.

“Oh, come, come!” said the Doctor, genuinely touched by the tone of bitter disappointment in his old friend’s voice. “It’s never too late to change. The sight of that man’s place this afternoon set me thinking of my own garden – it was similar in many ways – a place where a man has tried to work out the chief interests of his life. It made me long for a sight of that old wall that overhangs the Oxenthorpe Road, Dab-Dab, really it did. And listen: I’m going to make a real effort this time. I think the opera’s going to be a huge success. That naturalist will lend me the pelicans and flamingos I want. We’ll make a fortune, Dab-Dab, and then – then we’ll go back to Puddleby!”

• • • • •

•   13   •

The History of Bird Music

Shortly after that the pelicans and the flamingos from the rich man’s park arrived at the Dolittle Circus. A special runway with a pond and thickets of bushes had been prepared for them, and, although it was of course much more cramped for room than the spacious park they had left, they declared it was very comfortable and said they were quite content to put up with some inconveniences to oblige John Dolittle. There were a dozen birds of each kind. The public that visited the circus enclosure daily took them for part of the show. And, indeed, the strange appearance of the pelicans and the handsome figures and colouring of the flamingos, stalking about within the pen, presented quite a flne sight.

For the present the Doctor’s intentions were only to get them used to seeing crowds of human faces, so that they should overcome their natural shyness, and to drill them in what they were expected to do on the stage. The singing-rehearsals would have to wait till all the other birds had been collected and the musical score of the opera had been written out in every detail by Pippinella and Manager Dolittle.

The Doctor had a stage rigged up inside the birds’ fence and every day he put them through their paces, showing them exactly how they were to walk on the stage, bow, and take their places.

In everything belonging to the opera, the inquisitive Cheapside took the greatest interest, and during these days he followed the Doctor about wherever he went. This John Dolittle was very glad of, because the shrewd little sparrow often came in extremely handy. So quickly did he catch on to the idea of drilling a chorus that the Doctor turned the entire duties of chorus master over to him. At four o’clock, the rehearsal hour, every afternoon the fence about the pelicans’ enclosure was black with the crowds watching the small cockney sparrow drilling his enormous performers. The Doctor said it was a good thing that the public didn’t understand bird language, otherwise Cheapside’s dreadful swearing when any of the clumsy chorus birds made a false step or got out of place would surely have caused a great scandal.

Sitting upon the top of a bush, with his chest puffed out, the tiny chorus master looked like some angry sergeant drilling a squad of awkward recruits.

“Now, then!” he would yell. “Troop on, all in step, chins up and smiling at the haudience. – No, no. That ain’t a bit like it. Anyone would think this was Monday morning in the police court, instead of garlic night at the opera. This is opera, you understand, grand opera. Look ’appy, not guilty! Clear off again – all of yer! Lor’ bless me! Look at Mrs. Bandylegs there, thinking over the gas bill! Cheer up! Smile! Come in trippin’ – light’earted, not ’eavy-footed. Now, then, once more: When the music strikes up that’s your cue to come on. Now-lah, tah, tiddledy tah!”

The next task for the Doctor was to gather together the rest of his cast for the opera. As soon as the Doctor had turned over the training of the pelicans and flamingos to Cheapside, he took the first opportunity for a day in the country. On this expedition all of his animals accompanied him – even Gub-Gub, who so frequently of late had complained that he was left out of all parties. And, with the whole of his strange household following at his heels, John Dolittle betook him to the pleasant fields where, over an excellent picnic luncheon provided by Dab-Dab, the wild birds of the hedges and the woods gathered about him and sang him their songs.

On this expedition into the country Pippinella, of course, accompanied the Doctor to help in the judging of the voices. John Dolittle said afterwards that he could not recall any outing that he had enjoyed more. It was one of those days late in the year when summer seems to try to come back again. The sun shone without being unpleasantly hot, and all the birds of the countryside that had not yet departed for the winter migration flocked around, anxious to be accepted for the Doctor’s great experiment in bird music. Indeed, John Dolittle, experienced as he was, learned a great deal that day about the songs of birds and the history of their various melodies.

After trying out different birds for the treble chorus, both the Doctor and Pippinella were best of all impressed with the common thrush.

“Tell me,” said the Doctor, as a fine cock finished off a wonderful melody, “that is what you call your ‘Evening Song,’ is it not? Now, has that song always been the same? I mean, have all thrushes sung it just that way always?”

“Oh, no,” said the thrush. “But it has been sung pretty much that way for nearly seven hundred years. In medieval times it was quite different. Musically speaking, fashions were very much stricter then. For instance, in the song I’ve just sung you the middle crescendo passage was different. We ended on the major then, not the minor. Like this, Toodledu – oo – too – tu! instead of Toodledu – du – tee – too! About the thirteenth century a good many fine singers rebelled against several of the old musical rules, including the one forbidding consecutive fourths in the major scale and sevenths in the minor. That was around the time of the Magna Charta. Everybody was rebelling against something then. They didn’t allow accidentals in melodies before that, either. Now we just throw them in regardless. But, in the main, the Evening Song of the thrush is usually sung pretty much the same way now. It is in the little phrases, something between a call and a song, that you can tell whether a bird is a good composer or not. Because those are what he just makes up out of his head on the spur of the moment.”

“You mean when he gets an idea which he thinks will sound pretty?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes,” said the thrush. “For instance, when he sees a particularly fine sunrise and tries to describe it in a snatch of music, or when a thought comes into his head about the mate he spent last spring with.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Now, I see that you yourself are quite a musician and I would greatly appreciate it if you would do me a favour. My plan in The Canary Opera is to show people what birds can do – musically. But in order to make the score understandable for people I shall have to do certain things. I want you to compose the thrushes’ chorus for me – the treble chorus that comes in the middle of the second act – when it is raining. I notice that thrushes always sing their best just when the rain is stopping. I will give you the words of the song later. I want you to get plenty of rain into your voices – it must describe the joys of rain from the thrushes’ point of view. I would like you to get a choir of about twenty thrushes together and rehearse them yourself. And please be sure that the birds keep together – that they all sing the same parts of the song at the same time. I know this is not important in bird music, but it is very important in people’s music. I will send you the words tonight and I’ll come back here in a week’s time to see how you are getting on. Can you do that for me?”

“Why, certainly,” said the thrush. “I’ll set about it right away.”

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Finding of Twink

A few days later the Doctor again went out into the country to see how the thrushes’ choir was getting on. He heard the birds sing their “Rain Chorus” and was very well pleased with it.

“The next thing,” he said to Matthew when he got back to the circus, “is to collect some good canaries for the principal parts. We shall need about five or six.”

“Why, I thought there was only to be three altogether,” said Matthew: “— Pippinella, the tenor, and the baritone.”

“No, you’ve forgotten her mother and father,” said John Dolittle. “Besides, we shall need understudies as well.”

“What’s understudies?” asked Matthew.

“Understudies are extra actors,” said the Doctor, “who learn the parts as well. So that in case any of the principals fall sick we have another to put in his place. But they won’t all be canaries. We shall need four canaries and three greenfinches. But all must be the very best singers possible – no matter what they cost. I want you to do this purchasing for me, and I will send Pippinella with you in her travelling cage so that she can help you judge and try out the birds’ voices properly. I will arrange with her to give you some kind of signal when you find any that she considers especially good.”

“All right,” said Matthew. “When shall I go?”

“I think you had better start off first thing tomorrow,” said the Doctor. “Time is getting short, I have promised the theatre owners to have everything in readiness to open by the second week of next month.”

So on the morrow Matthew went off, bright and early, canary-hunting through the bird shops of London with Pippinella. And on his return in the evening the Doctor was delighted to see him carrying another cage under his arm beside the prima donna’s little travelling cage.

“He was the best we could find, Doctor,” said Pippinella as John Dolittle unwrapped the paper and discovered a neat little yellow and black cock canary within. “He has a fine voice and I think you will like him. But it’s slow work. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find really good singers. And as for singing greenfinches, they seem to be scarcer than diamonds. We went to over a dozen shops. But we haven’t covered half of London yet. We hope to do better tomorrow.”

The Doctor was highly pleased with the new member of his opera company. And that night he began practising the duets of the first act that the two canaries would sing together.

On the morrow Matthew and Pippinella went forth again and this time when they returned the Doctor could hear the prima donna calling to him even before the cat’s-meat man reached the manager’s wagon.

“Doctor,” she cried, “Doctor, listen!”

“What is it?” asked John Dolittle, jumping up from the table and coming to the door.

“What do you think?” said Pippinella. “You’d never guess. We’ve found Twink, my husband, after all! And we’ve got him with us.”

“Well, well!” cried the Doctor. “This is a great piece of luck. Fancy your finding Twink after all this time! Uncover the cage, Matthew. I am most anxious to see him.”

“Yes, and it was only by the merest chance we did it, Doctor,” chattered Pippinella excitedly. “We came to the dirtiest little shop away down in the East End of London. Matthew wasn’t going to go in at all at first; it looked like such a poor, mean place. But I thought to myself that if there were any good singers there, it would be a mercy to rescue them from such a disgusting home. So in spite of Matthew’s not knowing any bird talk I did my best to make him see what I wanted. And finally, after I had fluttered all over the cage and squawked whenever he turned away from the shop, he saw what I meant and went in. With every shop that I had been taken into so far I began by asking in a loud voice, ‘Are you here, Twink?’ But in this one I was so appalled by the dirt and the misery of most of the creatures confined there that I had not uttered a word. But I was hardly within the door when I heard a canary crying from the back of the shop. ‘Pippinella! Pippinella! It is I, Twink! Come over here and talk to me.’

“But it was no easy matter to come over there and talk to him. I don’t know myself how I managed to steer Matthew and the shopkeeper to Twink’s cage. It was poked away behind a lot of others, right at the back of the place. Then I gave the signal by scratching my left ear vigorously – and Matthew saw that this was one of the birds I wanted. Poor Twink! We bought him for a shilling – Twink, the finest tenor canary that ever sang! But it seems he had had a very sore throat when he came to the shop and had hardly attempted to peep the whole time he was there. So, of course, the proprietor had no idea of his value. Such is fame! Such is life!”

By this time John Dolittle had uncovered Twink’s cage and placed it on the caravan table. The bird within, a bright lemon-yellow canary, slightly larger than Pippinella, looked very dejected and poorly. When he opened his bill to speak to the Doctor, instead of the golden voice of which Pippinella had so often spoken, a hoarse whisper was all that came forth.

“I have a terrible cold, Doctor,” said he. “That fool of a proprietor kept my cage in a draught and my throat got worse and worse the whole time I was there.”

“Oh, well, just wait a minute,” said John Dolittle, “till I get you some of my Canary Cough Mixture. It will relieve your throat almost at once, you will see.”

Then the Doctor got out his little black medicine bag and from the bottom of it he produced a small bottle containing a pink liquid. He opened the door of Twink’s cage and the bird hopped out on to his hand. Next he took a small quantity of the mixture on a glass rod and when Twink opened his bill he let two drops fall into the bird’s throat.

“You will soon feel better now,” said the Doctor, closing his bag and putting it away. “Remind me to give you two more drops tomorrow morning. In about twenty-four hours I think I can promise you you will be as well as ever.”

For the present, although both he and Pippinella were most anxious to hear the story of Twink’s adventures, the Doctor would not allow him to talk at all.

“Give your voice a complete rest until tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll cover your cage with a thick cloth and put it at the stove-end of the wagon so you will be warm and snug.”

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

The Doctor Is Disguised

The next day, even before he had his second dose of the famous Dolittle Canary Cough Mixture, Twink felt so much better that he was already warbling away softly within his cage when the Doctor got out of bed.

At breakfast he told the story of his adventures – everything since he had been parted from Pippinella right up to his coming to the shop where his clever wife had found him.

“And of all the awful places,” he ended, “that shop is surely the worst. I have been in many animal shops in my time, but never in any quite so dreadful, quite so filthy, quite so wretched. There was hardly an animal or a bird in the place that was happy or in full health. The cages were dirty; the food was bad. Most of the birds were croupy, the dogs rickety. And do you know, John Dolittle, not half of the birds the man has there were born in cages. Most of his stock is bought from trappers. And, oh, Lord, the sound of those poor thrushes and blackbirds and starlings fluttering, fluttering, fluttering all day long, trying to get out of their cages! Yesterday morning a man brought in a dozen blackbirds for sale that he had caught in the fields. The proprietor bought them all for eighteen pence. This morning two of them were dead; they had just battered themselves to death against the wires of the cage trying to get out. It simply made me sick.”

This recital greatly saddened the Doctor. His household had often heard him rail against the usual kind of bird shop. But Twink’s story of the blackbirds was worse than anything he had ever listened to. For some moments he remained silent. Then he said, “How are the rest of the blackbirds getting on?”

“No more of them had died when I left,” said Twink. “But hardly a one of them was eating any food. Goodness only knows how many will survive. But the blackbirds were not the only ones. Almost every other day some poacher or country lout would bring in a cage full of poor fluttering creatures; linnets, robins, tomtits – everything – that he had caught in traps. All scared out of their wits. Some of them lived and some of them didn’t, but all led a wretchedly unhappy existence there.”

“Humph,” muttered the Doctor. “If it were only the blackbirds, then I could send Matthew to buy them and let them go. But with all those other birds as well, it would require a lot of money to do that. It’s horrible, horrible! I can’t understand how any decent person can inflict such misery on living creatures.”

All through supper the Doctor said hardly a word. In spite of his now having all three of his principal singers, he seemed to have forgotten all about The Canary Opera for the present. Twink’s description of that bird shop had spoiled the evening for him. Both Jip and Dab-Dab tried several times during the meal to draw him into conversation, but he hardly seemed to hear what they said.

At last when supper was finished he thumped the table with his fist and muttered, “By Jove, I’ll try it!”

“Try what?” asked Jip.

“Listen,” said the Doctor, addressing the supper table in general. “Do you suppose it would be possible for me to disguise myself so that no animal or bird could recognize me?”

For a moment after the Doctor’s question there was a complete silence in the caravan. Finally Gub-Gub said:

“But, Doctor, what on earth would you disguise yourself for? I should think you would be no end proud to have all the animals in the world know you.”

John Dolittle did not answer.

“It would depend, Doctor, I should imagine,” said Jip, “on how well those animals who saw you knew you. For what purpose did you mean to wear the disguise?”

“I want to go to that animal shop,” said John Dolittle. “It’s worrying me. As you know, I have made it a rule never to go into them because all the poor creatures clamour at me to buy them. And even if I were rich enough to buy out the entire stock of one shop there would still be all the other animals in the other shops. But this place Twink has told us of seems to be so unusually awful that I thought I’d break my rule and go there.”

“And do what?” asked Dab-Dab.

“Let every bird that is not cage-bred go free,” said the Doctor.

“Ha-ha!” said Jip, getting interested, “I smell an adventure in this. How do you plan to go about it?”

“Well, first of all,” said John Dolittle, “I must be disguised so that the creatures in the shop won’t recognize me. Then I’ll have to get into the place at night or at some time when I shan’t be seen or interfered with.”

“Good!” said Jip. “When will you go?”

“Tonight,” said the Doctor firmly. “I shan’t be able to sleep till I know that those blackbirds are returned to their freedom. As Twink says, heaven only knows how many will be living by the morning unless something is done.”

The Doctor then explained his plan to Matthew, and he, like Jip, entered into the spirit of the idea with great relish – though the Doctor did not seem to care for the way he explained how easily he could pry open the door of the shop to let him in.

“Never mind about those details now, Matthew,” said he. “We’ll attend to that matter when we come to it. If you accompany me you must understand that we are liable to arrest and imprisonment for this. The law will probably call it burglary if we are caught.”

“I ain’t particular what name the law gives it,” said Matthew with a chuckle, “because we ain’t going to get caught. Nifty little party, I calls it. That man ain’t got no right to keep them poor blackbirds in captivity, anyhow. And even if the cops did get us, the magistrate wouldn’t be hard on us, you can bet. Look well in the papers, it would – good advertisement for the show: ‘John Dolittle, the heminent naturalist, caught in humanitarian burglary!’ ’Ow does that sound?”

“Well, let’s set about working out a disguise,” said the Doctor. “It’s most essential that the animals don’t recognize me. For not only would their requests be very embarrassing to me, but they would probably set up such a racket that the whole neighbourhood would be awakened before we got halfway through our work.”

Then, much to Gub-Gub’s amusement, Matthew set to work to disguise the Doctor’s appearance so that he should not be recognized by the animals among whom he had become so famous. The clown’s makeup box was borrowed, also various suits of clothes from different members of the circus staff.

Matthew began by gumming a large red beard on the Doctor’s chin, with bushy eyebrows to match. But this did not seem quite to satisfy his artistic judgment.

“Humph!” said he, drawing off and surveying the Doctor with his head on one side. “It don’t seem to fill the bill. I reckon I could recognize you myself like that – on a dark night. Let’s try a military moustache to cover that upper lip of yours.”

“What, more hair on my face?” said the Doctor. “Are you trying to make a monkey of me?”

For answer Matthew gummed a large, flowing red moustache above the Doctor’s mouth.

“Good heavens!” said John Dolittle gazing in the mirror. “I look like the butcher in Puddleby. Even if the animals don’t recognize me like this, I shall certainly scare them to death.”

“Well, you know,” said Matthew, “a face like yours isn’t easily disguised. No, I agree. It don’t look quite natural. Well, we must try something else.”

“Look here, Doctor,” said Swizzle, the clown’s dog, who was watching the performance with a professional eye, “why don’t you dress up like a woman? The animals in the shop would be much less likely to think it was you. And, besides, as a man you’d never be able to hide that well-known figure of yours, even if you succeeded in disguising your face.”

“Good idea!” cried John Dolittle. “Listen, Matthew, Swizzle suggests that I get myself up like a woman. Do you think Mrs. Mugg could lend me some things?”

“I’ll go and ask her,” said the cat’s-meat man. “By Jingo, that’s a notion worth two. I don’t reckon we could ever do anything with you in trousers and a coat. Wait here a second.”

Upon that Matthew ran off and presently came back with not only some of his wife’s things but with Theodosia herself.

“I brought the missus along,” he said, “because she’ll know how the things goes on and can make you look like a real lady. ’Old your face still, Doc, while I get this beard off.”

Then while Gub-Gub and the white mouse squealed and tittered with delight, Mrs. Mugg put a skirt and bodice on the Doctor. Next, some sort of wig seemed to be necessary. But the able Matthew made bangs and curls out of the red beard. And after the back of the Doctor’s head had been well covered with a poke bonnet and the bangs were tucked in the front around his temples, he looked like a very nice portly old lady.

“Fine!” cried Too-Too. “No one would ever recognize you, Doctor – not even your sister, Sarah.”

“I feel frightfully silly,” said the Doctor, tripping over the skirts as he walked toward the mirror.

“Good gracious!” cried Theodosia. “You mustn’t walk that way, Doctor. No woman ever walked like that. Take little steps and don’t swing your arms so. Now – so – that’s more like it. Do you think you better have a veil over your face as well?”

“I do not,” said the Doctor. “I’m uncomfortable enough as I am. Besides, I couldn’t blow my nose with a veil on.”

As soon as the Doctor could walk in a manner that satisfied Mrs. Mugg, he set out with Matthew and Jip on his extraordinary expedition.

It was quite a long way from Greenheath to the East End. But even when they finally reached the shop where Twink had been for sale there were lights yet visible in the upper windows. This told them that although the store was closed, the proprietor or some of his household were still up. Across the front window of the shop was a sign reading Harris’s Song Restorer for Canaries. Fourpence a Bottle.

“Good heavens!” whispered John Dolittle to his companion. “Sounds like a cure for baldness. I think, Matthew, we had better go somewhere to wait. We can’t hang around here. We might arouse suspicion. Let’s find a restaurant and have a cup of tea or something. It is now ten o’clock. We will come back in half an hour or so.”

So they went off down the street. But it did not seem to be such an easy matter to find a restaurant open as late as this in that part of London. Moreover, the Doctor’s skirts were causing him a great deal of inconvenience in walking. Finally when they had reached a very quiet, practically deserted alley Matthew said, “Listen, Doctor, suppose you wait here while I go hunting by myself? There must be places around here somewhere. I’m sure I can find one.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “But hurry. I have had enough of walking in this get-up.”

Then while Matthew went off looking for a restaurant, the Doctor hung around the quiet street. Every time anyone appeared upon the scene he changed his pace to a brisk walk, so that he wouldn’t appear to have no business there. He felt very uncomfortable and unhappy and hoped that Matthew wouldn’t be long.

Finally a man and woman came down the street, and although the Doctor promptly broke into a smart and businesslike gait he noticed that the couple was watching him for some reason or other. Presently he felt that his skirt was slipping off; and at his wit’s end what to do, he sat down on a doorstep and tried to look as though he were a beggarwoman taking a rest.

Soon, to his horror, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the couple at the far end of the street was approaching him, apparently with the intention of speaking to him.

As they came near he kept his gaze upon the ground and sat as huddled up as he could so that his face would not be seen. A few minutes later he realized that they had stopped before him.

“Dear, dear!” said the man’s voice. “This, wife, is the kind of case one frequently meets with in the slums.”

“Poor creature!” said the voice of the woman. “Listen, why do you sit here at this time of night?”

The huddled figure on the doorstep gave no answer.

Have you no home to go to?” the woman asked.

The Doctor, afraid to remain silent any longer, looked up – and gazed into the faces of his sister Sarah and her husband!

Then, grasping his slipping skirt in both hands, he sprang to his feet and ran for all he was worth down the empty street. Sarah gave one shriek and fainted into her husband’s arms.

At the first turning the Doctor ran into Matthew.

“What’s the matter?” asked the cat’s-meat man.

“It’s Sarah!” gasped John Dolittle. “And my beastly skirt is slipping off. Let’s hide – quick!”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Release
of the Blackbirds

“Sarah!” said the astonished Matthew as he and the Doctor doubled around the corner and hastened away. “My, that woman has a real gift for turnin’ up when she ain’t wanted! But ’ow comes she to be ’ere? I thought she was married to the Reverend Dangle, up to Wendlemere.”

“Dingle, Matthew, Dingle,” the Doctor corrected as he panted along the pavement. “Yes, he’s one of the canons of the cathedral there. But I suppose they are on a visit to London. Seem to be out on a slumming expedition, or something of the kind. It’s just my luck that they should run into me. Are they following us, Matthew?”

“No,” said the cat’s-meat man, looking back. “I don’t see no one.”

“Well, I must get somewhere where I can fasten up this wretched skirt,” gasped the Doctor. “Can’t you find me a dark passage or a doorway or something?”

A little farther on they came to the vaulted entrance to a stable yard, which seemed to offer the sort of seclusion that they wanted. Making sure that no one should see them go in, they retired into its welcome darkness, and the Doctor did his best to recover his breath while Matthew fastened up his skirt securely. But without any light to see by, he got the hem of it so high that the ends of the Doctor’s trousers were visible beneath it. This was not discovered till they had ventured out upon the street again. So once more they had to retire to their makeshift dressing room and put the gown right.

“I found a restaurant, Doctor,” said Matthew. “Shall we go on there now?”

“No,” said the Doctor, getting out his watch with great difficulty from under Theodosia’s bodice. “It has gone eleven. And I am sort of anxious about Sarah. I think we had better go back to the shop and leave this neighbourhood alone.”

So they set off in the direction of the shop. And after about five minutes of walking they came in sight of it, only to find that, although no light now showed in the windows, there was a policeman standing beneath the lamppost opposite.

“Luck seems to be against us tonight, Matthew,” said the Doctor, as they drew back around the corner. “Of all the places on his beat, of course, the policeman would have to stop there!”

“’Ow would it be, Doctor,” said Matthew, “if I went up behind him from the other end of the street and tapped him on the head with a screwdriver?”

“Good heavens, no!” whispered the Doctor. “Besides, where would you get a screwdriver from?”

“I got one in my pocket,” said Matthew.

“What for?” asked John Dolittle.

“To pry the door open with,” said the cat’s-meat man. “I always carry a screwdriver at night – in self-defence, as you might say. But it comes in handy for all sorts of things. Some folks carries a cane or an umbrella; I always carry a screwdriver.”

“Well, don’t use it on the police,” said the Doctor. “That fellow will probably move away if we wait a little while. They have to go around their whole beat every so often. What’s the back of the shop like?”

“It opens onto a small yard,” said the cat’s-meat man. “But there’s no way of getting to it from the street. We’ll have to tackle the house from the front.”

Then followed a wearisome fifteen minutes while the two, with their noses around the corner, watched the figure of the policeman near the shop.

At last,with a yawn, the constable stretched his arms above his head and moved off.

“Now’s our chance,” whispered Matthew, getting out his screwdriver. “Come along.”

“And don’t forget, Doctor,” Matthew added, as they walked down the street toward the shop, “if we get interfered with, begin by talking like a lady, see? We may be able to pass it off as though we found the door open and was just going to tell the owner. But if they get nasty and it looks as though we were going to be grabbed, chuck your skirt away and run for it. Here we are. Now you keep an eye open both ways, up and down the street, while I hinvestigate this lock.”

“Try not to break the latch or spoil the door, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “We mustn’t do the man’s property any damage. All we want is to liberate those birds.”

“Trust me, Doc,” chuckled Matthew, setting to work. “I could open this lock with my eyes shut and no one know that I bin near it. There you are! Walk right in and make yourself at home. It’s a shame to take the money.”

The Doctor turned from watching the street and, to his astonishment, found the door already open. Matthew was putting his mysterious screwdriver back in his pocket as he bowed upon the threshold.

“Good heavens! That was quick work,” said John Dolittle, stepping within.

“Sh!” whispered Matthew as he closed the door noiselessly behind him. “This is where the hartistic work begins. Tie these here dusters over your boots while I get the bull’s-eye lantern lit – No, I reckon we can see enough with the streetlamp ’cross the way. But watch how you tread, for the love of Henry!”

“Get the window into the yard open,” said the Doctor. “And as I hand the cages over to you open them and let the birds go into the open air – Phew! Isn’t the horrible place stuffy?”

John Dolittle’s eyes were now beginning to get used to what dim light filtered into the shop from the lamppost on the other side of the street. It was not a large place, but it was packed and crowded with cages and pens from the ceiling to the floor. In what clear space there was in the middle of the room stood a line of more cages on stands and little tables covered with dirty cloths of different colours.

The Doctor had been careful to learn from Twink the exact position in the shop of the unfortunate blackbirds’ cages and of some of the others that contained starlings and thrushes lately caught and brought here. And as soon as he had his big boots swathed in the dusters that Matthew had provided, he made his way cautiously through piles of pens and boxes till he reached the cages where the blackbirds were kept.

These were pretty large and there were quite a number of them, not more than two or three birds being kept in each. By this time Matthew had the window at the back end of the shop open and a grateful draught of cool air blew into the stuffy room. One by one the cages were handed across to the cat’s-meat man, who deftly opened the little doors and shook the astonished birds out into the night. Of just what was happening they had no idea. But they did not linger to find out. Thanking their lucky stars, they soared upward out of the grimy backyard and winged their way across the chimneypots of London for freedom and the open country.

“Are they all alive, Matthew?” asked John Dolittle as he handed up the last blackbird cage.

“Not a dead one, so far,” whispered Matthew.

“Good,” said the Doctor. “I’m glad we were in time to save what was left of the poor fellows. Now we’ll set to work on the starlings and thrushes.”

John Dolittle next proceeded to find the cages of the other birds who had been caught in the wild and brought here for sale. This was not so easy because many of the cages were covered; and in the poor light it was hard enough to tell even what kind of bird they contained, let alone whether their occupants were from the country or not.

Moreover, the Doctor had to work with the greatest care lest he wake up other birds in the shop and cause some outcry that might bring down the proprietor or his family.

Most luckily the dogs here were very few – only one retriever and a mongrel bulldog. Both had so far remained fast asleep in their little pens beneath a stack of boxes on the left-hand side of the room.

After a good deal of climbing and searching John Dolittle found a large cage full of starlings and managed to get them across to Matthew and so into the open air without mishap – though one or two of them did chirp a little and were answered sleepily by some bird in the other corner of the room. Two big wooden cages of thrushes were also discovered and emptied in like manner.

Every once in a while Matthew would make the Doctor stop and remain motionless while he listened for any sound or sign from upstairs. But on each occasion the cat’s-meat man was convinced that as yet the proprietor and his household were sleeping soundly, quite unconscious of what was going on below them.

Even after he had set free all the blackbirds, starlings, and thrushes he could find, the Doctor still went on wandering quietly around the room peering under cage cloths to see if he could discover any other poor unfortunates who were pining for their native fields and woods.

While he was engaged in this he heard two parrots, whose cages were covered, talking in low tones to each other at the far end of the shop.

“Listen,” said one. “There seems to be something moving around the room. Don’t you hear it?”

“Yes,” said the other. “I thought I heard something, too. It must have been that which woke me up. What is it? Has some animal got out?”

“I’ve no idea,” said the first bird. “I hope it isn’t one of the cats. There are two grey Manx cats in the pen near the door. If either of them got loose, none of us would be safe.”

The Doctor, listening intently, made a sign to Matthew to keep still.

“I’ll bet that’s what it is,” the other parrot answered. “Only cats could make so little noise. And the two of them are loose, I’m sure, because a minute ago I distinctly heard a sound in two corners of the room at once. What’ll we do about it?”

“Better screech for the proprietor,” said the other. “Because—”

“No, no,” whispered the Doctor quickly in parrot language. “Don’t do that. You’ll—”

“Good gracious!” said the first parrot. “Did you hear that? Someone talking in parrot language! But it’s no parrot. The accent isn’t right. Queer!”

By this time the Doctor realized that the parrots’ conversation had disturbed other bird sleepers around the room. For from all sides came the gentle rustling of wings and scratching of perches. He hastily signalled to Matthew that he wanted to leave in a hurry. But just at that moment he was overcome with a desire to sneeze. He suppressed it as best he could, but the noise he made, muffled though it was, could not be mistaken for anything else.

“For goodness’ sake!” said one of the parrots. “Why, there’s a man in the shop somewhere!”

As the Doctor once more made frantic signs to Matthew that he wanted to get out and away, he wondered whether he should take the parrots into his confidence or try to get out before the birds guessed who he was. As the second parrot did not answer immediately, but still seemed to be puzzling over the problem, he decided to try and beat a retreat while the coast was clear.

But the parrots within the covered cages did not take very long to realize that there was only one being in the world who could sneeze like a man and talk like a bird – even if he did it with an accent. And suddenly one of them cried out loud, “Why, it must be John Dolittle!”

“Sh!” said the Doctor.

But he was too late. The second parrot was too overjoyed and excited to pay any attention.

“Why, of course!” he squawked. “It’s the Doctor. Birds, wake up! The Doctor’s come! Wake up! Wake up!”

In a moment every bird in the place was cackling and chattering and screeching and whistling away at the top of its voice. The Doctor made a jump for the door. But in the half light he did not notice a box on the floor. He stumbled over it, came down with a crash, and brought a pile of empty cages clattering on top of his head.

“Look out!” hissed Matthew. “I hear steps overhead. We’ve woken the whole house. Let’s get out!”

“I can’t get out,” said the Doctor. “Take some of these cages off my chest.”

By this time, of course, the two dogs were awake and yelping away for all they were worth. As Matthew struggled to get the Doctor’s legs and skirt disentangled from the pile of fallen cages, he saw the glimmer of a light up the stairs that led to the room above.

“Is it really you, Doctor?” yelped the bulldog from his pen.

“Of course it is,” snapped John Dolittle, still floundering around on his back, trying to get up. “For heaven’s sake, keep quiet about it! I’ve got to get away. I’ll be put in prison for this if I’m caught.”

“Undo the latches of our pens, then,” said the bulldog, “and we’ll see you get away all right.”

“Never mind me. Let the dogs out, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “Quick!”

Matthew, experienced adventurer though he was, never stopped to argue when the Doctor spoke in a voice like that. In spite of the fact that the proprietor was already standing at the head of the stairs with a poker in his hand, he delayed his flight long enough to let the bulldog and the retriever out of their pens.

“Police! Police! Murder! Thieves!” yelled the proprietor, rushing down the stairs.

“Get out, Matthew! I’ll manage,” shouted the Doctor.

He had not yet quite regained his feet and the proprietor was halfway down the stairs, but again Matthew did not question the Doctor’s orders. Leaving his manager to his own devices, he leaped through the front door and disappeared.

Raising his poker above his head, the shopkeeper prepared to jump the last three steps onto his victim’s prostrate body. But suddenly two snarling dogs appeared at the foot of the staircase on either side of John Dolittle and dared him to come down. Stiffly the Doctor rose to his feet and arranged his skirt becomingly over his trousers, which had been very evident beneath.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said severely to the proprietor, as one of his false bangs fluttered from his bonnet to the floor, “for keeping such a disgusting animal shop. If he beats you for this,” he added to the dogs, “I’ll give you a home. My circus is on Greenheath.”

Then he strode out through the open door and set off on the run to follow Matthew, whose figure could just be seen beckoning to him at the corner of the street.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Doctor’s Return

Although the two dogs successfully kept the proprietor of the animal shop (his name was Harris) from following the Doctor and Matthew, they could not prevent his running upstairs and opening his bedroom window. From there he continued to bawl lustily for the police, till the constable, whom John Dolittle had seen earlier in the evening, appeared upon the scene.

Stuttering with rage, Mr. Harris told him that his store had been broken into and gave him a very minute description of the Doctor. Matthew he had not seen so clearly, but he described him too as best he could.

Then the constable blew a long blast upon his whistle and very soon he was joined by two other members of the police force. Following the direction pointed out by the excited proprietor, they set out on the run to overtake the culprits.

But in the meantime the experienced and intelligent cat’s-meat man was piloting the Doctor through a regular maze of narrow back streets that bordered the river. Presently he stopped and listened.

“I think we’ve shook ’em for the present, Doctor,” said he. “Now let’s dodge behind this old warehouse and get them togs off you.”

Within the shadow of the shed the Doctor was then divested of his skirt, bodice, and bonnet.

“Theodosia will ’ave to do without them,” said the cat’s-meat man as he threw them into the swirling river. “They’re no great loss. Next thing, Doc, we must separate and go back to Greenheath different ways. Would never do if the cops saw us together – even though you have changed your clothes.”

“But what shall I wear for a hat?” asked John Dolittle, watching Theodosia’s bonnet drift downstream. “I can’t be seen bareheaded.”

“I thought of that,” said Matthew, bringing a cap out of his pocket. “I brought a spare headpiece along with me, see? With this – and your coat and trousers underneath – I reckoned I could transform you at a moment’s notice if we got into a tight place. There’s nothing like being prepared.”

“Good heavens, it’s awfully small!” said the Doctor, trying it on.

“Never mind. Stick it on the back of your ’ead,” said Matthew. “So! Now you look all right. And remember, after I’ve left you, if any cop comes up and asks you questions, remember, you’re a greengrocer’s assistant on his way to Covent Garden Market. There ain’t many jobs, you see, what gets a man up so early as this. So remember: a greengrocer’s assistant.”

“Do I really look like one?” asked the Doctor, trying to keep the small cap from slipping off the back of his head.

“Well – you’ll do,” said Matthew. “Turn your coat collar up and don’t talk too grammatic – no fancy lingo – see?”

“Very good,” said the Doctor. “Which way are you going home?”

“I’m going back through Wapping,” said Matthew. “You find some other way and use back streets all you can. I heard that big-footed cop a’ blowing on ’is whistle like mad a while ago. So he’s likely got all the metropolitan police force on the lookout for us. So long, Doc, I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Then Matthew disappeared around a corner and melted away into the night, while the Doctor, after looking vaguely about him for a moment, chose a narrow passage that seemed to run parallel with the river in a southeasterly direction.

“I’m a greengrocer’s assistant,” he muttered as he started off.

He had not gone very far along the passage before a voice suddenly hailed him from behind.

“Hi! What are you doing down there?”

He turned around and saw a policeman, with a bull’s-eye lantern shining at his belt, not more than ten paces away. To run for it seemed hopeless. He retraced his steps.

“Pardon,” said he to the constable. “Were you addressing me?”

“I was,” said the policeman. “I want to know what you’re doing nosing around the backs of houses at this time of night?”

“I was going to Covent Garden,” said the Doctor. “I’m a gardener’s assistant.”

The policeman turned the light of his lantern on the Doctor’s figure and slowly scanned him from his ill-fitting cap to his large boots.

“Covent Garden ain’t down that way,” said he. “And if you had anything to do with it you’d know better where it was. Come on. Out with it. What’s your game?”

There was an uncomfortable silence, during which the Doctor noticed over the constable’s shoulder that more people were approaching from the end of the passage.

In the meantime Matthew, experienced in the ways of cities and city police, was gradually approaching Greenheath by roundabout and quiet streets. The grey light of the dawn was just beginning to show when he clambered over the gate of the circus enclosure. In his own caravan he found his wife still sitting up for him, for she was anxious about the results of the expedition.

“It is all right, Theodosia,” said he. “The Doctor ought to be along any minute now. I’ll just lie down and take forty winks, and then I must get around to my jobs. Wake me up if the Doc gets here before breakfast time.”

Breakfast time came, but the Doctor did not. And when, halfway through the morning, he still had not appeared, Matthew and his wife began to get uneasy.

However, about eleven o’clock, just when the cat’s-meat man was preparing to go out and hunt for him he turned up, looking very tired, disheveled, and soaking wet.

“Why, Doctor,” said Matthew, “what happened to you? I expected you’d be here pretty near as soon as I was.”

“A stupid policeman stopped me,” said the Doctor, “and asked me a whole lot of questions. He had evidently been warned to be on the lookout for us, but my clothes didn’t fit the description, and if I had only been able to answer his questions properly he would have let me go, I’m sure. However, right in the middle of his cross-examination, that wretched Harris, the proprietor, appeared on the scene – with another policeman. So – er – I had to employ other methods to get away.”

“Well,” said the other, “what did you do?”

“I’m afraid I had to use violence,” said the Doctor, looking embarrassed and ashamed. “You see, the stupid policeman, when the others came down the passage, got on the far side of me, so I couldn’t get out of it at either end. I knew Harris would recognize me, even without my makeup. So – er – I knocked the policeman down with a punch on the jaw, jumped over him, and ran for it. At the end of the passage I saw two more constables, cutting me off. There was only the river left.

“I dived into it, swam under a barge, and came up on the other side. They then decided, I imagine, that I had been drowned. Anyway, I heard no further sound of pursuit. And presently I let myself drift downstream a mile or two, crept ashore on the other bank, and made my way back here. I was sorry to have to punch the policeman. But what else could I do?”

“Don’t apologize, Doc,” giggled Matthew, “don’t apologize. The only thing I’m regretting is that I wasn’t there to see it. But listen, ’ow did you get ’ere like that, drippin’ wet, without havin’ people looking at you suspiciouslike?”

“I didn’t,” said the Doctor. “They followed me in crowds, but no one stopped me.”

“Humph!” muttered Matthew with a frown. “That don’t sound so good. I don’t reckon them cops would give a man up for drowned so easy as you think, specially after getting a poke in the face like what you describe. And if you’ve left a wet trail behind you all the way from Billingsgate ’ere – with the folks talking – I think you’d better pack yourself away for a while – as soon as you’ve had a change of togs. ’Cause something tells me we can count on a call or two from the police department during the afternoon – Hulloa! What dog’s that?”

The Doctor looked out of his wagon and saw the mongrel bulldog of Mr. Harris’s establishment trotting toward him across the enclosure accompanied by Jip, Swizzle, and Toby.

“Good morning,” said John Dolittle when the canine committee had arrived at the steps. “Did that wretched man punish you for your part in last night’s adventures?”

“He wanted to,” said the bulldog. “But I and the retriever had agreed to put up a fight together and defend each other if he attempted it. He couldn’t lick the two of us at once. Then he tried to separate us and was going to call in help. So I gave the retriever – Blackie’s his name – the wink, and we ran off together. Harris came after us, hotfoot, bellowing to everybody in the street to stop us because we were running away. I saw we’d stand no chance of getting to you if we stayed together. So, as we pelted down the street, I whispered to Blackie, ‘At the next corner you go one way and I’ll go the other. We may reach the Doctor’s singly but we’ll never do it together!’

“‘All right,’ says he. And that’s what we did. How he fared I have no idea. But the chances are Harris will succeed in following one or the other of us here.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “Well, there’s no use in borrowing trouble. He hasn’t followed you yet. What’s your name?”

“Grab,” said the bulldog.

“If Harris does come we’ll give him a fine welcome,” growled Jip, showing his teeth.

“You bet,” said Swizzle. “Listen, Doctor, Grab says he wants to stay here with us. He can, can’t he?”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor, “and Blackie too, if he comes – provided of course we can manage things with Harris. He may not want to sell them to me, just out of spite.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” said Matthew, “even if old Harris does come here and we get hauled up for it, they’ll only give us a few days in jail. And the advertisement will be fine for the show.”

“Yes, that would be all very well, Matthew,” said John Dolittle, “if I hadn’t knocked the policeman down. The law might treat us lightly for our burglary, seeing we were doing it for the sake of animals not properly cared for. But no judge is going to let me off lightly for punching a policeman on the jaw to escape arrest.”

“Doctor,” said Grab, “let me come inside your wagon and shut the door a moment. I’ve got something I’d like to tell you. It’s about Harris and it may be useful to you.”

John Dolittle then took Grab inside the wagon. None of the other dogs, Jip, Toby, or Swizzle – although they were crazy to hear what the bulldog had to tell the Doctor – was allowed in.

The door was closed for about ten minutes, and when it opened again Jip heard the Doctor say as he came out, “And what was the man’s name, Grab?”

“Jennings,” said the dog, “Jeremiah Jennings. And he lived in Whitechapel.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “I’ll remember that.”

As John Dolittle descended the steps, a flight of blackbirds suddenly arrived from somewhere out of the sky and settled all over the roof of his wagon.

“We wanted to thank you,” said one of them coming on to the Doctor’s shoulder. “We didn’t know last night who it was that had let us out. We were only too glad to get away and did not stop to inquire. But this morning a thrush out in the fields, who is doing some choir work for you, told us that two of his friends had been caught and sold to the same shop. You let them out, too, it seems. And then, of course, we knew who must have done it. So we thought we’d like to come and tell you that we appreciate your kindness very much.”

“Don’t mention it,” said the Doctor. “Good heavens, why here’s Blackie – and Harris running after him. This is where the trouble begins!”

They had turned, and there, sure enough, was the retriever coming in at the gate at full speed, followed by Harris, the proprietor of the animal store. Jip and Swizzle went for him, snarling like tigers, but the Doctor called them off.

“Leave him alone,” said he. “We’ll accomplish nothing by that now. Well, Mr. Harris, good morning!”

“Don’t you wish me any good mornings,” squeaked the little man. “You’re a thief. And now I’ve run you down, I’m going to get you locked up. My wife can identify you in the police court as well as I can. She saw you in the shop stealing blackbirds.”

“Mind your tongue – calling people thieves around here,” said Matthew. “I’m liable to hit you over the crust with a broom handle if you get sassy.”

“And you were the other one,” said Harris, turning and leveling an accusing finger at the cat’s-meat man. “Good! Now I’ve got you both, and I’m going off to get the police and land you both in jail. I’ve got the evidence right here: all them blackbirds on the roof there what you stole and these two dogs that you enticed away. I’ve caught you red-handed.”

“I didn’t steal these blackbirds,” said the Doctor quietly. “They are at liberty, as they ought to be. You can see I’m not holding them. And, as for the dogs, they came to me of their own free will. They want to stay with me. I am quite willing to buy them from you.”

“They’re coming back to my shop to be sold to honest customers,” said Harris. “The blackbirds you stole. I found the cages in the shop, with the doors opened, after you’d left. I’m going to get the police.”

His ugly face purple with fury, the little man turned on his heel and started for the gate.

“Er – just a minute, Mr. Harris,” the Doctor called.

“What is it now?” snarled the proprietor, pausing a moment. “I ain’t got no time for foolishness. I’m going to get you locked up before tonight.”

“I have something I’d like to tell you privately,” said the Doctor. “Will you come into my van a moment, please?”

“Anything you’ve got to say to me you can say in court,” snarled Harris, starting for the gate once more.

“I don’t think you’d like me to say it in court,” John Dolittle called after him. “It’s about Jennings – Jeremiah Jennings, of Whitechapel.”

The hurrying figure of the proprietor suddenly halted. He turned a scowling face upon the Doctor. Then he came slowly back and walked up the steps into the wagon.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Mr. Harris’s Past

Wide-eyed with curiosity over Harris’s sudden change of mood, Matthew and the three dogs watched the Doctor follow the man into the wagon and close the door after him.

“I wonder what it is,” said Toby in a busybody whisper. “Did you ever see a man suddenly calm down so?”

“The Doctor’s got wind of something,” said Jip. “That’s why Mr. Harris is singing a different tune.”

“What was it you told the Doctor, Grab?” asked Swizzle. But the bulldog wouldn’t tell them.

“That’s my business – and the Doctor’s,” he said. And that was all they could get out of him.

Meanwhile, within the van, John Dolittle had offered his guest a chair.

“Let us sit down and talk this over calmly,” he said.

“No, I don’t want to sit,” said Harris in a surly tone. “Tell me, what do you know about Jeremiah Jennings?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, getting out his pipe and reaching for the tobacco jar upon the shelf, “I don’t believe in raking up a man’s past or poking my nose into other people’s business. But you have threatened to have me arrested for something that I didn’t do. I did not steal those blackbirds, but I did let them go out of your back window because they were wild birds, and you had no business to buy them from the trappers. Incidentally, your animal shop is a disgrace to humanity. But in spite of all that, if I were arrested, in the eyes of the law I should be convicted of burglary and probably sentenced to imprisonment. If, on the other hand, you don’t bring any charge against me, nothing will likely be done about it.”

“Well?” said Harris as the Doctor paused and struck a match.

“It has been brought to my attention by a very reliable authority,” John Dolittle went on, “that besides your trade of selling animals you have, or had, another one, that of – er – receiving stolen goods, Mr. Harris. Isn’t that so?”

The ugly little man who had been fidgeting around the van sprang forward and thumped the table.

“It is a lie!” he hissed.

“I think not,” said the Doctor quietly. “Mr. Jennings, of Whitechapel, who has been in jail for burglary more than once, was one of your best customers. I have enough evidence to put both you and him in prison for a much longer term than you could get me condemned for. I know all about the little – er – ‘job,’ I think you call it, at No. 70 Cavendish Square. I know that you knew the silverware was stolen when it was brought to your cellar for sale. And I know a good deal about Squinty Ted, who had only three fingers on one hand but was remarkably clever at opening safes. And Jeff Bottomley and—”

“Stop!” stuttered Harris. “Where did you get all this? Did Jennings tell you?”

“He did not,” said the Doctor. “None of your shady friends told me. I got it from a much more reliable source; and I can prove every word I say. I can even take you to the hole in your cellar wall where you hid the gold candlesticks that came from Lord Weatherby’s mansion.”

In silent wonder, his ugly face twisted with fear and hate, the little man glared at the Doctor for a moment.

“I believe you’re the devil himself in disguise,” he whispered at last. “Well, what do you mean to do about it?”

The Doctor relit his pipe, which had gone out.

“Nothing at all, Mr. Harris,” he said at length, “provided you will agree to a few conditions that I shall lay down.”

“Humph!” grunted Harris doubtfully. “And if I don’t agree?”

“Then,” said the Doctor, “I shall, much against my will, be compelled to hand this information over to the police, to act upon as they see fit.”

Mr. Harris thought a moment. Then he jerked his head upward and said, “Well, what’s the conditions?”

“First of all,” the Doctor began, “you must agree, of course, not to proceed with this charge you bring against me. After that, you must give me your solemn oath that you will receive no more stolen goods or aid in any way burglars or people of similar character. Next, you will have to hand over to me the two dogs, Blackie and Grab – for which, of course, I will pay you. Finally, you must give up the animal shop business altogether. You don’t understand it and should never have gone into it.”

Harris threw up his hands in despair.

“Do you want to ruin me?” he wailed. “How am I to earn an honest living?”

“Not by selling poor wild birds who have been caught in traps,” the Doctor answered. “Nor, certainly, by receiving property that has been obtained dishonestly. You were an iron founder once, I understand – which trade you found very useful in melting down precious metal that was brought to your store. Go back to that work – in the foundries.”

Harris made a wry face.

“Yes, I know,” added John Dolittle, “it isn’t nearly such a comfortable profession as sitting in a shop, selling defenceless animals. But you can likely change it for some other work later.”

“Now, look here,” began the other in a whine, “you’ve got a kind face. You wouldn’t be ’ard on a poor man like me. I’ve got children to support, I ’ave. And—”

“No,“the Doctor interrupted firmly, bringing his fist down with a bang upon the table, which rattled the china and made Jip outside cock his ears, frowning. “So have the poor birds got children to support – which are just as important to them as yours are to you. My mind is made up. I give you one week to dispose of your stock and close up the animal shop. You’re a healthy man. You can earn a living some other way. If the conditions I lay down are not fulfilled within seven days, I hand over a written statement to the police, giving your complete record as a receiver of stolen goods. Now, what is your answer?”

Slowly the ugly little man took his hat up off the table. Something in the set of the Doctor’s chin told him that further arguments or prayers would be of no avail.

“All right,” he said sullenly. “In a week, then.”

“Here is half a sovereign,” said John Dolittle, taking a coin out of his pocket. “I am paying you five shillings apiece for these two dogs, Grab and Blackie. They will remain here with me. I will come and take a look at your place in a week’s time. And as for the receiving game, remember, I have ways of finding out things – those same ways through which I got my other information.”

The Doctor held open the door of his van while Harris shuffled down the steps and set off toward the gate.

“Lor’ bless me, Doctor!” murmured Matthew, gazing after him. “’E don’t seem so uppish as ’e did. Is ’e on ’is way to the police station again?”

“No,” said John Dolittle, patting Grab the bulldog on the head. “I think he’ll leave the police alone for good – and the animal business, too.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Scenery, Costumes,
and Orchestra

While Matthew and the five dogs were congratulating John Dolittle over his successful dismissal of Harris, the Doctor noticed that the blackbirds were still perched around the roof of his wagon, evidently anxious to tell him something.

“Why,” said he, addressing one of the cocks who seemed to be the leader of the party, “I had forgotten all about you during this excitement. I consider it very thoughtful of you to come and visit me. What do you think of my circus?”

“We like it immensely,” said the blackbird. “The animals are all so cheerful and clearly enjoying their work. Too-Too has just been telling us about your bird opera. And we were wondering if you would like us to help you with it in any way. We are pretty good singers, you know.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “That’s an excellent idea. For, to tell you the truth, I find that I am really in need of another chorus, and your sleek black plumage would look very well against the coloured scenery. But time is so short, now. I have promised to have the show in readiness in a week or so. Could you prepare a chorus in so short a time as that?”

“Oh, yes, I think so,” said the blackbird.

“Good,” said the Doctor. “Then if you’ll get about a dozen cocks together, I’ll read over the score with you and we can decide upon the wording of the lyric for you. By the way, I want a few small birds, as well – very small, to take the parts of a family of youngsters in the nest. What would you recommend?”

“Wrens,” said the blackbird. “They’re about as small a species as we have in this country. And they’re very intelligent. You could teach them anything.”

“Do you think you could get me some – four or five?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes, I imagine so,” said the blackbird. “I’ll go off right away, while it’s still light, and see if I can hunt up a few in the woods and farms beyond Highgate.”

It was only now, in spite of his having started long before, that the Doctor was able to give his entire time to the opera; so many interruptions had claimed his attention. But from that morning on until the opening night he worked like a Trojan all day long. Indeed, there were a tremendous number of things that had to be looked after. For, although the opera, when it was finally performed, was put on within the limits of a very tiny stage – not much larger than an ordinary room – yet John Dolittle insisted on the smallest details of the production being made as perfect as possible.

He got the theatre owners to supply him with a famous artist to paint the scenery, and he would spend hours talking over and trying out different arrangements, just to get one little thing right, such as the moonlight glinting on floating seaweed or the evening shadows beneath the hawthorns. In everything he consulted Pippinella’s opinion, and if the scenery artist’s work did not please her the Doctor would change it, and go on changing it, till she was satisfied.

In the rehearsing, whenever it was possible, he kept the different scenes and passages separate. For instance, with the wrens, when they finally arrived, he practised the nest scene – where they were to act like a hungry brood being fed by a mother bird – in an old tent quite apart from the other members of the opera cast. He had found that when all the bird actors were together they gossiped and chattered so much that no work was done. And it was his intention to rehearse the different groups by themselves until all were quite at home in their parts, and only to bring them together for the complete performance when they were so sure of what they had to do and sing that there could be no fear of their getting distracted.

The costuming for the opera was not very extensive, but it was difficult. The Doctor decided that only the biggest birds would wear clothes. The pelicans were to be dressed as sailors. The flamingos would appear as ladies, passengers on a ship. A set of little parasols, light red to match the colour of their legs, were specially made by a West End umbrella firm, and these were carried under their right wings, which were covered with loose-fitting chiffon sleeves.

For dressmaking, of course, the useful Theodosia was called in. Mrs. Mugg, a handy woman with her needle, had always looked after the costumes for the whole circus. For the pelicans she made a set of very natty white sailor suits with little hats to match. And when they were completed, chorusmaster Cheapside had to put his troupe through several dress rehearsals of the Sailor’s Chorus; because, of course, it was highly necessary that they should learn to walk and behave naturally in clothes they had never worn before.

“Now,” said the Doctor to Pippinella, Twink, and the other principals one day, “we must take up the question of the orchestral instruments. What do you like best for an accompaniment?”

“Well, of course,” Pippinella answered, “it depends somewhat on the song we’re singing. Nothing like fiddles or flutes. That’s not an accompaniment – it’s a competition. The instrument that canaries like best to sing to is the sewing machine. But any quiet, buzzy, humming noise will do.”

“Wouldn’t you like a piano?” asked the white mouse, who was listening at the other end of the van. “In Puddleby I lived inside the Doctor’s piano. I know a good deal about that instrument. I liked best the old one the Doctor had before he went to Africa. That was a German piano, very solidly made – a Steinmetz. It was so warm in winter. After the Steinmetz I like a Wilkinson – an English make. The felt on the hammer is so thick. It’s fine for lining the nests for the young ones.”

“No,” said Pippinella, “a piano’s too loud for a canary to sing to.”

“Yes, that’s true,” agreed the white mouse. “I remember one of the Doctor’s old patients used to play on the Steinmetz while he was waiting for John Dolittle to come in from the garden. It kept my children awake – until I complained to the Doctor and asked him to lock up the keyboard cover so the patients couldn’t disturb us.”

“We shall want a razor strop in the orchestra, Doctor,” Pippinella went on, “for the duet in the barbershop aboard ship. That’s in the third act, isn’t it? It should be an easy instrument to play.”

“Very good,” said John Dolittle, making a note. “We’ll have a razor strop. One of the Pinto brothers can play on it, and Matthew can perform on the sewing machine. Now, what else?”

“We will need a chain,” said the prima donna, “for the ‘Jingling Harness Song’ – a nice light chain with a clear, silvery clink to it. Tie one end to a music stand and get a boy to shake it like this at regular intervals: “JING – jingle-jing; JING – jingle-jing; JING – jingle-jing. I begin singing on the fourth JING.”

“All right,” said the Doctor, making another note. “Anything else? What about the ‘Greenfinch’s Love Song’?”

“That will be done without accompaniment,” said the greenfinch, who was playing the part of the prima donna’s faithless lover. “Most of the passages are so soft and whispering that any other noise would completely drown them. But please ask the audience, Doctor, to keep perfect silence during the whole of it; otherwise it will be spoiled entirely.”

“I’ll attend to that,” said John Dolittle, jotting in his notebook again. “I’ll have a special request notice printed in the programmes. Now, what other instruments will we want?”

“Nothing further besides a cobbler’s last and hammer,” said Pippinella. “But that instrument will have to be played with a good deal of skill because we’ll use it to keep time in several of the solos – also in the trio at the end of the second act, where my mate goes off with the greenfinch and leaves me mourning on the seashore – also to imitate the raindrops, played very lightly, in the ‘Thrushes’ Rain Chorus.’”

“Very good,” said the Doctor, closing his notebook. “Then our orchestra will consist of a sewing machine, a razor strop, a chain, and a cobbler’s last. I will get them all tomorrow, and we will run through the score with music.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Prima Donna Disappears

Everything went smoothly with The Canary Opera up to within three days of the opening date. Then troubles seemed to descend on Manager Dolittle’s head thick and fast. First a serious epidemic of laryngitis and sore throat broke out among the blackbirds; and in spite of the famous cough mixture it ran through the ranks like wildfire. Last-minute changes had to be made in the score of the opera when it became clear that the blackbirds would not be cured in time for the first performance.

However, the Doctor packed the birds off into the country (he put the sickness down to using their throats too much in the bad air of the city); and Cheapside suggested that he bring forward a gang of his sparrows to take the blackbirds’ place. This was done. And in spite of the fact that the city birds did not have nearly such good voices and nothing like the elegant appearance of the others, the chorus was changed into a sort of comic song and went very well.

As a matter of fact the Doctor had been thinking that he had not quite enough comedy in the opera; and in the end the “Sparrows’ Chorus” in the fourth act (where the cheeky birds make fun of the pelican sailors newly arrived from foreign parts) turned out to be one of the most successful numbers in the whole show.

The next trouble was the sudden and mysterious disappearance of the prima donna herself two days before the opera was advertised to open. No one knew what had become of her, and the Doctor was beside himself with anxiety lest harm had befallen his star performer. He had another canary trained as an understudy, it is true. But the posters and all the advertisements laid special stress on the facts that this was the great contralto’s first personal appearance in London and that the opera itself was the story of her own life. Jip had disappeared too.

Finally, after the Doctor had put all of Cheapside’s city-sparrow gangs to hunting for her and called in the help of most of the wild birds around London as well, she was found with Jip over on the east side of London and brought back.

On their return to the circus it came out that on a Saturday morning Pippinella had seen someone in the circus enclosure whom she had thought might be her beloved master, the window cleaner. Calling on Jip to help her, she had gone off to follow him and the two had tracked the man right across the city, and finally, in the smelly quarters of the docks, Jip had lost the trail and been compelled to give up the hunt. John Dolittle implored his leading lady not to disappear again and said that later, when the opera was in running order, he would see what he could do toward helping her find her friend. At that, Pippinella promised not to go off again and rehearsals proceeded.

That same day the Doctor moved his operatic troupe into the city proper, so as to be nearer the theatre where the last full-dress rehearsals were taking place. A big empty town house was put at his disposal, and for fear of further epidemics and mishaps he kept the different kinds of birds in separate rooms. The pelicans had the drawing-room, the canaries the dining-room,the flamingos the big double bedroom on the first floor, the sparrows the kitchen, while Pippinella, the star, had a room to herself, which had been the late owner’s study. The Doctor slept in the basement and Mr. and Mrs. Mugg in the attic.

By this time the birds were all very excited over the nearness of the first performance. And the noise they made running over their songs all day long was so great, even with the front windows closed, that a crowd of small boys was constantly to be seen outside, listening and wondering what was happening within.

As it happened, the week in which the opera was to have its first performance was Christmas week. And when Gub-Gub, Jip, and the others of the Doctor’s household made a tour through the city they were delighted with the gay holiday appearance of the shops, where good things to eat and elegant presents were set out in windows decorated with holly and mistletoe.

They saw many posters and highly coloured announcements of various pantomimes and Christmas shows for children. And conspicuous among these were several large advertisements which read:

PIPPINELLA:
THE CANARY OPERA

In which Madame Colouratura Pippinella, the unique contralto canary, will appear for the first time in London, supported by the well-known Dolittle Company of Performing Birds.

At THE REGENTS THEATRE
in the Strand
to be followed by the one and only

PUDDLEBY PANTOMIME

Great was their thrill on reading these announcements of their first appearance in the capital. But Jip was almost as much interested in the posters of the other shows; and the Doctor was pestered until he promised to take his whole household to see Dick Whittington (which was being given at the Frivolity Theatre) or some other entertainment.

The night before the opera’s opening date, a grand dinner was arranged at Patti’s, a very popular Italian restaurant in the Strand. The theatre managers were the hosts and the banquet was especially given for John Dolittle and his staff to celebrate the opera’s first appearance in London. The Doctor wore his old dress suit, which he hadn’t had on since the days of his regular practise as a physician in Puddleby. Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Mugg came, Hop the clown, Hercules the strong man, Henry Crockett the Punch-and-Judy man, the Pinto brothers and their wives, and Fred the menagerie keeper.

It was a very jolly meal, in spite of the fact that during the second course the Doctor’s dress coat (which had become too tight for him) suddenly gave way when he was leaning across the table to converse with one of the guests and split up the back with a loud report. Matthew and Theodosia, who up till then had been uncomfortably overawed by the elegance of the table and the fine dresses of the managers’ wives, were by this amusing accident to the Doctor’s coat put entirely at their ease, and they enjoyed the rest of the meal with great zest.

At the end, over the port wine, speeches were made by the managers, by the Doctor, by Matthew, and by Hercules. The managers said how glad they were to welcome John Dolittle and his opera at their theatre.

The Doctor spoke entirely about music and what he hoped to do for musicians and composers by thus bringing forward the musical ideas of the animal kingdom.

Matthew Mugg made quite a long speech. In a hired dress suit, his bosom swelled with pride as he spoke of his early ambition to become a showman. He told the managers (“my fellow showmen,” he called them) that this was the proudest moment of his life, when he and his partner, the famous John Dolittle, were welcomed to London to exhibit their greatest creation, The Canary Opera.

Hercules made quite a short speech, mostly about the Doctor’s system of running a cooperative circus, in which all profits were shared by the staff. This he declared had made him a moderately rich man in a short time, and he hoped soon to retire from the road, for it was his life’s ambition to settle down in a seaside cottage with a nice garden where he could grow chrysanthemums and roses.

The Pinto brothers, when called upon, said they had no speech to make, but offered to give the company a trapeze performance on the restaurant’s chandeliers. However, it was feared that these would not be strong enough and the idea was abandoned. Then after some newspaper reporters, who were also guests, had welcomed the Doctor to London in the name of the Press, the party broke up at one o’clock in the morning, and everyone went home very happy.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The First Performance of
“The Canary Opera”

Dab-Dab was very worried about the Doctor’s health these days. He entered into the excitement of the whole thing with a boyish enthusiasm even greater than that of the performers themselves. He never stopped running about and seemed to be actually in two or three places at once. And the thoughtful old housekeeper shook her head gravely over the possible results.

“I know he’s a man of iron,” she said, “but for the last three days he has been on the go without rest and has hardly slept at all. Thank goodness the opening night is here at last! For human flesh and blood couldn’t stand the pace he’s been going much longer.”

The Regent’s was by no means a small or unimportant theatre. There many great actors had produced Shakespeare’s plays. It was accustomed to have only the highest and best kind of entertainments; the managers enjoyed a good reputation with the public; and the first nights were well attended by critics from the newspapers. The Regent’s could hold nearly two thousand people. And its stage was very large and furnished with all the most up-to-date inventions for lighting, scenery moving, etc.

However, for The Canary Opera the Doctor had had the big stage opening considerably reduced by enormous great curtains of canary-yellow silk, which cost the managers a large sum of money. The programmes were printed on canary-yellow paper, and the ushers who showed the people to their places were dressed in canary-yellow plush uniforms.

Up to the last minute, of course, John Dolittle was busy behind the scenes looking after the thousand small matters which always get left unattended to up to the opening night, even in the best-run shows. He was being ably assisted by Matthew, Theodosia and Cheap-side – who did more swearing on that important night than on any other in the whole of his profane career. The two partners who owned the theatre were also doing all they could to help, but it was not much that the Doctor could let them do. Altogether, “behind the scenes” was a very busy and excited place.

Jip did not have to dress for his part in the pantomime until much later, and during the first part of the evening he ran in and out, bringing the Doctor news of the audience and how the tickets were being sold at the box-office.

“Listen, Doctor!” he whispered, appearing for the fourth time and interrupting John Dolittle in the makeup of one of the sailor pelicans: “It’s like a mob outside! There are three policemen keeping the people in order around the ticket office – the line stretches the whole way down the street. And just now a frightfully swell carriage drew up at the door and two ladies and a gentleman got out with diamonds all over them. Maybe one of them was the Queen, for all I know – certainly the carriage must have been a duke’s at least.”

A few minutes later Jip’s report was confirmed by one of the managers who had been around to the front on a tour of inspection.

“My friend,” he said, grasping the Doctor firmly by the hand, “this is going to be the greatest first night the Regent’s ever saw. The seats have all gone; we are selling standing room already, and it’s still twenty minutes before the curtain goes up.”

“What kind of an audience does it look like,” asked the Doctor, “intelligent?”

“The best people in town,” said the manager. “Come and take a look at them through the peephole. We’ve especially tried to get the musical folk here, the highbrows and the gentry.”

The Doctor, followed by the manager, Jip, and Gub-Gub, went to the side of the curtain where there was a little eye-hole through which the actors could see the audience without being visible themselves.

“Well, what do you think of em?” asked the manager after the Doctor had looked through a moment.

“Great heavens!” cried the Doctor, his eye still to the hole. “Why, there’s Paganini himself!”

“Piggy-ninny!” squeaked Gub-Gub. “Who’s he?”

“No – Paganini,” the Doctor repeated. “The greatest violinist in the world. That’s he in the fifth row, talking to an old grey-haired lady behind him. I’ve always wanted to meet him. Good! There’s one, I think, at least who will understand the music of our show.”

The opera’s unusual orchestra consisted of Matthew Mugg (sewing machine), George Pinto (razor and strop), Hercules (chain), and a member of the theatre’s regular orchestra (cobbler’s last and hammer). When the musicians trooped in carrying their strange instruments, a general titter ran through the audience, who did not know quite what to make of it.

And they were still sniggering when the conductor (John Dolittle himself) walked to the desk, carrying the usual little white baton. At precisely eight o’clock the Doctor turned to the audience and at once everybody became silent, seeing that some kind of a speech or announcement was going to be made.

The Doctor then told the people in a few words how and why he had devised The Canary Opera. He said that, while the work was intended to amuse and entertain, it must not be taken merely as a farce or burlesque, such as was The Puddleby Pantomime, which would follow the opera. Musically speaking, this production was put forward seriously and its producers felt that it was entitled to the study and consideration of composers and musicians as being the first attempt ever made to bring together the musical ideas of both man and beast. And it was hoped that those serious musicians in the audience would not criticize too early much that was apparently harsh to the ordinary ear, but would wait before giving judgment till the whole four acts had been heard.

Then with a little bow the Doctor turned around and, facing his orchestra, tapped his desk with the stick to command their attention. The audience gave one final fidget (as it always does when the music is about to begin) and settled down to listen in comfortable silence. John Dolittle raised the little white stick, gazed around at his musicians, and the overture began.

The orchestra, heard by itself, certainly provided a strange and new kind of music. But, in spite of the odd character of the instruments, the effect was musical without a doubt. The overture was very short, but in a few moments it ran through all the accompaniments and tempos of the main songs of the opera. And the silvery jingle of the chain, the constant droning of the sewing machine, the rap-a-tap-tap of the hammer and last, and the soft zip-zip-ping of the razor strop provided a mixture of sounds surprisingly pleasing to the ear.

Some of the audience tittered again, but some were clearly not at all inclined to ridicule. One old lady with glasses, in the front row, leaned over and told her neighbour it reminded her of a sleigh ride she had taken in Russia years ago, on the shores of the Black Sea.

“The horses,” the Doctor heard her whisper, “galloped right along the snow-laden beach, so near the water that the spray of the surf sometimes showered right over us. That sounds exactly like it – the thumping of the hoofs, the jingle of the harness, the droning of the wind and the whispering of the sea. I remember telling my niece, who was with me at the time, what a wonderful motif it would have made for an opera, if only a composer could have heard it. I’m glad I came to-night.”

In five minutes the overture was already dwindling away to a finish, and once more the audience moved expectantly in their seats as they saw from the changing of the lights around the stage that the curtain was about to go up.

The Doctor, as a matter of fact, was now listening with one ear for people going out. Because he had expected that, with anything as new and strange to average audiences as this, there would be some who would go before the overture was finished. But no one left his seat. If the people were not yet enthusiastic, at all events they were interested. And when at last the curtain slid slowly and silently up, a general half-suppressed gasp ran through the house at the beauty and novelty of the scene displayed upon the stage.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Drama of
Pippinella’s Life

The entire stage at first appeared to be occupied by an enormous birdcage. But on closer investigation the audience found that one could see through this into a room that lay behind. The setting had been so designed that you got the impression that you were yourself inside the cage, looking outward upon the world. Beyond the large bars, the perches and the water and seed pots, a parlourmaid (Mrs. Mugg) was dusting a mantelpiece and bustling silently to and fro over other housework. From a window at the back of the stage a shaft of golden sunlight flooded the cage and the room in which it was supposed to be hanging. High up in the front part of the cage nearest the audience was a nest with the head of a setting mother bird just visible. And in spite of the enormous size of the cage and the small size of the nest and the birds, it did not seem odd or out of proportion at all. You just felt that you yourself had been made very small and put inside a cage with some canaries.

When the parlourmaid came forward and pushed a piece of lettuce into the bars of the cage it could be seen that her big figure had been increased by padding and special boots so that she should look the right size when compared with the cage.

There also seemed to be other devices of specially arranged lights and even of magnifying glass screens that made the tiny bird performers clearly visible to the audience at the longest range of the theatre.

Presently a second bird who had been down and out of sight near the water pot hopped upon a perch and stood right in the centre of the bar of sunlight. Seen thus from the darkened theatre, his bright plumage fairly shimmered with yellow brilliance. This bird was taking the part of Pippinella’s father, for the first act was to represent the great prima donna’s childhood and these were supposed to be the nest and the cage where she was born.

After a moment the father bird went and took some of the lettuce and, carrying it up to the upper perches, fed his wife on the nest. Then the mother bird got off and the youngsters were fed. The wrens played their parts extremely well. The one who was taking the part of Pippinella as a baby was particularly good. She was the cheeky member of the family and was always reaching up and grabbing the food intended for the others and nearly falling out of the nest half the time.

After the mother bird had settled down again to sitting on her young ones, the father bird went back to the beam of sunlight and, suddenly facing the audience, sang the first song of the opera. It was only a light little air, mainly about lettuce and sunlight, but it went with a swing and the people were delighted.

Matthew, who was secretly watching the audience while he played his sewing machine, noticed how the few children in the theatre influenced the grown-ups. They were not nearly so concerned about their dignity and the importance of their musical opinion as were their elders. They laughed when they felt like laughing and drew in their breath with honest wonder when they were most impressed. They were delighted with the nest and particularly with the naughty member of the brood who was supposed to be Pippinella as a baby. And whenever she poked her nose out from under her mother’s wing and tried to imitate her father’s singing, the children just gurgled with merriment. Their laughter was catching and soon it had spread through the whole audience.

And as he silenced his sewing machine at the end of the first solo, Matthew decided that it looked like a good reception for the opera. For the crowd was already in excellent humour, while none of the best voices had been heard yet, none of the choruses had come on, and the finest scenery and settings were still to be shown.

At the end of the first act, anxious though he was to hear the comments of the audience, the Doctor had to leave his conductor’s desk and hurry behind the scenes. There were a hundred and one things in preparation for the next act that he wanted to attend to personally.

Here he was soon joined by one of the managers, who had been scouting “out front.”

“Well,” asked the Doctor, “how do they like it?”

“It’s hard to say,” said the other. “You’ve got ’em interested. There’s no doubt about that. I never saw an audience fidget less or pay better attention. But as for the music, I’m not sure they quite understand it – even the highbrows. I’m not sure I understand it myself. Still, it’s going to cause a lot of talk, this, unless I’m a bad guesser. And that’s sometimes better than having the audience love you. Anything that promotes discussion and argument gets the public curious and they want to come and hear for themselves. And, say, talk about argument! I wish you could step out in front a minute. You never saw so many wrangles going on to the square inch in all your life.”

“How did Paganini seem to take it?” asked the Doctor, tying a sailor’s hat on a pelican’s head.

“He isn’t saying much,” answered the manager. “But he’s thinking awful hard. Sits there wrapped up as always in his usual diabolic calm. But he’s interested, too. He’d have left long before this if he hadn’t been, you can bet on that. The whole thing will depend on how the critics treat us. So long as we get plenty of space in the papers tomorrow we’ll be all right. It’s my experience with musical shows that it doesn’t matter if the critics say hard things about you so long as they say plenty. Discussion is what we want. And I think we’re going to get it.”

In the second act Pippinella appeared in person for the first time. The Doctor had especially arranged this in order to save the voice of the prima donna, who was almost continuously on the stage throughout the last three acts. There were several scenes to this act, the curtain being lowered, and the ordinary Regent’s Theatre orchestra playing, during the intervals between them. The first scene was the inn. Contralto canaries are rare and a voice of Pippinella’s quality did not need a musical ear to appreciate it. The first song that the prima donna sang was “Maids, Come Out; the Coach Is Here!” It was a great hit. And when she sang the “Jingling Harness” song, to the accompaniment of the strong man’s chain, some people were so carried away that they stood up in their seats at the end of it and called for an encore. The conductor nodded to his orchestra and the song was repeated.

The second scene was with the fusiliers. And in this the jolly marching song – “I’m the midget mascot; I’m a feathered fusilier” – literally brought down the house. The Doctor had arranged to have several of his tent riggers behind the scene tramping to the music. And the audience this time demanded two encores. And even after the second one several people called for more repetitions, until Conductor Dolittle hurried on with the opera, fearing to overtax the leading lady’s voice.

Of course, all the incidents in Pippinella’s adventurous life could not be crowded into one opera. Yet the main parts were all there: her childhood; her days at the inn; her travels with the soldiers; her underground life in the coal mine (this was a very impressive scene, all dark save a little miner’s lamp showing a wooden birdcage on a black wall, with the clinking sound of picks and shovels heard constantly from behind the scenes). Then followed her stay with Aunt Rosie, still another part played by the clever Mrs. Mugg; her restful time at the mill; the storm, beautifully staged, when her cage was blown down; her escape from the cat – for this the Doctor had borrowed the theatre cat, who played his part with villainous skill; her meeting with her second husband, the greenfinch, and his heartless desertion of her on the seashore; her flight over the sea and landing on the island.

That brought the opera to the end of the third act. Throughout the whole story it was wonderful to see how John Dolittle had contrived to tell Pippinella’s life in stage pictures, so that people who did not understand the language of the actors could yet see clearly what was taking place. This he had often said, while writing the libretto with Pippinella, was the proper way to construct a play, whether musical or unmusical – to have the audience able to see what was happening almost without hearing the words. And in the Canary Opera he certainly succeeded. The people in the theatre – and the children, too – never missed anything of what was going on, even the general meaning of the songs was clear to them without their understanding the tongue in which they were sung.

But without any doubt the part of the opera that both musically and poetically most delighted the audience was the scene on the seashore. It was in this that that wonderful mysterious melody, the “Greenfinch’s Love Song,” was sung while Pippinella and her husband are hunting for a nesting place. The lights on the stage were dimmed to a pale evening dusk and a little glow of sunset flushed the sky and sea. You could have heard a pin drop in the big crowded theatre while the greenfinch warbled and whispered through his trembling serenade, occasionally answered by his mate, Pippinella, from behind the scenes.

The same old lady in the front row got out her handkerchief and began to weep. And when Pippinella, on finding herself deserted by her faithless lover, took wing across the sea to foreign shores, she broke down altogether and sobbed loudly.

The scenes aboard the passenger boat, however, with the chorus of boisterous pelican sailors, who came bellowing into the ship’s barbershop to be shaved to the tune of “The Razor Strop Duet,” cheered the old lady up no end. And her tears of sympathy quickly changed to giggles of amusement at the comic antics of the hoarse-voiced bassos.

As soon as the curtain had come down at the end of the last act the Doctor, ignoring the clapping and applause, hurried behind the scenes again to look after the company. But he had hardly reached the dressing room before one of the managers grabbed him by the arm.

“Half the audience wants to kill you and the other half wants to kiss you,” said he breathlessly. “Some say you’re a humbug and the others call you a genius. But you’ll have to make a speech, anyhow. Listen to them yelling for you. And I’ve brought a special message from Paganini himself. He wants to be allowed to meet you before the pantomime goes on.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

A Triumph and a Success

That strange genius, Paganini, had for years enjoyed a worldwide fame that has never quite been equalled. He had done things with a violin that were never done before or since. The Doctor had always wanted to meet him, ever since he had first heard him play, as a much younger man, in Vienna.

On receiving the message from the manager he called at once for Matthew Mugg, and, giving him a few hasty instructions for the pantomime, he followed his guide out into the front part of the theatre.

Niccolo Paganini was a tall, gaunt man, with a thin face surrounded by straggly hair. Many people who saw him said he reminded them of the devil himself. He was standing up as the Doctor came down the aisle. And when, after shaking hands with a quaint foreign bow, he invited John Dolittle to take the vacant seat beside him, many people in the audience put their heads together, pointing and whispering. The manager, returning behind the scenes, was very pleased to notice this. Because of course the striking figure of the great violinist was known to everyone, and the fact that he had especially sent for the producer of the opera meant that he, in any event, approved of the strange new music that the Doctor had put before the public. This would make a great impression upon the critics.

“This that you have given us is most interesting, sir,” said Paganini gravely. “Do you play any instrument yourself?”

“The flute,” the Doctor replied. “But only very amateurishly.”

“Humph! And have you written much music before this?”

“No,” said John Dolittle. “And this, you know, is not my own. This has been composed by the birds themselves. I just did the arranging, the orchestration, such as it is – and that under their direction.”

“Indeed?” said Paganini. “But how did you find out what sort of arrangement they wanted?”

“Oh – er – I – er – talk bird language,” said the Doctor awkwardly. “But I don’t, as a rule, speak of that.”

“Why?”

“Because people usually laugh at me.”

To the Doctor’s surprise Paganini showed no sign of doubt or disbelief.

“How absurd of them!” he said quietly, an odd, dreamy light coming into his gleaming eyes. “No one but a fool could listen to your opera without seeing at once that you must have talked with birds and beasts for years to be able so wonderfully to express their ideas in music. What I like about it particularly is that you have not played down to vulgar tastes. And yet it is all so simple, native, natural. You have even included notes in your arias that are so high that the ordinary human ear does not catch them. But my ear is unusual. I could hear them quite distinctly, while most of the audience was asking why the bird kept his mouth still open after the sound had ceased.”

“Yes, Pippinella spoke to me of that,” said the Doctor. “There is a passage in the ‘Jingle Harness Song’ and another in the ‘Greenfinch’s Love Song’ where some of the notes go right up beyond the pitch where the human ear can follow.”

“You have given us a great treat, sir,” said Paganini. “I trust and hope there will be enough really musical folk in London to appreciate what you have done.”

By this time the pantomime had begun – to the music of the Regent’s ordinary orchestra. And the Doctor, after he had been thanked again by the great musician, made his way back behind the scenes, feeling that he could consider himself repaid for his labours, even if no others understood the work he had put before the world.

As a matter of fact, neither the Doctor nor the theatre manager had any idea on that first night what a tremendous sensation they had started. For it was one of those successes that begin more or less gently, but grow and grow as time goes on. In the end the Canary Opera, the Doctor’s last big achievement as a showman, turned out to be not only the greatest thing in the history of the Dolittle Circus but the outstanding event of the London musical season.

This no one would have suspected at the outset, successful though it was. The Doctor had ordered copies of all the leading London newspapers to be delivered to his wagon on the morning following the first night. In these, some spoke well of the opera, others badly. But all devoted a good deal of space to it. One or two of them called it the greatest artistic achievement of the century – “a musical revolution.” Some couldn’t call it enough hard names.

“The most monstrous piece of humbug” (said one paper) “ever set before an intelligent audience was perpetrated last night at the Regent’s Theatre, when a menagerie owner by the name of Dolittle placed a collection of squawking birds upon the stage and had them accompanied by an ‘orchestra’ of tin pans, hammers, razor strops, and rattles.”

By far the majority of newspapers were too cautious to give a downright opinion before they found out how the musical public was going to take it. These called the opera “strange but interesting,” “bizarre,” “humourous,” “quaint,” “novel,” and so forth. Paganini’s presence and apparent approval of the work had made a big difference to many opinions.

The result of all this criticism – good, bad, and indifferent – was to make the general public extremely curious. Anything which could call forth such different verdicts must be worth looking into. The second night the Regent was more crowded even than the first. Furthermore, in those circles of society where music and the other arts are discussed the Canary Opera was for weeks the main topic of conversation. Signor Paganini was called upon by newspaper reporters and asked to publish an opinion. Well-known composers who flocked to the Regent’s in the first week were also asked to write what they thought for the newspapers. They did – and some continued to condemn it as humbug in no undecided terms. But still the discussion went on, and still the theatre was packed tighter and tighter every night.

Soon another problem for yet more talk appeared in the Press: who was the mysterious Doctor Dolittle? And could he, as Paganini said he could, really talk with birds in their own tongue? Then the Doctor’s empty house in the West End and his circus caravan on Greenheath were stormed all day long by newspaper men, demanding to see him, clamouring to know if this incredible thing could be true.

By no means anxious to be interviewed, sketched and talked at all day long, the Doctor disguised and hid himself and kept out of the way as best he could. But in this he was not very successful. Then Hercules came to his rescue with an idea. He offered to wear the Doctor’s top-hat and sit in a chair all through the day, with a pillow under his waistcoat, and be sketched and interviewed in his stead.

And that accounts for the many strange portraits of “John Dolittle” that appeared in the London papers about this time – also for many of the extraordinary musical opinions given by him in answer to the questions asked by experts for publication. For, while poor Hercules could wear the Doctor’s hat (after padding it to make it fit), he could not wear the Doctor’s brains inside it. Indeed, so far as music was concerned, the Strong Man did not know one note from another.

The managers of the Regent’s Theatre were of course delighted at all this discussion and advertisement. For they knew that if it kept up it would be only a question of time before the general public – as well as the “highbrow” or musical – would want to hear the opera.

And, sure enough, by the end of the first week the demand for tickets was so great that they were already seriously considering taking the opera out of their own theatre and leasing a still larger one, that could better accommodate the crowds that every night had to be denied admission.

But no one was more pleased with the Doctor’s London success than were his own animals. Every evening after they had taken their last bow before the curtain they would gather in the dressing rooms to remove their makeup and chat over the night’s performance.

“If,” Dab-Dab said a dozen times, “we can only keep the Doctor this time from spending all the money he is going to make, everything will be all right. I’ve no idea what arrangement he made with the theatre owners. But whatever it was, he just can’t help, with audiences as big as these, making a small fortune at least.”

“Yes, but you must remember,” said Jip, tugging his Pierrot suit over his head with his front paws, “that whatever the profits are, the rest of the circus staff has got to share them. There’s Hercules, Hop the clown, Toby’s boss, the Punch-and-Judy man, the Muggses and the Pinto brothers. A lot of money doesn’t look so big when you’ve got to split it up among eight.”

“I don’t care,” said Dab-Dab, polishing up the mirror with her ballet skirt, which she had just taken off. “Even so, it must be a large amount. Oh, I do hope the Doctor doesn’t go off setting up any more homes for aged horses or sick cats and things, and spending all the money which should take us back to Puddleby.”

“Good old Puddleby,” murmured Jip, slipping his head into his famous gold collar, which was still his everyday walking-out suit. “Won’t it be good to see the old garden again! And the market-place, and the bridge, and the river!”

“And the house,” sighed Dab-Dab. “The poor place must be falling to pieces for want of paint.”

“It seems a whole lifetime since we were there,” grunted Gub-Gub. “Bother this spirit gum! How it does stick! I wish Theodosia would find some other way to keep my wig on. Heigh-ho! I suppose the kitchen garden will be all overgrown and the rhubarb-beds smothered in weeds.”

“Myself,” said Swizzle rather sadly, “I don’t share you fellows’ rejoicing at the idea of going back. It leaves me and Toby out. When the Doctor leaves the show business I don’t suppose we’ll see him any more. You can’t expect us to be glad he’s got rich. It’ll be terrible for him to go. He made the circus game into a different life for us. Hop, my man, is a decent fellow in a way. So is old Crockett, Toby’s boss. But the world won’t seem the same for us after John Dolittle has gone.”

“Humph!” said Jip. “I hadn’t thought of that before. Well, cheer up! Maybe we can arrange something. The Doctor has got a whole bunch of dogs now, with Grab and Blackie. Perhaps if Hop and Crockett get rich over this they’ll let you fellows come with us and the Doctor to Puddleby. It would be a shame to break up the family.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

Animal Advertising

The success at the theatre in the West End affected the business of the circus also. The newspapers in their frequent references to the opera, in their almost daily reports of the notable people who were among the audience last night, spoke of a peculiar and novel kind of circus that this extraordinary man was also running outside the city. And before long, as had happened in other towns, crowds of society folk who ordinarily never went to circuses at all were flocking out to Greenheath. Many important people who had the welfare of animals at heart did a lot of private advertising for the Doctor by talking about the happy condition of his performers, and quite a number of entire schools were taken out there and given peppermints and tea and a perfectly wonderful time by the Doctor, Matthew and Theodosia, and the animal hosts and hostesses.

Early in the second week another matter came up, something which had never before arisen out of the Doctor’s other successes. This was the subject of animal advertising. The papers and the public were still very much exercised over the question of whether John Dolittle (or the Wizard of Puddleby, as some journalists called him) could or could not communicate with birds and beasts in their own language. That he could do all manner of new things, such as making bird choirs sing in unison, had been proved beyond doubt. Also, there was no question about his having a very mysterious power for getting these animals to perform their strange feats without training, happily and naturally. But whether he could really talk with them was still much debated.

Throughout all this argument and publicity the Doctor maintained the same modesty that he had always done. He refused to discuss the subject. His work with the animals, he said, was all accomplished by the animals themselves, of their own free will. And whether in that work he actually talked with them or not, people must decide themselves from the results.

Well, it began by his receiving quite a number of letters from business firms, asking if he would lend his animals for advertising. The work would be very well paid, the letters said. One manufacturer of birdcages wrote that he would pay twenty guineas a day to have Coloratura Pippinella, the famous contralto canary, demonstrate in his shop window in Jermyn Street the superior virtues of his birdcages. She would be wanted for only three hours a day – in other words, the prima donna’s time would be paid for at the rate of £7 an hour. All she would be required to do while on duty would be to hop in and out of the cages in the window, to show that even while she was free she preferred this manufacturer’s cages to entire liberty because they were so comfortable and so excellently made.

Then there was another letter, which came to the Doctor from a sausage manufacturer. This gentleman offered a similarly large salary to have Gub-Gub do his antics in another shop window. All the pig would be asked to do was to go through his skipping dance out of The Puddleby Pantomime, using a string of the firm’s well-known Cambridgeshire pork sausages as a skipping rope.

Still another letter, intended to interest the Doctor in animal advertising, contained a request for the pushmi-pullyu. This was from a large restaurant that wanted to employ the two-headed animal as a sandwich man. He would only be required, the letter said, to walk through a few of the main streets near the restaurant with signboards draped over his back reading: Whether You’re Coming or Going, Take Your Meals at Merriman’s Chophouse. Table d’Hôte Luncheon, One Shilling and Sixpence.

“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor, after he had read a few of these letters aloud to Matthew Mugg. “What do these people think we are, I’d like to know? I never heard of anything so vulgar or inconsiderate of animals.”

“Well,” said the cat’s-meat man, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “I’m not so sure, Doctor.”

“Not sure of what, Matthew?” asked John Dolittle indignantly.

“I ain’t so sure you ought to set your face against the idea flat,” said Matthew. “Listen, there’s this to be said: suppose this feller’s birdcages are better than anybody else’s; there’s no harm in Pippinella’s advertising the fact, is there? It seems to me that if, instead of snubbing these firms outright, you was to offer to do your kind of animal advertising, a lot of good could be done and a lot of money made.”

“I don’t quite follow you, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “The whole idea is very distasteful to me, and I’m sure it would be to my animals. What do you mean, my kind of advertising?”

“Any kind of advertising that would make people think and act more considerate to animals,” said the cat’s-meat man, rising from his chair in enthusiastic eloquence. “All your life you’ve been trying to make folks more thoughtful of the hanimal kingdom, ’aven’t you? Very well, then, ’ere’s your chance. Write to all these here blokes and say, not ‘Dear Sir: I think you’re a low-down hound,’ but say ‘Dear Sir: I and my animals will be interested in any kind of advertising what spreads the doctrine of the humanitarian treatment of dumb creatures.’”

“Not dumb, Matthew,” the Doctor put in. “I’ve never met a creature yet that was dumb. But I know what you mean. Excuse the interruption. Go on.”

“Then,” the cat’s-meat man continued, “if they come forward with any scheme that will advertise what you want as well as what they want, why not go into it?”

“But how about the animals themselves?” asked John Dolittle. “I don’t imagine the idea will appeal to them at all.”

“Not to old push,” said Matthew. “I reckon he’d die of hembarrassment as a sandwich man. But the others, so long as the work improved conditions for their fellow critters, why, they’d be no end pleased. Take this offer from the cage makers, for instance: Pippinella wouldn’t mind that, I’m sure. And if the cages this man makes are not the kind you approve of, tell him to make the kind you do approve of, and that then you’ll advertise them for him. See what I mean?”

“Humph!” said the Doctor when the cat’s-meat man finally ended his lecture on the virtues of honest advertisement. “I suppose there may be something in what you say, Matthew. But I fear the opportunities for popularizing the right kind of goods will not be as frequent as those for the wrong.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Matthew. “This end of the business ain’t hardly begun yet. You haven’t even gone through all the letters you got this morning. Didn’t you say there was one from the cattle committee of the agricultural show?”

“Hum – er – yes, I believe there was,” said John Dolittle, turning to a pile at his elbow. Out of this, after some rummaging, he took a long, important-looking blue envelope and read the letter it contained to Matthew.

“There you are,” said the cat’s-meat man when he had finished. “What could you have better than that? A general hinvitation to cohoperate with the Royal Hagricultural Society for the himprovement of farm animals. Asking you to send in any ideas for the show – for novel exhibits – what occur to you. I calls that a pretty big honour, myself. The Royal Hagricultural Society is no small potatoes. The biggest of its kind in the country. The Queen ’erself is one of the patrons. You see, you’re getting a big name now as an animal expert. Well, there’s your chance.”

“By Jove, Matthew!” said the Doctor, rising, “I believe you’re right. Do you remember those drinking cups for cattle that I invented once?”

“You bet I do!” said the cat’s-meat man. “The Dolittle sanitary drinking cups for cattle – they was designed to prevent the spread of hoof-and-mouth disease. But you could never get the farmers interested in ’em. The what-was-good-enough-for-father brigade wouldn’t let you put ’em on the market. Well, there’s something, you see. If you bring them cups forward under the patronage of the Society and gets ’em demonstrated at the hagricultural show, you’ll find the farmers will treat your ideas very different.”

While the Doctor was still thinking over Matthew’s words, a knock sounded on the door of the room. (This was at the big house in the West End.) And in answer to his “Come in!” Theodosia entered leading a small thick man whose face seemed vaguely familiar to John Dolittle.

“This man wants to see you, Doctor,” said Mrs. Mugg.

“My name’s Brown,” said the visitor. “Last time I saw you you had me run out of the circus because you didn’t approve of the medicines I was selling.”

“Oh – ah – yes,” said John Dolittle. “Now I remember. Well, it wasn’t my fault you were turned out. It was your own. The people wouldn’t listen to you as soon as they knew you were selling quack concoctions. What have you come back for?”

“That’s the point, Doctor,” said the other. “I don’t bear no ill feelings for what you did – though I was pretty mad about it at the time. I admit the stuff I sold wasn’t much good, but it was harmless anyway. Now I’ve come back with some good stuff. I have here” (the little man took a bottle with a printed label on it from his pocket) “a real good horse lotion, an embrocation. And I ain’t going to ask you to take my word that it’s good. I’m going to leave it with you so you can test it and try it out. And maybe if you approve of it, you’ll help me sell it. I’ve had a hard time making ends meet since you downed me on the platform that evening. Just the same, I have faith in this lotion, and I’d like to get your opinion on it.”

“Well,” said the Doctor in a kindly tone, “you have perseverance anyway. I will certainly have your embrocation analysed and if I think it contributes anything to animal medicine, I will do my best to help you make it known.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Gub-Gub’s Eating Palace

The official living-quarters of the Doctor’s animal household had by this time also been moved to the big empty house in the West End. This was done so that the cast of the Puddleby Pantomime would be nearer to the theatre. They still, however, spent part of almost every day at the circus. And very grand they felt, travelling back and forth between their city residence and Greenheath, now that John Dolittle could afford to take them in a cab.

The great big five-story house had given them a lot of fun, exploring it from cellar to attic when they first came to live there. Dab-Dab told the Doctor right away that the opera birds living in the kitchen must be put somewhere else if she was to do the housekeeping. Some pots and pans had to be bought, too, and a few pieces of furniture.

One of the features of the new house that caught Gub-Gub’s immediate attention was a lift intended for carrying the food from the kitchen in the basement to the dining-room and the other floors above. He was so fascinated by it that Dab-Dab could scarcely make him stop playing with it for a moment.

“Why, with this thing,” said he just as they were about to sit down to supper the first evening they were there, “I could invent a wonderful new game. Look, it runs up to all the floors of the house. D’you know what the new game would be?”

“Hunt-the-onion!” suggested Jip, “or some kind of indoor food sport, I’ll bet.”

“No, listen,” said Gub-Gub. “This is a great idea – one of my best. I would build a palace, an Eating Palace. It would have a great number of floors, and one of these food lifts running from the bottom of the house to the top. All the floors above would be dining-rooms, but they’d all be different. There would be the Ice-Cream Nursery, in the attic. Of course, I’d have to have a good food architect to design the house. Then would come the Pastry Parlour, on, say, the fifth floor. Below that I’d have the Soup Saloon – so the ice-creamers above couldn’t hear the soup-drinkers below. In the Soup Saloon at least a dozen different kinds of soups would be set out on the wide table all day long. On the third floor there would be the Stew Studio – Irish stew, goulashes, curries, etc. Next would come—”

“Oh, stop!” Dab-Dab interrupted. “We know the rest of your silly game: after you had put a different kind of restaurant on each floor, then you’d get into the lift and ride up and down, giving yourself a new stomach-ache at every floor you stopped. Come and sit down at the table, for pity’s sake! – you’re keeping the supper back.”

“Good ideas are thrown away on some people,” said Gub-Gub, seating himself sadly before a plate of porridge. “Just the same, that would be a house worth calling a home.”

“But where would you sleep, Gub-Gub,” asked the Doctor, “if all your floors were dining-rooms?”

“In the lift, of course,” said Gub-Gub, “so as to be ready for breakfast. But you wouldn’t have to sleep very much, because by the time you had stopped at all the floors corning down you’d be hungry again, and you’d go back and begin all over from the top.”

The pig’s delight with this new contrivance and the great possibilities it suggested for the art of eating occupied all his spare time in the new home. He was forever giving himself free rides up and down in the lift, deciding where he would have the tomato cupboard and the apple closet and a hundred other new additions to his imaginary Eating Palace. Till one day he got stuck half-way between two floors and missed lunch. Because, although Dab-Dab knew where he was and plainly heard his cries for help, she refused to go to his assistance till after the meal was over, in order to teach him a lesson.

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Animals’ Treat

These, as you can well imagine, were very thrilling times for the Doctor’s household – accustomed though it was to a busy life. Something new seemed to happen every day. And then London at the Christmas holiday season seemed so gay and bustling; just to go through the busy, crowded streets was in itself quite an event for anyone unused to big cities.

The animals, as I have already mentioned, had frequently pestered John Dolittle to take them to one of the many shows that were going on in town. This he fully intended to do, but had not yet managed it on account of work and also because, of course, most theatres would not allow animals (especially a pig and a duck) in their ordinary seats as audience. But one day, early in the third week of the opera’s run, the Doctor for the first time felt that he could afford to give himself a little rest and recreation. So, remembering that he had promised to take his family to a show, he spoke to Matthew about the possibility of getting seats. The willing Mr. Mugg, always on the lookout for anything that would get into the papers and be good advertisement for the circus or the opera, saw a great chance here – though he did not speak of it to the Doctor at the time. All he said was, “Right you are, Doc. I’ll get you seats. What show do the animals want to see?”

“Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor, “wants to go to Dick Whittington, the pantomime at the Frivolity Theatre. But the dogs want to see the vaudeville show at the Westminster Music Hall. There are several trained animal acts on the programme there. And Jip and Swizzle and Toby are professionally interested. I think we’d better take them to the music hall – that is, of course, if the management will admit them.”

The Doctor had been long accustomed to go through the streets with his strange animal family following at his heels – though, to be sure, of late since he had money he had more frequently taken them by cab for convenience. But he had his doubts about Matthew’s getting any theatre to consent to his taking them in.

However, the cat’s-meat man did not go to the ordinary booking office to buy his tickets. He put on his best suit of clothes, had a shave, and went to call on the proprietor of the Westminster Music Hall. To him he introduced himself in a very lordly manner as John Dolittle’s partner. He said that the great composer and impresario was desirous of buying a box for next Wednesday’s matinée performance. His party would consist of none other than the original cast of the far-famed Puddleby Pantomime, now playing at the Regent’s with The Canary Opera. This party would be made up of three dogs, a pig, a duck, an owl, and a white mouse. The appearance of this distinguished theatrical company in the audience would, Matthew reminded the proprietor, be excellent advertisement for the Westminster – particularly since the great John Dolittle, of whom all London was talking, would himself be present. And as the party would occupy a box to themselves the rest of the audience could not possibly object.

The proprietor of the Westminster saw at once that this would indeed be a good thing for his theatre. And not only did he consent to let Matthew have the box, but he gave it to him for the Doctor free of charge with the compliments of the management. Then the cat’s-meat man, feeling surer than ever that he was born to be a great showman, proceeded (still in his best suit and manner) to call at most of the newspaper offices in London. There he informed the editors that John Dolittle was taking his company to the Westminster next Wednesday and they must be sure to have a reporter present to write it up for the papers and to make sketches of the famous animals seeing the show.

Great was the rejoicing among the Puddleby Pantomimics when they learned that their seats had been secured and they were really going to have the theatre party for which they had been asking so long. Although he had selected Dick Whittington, Gub-Gub was just as well pleased when the Doctor explained to him that the Westminster’s was a variety show – that is, several different acts – animal acts among them. His enthusiasm was not even dampened when Theodosia insisted on washing his face for him (a performance he usually made a terrible fuss about) before he started.

The party was taken there in a cab. At the doors of the theatre, several newspaper reporters (whom Matthew had arranged for) attempted to interview the Doctor. He objected to this, saying that he was out for a day’s holiday. But Matthew persuaded him to stop and say a word to them before he went in.

The ushers, who had been warned, of course, by the manager that this extraordinary theatre party was expected, conducted them to their box with all gravity and politeness. On the way there the Doctor remembered that he had meant to bring chocolates for his family, and he was about to send Matthew out to get some, as he felt that no theatre party could be considered complete without chocolates. But on entering the box he found that the proprietor had, with rare hospitality, thought of their comfort even in this. On every chair there was an edible souvenir for each of the members of the party. There was a bunch of carrots for Gub-Gub, a piece of cheese for the white mouse, a sardine for Dab-Dab, a small meat pie for Too-Too, a box of chocolates for the Doctor and Matthew, and a lamb cutlet for each of the three dogs.

“Very thoughtful!” said the Doctor, biting into a caramel. “Very thoughtful. My! Just look at the audience! The house is quite full.”

The animals gazed down over the sea of heads below and around them with a thrill of anticipation. But very soon they noticed that they themselves were the centre of considerable attention. In all parts of the house people were whispering and pointing in their direction.

“Dear me! I’ve been recognized,” said Gub-Gub. “Do you think I ought to get up and bow, Doctor?”

“No,” said John Dolittle. “It isn’t necessary. And look, the show is just going to begin.”

The first act was a comic tramp with three dogs. This interested Jip, Toby, and Swizzle no end. They kept whispering to one another what they thought of the act and at one point in the middle of a ticklish balancing feat, they got so excited that they started barking down directions to the dogs upon the stage. This caused a still greater sensation, because the performing dogs, hearing them bark, looked up and, recognizing John Dolittle, they let their performance go to pieces and started jumping out into the audience to reach the box and greet the Doctor’s party. Order was restored after a little, however, and the dogs were caught and taken back to their owner on the stage.

Between the second and the third acts on the programme Dab-Dab said to Gub-Gub, “What are you keeping so still for, with that silly smile on your face all the time?”

“Sh!” said Gub-Gub. “One of the newspaper men is making a sketch of me. He’s down in the second row. I want to look my best.”

“He’s not sketching you,” said Jip. “He’s making a picture of the Doctor.”

At that moment a knock sounded on the door of the box and the proprietor himself appeared to pay his compliments.

“It would be nice,” he said, after chatting a moment or two, “if at the end of the next act, when the intermission comes, you and your party would go out for a walk in the promenade. There have been many requests from the audience to get a closer view of you and your company – that is, of course, if you have no objection.”

“I shall be very pleased,” said Gub-Gub in his grandest manner.

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

The Princess’s Dinner Party

When, during the intermission, they appeared in that part of the Westminster Music Hall that was called the promenade, the Doctor’s party caused quite a sensation. It was a wide space, this, behind the seats on the ground floor, where little tables were set for people to sit and take refreshments. Also, for those of the audience who were tired of sitting down, there was room to stretch the legs and walk about.

As the pig with the dogs and the duck (Too-Too and the white mouse stayed on the Doctor’s shoulder to avoid the crush) walked back and forth, they were followed by a train of children who giggled and tittered with delight; while the grown-ups fell back on either side and made a lane for them to walk in, like a street crowd at a royal wedding. Whispers ran in all directions.

“That’s John Dolittle himself in the top-hat – t’other one, the cross-eyed feller, is his assistant. They say the Doctor talks every animal language there is,” said a thick, fat man to his wife.

“I don’t believe it,” answered the woman. “But he’s got a kind face.”

“It’s true. Mother,” said a small boy (also very round and fat) who was holding the woman’s hand. “I have a friend at school who was taken to see the Puddleby Pantomime. He said it was the most wonderful show he ever saw. The pig is simply marvellous; the duck dances in a ballet skirt and that dog – the middle one, right behind the Doctor now – he takes the part of a Pierrot.”

“Yes, Willie, but all that doesn’t say the man can talk to ’em in their own language,” said the woman. “Wonderful things can be done by a good trainer.”

“But my friend saw him doing it,” said the boy. “In the middle of the show the pig’s wig began to slip off and the Doctor called to him out of the wings, something in pig language. Because as soon as he heard it the pig put up his front foot and fixed his wig tight.”

Gub-Gub, of course, put on more airs of greatness than ever here, where all the children – many of whom had seen him performing at his own theatre – pointed him out as the great comedian, the first animal actor to interpret the historic part of Pantaloon.

Before the bell rang to show that the intermission was over, a schoolgirl had come up and asked the Doctor to sign her autograph album; and numerous other people had interrupted his promenade with congratulations, interviews, and whatnot.

Among these was the man who had written him about advertising the birdcages with Pippinella. He was delighted, he said, at this opportunity of meeting the naturalist-composer in person. He had heard The Canary Opera four times already and was going again the day after tomorrow to take an aunt of his who was coming to visit him from the country. Before leaving, he asked had the Doctor decided yet whether he would allow the canary prima donna to advertise for him. John Dolittle said he would first have to consult Pippinella and would let him know in the course of a day or two.

Then another, who seemed to have been half listening to this conversation, came up and introduced himself (with a strong French accent) as M. Jules Poulain, of Paris. He was a manufacturer of perfumes, he said. He had been reading a great deal about Doctor Dolittle of late and also about his now quite famous dog Jip. The stories told in the newspapers (provided for reporters by Matthew, of course) of Jip’s marvellous skill in smells, had led M. Poulain to believe that the dog could possibly add a great deal of useful information to the art and science of perfume manufacture. Would the Doctor be willing to let the firm consult him as an expert, and himself act as interpreter for the interview?

•   •   •

Now that the Doctor’s household had become theatrical folk, many changes became necessary in the routine of their daily habits. In the old days, when they were only part of a circus, their duties were over regularly by eight o’clock every evening, and the Doctor had always insisted on their being in bed by nine. But now that their work did not end before eleven o’clock at night, early bed was out of the question and late supper had to be instituted. This was something they all greatly enjoyed, when after the show was done they returned to the big city house and Dab-Dab prepared omelettes and salad and cocoa, over which they chatted and made merry.

Another change which, besides the late extra meal, greatly appealed to Gub-Gub was the late hour for getting up in the morning. He had appropriated the dumbwaiter as his bedroom and had it lined with straw cushions. Here the great comedian snored peacefully up to ten or eleven in the morning, at which hour Dab-Dab, preparing breakfast for the company, usually threw a saucepan lid into the dumbwaiter to wake him up.

Often the hour of retiring was made still later by invitations to supper after the show was over. On one occasion they were all asked to a terribly elegant town house owned by a beautiful Russian princess who delighted in giving unusual parties of any kind. The idea of having the Puddleby Pantomimics, with the far-famed Contralto Canary, as guests appealed to her immensely. Feeling that probably the Princess wanted his company only as freaks to be laughed at, the Doctor had made up his mind to refuse the invitation. But before he had time to send an answer, it was repeated – this time by word of mouth. And, as the messenger who brought it was none other than the great Paganini himself (who had suggested the idea to the Princess in all seriousness), the Doctor was very glad to accept on behalf of his company and himself.

Pippinella and Twink were included in the invitation, and the Princess sent a private coach with two footmen to fetch them. The supper was a most gorgeous and splendid affair. All the prominent people in town were there – famous continental opera stars, great composers, writers, painters, sculptors, as well as ambassadors, dukes, earls and a large gathering of lesser nobility.

In spite of this notable assembly, the Puddleby Pantomimics were clearly the guests of honour. Everybody was astonished at the wonderful table manners of the animals and how well they conducted themselves in society. To be sure, one or two little accidents occurred, but nothing of serious importance. For instance, when they first arrived in the gorgeously furnished mansion, Jip opened the evening by chasing the Princess’s white Angora cat up the chimney-from which she was rescued and had to be taken away to be washed. Then during dinner Gub-Gub (he was seated between a marchioness and the conductor of a symphony orchestra) caused a little sensation when a footman brought around the celery. Instead of taking one stick of celery, Gub-Gub emptied the dish, thinking its entire contents were intended for him. He also somewhat astonished the guests at the dessert by putting his apples and oranges whole into his mouth, instead of peeling them or cutting them.

But otherwise the evening went off extremely well. And after the meal was over Pippinella and Twink delighted the company by singing a duet out of the third act of their opera, accompanied by the Doctor on the sewing-machine.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Jip and the
Perfume Manufacturer

As Matthew had prophesied, it turned out that the animals were not only willing to help, but quite keen about the idea when the subject of advertising was put before them.

“Why, Doctor,” cried the white mouse, “of course the cat’s-meat man is right! You could do no end of good by the proper kind of advertising. And it would be lots of fun for us. Just think of Gub-Gub waltzing with a skipping rope in a pork butchers window!”

“I will not advertise sausages for anybody,” said Gub-Gub firmly. “I don’t mind working for a skipping rope manufacturer – dancing in a toy shop or something like that. But sausages? Certainly not!”

“No, I think you’re quite right,” said John Dolittle.

“But just look at all the other things you could advertise, Doctor,” said Jip, “things specially for animals. There’s that mange cure you experimented with on me. Remember? – when you were working out a special winter-coat thickener for the Eskimo dogs who wrote to you – that was wonderful stuff. My coat grew so fast for two months afterwards it was stiflingly hot in that African climate.”

“And how about the famous Dolittle Canary Cough Mixture?” said Twink. “Every old animal shop has a song restorer of its own brand, but none as good as yours. Why not give the birds the best?”

“Then there’s your system of exercises for flat-footed ducklings,” Dab-Dab put in. “If you got every mother duck to raise her children on your system, you would do no end of good to the whole race.”

“And your hair restorer for mice,” squeaked the white mouse, “that you used on me when I got dyed blue by that stupid old rat. That was a tremendously important invention.”

“It seems to me,” said Swizzle, “that if the Doctor wrote a book on animal surgery and medicine and got it popular with some of those fool vets, a great deal of good would be done. No one realizes, except the animals that have been cured by him, what wonderful things John Dolittle has added to the science of medicine.”

Well, the discussion went on lively and late over the supper table, all the animals making suggestions to the Doctor on how he could advertise and make known to the world the marvellous inventions and discoveries that he had made in the course of his long and unusual experience with the animal kingdom.

The result of it was that before the Doctor packed his family off to bed (about two in the morning) he was made to promise that he would enter the field of advertising and let them help.

“All right,” said the Doctor, as he took down a candle from the mantelpiece and lit it, “I shall be answering some of the letters from these firms in the morning. And I will see what can be done. In any event, it would do no harm to talk it over. If these firms won’t agree to advertise in the way I want them to, we can always drop it. To begin with, I think, Jip, I’ll see that French perfume manufacturer from Paris. I fancy that your skill in smelling might really add quite a little to science when investigated by technical folk such as M. Poulain and his staff.”

The next day the Doctor with Jip went to see M. Poulain of Paris. That well-known manufacturer of perfumes had lately set up in London a branch with experts and workmen brought over from France.

He was delighted when the Doctor appeared with his dog. He had begun to fear that John Dolittle had decided not to act upon the suggestion he had made, or even to answer his letter. In spite of the visitor’s shabby appearance the Frenchman treated him with great courtesy and at once led the way into an inner office. There, after a little polite conversation, he sent for various chemists and foremen and managers.

When these arrived, about five in all, M. Poulain closed the door and addressed the meeting in French, for all in his firm were of that nationality, and he had discovered that the Doctor spoke this language with considerable ease.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I take great pleasure in introducing to you Doctor John Dolittle, the eminent scientist. He is the first person in history who has successfully got in touch with the animal kingdom. And though many people have cast doubts upon his being able to talk the language of beasts, I for one believe he can. And if he can, certainly much will be added to science by his discoveries. He has with him, as you see, a dog. Our business, gentlemen, is the business of scents, of smells. But no man can smell as well as a dog can. Besides, this particular dog is no ordinary one. The gold collar that you see him wearing was presented to him for saving a life at sea, which he accomplished solely by his sense of smell. That is correct, Doctor, is it not?”

“Yes,” the Doctor replied (also in French). “I did not know that the story had been made public. Jip does not like to boast of it. I suppose my assistant, Mr. Mugg, must have given it to the papers. But since it is known, it cannot be denied. Yes, it is true.”

“Very good,” said M. Poulain. “So I think, gentlemen, we can consider ourselves very fortunate in being able to consult this remarkable dog – through the Doctor’s interpretation – on the science of scents. And I propose that you now put any questions to him you wish.”

Thereupon a sample of perfume was brought forward for the criticism of Jip, the great expert in smells. His first opinion (which was of course translated by the Doctor from dog language into French) somewhat surprised M. Poulain and his staff.

“Why,” said Jip, sniffing at a bottle of the firm’s very choicest and most expensive perfume, “this smells of cheese!”

“Of cheese!” cried the chief chemist, springing forward and smelling the bottle himself. “There must be some mistake. No, I don’t smell cheese there – only jasmine and honeysuckle. It is a blend we are very proud of.”

“I can’t help that,” said Jip. “I smell the flowers you speak of, of course. But I also detect the aroma of cheese – Camembert, at that.”

There was great consternation among the experts seated around the board.

“This is terrible,” said M. Poulain, wringing his hands. “Just to think that our famous Reverie d’Amour should be confused with cheese! I cannot smell it myself, but if the dog can detect the odour, maybe there are others – customers – who can. M. Dalbert, who is the last workman who would have touched this bottle?”

“The man who put the label on,” said M. Dalbert, the manager.

“Then send for the chief labeller immediately,” said M. Poulain. “And if he or any of his men is in the habit of eating cheese we must change his diet at once. Never, never shall it be said that our exquisite Reverie d’Amour reminded anyone – even distantly – of Camembert!”

Then the manager, M. Dalbert, hurriedly left the council room and presently reappeared with a weedy-looking little Frenchman who seemed to be scared to death at this sudden summons before the heads of the firm. He was the foreman of the labellers.

“Do you eat cheese?” thundered M. Poulain, leveling a finger at him. “Answer me!”

With tears in his eyes the little man confessed that he was accustomed to take cheese sandwiches for lunch (Camembert cheese), which his wife put up for him in the morning to bring to the factory. But he had always been most careful not to let his lunch get mixed up with the scents. Indeed, he kept his sandwiches in another room, far removed from the bottling and labelling rooms.

“It does not matter,” said M. Poulain severely. “It has got into the perfume – or the labels – somehow. You must not bring it to my factory. If you must eat cheese, do so when you are on vacation.”

So, on the little man’s promising solemnly that he would indulge in Camembert only when he was taking his vacation by the seaside, he was dismissed from the council.

Some of the men who had been brought in to question Jip had been inclined at the outset to ridicule the whole performance. Either they did not believe that a mere dog could teach them anything about their business, or they doubted, like most of the public, that the Doctor really was able to understand and translate animal ideas. But after this remarkable detection of the guilty cheese-eating labeller they began to feel that there was something in this of scientific value. Thereupon the consultation of the great expert proceeded in all seriousness, and samples of toilet waters, sachet powders, and scented soaps were brought forward for him to test.

But it seemed as though a dog’s nose was entirely too subtle, too refined, for a human scent factory. With almost every product put before him (excepting only one or two where the chemical smell was very powerful) Jip’s opinion was most unflattering. For he kept detecting some entirely different odour that had been allowed to creep into the prescription.

“I don’t think anything of that hair oil,” he said, pushing a bottle aside. “You can smell lard in it a mile off. And as for this soap, the man who made it wore a homespun suit. I can distinctly smell the odour of homespun wool. And the fat used was very rank.”

“Try this,” said M. Poulain, pushing forward a dainty satin box of face powder. “We always thought this delicious.”

“Tobacco,” said Jip after one sniff. “It just reeks of tobacco – French cigarettes.”

M. Poulain was in despair.

“Well, tell me,” he said, after a moment, “what is your own favourite perfume?”

“Roast beef,” said Jip. “Why don’t you have a roast beef perfume?”

“Oh, la la!” cried the Frenchman, throwing up his hands. “But the ladies do not wish to smell of roast beef!”

“I don’t see why not,” said Jip. “It’s a good healthy smell.”

But finally, after Jip had thrown the whole firm into deep gloom by his uncomplimentary remarks about their wares, the Doctor himself turned the proceedings of the meeting in a more profitable direction by remarking, “It seems to me, gentlemen, that we would derive more benefit from this dog’s skill if we allowed him to deliver a lecture on scents in general or if you consulted him on where, in his own experience, the most delicate and delightful perfumes are to be found.”

“You’re right,” cried M. Poulain, springing to his feet. “Subtlety is what we want in our perfumes, delicacy, finesse, refinement. And that the dog has, heaven knows. But roast beef, his own favourite perfume! – Oh, la la!”

“That,” said the Doctor, “is only a question of taste. A dog’s taste in smells is naturally different from yours. But if I try to explain to him the kind of thing you and your public like, I think he will be able to help you.”

Upon that, after the Doctor had done a little explaining to Jip, the great expert got up at the head of the table and delivered a lecture on the general subject of smells. That morning was written down in Theodosia’s diary of the Dolittle Circus as the first time in history that a dog ever delivered a lecture (even with an interpreter) to a human audience.

It was a great success and was listened to by M. Poulain and his staff (in spite of Jip’s former unflattering remarks about their skill) with great attention.

The first part of it was devoted to what Jip called “the isolation of smells.” For over half an hour the lecturer dwelt on the great difficulty of separating a single smell absolutely by itself – so that you got it quite pure. This, he said, was what was wrong with most of the wares of the firm of Poulain & Co. It was also what was wrong with most humans as good smellers. When a person went down to the seashore, he told them, he would sniff long and loud and say, “How delicious is the smell of the sea!” and let it go at that. While all the time he wasn’t smelling the sea alone at all. He was smelling a dozen different scents which often come together and which he had grown to call “the salt smell of the sea.” The dog professor then gave many learned examples of what he called “group smells” – that is, combinations of different odours frequently met with in ordinary life. Until a person had learned to analyse these, to break them up into their different single scents, he could never hope to be a good smeller.

The latter part of his lecture was given over to describing where his audience could find certain subtle scents, which, from what the Doctor had told him, he supposed would be the kind of thing they were seeking for the perfume market. Many of these were very curious and surprised his hearers not a little. For instance, he told them that down at the bottom of old holes made by a certain kind of field-mouse they would find a bed of leaves which were always gathered in the same way and according to the same mixture. These leaves, many of which were aromatic, formed a potpourri more delicate than any he had ever smelled in the finest flower-garden. He told them also of a certain swamp bird, a relative of the heron family, that lined its nest with other birds’ feathers and with special kinds of moss. This, too, provided a wonderfully delicate, faint bouquet that, in his opinion (and in that particular department of smells), had no equal. Much more he told them – of roots that he had come across, when delving after rats and rabbits, that had wonderful fragrance when bitten or bruised.

All of Jip’s information was taken down, when the Doctor had translated it, by M. Poulain’s secretary. And that same week the Paris perfumer hired botanists and naturalists to go out in pursuit of the ingredients that the famous expert had described. The result was that a few months later several new perfumes and powders were put on the market whose delicate fragrance wafted the fame of Poulain, of Paris, to every corner of the earth where refined noses were to be found.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Ways of Advertisement

The Doctor, in his usual unbusinesslike way, had made no money arrangements with M. Poulain for Jip’s services as an expert in smells. Nevertheless the Frenchman behaved very handsomely. And a cheque for a considerable sum of money arrived by mail not long after the interview.

“Humph!” said the Doctor, taking it out of the envelope and noting the amount. “Well, this money should belong to you, Jip, by rights. I certainly did not earn it.”

“Oh, what would I do with money, Doctor?” said Jip, poking his nose out of the window to sniff for rats in the backyard. “You keep it. You’re always in need of money. And besides, don’t I owe you a whole lot for the good home you’ve given me all these years?”

“There you go, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab, in a flutter. “Always, when money comes in, you want to disclaim owning it. I never saw anyone like you.”

“But Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor, “we’re making so much by the opera now. It isn’t as though I were poor anymore. Last week I paid off every single debt the circus owed. And still my bank account shows a bigger balance than I ever had in my life.”

“No bank balance is too big for you to spend,” said Dab-Dab. “My only worry now is to get you back to Puddleby before you’re penniless again.”

“Just the same,” said the Doctor, fingering the cheque, “I feel I ought to put this money in the bank in Jip’s name. Who knows? The day may come when he will need money. Suppose anything should happen to me … I wonder if a bank would accept a savings account in a dog’s name. A very interesting point. I must look into that.”

Jip’s performance with Poulain & Co. led a few days later to another offer from a firm of dog collar makers, that had a small but smart shop in St. James Street. This was a company that specialized in all sorts of things for pets. Here society women came to buy silk sweaters for their Pomeranians, porcelain drinking bowls for lap dogs, and expensively upholstered sleeping baskets for prize Persian cats. It was a prosperous, well-to-do house. And in the letter they wrote the Doctor they said that as for the way in which the advertising was done, they would gladly leave that entirely to him and his animals.

Jip was not very enthusiastic.

“I know that kind of shop,” he said. “They sell all sorts of absurd, faddy things for overfed pugs; satin-ribbon collars; rubber pacifiers for puppies, shaped like bones; and all sorts of other rubbish. I’d sooner not have anything to do with a shop like that. Why should these pampered pets of society dames have silk sweaters around their silly, fat stomachs, when there are hundreds of good dogs – real dogs, even if they are called mongrels – slinking round the East End of London trying to pick up a square meal?”

The Doctor agreed with Jip and the matter was dropped. But Dab-Dab, who had overheard the conversation, took Jip aside later and explained to him that if money could be made for the Doctor in this way it would be a good thing.

“Because, listen, Jip,” she said, “the more money we have, the surer – and the sooner – we’ll get the Doctor back to Puddleby. And most of it will be spent on deserving animals, in the end, anyway.”

“All right,” said Jip. “I’ll see if I can’t arrange something. But I won’t advertise satin collars or cat’s cradles.”

Jip then set to work and with the help of the Doctor he got up quite an interesting show, to be given in the window of the dog collar shop. He called in as assistant actors all the other dogs attached to the Dolittle caravan: Swizzle, Toby, Grab, and Blackie. They were a well-mixed company. Swizzle was, of course, as usual, the comedy dog, making a joke of everything and everybody. Toby was the self-important, cheeky, small dog who just has to boss anything that’s going on. Grab looked the picture of a ferocious fighter (though he was really quite a good-natured animal); while Blackie, the retriever, was a good sample of the larger, more serious type of dog.

The little play that they arranged was quite simple; and a good deal of it was not planned ahead, but contrived on the spur of the moment. They just sat or stood around in the window as though it were a sort of dogs’ club. And Jip, pretending he was a pedlar of wares, brought to them collars and winter coats and dog soap and what not for sale. Toby acted with great skill the part of the fussy sort of spoiled pet who was pleased with nothing. Blackie played the more dignified role of the large dog on whom were tried all the big collars and coats and things. Swizzle, as the buffoon, pretended he didn’t know how any of the things were worn. He put the collars on inside out, the coats on upside-down, and generally tripped over, or bungled, everything.

Live animals in a shop window will always attract the attention of the passerby. But such a gathering as this, of dogs actually doing things, brought a crowd around the shop such as had never been seen before. Policemen came to see what the matter was. And of course their presence brought still more people who thought something serious was taking place. It was quite the best advertisement this shop had ever obtained.

Matthew Mugg, with his usual business cleverness, had insisted on the shopkeepers putting a sign in the window telling the public that these dogs were part of the far-famed Dolittle Animal Theatrical and Operatic Company. And of course this was very good advertisement for The Canary Opera, The Puddleby Pantomime, and the Circus on Greenheath.

Gub-Gub, who had refused to enter the field of advertisement to help sausage manufacturers, did so later with great success in a West End toy shop. Here, amidst delighted children, who romped around him all day long, the pig comedian jumped a skipping rope, played with mechanical toys, and generally amused himself as well as his audience.

Pippinella, too (after she had privately inspected the cages made by the manufacturer who had written for her services), fulfilled her contract. Hers was the very simple task of hopping in and out of cages, showing by her lively and sprightly manner that she approved of their design. But the fame of her wonderful voice had now spread so far that her mere presence in the shop more than repaid the firm who had employed her at the enormously large salary of seven pounds an hour.

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Pocket Horse

But by far the most useful venture into advertising undertaken by the Doctor or his household was with the Royal Agricultural Society. This large and important association was accustomed to hold its annual show in one of the biggest halls to be found in London. And not only did it occupy the hall itself, but its sideshows and smaller exhibits spread over into adjoining grounds and other buildings. It was a yearly event of long standing with the public. It ran for a fortnight and it was well patronized, not only by the citizens, but by great numbers of farmers and others interested in agriculture and stock-raising, who came from every corner of England to attend it.

Each day in the fortnight was devoted to some special department, though of course there was much that was on show continually throughout the two weeks. One day there would be cattle-judging, when prizes were given for the best-bred cows or the fattest sheep. Other days a parade of shire-horses – to which would be sent the finest stallions and champion ploughing teams from all over the country – would take place. Still another day would be given over to butter-churning competitions, dairy demonstrations, fancy poultry and so on.

Now as soon as Matthew Mugg had learned that the Doctor had been written to by the Royal Agricultural Society, he had, without consulting his manager, made a call upon the Exhibition Committee. The show had not yet opened, but was due to do so the following week. To this Committee Matthew had introduced himself in his usual manner, as the partner of the great John Do-little, M.D. He congratulated the committee on their wisdom and foresight in inviting the renowned naturalist to work with them for the success of the Royal Agricultural Show. Then having once broken loose on his favourite subject he went on for over an hour telling the Committee of the astonishing discoveries, inventions and scientific achievements of his partner. Much of it was even more astonishing than anything the Doctor had ever done; but it was convincing enough to greatly impress the Committee.

The result of this little advance expedition of Mr. Mugg’s was that the Doctor was called upon two days later by the Chairman and Secretary in person. This, even for the famous Doctor, was no small honour. And he took great pride (he was at Greenheath when they called upon him) in conducting his distinguished guests round his circus.

They were delighted at the wonderful condition of all the animals kept there. Fred took them through his model menagerie and showed them elephant stalls and lions’ dens such as they had never seen before.

But it was with the Doctor’s circus stables that they were most impressed. These were John Dolittle’s pride. The enamelled iron hay-mangers, the white earthenware drinking-troughs, the washable cotton tether-ropes and blankets, the ventilators which the horses could open and close themselves, the marvellous cleanliness, the atmosphere of health and good cheer, fairly took their breath away. They asked the Doctor how had he accomplished all this, where had he got these ideas from? He giggled and changed the subject. The Chairman of the Committee insisted, however.

“Come! Don’t you want to tell us?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” said the Doctor. “I’m quite willing to tell you. But you probably won’t believe me – most people don’t. You see, practically every detail and device in these stables has been invented by the horses themselves. These ideas are their own – this is their conception of a well-run stable. I have merely carried out their wishes. I – er – talk their language, you understand.”

Well, the outcome of the Chairman’s and Secretary’s visit to Greenheath was that the Committee was keener than ever for the Doctor to take part in the Agricultural Show. And he was sent a special invitation to visit the hall and grounds two days before they were thrown open to the public, to help with his advice on the livestock housing and to give the Committee the benefit of his ideas in any other departments.

On this trip Matthew, of course, accompanied him. And likewise did Dab-Dab, whose opinions he wanted on the Aylesbury Duck Exhibit. Jip also came, because he was very interested in a special demonstration of trained sheep-dogs which the Society was giving; and Gub-Gub, too, joined the party, as he wanted to see the prize potatoes.

They found the premises of the show even greater than they had expected. Some of the stands and tents had not been put up yet and many were still in the course of building. But even so, the extent of the whole affair was enormous. There was something of everything that has, or ever has had, to do with farming: ploughs, harrows, harvesting machinery, incubators, chicken-houses, travelling boxes for eggs, sheep wool-clippers, sheep-fencing, prize vegetables, tomato hothouses, chemical apparatus for testing soils, magnificent horses of all breeds, from the heavy shire-horses to little Shetland ponies. Altogether, indoors and outdoors, there were literally acres of things to be seen.

Matthew, of course, as usual, was very much on the look out for opportunities to get the Doctor to show off his knowledge. And as John Dolittle stopped on his way round to admire some Shetland ponies that were being shown, the man who was exhibiting them came up and spoke to him.

“I hear. Doctor,” said he, “that you have done some quite interesting work in pony-breeding yourself.”

“Oh, dear!” laughed the Doctor. “Has Matthew been bragging about that, too? Yes, I have done a certain amount – not very much.”

“Why!” cried Matthew. “What about that dwarf horse you produced? – Smaller than any of these Shetlands here, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” said John Dolittle. “It was certainly that.”

“Well, smallness is what we want in Shetlands now,” said the breeder. “You can get any prices for good teams if they’re well matched and small enough. We’ll be glad to learn anyhing you can teach us.”

“The occasion Matthew speaks of,” said the Doctor, “was some years ago in Burma, when I was on a voyage. I learned of a special kind of rice which, when cattle were fed on it from birth, kept their size down in a remarkable way. They had a craze there, too, for small animals at that time, and I thought I’d like to see what I could do. After some experimental work I produced a pony which I could put inside my hat. A very intelligent little creature. But I did not repeat the breed at all. I found that he was not happy when brought down to such an unnatural size. Of course, he got petted to death by all the Burmese ladies and had an excellent time that way. But one day a dog mistook him for a rabbit and ran off with my horse in his mouth and I had quite a time overtaking him. I then realized that I would have to restrict his liberty a great deal if he was to be saved from a whole lot of enemies who, were he of ordinary size, wouldn’t have dared to attack him. And that didn’t seem quite fair. I finally gave him to the King of Siam, who had a special little garden made for him, with a big wall around and a grating on top, to protect him from hawks. But I made up my mind that I would breed no more pocket horses.”

The part which the Doctor finally played in the Royal Agricultural Show turned out to be very useful. For one thing, he got the Committee to give him a special stand with half a dozen fine horses and cows to demonstrate his sanitary drinking-cups for cattle. These he had invented some years before to prevent the spreading of foot-and-mouth disease and other animal complaints. The cups were self-draining contrivances which, when the horse pushed his nose into them, turned the water on and filled themselves automatically. They also drained and rinsed themselves when not in use. The cattle were thus always provided with fresh, clean water.

The horses and cows who gave the demonstration very soon got on to the workings of the Dolittle sanitary cups, and throughout the show there was always quite a crowd gathered about their stand watching them.

Then another thing which the Doctor introduced was an animal chemist-shop. Here were displayed all the medicines and embrocations and soaps and hair restorers and other things which he had found in his long experience as an animal doctor to be good, reliable products. Among them was Brown’s horse liniment, which John Dolittle had analysed and found to be very good. Also his own canary cough mixture (which worked equally well with poultry) and his mange cure and many more.

Further, in this stand he also demonstrated every afternoon in person many discoveries he had made in animal surgery. Most of the patients who daily flocked to Greenheath were directed by Jip and Dab-Dab to come here instead. And the Doctor set bones and cured all sorts of ailments publicly in dogs and calves and horses, so that those who were interested in the science of animal surgery could get the benefit of his experience.

This animal chemist-shop and surgery was frowned on by many of the vets who came to the show and tried to discredit the Doctor as a quack. But so extraordinary were many of his cures, that finally there was no doubt in the minds of the public about the genuineness of his remarkable skill. Also the fact that he held a degree as a Doctor of Medicine made it difficult for the envious ones to arouse feeling against him. And very soon the veterinary surgeons became convinced themselves that he knew more than they, and they were only too glad to learn from him.

During the last week of the show the Doctor’s consulting-hours became a sort of class in veterinary surgery and medicine. You could hardly see his stand at all for the crowds of vets and students who watched and listened while he set the broken shoulder of a sheep; relieved a limping horse; put gold fillings in cows’ teeth and performed delicate and wondrous feats of surgery which had never been seen before.

The Committee said at the end of the show that this year the general admission at the gate had been twice as large as it had ever been before, and they put this extraordinary interest of the public down to the fact that Dr. John Dolittle had taken part in their annual exhibition.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Dolittle Circus Staff
Holds a Meeting

The run of The Canary Opera at the Regent’s Theatre broke all records in successful theatrical productions. Week after week went by and instead of the attendance falling off, the house seemed packed a little tighter – and the crowd turned away a little bigger – every night.

The One Hundredth Performance was celebrated with another dinner at Patti’s in the Strand. But on this occasion some of the faces that surrounded the table at the first celebration were absent. The reason for this was that many of the original staff of the Dolittle Circus had made enough money to retire. Hercules had gone to his peaceful cottage and rose garden by the sea; the Pinto brothers had departed; and so had Henry Crockett, the Punch-and-Judy man.

Furthermore, when the meal was over and speeches came to be made, Hop the clown arose and told the company that this was his farewell appearance in public. He too, he said, had made enough money to retire and much as he disliked the idea of parting from his excellent friend and manager, John Dolittle (cries of “Hear! hear!”), he had wanted all his life to travel abroad. And now at last he had the means to do it. His dog Swizzle, however, had chosen to remain with the Doctor, so that he did not feel he was altogether deserting the show, since his best friend, the companion of many years of circus life, would remain in the ring to keep his memory green.

At this dinner the dress of the company was noticeably different from that worn at the first. Mrs. Mugg, the Mistress of the Wardrobe and chronicler of the Dolittle Circus, fairly shimmered with jewellry. Matthew, too, when he arose and launched into a long and eloquent speech, was seen to be wearing three enormous diamonds in the bosom of his shirt and another, even larger, in a ring upon his finger. The Doctor himself wore a brand new dress suit made by a Bond Street tailor; but he said it did not feel nearly as comfortable as the one that had split up the back at the dinner given to welcome his operatic company to London.

The Doctor, in his own address, spoke of the disappearance of familiar faces from the dinner table. He said he was glad that his remaining so long in show business had given opportunities for many to realize their ambitions and to do those things they wanted most to do. Money itself he always regarded as a terrible curse, he said, as it too often prevented people from doing the things they most wished for, instead of helping them. They had now been in London three months. And the budding of spring on the park trees reminded him of his own home in Puddleby, of his garden and his plans that he had so long neglected. Before another three months had passed, he said, he hoped that he himself would be able to retire from the theatrical world, and that the other members of the company who had made The Canary Opera the success it was would be sufficiently well off to do likewise, if they wished.

The departure of Hop the clown from the Dolittle Circus was an event of importance. Both Swizzle and he wept on each other’s necks when they came to say goodbye. Swizzle was torn between two loves. He wanted to stay with Hop, but he also wanted to stay with John Dolittle and his jolly, crazy household. He could not do both. And it was only after Hop had promised, through the Doctor, that he would keep him posted by letter on how he got on, that the circus dog was consoled. Even then, all that night he kept Jip and Toby awake, having qualms and scruples about deserting his old master.

“You know,” he’d say suddenly when the others were just feeling sure and glad that he’d gone to sleep, “it isn’t as if I had to let him go alone. They say a dog’s place is by his master’s side. He was always an awfully kind, considerate sort of boss, was Hop. I feel a terrible pig deserting him after all these years.”

“Oh, forget about it and go to sleep!” said Toby irritably. “I don’t see what you’re blaming yourself for. You worked for your living. You helped his act in the ring – in fact, you were the better clown of the two. The audiences always laughed more at your antics than they did at his. Now he’s going out of show business with plenty of money – which you helped him make. If you prefer to stay with Doctor Dolittle while Hop travels around the world enjoying himself, that’s your business.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Swizzle thoughtfully. “Still, he was such a decent fellow, was Hop.”

“And so was Henry Crockett, my man,” said Toby. “But I left him, or rather he left me, in the same way. I wanted to stay with the Doctor, too. I helped him make the Punch-and-Judy show a success. I don’t feel guilty. My goodness! After all, our lives are our own, even if we are dogs.”

Well, finally Swizzle was persuaded that he need not let his conscience bother him about Hop; and Jip and Toby got a little undisturbed sleep somewhere between two in the morning and getting-up time.

The Doctor himself was wakeful, too, that night, thinking over various problems connected with the opera; and as the dogs’ quarters were situated in the passage outside his room he had heard the whole conversation.

What Toby (who, as you will remember, always insisted upon his rights) had said about their lives being their own, even if they were dogs, set John Dolittle thinking. And the next day, after he had spent more than an hour talking over money matters with Too-Too the accountant, he called a meeting of the circus staff.

For this he went out to Greenheath, taking his household with him. It was an odd gathering. The animals present outnumbered the humans by far. The Doctor himself had not fully realized up to this how the ranks of his performers had thinned. In one of the larger sideshow tents where they were all collected, Manager Dolittle rose and made an address, first in English to the people and then in animal language to the rest.

“The cooperative system,” he said, “which we have followed has proved, I think I can say, a great success. But I feel that it is only fair that now, when we have a big balance in the bank, due largely to the reception of The Canary Opera, the animals who have taken so important a part in all our shows should share in the profits. And in any case it is desirable that all our performers should be provided for when we disband. I therefore propose that the animal members of the staff share with the rest of us on the same basis and that bank accounts should be opened in their own names. I have looked into this matter and find that it is quite possible for animals to have bank accounts and cheque books – with certain banks – provided that someone is authorized to make out the cheques for them. It is to discuss this matter that I have called you together, and I now propose that this measure be put to the vote.”

Then followed a short discussion. Of course, the animals were all in favour of the Doctor’s idea, with one or two exceptions; and the only active objections came from a tent rigger and the clerk who sold the tickets at the circus box office. They said that they couldn’t see what animals wanted money for, and they opposed the idea.

However, the other three human members present – the Doctor, Matthew, and Fred – were in favour, and the motion was carried, on the human side, three votes to two.

In talking over this matter that same night at their after-the-show supper in the town house, the Doctor further explained his reasons for proposing such an idea.

“You see,” said he, pouring himself out a second cup of cocoa, “I am not only thinking of providing for the animals in their old age, when perhaps I shall be no longer here for them to come to. But I hope by this to improve the standing of animals in general. There is an old saying: Money talks, and—”

“‘Monkey talks,’ did you say?” asked Gub-Gub.

“No. Money talks,” the Doctor repeated. “It is a horrible thing, money. But it is also horrible to be the only one who hasn’t got any. One of my chief complaints against people has always been that they had no respect for animals. But many people have a great respect for money. Animals with bank accounts of their own will be in a position to insist upon respect. If anyone does anything unjust or unfair to them they will be able to hire lawyers of their own and prosecute the offenders in the usual manner.”

“But how about their making out cheques, Doctor?” asked Too-Too the accountant.

“I have already gone into that matter,” said John Dolittle, “with lawyers and several bank managers. Most of them thought I was crazy and wouldn’t listen to me at all. But two banks, the Eastminster and Chelsea, and the Middlesex Joint Stock Bank, agreed that if some person were given what is called power of attorney – and did the writing of the cheques, the depositing, and the drawing – those banks would have no objection to putting accounts in their books under the names of animals. Of course, about the lawyer part of it, if any prosecution should be necessary, it remains to be seen what the courts will do. It would be something entirely new – and very interesting. I rather hope we do have a lawsuit come along soon so that we can see how it turns out. But in any event it will improve the standing of animals in the community, this having bank accounts of their own and lawyers of their own.”

Shortly after this, arrangements were made for the animals’ sharing in the profits of the Dolittle cooperative circus, and bank accounts were actually opened in the names of the animal members of the staff.

Gub-Gub, when he was handed a cheque book of his own, was highly delighted. He used to bother Too-Too four and five times a day to know how much money he had in the Eastminster & Chelsea. And he boasted to every pig he met that they had better be careful how they talked to him or he would write a letter to his lawyer and have him hauled into court.

Jip had an account opened at the Middlesex Joint Stock – and a very substantial balance he had when the Doctor had placed the money from M. Poulain, the perfumer, to the dog’s credit.

Dab-Dab said she had no preference where she banked. At first she hadn’t approved of the idea at all. But on consideration she decided it was an excellent thing because she could thus keep part of the money safe from the Doctor’s spending – to be used later, if need be, to get him back to Puddleby and a peaceful life.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Ways of Spending Money

It was the Doctor’s intention, once he had banked the money in the animals’ names, to allow them to do what they liked with it, to give them complete control. To tell the truth, he was vastly interested to see what they would do with it. It was a new experiment.

It is most likely if the animals had been left to work out, each one by himself, how they should spend their new riches that there would have been a good deal of squandering. But although the Doctor did not influence them at all in the matter, they did influence one another quite a good deal.

On the evening of the day when they first came into their fortunes, the Doctor was kept late at the theatre talking with the managers; and the animal household sat down to supper in the kitchen of the town house without him.

“What are you going to do with your money, Jip?” asked the white mouse.

“I’m not quite sure yet,” said Jip. “I’ve often had a notion that I’d like to set up a dogs’ soup kitchen in the East End – a sort of free hotel for dogs. You’ve no idea what a lot of them are starving around the streets. A place where the waifs and strays could come and get a bone or a square meal and perhaps a bed for the night – and no questions asked – would be a good thing. I spoke of it once to the Doctor. And he said he would see what could be done about it.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” snapped Dab-Dab. “No more homes for broken-down horses or stray dogs, thank you! I know what that means. You remember the Retired Cab Horses’ Association? That’s the very thing we want to keep the Doctor away from. I’m going to leave my money where it is, in the bank. John Dolittle may be rich now: if what Too-Too says is true, he’s as rich as the Lord Mayor of London – but nobody can get through money the way he can once he gets started. The day will come when he’s poor again, never fear. Then, if we’ve still got the money that he put in the bank for us, we’ll be able to help him. He can say all he likes about our having earned it. But you know very well if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have a penny.”

“With my money,” said Gub-Gub, blowing out his chest, “I’m going to set myself up in a business as a greengrocer.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, listen to that!” groaned Dab-Dab, rolling her eyes.

“Well, why not?” said Gub-Gub. “I’m rich enough now to buy all the cabbages in England. I’m one of the wealthiest animals in London.”

“You’re the stupidest pig in the world,” snorted the housekeeper. “And you’d probably eat all your vegetables instead of selling them. If you must go into the greengrocery business, for pity’s sake wait till we’ve got the family back to Puddleby.”

And so, in spite of the fact that they were the first animals to obtain the independence that comes with money, in the end, after they had talked things over among themselves, they did not show any disposition toward reckless or foolish spending. What new comforts they did provide for themselves were all of a reasonable kind. And the Doctor felt that this was a great triumph for his theory that animals, if treated properly, could behave quite as sensibly as people could.

But, of course, it would be unnatural to expect that the animals would not wish to buy something with their new wealth. And each in his own way (after he had questioned Too-Too about his balance) did a little shopping – just to celebrate, as Gub-Gub put it.

The white mouse’s first purchase was a selection of foreign cheeses. He went with the Doctor to a very expensive West End grocery and bought a quarter of a pound of every kind of cheese that had ever been invented. The Doctor had never heard the names of half of them; and even to Gub-Gub, the great expert in foods, several were quite unknown. However, the pig made a note of their names and a description of their taste to be put in his new book, The Encyclopedia of Food (ten volumes), which he said he was now writing.

Gub-Gub’s own investment was a selection of hothouse vegetables and fruits. He bought some of everything that was out of season, from artichokes to grapes. A lady customer who happened to be in the shop was very shocked at the idea of these delicacies being bought for a pig (Gub-Gub sampled most of them right away). And being a busybody, she remonstrated with the Doctor for giving such dainties to him.

“Tell her I’ve bought them with my own money,” said Gub-Gub, sauntering out onto the street with his nose in the air and his mouth full of asparagus.

Another of Gub-Gub’s new luxuries was having his trotters shined every day. An arrangement was made with a shoeblack, a small boy who lived not very far from the Doctor’s town house. And every morning Gub-Gub stood very elegantly on the steps while his hoofs were polished till he could see his face in them. Dab-Dab was furious at this. She called it a vain, nonsensical waste of money. But the Doctor said it was not a very extravagant matter (it cost only a penny a day); and, after all, what was the use of Gub-Gub’s having money of his own if he wasn’t allowed to spend at least a little of it on frivolities?

“But why should he?” said Dab-Dab, her feathers bristling with indignation. “It doesn’t do him any good to have his silly feet polished, and it certainly doesn’t do us any good.”

“What an idea!” said Gub-Gub. “Why, I’m the best-dressed pig in town.”

“Best dressed!” snorted Dab-Dab, “when you don’t wear any clothes.”

“Well, I’m the best groomed, anyhow,” said Gub-Gub. “And it’s right that I should be. I have my reputation to keep up. Everywhere I go children point at me and say, ‘Look, there’s Gub-Gub, the famous comedian!’ “

“The famous nincompoop, more likely,” muttered Dab-Dab, turning back to her cooking. “I suppose I can work myself to death over the kitchen sink, while that overfed booby goes mincing around the streets, cutting a dash.”

“Well, but Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor, “you don’t have to do the housekeeping, you know – not now anymore – if you would sooner not. We can afford to engage a woman housekeeper or a butler.”

“No,” said Dab-Dab, “I’m not complaining about that. Nobody else could take care of you the way I can. This is my job. I wouldn’t want to let anyone else take it over. The thing I object to is that stupid pig standing on the front steps every morning so the people passing on the street will see him having his hooves shined. He doesn’t really enjoy being clean. He just thinks it’s smart.”

But some of the animals’ first use of money was not that of buying in shops. Dab-Dab finally decided that she would hire a scullery maid to help her with the washing up. The housekeeper insisted that the new servant’s wages should be paid for out of her bank account and not the Doctor’s.

“After all, she is my assistant, and I ought to pay her,” said she. “The Doctor’s money will be needed for enough things without scullery maids’ wages. Of course, she’ll have to sleep out; I haven’t room for her in the house unless I put her in with the pelicans. And they might object to that – a scullery maid – as soon as animals go on the stage, they start putting on airs. Well, as the Doctor says, we shall see.”

The scullery maid was engaged, and after she had been instructed in her duties by Housekeeper Dab-Dab (the Doctor acting as interpreter, of course) she fitted into the strange household extremely well. The effect on her of becoming a part of this theatrical family was that she became crazy to go on the stage herself. She wanted to sing in opera. Dab-Dab said she did all right for singing over the kitchen sink, but for opera she was hopeless. Nevertheless, she pestered the Doctor whenever she saw him to get her on to the operatic stage; until finally he arranged never to get home until after she had left, and in the mornings he would get Dab-Dab to inform him whereabouts in the house she was, so that he could escape from his room (where he took his breakfast in bed) and out into the street without meeting her in the hall or on the stairs.

Swizzle’s first use of his bank account was rather peculiar and opened up still another new possibility for moneyed animals. He discovered, while in the city (through some of the sick dogs who visited the Doctor’s surgery on Greenheath), that he had a sister living in a suburb on the south bank of the Thames. Swizzle went to visit her when he learned of her whereabouts and took the Doctor along for a walk. He found that his sister had been married (it was seven years since he had seen her last) and now had a family of five very jolly little puppies. Two of them, however, were somewhat ailing, and Swizzle’s sister (her name was Maggie) was very glad that the Doctor had accompanied her brother on the visit because she could now get the benefit of his professional advice.

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “there’s nothing seriously wrong with any of your children, Maggie. What they need is fresh air, all of them. London air isn’t much to boast of, at best. But, you see, this shed here where you have your kennel is very close and airless. You must get the puppies out more.”

“But how can I, Doctor?” said Maggie. “They’re scarcely able to walk yet. And even if they were, I’d never dare to take them on the streets till they have more sense – for fear they’d get run over.”

“Humph!” said John Dolittle thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s so.”

“I tell you what, Doctor,” said Swizzle suddenly. “Let’s hire a nursemaid for my sister’s family. Now I’ve got money of my own I can pay for one.”

And that was what was finally done. A day or so later, the citizens of London were provided with still another Dolittle surprise. A smart nursemaid was seen walking through the streets pushing a perambulator with five puppies in it, each wearing a warm knitted coat of white wool. Sometimes they were accompanied by their proud uncle, Swizzle, the clown dog from the Dolittle Circus.

The nursemaid was discharged, however, after her second week of employment and another engaged in her place. The puppies had complained that she would clean their ears in public, and they demanded a nursemaid who would be more considerate of their dignity.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Opening of
the Animals’ Bank

One more thing that came about through the idea of the Doctor’s that animals should have money of their own was “The Animals’ Bank.” This institution did not enjoy a very long life, but it deserves to be recorded in the memoirs of Doctor Dolittle as something well worthy of notice – as a remarkable event in the social history of animal life.

Jip it was, who, always interested in the welfare of his fellow-dogs of less-fortunate circumstances than his own, first got the Doctor thinking over the plan. He had been speaking of his own experience (a story which you have already heard) when he first tried his hand at making money for the lame pavement-artist.

“You know, Doctor,” said he, “if I could earn money with that second-hand bone shop of mine, I don’t see why other dogs couldn’t do the same thing. But one of the reasons they never try it is that they’d have no means of keeping their money even if they made any. That’s why I say, why not set up a regular Animals’ Bank? Once it became established that animals had a right to hold property the same as people – well, there’s no knowing how far the idea might go. You could have animals in all sorts of professions, earning salaries in jobs, making profits in private businesses and everything. But the first thing you need is an Animals’ Bank.”

“I see your point, Jip,” said the Doctor. “I’ve always felt that horses, for example, have a perfect right to charge for their services in pulling carts – so much a load, you know. And there is no reason why watch-dogs should not receive the same pay as watch-men. They do the same work, and usually do it better. Well, what would you suggest that it be called, the ‘Working Beasts’ Savings Bank,’ the ‘Cat and Dog Trust Company,’ eh?”

“No, I wouldn’t have it the Cat- and- Dog anything,” said Jip. “That sounds like a fight to start with. Besides, cats wouldn’t go into it. They have no use for money. They’d never earn any. Cats are not public-spirited. They are naturally lazy. All they want is a soft place in the sun or a fire to sleep by. Now, I’d just make it a general Animals’ Bank – a place where any kind of creature, who wanted to, could bring his money – or goods to be turned into money – and know that it would be looked after and that he wouldn’t be cheated.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” said the Doctor. “Well, we must see what can be done. It will be difficult, probably, to get a banking staff who will be willing to take over the duties of such an institution. Bank-clerks are very particular, you know. The idea of cashing cheques for horses and dogs may not appeal to them as in keeping with their dignity. And then it will likely be quite a job to get the financiers interested You see, the animals’ savings will have to be invested for them by the bank – otherwise they will get no interest and the bank won’t pay. However, we shall see. I’ll begin by going to that wealthy naturalist who lent me the pelicans and flamingos from his private park. He has banking interests all over the city. He ought to be interested in the idea.”

In what spare time he could give to it, John Dolittle now set about the establishment of the Animals’ Bank. He found the wealthy naturalist anxious to do anything he could to help.

“The advertisement alone, Doctor Dolittle,” said he, after the scheme had been explained to him, “will be well worth while for the furtherance of humanitarian treatment of animals. The idea sounds like a pretty wild one. But even if it proves impossible to keep up, it will be a good thing to have got it started. It will possibly lead to other efforts from other quarters which may be more successful.”

Thereupon he got in touch with some of his banking associates and persuaded them to give the plan a trial. A building in a good part of the city was taken and strong safes were set into the walls.

“THE ANIMALS’ BANK, Limited,” was placed above the doors on a large signboard and in white enamel letters on the windows. Clerks and cashiers were engaged, and desks and counters and money-drawers were built for them. Ledgers and big account-books were printed and bound with the name of the bank in gold on the backs – also cheque books were got ready in large numbers, especially made of strong rag paper so they would be able to stand the wear and tear of animals’ use.

In addition to this, booklets, called prospectuses, were printed and sent out by post in hundreds to tell the public that the bank had been organized, what it was for, and all about it. Notices were also printed in the newspapers that the bank would be opened to customers on a certain day.

This caused quite a little attention, criticism and comment. Jokes were made about the institution in all the funny papers, and editorials were written in a frivolous spirit in many of the biggest London dailies. But the staff of the Animals’ Bank, backed by the wealthy naturalist, took no notice of this ridicule and kept right on with their preparations.

One of the results of the newspaper discussion was that the public became very curious to see how this extraordinary institution would succeed and how the difficulties of banking for animals would be overcome. To make sure that the affair should not be a failure, the Doctor had made careful plans. All his own animals had been given their share of the circus and opera profits the night before. And in spite of some of them already having bank accounts in other, older, banks in London, they lined up before the doors were open, with their money for deposit, to show that the Animals’ Bank was an institution in which they trusted.

In addition to his own animals the Doctor had provided all the blackbirds with money to deposit and all the other birds of the opera cast, as well as a tremendous number of animals from London and the suburbs. Further, he had sent out word to all wild creatures in the country round about (by Too-Too and the white mouse) that the bank would start business at a certain hour, and any wishing to make deposits in goods or money should try to be there at the first opening so as to make as good an impression on the public as possible.

Well, so far as the opening of the bank was concerned, the event surpassed even the Doctor’s and Jip’s wildest hopes. Long before the hour announced for the commencement of business the street in which the bank was situated was thronged with people anxious to see the strange ceremony. Moreover, the name of the mysterious John Dolittle, who had figured so prominently in the papers of late, added a considerable attraction to the occasion.

One old woman in the crowd who had evidently come in from the country was heard to declare that she did not care anything about the bank. But she had taken the coach at five o’clock in the morning in order to get a glimpse of that “Wizard of Puddleby” who, the papers said, was at the bottom of this.

Besides the crowd of sightseers marshalled along the pavements by police-constables, there was a long line of animal depositors waiting for admission to the bank. The Doctor’s own animals formed only a small part of these. There were horses, cows, dogs, sheep, hedgehogs, badgers, weasels, otters, hens, geese and many other kinds.

The Doctor remarked to Matthew and the wealthy naturalist that already their plan was working – even before the bank opened – because none of the animals were being molested by the people. Ordinarily, he said, the boys and idlers on the street would have teased or tried to catch some of these wild creatures who were strangers to city eyes. But the fact that they were here to deposit money in the bank like ordinary citizens already made the people treat them with respect. And although the crowd cracked many a joke as some timid hare or cheeky jackdaw came to join the waiting line, nobody attempted to annoy them or interfere with their business rights.

Finally, as a neighbouring church bell struck the hour of nine, a little wave of excitement passed through the crowd. The big doors of the bank were seen to be swinging open. The throng surged forward to get a glimpse through the windows of what would happen within. Policemen had to form a line to keep them back. Reporters from the newspapers clamoured for permission to get nearer so that they could make pictures of the first animal going into the Animals’ Bank.

It was one of the rules of the bank that every animal wishing to deposit money must be accompanied by a person having power of attorney. And as each depositor came up to the door the Doctor or Matthew went in with him and gave his name at the cashier’s desk.

There were several thrills during the course of the morning’s work which made the crowd feel that the show had been worth waiting for. One was when a badger came forward with over a hundred ancient gold coins (old buried treasure) which he had dug up while making his hole in the side of a hill. The gold was weighed and its value deposited to the badger’s credit. Another stir was caused when a closed van drove up to the door through the dense crowds and a live African lion got out, accompanied by Fred (it was the Dolittle Circus lion). With great dignity the King of Beasts strode into the Animals’ Bank, deposited ten pounds and received a special gilt-edged cheque book from the bank manager himself-who also made a short speech. It was the star performance of the day’s business, and was reported (with pictures) in all the evening papers throughout the city.

• • • • •

•   8   •

News of Puddleby

But of course for the upkeep of a regular bank a tremendous lot of constant business is a necessary thing. And although the number of depositors appearing on the opening day was very considerable, the amount of money they put in did not, even when it was all added together, make a big sum.

Further, many of the animal customers were so delighted at having cheque books of their own that they immediately began writing out cheques to see how it worked; and with those whose balance was only a small amount to begin with, this soon brought them back to where they were before.

And then after the excitement of the opening day was over the number of daily customers doing business at the bank fell off noticeably. It was a difficult thing for out-of-town depositors to get into the city. The general manager of the Animals’ Bank, Limited, told the Doctor at the end of the first week that if the institution were to pay the ordinary interest on the customers’ money, a much larger amount of business would be necessary.

However, the wealthy naturalist was determined to keep the institution open for the animals and the Doctor a fortnight at least. And he promised to make good any loss that the bank might suffer and to see that the clerks and staff were paid their salaries – even if the bank made no profits at all.

Dab-Dab was very anxious over the Doctor’s part in the business. She repeatedly told Jip and Too-Too that she wouldn’t feel safe and happy until she got him back to Puddleby.

“Of course even then,” she said, “I can’t make him sensible in money matters. But he will have less temptation for spending. Here in London, with so much going on, you can’t tell from day to day what he may do next. It was only by the greatest stroke of luck that I heard he was going to the rescue of the Animals’ Bank with his entire fortune when he heard they were near to failing. He said he would be the one human depositor there, and he did not want his naturalist friend to lose any more money when he had already been so helpful. It took me over an hour to dissuade him from the crazy notion.”

But while the comic papers had a good deal of fun over the closing of the Animals’ Bank, neither the animals themselves nor anyone who had helped with the starting of it felt that it had been by any means a failure. Matthew Mugg, who was always on the lookout for chances for advertisement, kept the last week of the bank’s career full of interesting incidents. Many societies whose purpose was the prevention of cruelty to animals and similar aims were invited to inspect the bank and meet the Doctor. These occasions were all reported in the newspapers and served to keep the name of the Canary Opera and Dolittle Circus before the public.

Matthew also announced at the Doctor’s orders that the circus and opera would probably go out of business before very long. This, the cat’s-meat man did in such a way that the public, feeling this was their last chance to see these wonderful shows, thronged to the Regent’s Theatre and the Greenheath circus grounds in larger numbers than ever.

It was shortly after the events just described that Gub-Gub started another new thing and nearly drove Dab-Dab crazy. One evening after supper the now wealthy pig-comedian suddenly said, “Doctor, I have an idea.”

“One of your best?” asked Jip, who was warming himself by the fire.

“Yes. One of my very best,” said Gub-Gub, carefully choosing an apple to take away from the table for eating in bed. “Listen, we have had The Canary Opera, which was a more or less serious affair – very successful – but now about to be closed. Why not let us have a Food Opera – a comic opera?”

A chorus of laughs came from the household. But Dab-Dab seemed in no mood for nonsense. She approached the great comedian and pushed her bill close up to his nose.

“If you dare,” said she, “to start any new foolishness to keep the Doctor away from Puddleby any longer, you won’t get a thing more to eat while I’m in charge of the housekeeping.”

“Well, but wait a minute,” said the Doctor, laughing. “There’s no harm in hearing what Gub-Gub has to suggest, even if we don’t produce his Food Opera. What kind of a show did you mean it to be, Gub-Gub?”

“Quite light,” said the pig. “In fact comic throughout, with the exception of one poetic little scene where food fairies dance around the spring lettuces in the moonlight.”

“But I don’t see how you could write an opera entirely around food,” said the Doctor. “Describe some of it for us.”

“Well,” said Gub-Gub, “for instance, there was one number called the ‘Knife and Fork Quartet.’ You know what a lot of noise some people make with their knives and forks at table – and then they always lay them together on the plate, to show that the concert is over. Well, I thought if one had four people and trained them to eat in time, all together – it’s a pleasant noise after all, the noise of a knife and fork – you could work out a very interesting quartet.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “And what else?”

“Then there was a soup chorus that I had in mind,” Gub-Gub went on. “I’ve noticed everybody drinks soup in a different key – some very musically. The treble parts could be drunk by small dogs like Toby here. And the bass parts by—”

“Pigs,” put in Jip.

“How unspeakably vulgar!” muttered Dab-Dab. “For heaven’s sake, Doctor, send that pig to bed before I forget I’m a lady!”

“Any dances in your show, Gubby?” asked Swizzle – “Nothing but guzzling?”

“Certainly there are dances,” said Gub-Gub. “There is a napkin ballet in the first act, and a very grand ‘Waiters’ March’ in the second – besides the ‘Caper Sauce Caper’ at the finale. Oh, there are lots of good turns in the Food Opera. One of the arias is called ‘Songs My Kettle Used to Sing.’ Another is entitled ‘Poor Little Broken Pie Crust’ – very light – sung by a comic character called Popper Popover. Then there’s a love ballad which begins ‘Meet Me in the Moonlight by the Garbage Heap.’”

“Your opera sounds very indigestible to me,” said Jip.

“Well,” Gub-Gub explained, “it isn’t meant to be grand opera. It’s light opera – not a heavy meal. Mine would be the kind of show they call in French opéra bouffe.”

“Opera beef, I should call it,” growled Jip.

“You know, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor, “there’s something in it. Gub-Gub has ideas.”

“I always thought I could write,” muttered the pig beneath his breath.

“And, you see,” the Doctor went on, “now that Gub-Gub has a name, the fact that the opera was written by him would have a good deal of weight with the public.”

“Lord deliver us!” cried Dab-Dab. “Haven’t we had enough of the stage for a while? Haven’t we had enough success – made enough money? The London playgoer isn’t going to come to crazy animal shows forever. To me, this looks like a fine thing for you to lose all your money on, Doctor. Why can’t you let well enough alone? You want to go back to Puddleby – we all want to go back. Very well, then, let’s go while we’ve still got money enough. This pig’s vanity is running away with him. And you’re letting it run away with you, too.”

“We could have a splendid orchestra,” Gub-Gub went on thoughtfully, “with all the kitchen utensils – dish covers and tinkling wineglasses.”

Happily for poor Dab-Dab, who was almost in tears at the prospect of the Doctor’s launching into a new theatrical enterprise on the eve of his leaving show business altogether, Cheapside, the London sparrow, suddenly turned up while the discussion was still going on.

That excellent chorus master had a week before taken a run down to Puddleby with his wife Becky. The pelicans and flamingos had, of course, become perfect in their parts after more than a hundred performances, and Cheapside had decided that a few days’ change in the country would do both him and his wife good. Now, as soon as the two sparrows appeared, the entire party, including the Doctor himself, forgot all about the Food Opera and clamoured for news.

“Well,” said Cheapside in answer to the general chorus of questions, “the country looks lovely – just lovely – though, of course, there ain’t no flowers to be seen yet, ’cept a few sprigs of hawthorn here and there. But the trees is budding green all over, and spring is started, all right. The garden? Well, the less said about that the better. There was a half-dozen crocuses pushing themselves up through the lawn, but it’s ’ard work for the pore things. Break anybody’s ’eart it would, to push ’is ’ead up through that lawn and see the mess. Hay – old dead hay from last year, a foot thick, is all that’s left of your lawn, John Dolittle. If you don’t go back soon and put that garden straight, you won’t be able to find the house for weeds.”

Dab-Dab, saddened though she was at Cheapside’s description of the beloved home, drew a good deal of satisfaction from noticing that the Doctor, too, seemed deeply impressed by Cheapside’s words.

“How about the apple trees, Cheapside?” asked John Dolittle presently, after a moment’s silence.

“Pretty far gone, Doc,” said the sparrow. “A good gardener might be able to save ’em, if he got after ’em right away. They ain’t been pruned in so long they look more like old men with beards on than apple trees. But the blackbirds and thrushes are building in ’em just the same.”

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “And the old lame horse, he’s all right of course?”

“Yes,” said Cheapside. “He’s all right, in a way, but he gave me a message for you. Told me to be very particular how I gave it, too, because he didn’t want you to be offended. It seems he’s lonely. Gets all the food he wants, of course – goes out on the back lawn whenever he wants grass, and since you wrote to the hay and feed merchant in Puddleby he’s had oats and all sorts of grain, as much as he could eat. ‘But,’ ’e says to me, ’e says, ‘tell the Doctor I ain’t complaining, but I’ve heard about this Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association what he started on a farm of their own up Kettleby way. An old friend of mine, a fire horse, what used to pull the fire engine in Great Culmington, has joined. And, well, I ain’t complaining, but it’s awful lonely here all by myself with nobody to talk to. And if the Doctor’s going to be away much longer I’d like to be sent up to the Association’s farm. I’m getting kind of tired of talkin’ to meself.’ “

“Well, now,” said Dab-Dab, bustling forward as Cheapside ended, “there you are, Doctor! We’re going to lose one of our oldest friends if you don’t get back – besides having the finest garden in the west country go to ruin and the house fall to pieces. I tell you, if you don’t go back soon you never will be able to make that place into what it was. It will just get beyond repair.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said the Doctor. “And goodness knows, I’m dying to see the dear old place again. Well, Gub-Gub’s opera will have to wait. Maybe even when we’ve gone out of show business we may try it out some time in Puddleby, a private performance, perhaps to celebrate the author’s birthday. Now, listen, Cheapside, I wish you’d fly down to Puddleby again tomorrow and tell the old lame horse that I’m coming back just the earliest moment I can. We have some clearing-up matters to attend to here before we can leave. I must see that the menagerie animals are properly provided for, of course. But just as soon as ever we can get away, we’re all coming back to Puddleby.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Legend
of the Jobberjee Ghosts

Closing up a circus is no small matter. There are a terrible lot of things to be thought of and provided for. Poor Dab-Dab grew more and more anxious, as the preparations proceeded, lest at the last minute something should crop up to alter or put off the Doctor’s intention of retiring from show business.

But it did really look as though this time John Dolittle himself were determined that nothing should interfere.

Still, it was more than anyone could hope for, of course, that the Doctor could get through such an enormous undertaking without extravagance (as Dab-Dab called it) of some kind. And the most costly item on the list of his expenditures was caused by the wild animals of the menagerie. Of these now remaining there were only three, the elephant, the leopard, and the lion – all Africans. You should have heard the rejoicing in the menagerie when the Doctor announced to them that he intended sending them back to freedom and their native land! The leopard sprang around his cage yelping for joy; the lion roared so that folks on Greenheath thought that the end of the world was at hand; and the elephant, trumpeting at the top of his voice, executed his stage dance with such abandoned enthusiasm that he nearly wrecked his stable.

But it was not merely the sending of the animals back to Africa that was so expensive – though, to be sure, even that would have cost a lot of money. But John Dolittle was determined that these performers, in return for their faithful services in his circus, should travel in luxury. He very strongly disapproved of the usual manner in which animals were made to travel – he said there wasn’t one of them that was given decent quarters, from chickens to elephants. And his animals were going to have a ship of their own!

Poor Dab-Dab! She did not know exactly how much a ship big enough to carry an elephant, a lion, and a leopard would cost, but she knew it would be expensive. She threw up her wings in horror.

“Why on earth can’t they go by the ordinary liners that ply between London and Africa?” she squawked.

“Because, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor, “no ordinary ship can possibly give room enough to animals of that size if they carry other freight or passengers. And, besides, these ordinary packet boats and liners only go to the big ports, where my animals would probably be captured or shot as soon as they were landed. I want them, after their years of service, to be accommodated properly on the voyage and set ashore exactly where they want to land.”

And so in spite of all protest from his housekeeper the Doctor advertised in the London papers for a ship. He received dozens of answers by mail. But in choosing the craft, the captain, and crew he was very particular. Many of those who answered the advertisement refused, when they found out what freight they were to carry and what were the conditions under which they were to sail, to take on the job at all. The Doctor insisted that the animals were to be given the run of the ship and that they would be confined below decks only when the weather was stormy. Their comfort in everything was to be the chief consideration throughout.

But a few captains when they learned that Fred, the menagerie keeper, was going to accompany the animals (the Doctor was sending him to make sure that his friends were properly treated) were willing to consider the proposition. Then came the task of finding out whether the animals themselves approved of the ship and the crew.

This John Dolittle did by first visiting several of the craft himself, and after he had picked out two or three of the best of them, he made arrangements to have the elephant, the lion, and the leopard go down to the docks in their circus travelling wagons to look over their quarters and make the acquaintance of the captain and the sailors who were to take them.

The second ship that the animals looked over they declared themselves very pleased with. It was the one that the Doctor himself thought the best, too. The captain was a good-hearted old salt, and after he had been introduced to the animals and been shown that they had no intention of molesting anyone on board, he said that he would personally see to it that they were treated like first-class passengers and given the best of everything.

The Doctor arranged with Fred and the animals a system of signals whereby they could make their wants known to him and he would convey them to the captain and the crew.

It was a good thing that the Doctor had made so much money with the opera and circus. Because although he had expected that this chartering of a special vessel would be a very expensive matter, the actual sum required turned out to be a good deal more even than he had anticipated. For one thing, for carrying such large animals as elephants and lions almost the whole ship had to be refitted and altered. Carpenters were busy on her for weeks before she sailed.

A most luxurious stall was made for the elephant amidships, with specially strong padded sides, in order that he would not be banged about if the weather got rough. In the forecastle an enormous shower bath was put in for him, so he could keep cool in the hottest weather. The quarters for the lion and the leopard were similarly provided with the most up-to-date kind of travelling luxuries.

Then the provisioning for such a long voyage was another considerable matter, especially as the Doctor wanted the animals to have every delicacy they wished for on this last journey they would make in human care.

However, the Dolittle bank account was now, for a while anyhow, big enough to stand even this with ease. And although Dab-Dab kept pestering Too-Too the accountant for statements, the Doctor and he were able to show her that there would still be lots of money left.

The voyage, as Fred described it to the Doctor on his return, was quite pleasant and successful. Good weather favoured the travellers nearly all the way, with the exception of a few rough days crossing the Bay of Biscay, when the elephant kept to his bunk in his luxurious cabin and the lion lolled on a specially constructed couch in the saloon, sipping chicken broth. For the rest of the voyage the animals were able to stay on deck all day long. Their appetites from the sea air grew enormous, and the provisions were only just enough to last them comfortably, although a very large stock had been laid in.

As to their exact destination, even the animals themselves were unable to instruct the Doctor very definitely, although he had done his best to get from their descriptions of their homes some idea of what point on the African coast the captain should make for. Because, of course, their knowledge of geography, outside of their own particular country, was very small. So the best that could be done was to make landings at various parts of the coast of Africa and let the animals go ashore to see if they recognized it as their own home district. The Doctor knew that the leopard probably had been captured somewhere in West Africa, and he told the captain to stop in at Sierra Leone first and see if that was not his home. And sure enough, the leopard at the first port of call sped off into the jungle with a yowl of delight and was not heard from again.

The finding of the homes of the elephant and the lion was not, however, so easy. The lion had described his home as a mountainous part of Africa, where the woods were broken up with open stretches of park land and many nice small streams of good water. The elephant said that the thing he best remembered about his particular section was that the grass grew very high (up to his shoulders and higher), and that generally it was flat or gently rolling. From this the Doctor concluded that both of them came from somewhere between the Zambesi and the Djuba rivers. But, as this was a very long stretch of coast, many landings had to be made before the animals were sure that they had reached the country of their birth.

Putting an elephant ashore when you have no proper wharf to moor your ship to is quite an undertaking. So a good deal of time was spent in making the various stops.

On his return Fred told the Doctor that during several of these halts, when they were engaged in hoisting the elephant’s huge bulk over the side with a sling and a derrick, government officials and coastguardsmen came up and wanted to know what they were doing. When it was explained that a wealthy circus owner had sent a special ship down to put his performing animals back on their native soil, the government officials said he must be very rich and very crazy and went on.

At each of these landings, of course, Fred went ashore with the animals to see if they had come to the right place. And finally, about a hundred miles south of the mouth of the Zambesi River, both the lion and the elephant sniffed the wind as soon as they landed and generally behaved in such a way that Fred decided they had come to the right place at last. But, he told the Doctor, he was somewhat surprised at this because, from their description, it would appear that the two had come from different parts of Africa. After climbing a small hill, where they could get a good view of the surrounding country, they seemed to be quite certain that this was the land they were seeking. They evidently wanted to show Fred before they left him that they were grateful for his kind treatment of them, and he gathered that they were also trying to give him some farewell message to carry to the Doctor. But his knowledge of their language and signs was so poor that he could not get the meaning of what they were trying to say. At last, frisking and frolicking like kittens at play, they plunged down the hillside together and disappeared into the thick bush.

Fred said that he felt sure that they had only reached the lion’s country, and not the elephant’s, though, of course, the two species of animals often inhabit the same areas. And he decided that the elephant, after his long friendship with the lion, had determined to stay with him for company.

And this may very possibly account for the strange legends and tales that the Doctor later heard from his friends from that part of Africa. Many hunters and trackers declared that they had often seen a lion and an elephant going through the jungle together as though they were inseparable companions. And that at nighttime they frequently came down together to the salt licks, where many wild creatures were gathered, attracted by that particular delicacy.

Here in the weird African moonlight they would give a strange performance, which seemed greatly to entertain the other denizens of the jungle – the elephant doing a curious dance, standing on a tree stump, waving his trunk from side to side as though music were being played for him, while the lion gave jumping exhibitions, springing up on to the elephant’s back and down the other side. This extraordinary team of jungle performers came to be called by the Africans the “Jobberjee Ghosts.”

The sportsmen who came there after big game paid very little attention to these stories of the mysterious Jobberjees, considering them merely the wild imaginings of scared, superstitious natives. But the Doctor knew that they were probably quite true – that his circus animals, who in the Dolittle show ring ran their own performance without the aid of whips or human orders, had carried their tricks into the heart of the African jungle.

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Dolittle Circus
Folds Its Tents
for the Last Time

During his stay in London and Greenheath, the Doctor had attended to a very large number of animal patients. These were, of course, mostly city animals, such as dogs and cats and rats and those birds who make their homes near the haunts of Man.

For the Doctor the dogs were the most interesting. Jip used to love to go off by himself, wandering around the back streets and the slums of London; and whenever he met a sickly-looking mongrel or a stray that seemed to have no home he would get into conversation with him and always ended by giving him the Doctor’s address. Jip was thoroughly democratic and very charitable. And he believed in giving his fellow creatures whose fortunes had fallen low a helping paw.

This, of course, was very commendable, but it was not approved of by Dab-Dab at all. Every time the Doctor got back to his circus wagon at Greenheath he found it simply surrounded by the tramps and outcasts of dogdom. Some were sick or lame and needed medical attention. But the greater part of them had just come hoping to get a glimpse of the great man, a square meal, or a bone. But all brought with them a secret hope in their hearts that the Doctor would adopt them and take them into his famous household.

In spite of the work and the time it took up, the Doctor was always glad to see them. His only regret was that he could not take every one of them as part of his animal family – as Jip hoped he would. Jip was never jealous of his famous master’s attention. It was his belief that the Doctor could not have too many dogs.

“After all,” he used to say, “dogs are the most intelligent animals to keep. Why not have plenty of them?”

It was while the Doctor was still in the midst of his preparations to leave the circus life and return to Puddleby that Jip once more suggested his idea for a dog’s free food kitchen in the East End of London. He wanted to spend his own money on it, he said. But the Doctor explained to him that the cost of keeping a free kitchen open continually would be much more than he expected.

“Why, Jip,” said John Dolittle, “you would have to have at least one cook on duty all the time, and his wages alone, without counting anything for provisions, would run into a considerable amount of money per year!”

“Well, perhaps we could do without a cook, then,” said Jip. “Many dogs would just as soon have their meat raw. Bones are always better uncooked.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “Possibly, if you brought the idea down to just a bone distribution station and got a boy to run it for you, it would not be so expensive – that is, for a while, anyhow. But your bank account would not be big enough to keep it open forever, that’s certain.”

Jip was very disappointed. However, he was determined to be a philanthropist in a small way, even if he couldn’t keep it up. And, after making inquiries through the Doctor as to the wages that boys got, he went over estimates and costs with Too-Too the accountant and found that he could run a free bone counter for a week without beggaring himself.

So he set to work and hired a healthy strong boy. Then he rented a cellar in Whitechapel and opened an account with a butcher who was to supply the bones fresh every day. These business transactions, of course, he did through the Doctor, but he was very particular that all expenses came out of his own money.

Thus came into existence – even though a brief existence only – Jip’s East End Free Bone Counter for Indigent Dogs. It was a great success while it lasted. Jip himself was in attendance at the cellar door almost continually. And night and day a constant procession of half-starved mongrels traipsed up and down the steps, carrying away bones with them, ranging in size from a lamb cutlet to a shoulder of mutton. Jip was careful to inspect all the dogs as they came in, to make sure that they were deserving cases. If the dogs wore smart collars or had well-brushed coats he knew that they were owned by rich folks and were merely coming out of curiosity. These he chased away. But to the ragtag and bobtail of dog society he was most hospitable and kind, often waiting on the poorest of them himself.

When it became known at Jip’s bone kitchen that the Dolittle household was shortly leaving London for Puddleby, the Doctor was besieged with applications from dogs who wanted to come with him. What made poor Dab-Dab particularly angry was that Matthew Mugg, who had a great love for dogs of every kind, aided and abetted Jip in trying to get the Doctor to take every mongrel that applied.

“I’d like to know, Jip,” said she, “where in heaven we would put all those disreputable creatures if the Doctor took only half of them. I should have thought you would have more sense. The Puddleby house is crowded as it is. Yet for every mongrel that asks to be taken you put in a good word, and that stupid Matthew, too, just as though the house were as big as a hotel.”

“Oh, well,” said Jip, “the garden’s large enough – even if the house is small. They could camp outside in kennels, or something.”

“Yes,” snorted Dab-Dab angrily, “and a fine garden it would be – with hundreds of half-breeds rooting around in it! A garden is for flowers, not for the riffraff of London streets.”

Well, finally the Doctor said that perhaps later, when they were properly settled back at Puddleby, he might take a piece of land and start a Home for Cross-Bred Dogs similar to the Rest Farm for Retired Cab and Wagon Horses. And with this Jip had to be content.

Getting the rest of his circus animals properly disposed of was not so hard for the Doctor as had been the case with the large menagerie animals. Through his rich naturalist friend who had lent him the pelicans and flamingos, he heard of a certain Mr. Wilson, a reliable person, who was shortly sailing for America. With him the Doctor made arrangements for the opossum and six American blacksnakes. These, while they were not exactly the easiest kinds of pets to travel with, could, after all, be made comfortable in properly constructed boxes that would be small enough to go as personal baggage.

Mr. Wilson was not a naturalist in any sense of the word. But he promised the Doctor as a special favour that he would see to it that the opossum and the snakes were properly cared for on the voyage.

John Dolittle did not realize that he was giving Mr. Wilson anything but a very simple commission to carry out. But, as a matter of fact, these creatures caused quite a little sensation of a harmless kind before they were returned to their native soil. On the voyage, while the opossum was being given an airing on the deck in charge of one of the stewards, he decided that the ship’s mast was a new kind of tree. And suddenly he scaled up it at tremendous speed and began hanging from the ropes by his tail. The steward, who was not good at climbing, called him, but he refused to come down. A crowd of passengers gathered on the deck to watch the show. Finally a sailor was summoned by the captain and sent aloft to capture the opossum. But he was not easily caught. He liked the view from his new quarters in the rigging, and he meant to stay there for the rest of the voyage.

Seeing that the sailor was trying to take him prisoner, he kept swinging from mast to mast, running around the rigging as though he were on dry land. The sailor, good climber though he was, stood no earthly chance of catching him single-handed, and he called down for more assistance. Then another deck-hand was sent up. But still the agile little animal kept out of their grasp.

Finally all the crew that could be spared were told off for the hunt. But even with six sailors trying to capture him the opossum continued to give his pursuers the slip and to enjoy the view.

Night came on and still Mr. Opossum was in the rigging and the six sailors had grown very tired of climbing about on ropes. All they had succeeded in doing was to give the passengers a very amusing show to watch. With the coming of darkness the hunt had to be given up.

However, during the night a cold wind sprang up and the opossum found that his lofty quarters were a trifle chilly. So he came down of his own accord. He was found by his steward, shivering behind a ventilator, and put back in his box in Mr. Wilson’s cabin – to which warm comfort he was very glad to return.

But Mr. Wilson’s troubles were not over yet. When the ship docked at New York and his luggage was opened and examined by the Customs officials, the six blacksnakes got out and started wriggling all over the dock, delighted at a chance to stretch themselves after the confinement of the voyage. Everybody was scared to touch them. And a special man from the Zoo was sent for to get them back into captivity.

When he arrived and the snakes realized that they were being chased they, too, got scared and, diving among the passengers’ baggage, they tried to hide behind trunks and handbags as best they could. One of them got into an old lady’s valise which was opened for inspection, and its owner went into a faint when she saw a four-foot blacksnake squirming around among her laces and shawls.

But finally they were all captured and Mr. Wilson commissioned the man from the Zoo to take them and the opossum into the country and set them free.

The Canary Opera had given its last performance and disbanded. The thrushes, the wrens, and the rest of the birds who had helped had taken wing back to their natural haunts. The Dolittle town house had been given up, and charwomen were cleaning it, after its five months’ duty as an operatic aviary. On Greenheath, the Dolittle Circus enclosure looked very empty and deserted. Most of the tents and wagons and caravans had been sold at auction and hauled away. The mechanical merry-go-round and the Punch-and-Judy theatre had been presented by the Doctor to a school for foundlings. John Dolittle’s own wagon (the original one that Blossom had had made and painted specially for him) and the wagon occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Mugg were, with the pushmi-pullyu’s stand, about all that was left of a once gay and elaborate circus.

Matthew said he just couldn’t bear to look at the scene, it saddened him so. But his wife, Theodosia, said she didn’t see what he had to complain of – even if the days of the Dolittle Circus were over – now that he was better off than he had ever been in his life.

Many hundreds of children living in the neighbourhood of Greenheath were, even more than Matthew, saddened at the prospect of its closing. On the day before the Doctor announced he would leave, a vast throng of youngsters came with an enormous bouquet of flowers to bid him goodbye. And this, when he walked down the steps of his wagon and for the last time distributed the free peppermints to the children, was (he told Matthew afterward), the only thing that made him feel sorry at leaving the life of the circus behind.

« »

The Voyages of
Doctor Dolittle

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

1 … The Cobbler’s Son
2 … I Hear of the Great Naturalist
3 … The Doctor’s Home
4 … The Wiff-Waff
5 … Polynesia
6 … The Wounded Squirrel
7 … Shellfish Talk
8 … Are You a Good Noticer?
9 … The Garden of Dreams
10 … The Private Zoo
11 … My Schoolmaster, Polynesia
12 … My Great Idea
13 … A Traveller Arrives
14 … Chee-Chee’s Voyage
15 … I Become a Doctor’s Assistant

PART TWO

1 … The Crew of “The Curlew”
2 … Luke the Hermit
3 … Jip and the Secret
4 … Bob
5 … Mendoza
6 … The Judge’s Dog
7 … The End of the Mystery
8 … Three Cheers
9 … The Purple Bird-of-Paradise
10 … Long Arrow, the Son of Golden Arrow
11 … Blind Travel
12 … Destiny and Destination

PART THREE

1 … The Third Man
2 … Goodbye!
3 … Our Troubles Begin
4 … Our Troubles Continue
5 … Polynesia Has a Plan
6 … The Bed-Maker of Monteverde
7 … The Doctor’s Wager
8 … The Great Bullfight
9 … We Depart in a Hurry

PART FOUR

1 … Shellfish Languages Again
2 … The Fidgit’s Story
3 … Bad Weather
4 … Wrecked!
5 … Land!
6 … The Jabizri
7 … Hawk’s-Head Mountain

PART FIVE

1 … A Great Moment
2 … “The Men of the Moving Land”
3 … Fire
4 … What Makes an Island Float
5 … War!
6 … General Polynesia
7 … The Peace of the Parrots
8 … The Hanging Stone
9 … The Election
10 … The Coronation of King Jong

PART SIX

1 … New Popsipetel
2 … Thoughts of Home
3 … The Red Man’s Science
4 … The Sea-Serpent
5 … The Shellfish Riddle Solved at Last
6 … The Last Cabinet Meeting
7 … The Doctor’s Decision

• • • • •

Prologue

All that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him – indeed a great deal of it took place before I was born. But I now come to set down that part of the great man’s life which I myself saw and took part in.

Many years ago the Doctor gave me permission to do this. But we were both of us so busy then voyaging around the world, having adventures and filling note-books full of natural history that I never seemed to get time to sit down and write of our doings.

Now of course, when I am quite an old man, my memory isn’t so good any more. But whenever I am in doubt and have to hesitate and think, I always ask Polynesia, the parrot.

That wonderful bird (she is now nearly two hundred and fifty years old) sits on the top of my desk, usually humming sailor songs to herself, while I write this book. And, as every one who ever met her knows, Polynesia’s memory is the most marvellous memory in the world. If there is any happening I am not quite sure of, she is always able to put me right, to tell me exactly how it took place, who was there and everything about it. In fact sometimes I almost think I ought to say that this book was written by Polynesia instead of me.

Very well then, I will begin. And first of all I must tell you something about myself and how I came to meet the Doctor.

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

The Cobbler’s Son

My name was Tommy Stubbins, son of Jacob Stubbins, the cobbler of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh; and I was nine and a half years old. At that time Puddleby was only quite a small town. A river ran through the middle of it; and over this river there was a very old stone bridge, called Kingsbridge, which led you from the market-place on one side to the churchyard on the other.

Sailing-ships came up this river from the sea and anchored near the bridge. I used to go down and watch the sailors unloading the ships upon the river-wall. The sailors sang strange songs as they pulled upon the ropes; and I learned these songs by heart. And I would sit on the river-wall with my feet dangling over the water and sing with the men, pretending to myself that I too was a sailor.

For I longed always to sail away with those brave ships when they turned their backs on Puddleby Church and went creeping down the river again, across the wide lonely marshes to the sea. I longed to go with them out into the world to seek my fortune in foreign lands – Africa, India, China and Peru! When they got round the bend in the river and the water was hidden from view, you could still see their huge brown sails towering over the roofs of the town, moving onward slowly – like some gentle giants that walked among the houses without noise. What strange things would they have seen, I wondered, when next they came back to anchor at Kingsbridge! And, dreaming of the lands I had never seen, I’d sit on there, watching till they were out of sight.

Three great friends I had in Puddleby in those days. One was Joe, the mussel-man, who lived in a tiny hut by the edge of the water under the bridge. This old man was simply marvellous at making things. I never saw a man so clever with his hands. He used to mend my toy ships for me which I sailed upon the river; he built windmills out of packing-cases and barrel-staves; and he could make the most wonderful kites from old umbrellas.

Joe would sometimes take me in his mussel-boat, and when the tide was running out we would paddle down the river as far as the edge of the sea to get mussels and lobsters to sell. And out there on the cold lonely marshes we would see wild geese flying, and curlews and redshanks and many other kinds of sea-birds that live among the samfire and the long grass of the great salt fen. And as we crept up the river in the evening, when the tide had turned, we would see the lights on Kingsbridge twinkle in the dusk, reminding us of tea-time and warm fires.

Another friend I had was Matthew Mugg, the Cat’s-meat-Man. He was a funny old person with a bad squint. He looked rather awful but he was really quite nice to talk to. He knew everybody in Puddleby; and he knew all the dogs and all the cats. In those times being a Cat’s-meat-Man was a regular business. And you could see one nearly any day going through the streets with a wooden tray full of pieces of meat stuck on skewers crying, “Meat! M-E-A-T!” People paid him to give this meat to their cats and dogs instead of feeding them on dog-biscuits or the scraps from the table.

I enjoyed going round with old Matthew and seeing the cats and dogs come running to the garden-gates whenever they heard his call. Sometimes he let me give the meat to the animals myself; and I thought this was great fun. He knew a lot about dogs and he would tell me the names of the different kinds as we went through the town. He had several dogs of his own; one, a whippet, was a very fast runner, and Matthew used to win prizes with her at the Saturday coursing races; another, a terrier, was a fine ratter. The Cat’s-meat-Man used to make a business of rat-catching for the millers and farmers as well as his other trade of selling cat’s-meat.

My third great friend was Luke the Hermit. But of him I will tell you more later on.

I did not go to school; because my father was not rich enough to send me. But I was extremely fond of animals. So I used to spend my time collecting birds’ eggs and butterflies, fishing in the river, rambling through the countryside after blackberries and mushrooms and helping the mussel-man mend his nets.

Yes, it was a very pleasant life I lived in those days long ago – though of course I did not think so then. I was nine and a half years old; and, like all boys, I wanted to grow up – not knowing how well off I was with no cares and nothing to worry me. Always I longed for the time when I should be allowed to leave my father’s house, to take passage in one of those brave ships, to sail down the river through the misty marshes to the sea – out into the world to seek my fortune.

• • • • •

•   2   •

I Hear of
the Great Naturalist

One early morning in the Springtime, when I was wandering among the hills at the back of the town, I happened to come upon a hawk with a squirrel in its claws. It was standing on a rock and the squirrel was fighting very hard for its life. The hawk was so frightened when I came upon it suddenly like this, that it dropped the poor creature and flew away. I picked the squirrel up and found that two of its legs were badly hurt. So I carried it in my arms back to the town.

When I came to the bridge I went into the musselman’s hut and asked him if he could do anything for it. Joe put on his spectacles and examined it carefully. Then he shook his head.

“Yon crittur’s got a broken leg,” he said – “and another badly cut an’ all. I can mend you your boats, Tom, but I haven’t the tools nor the learning to make a broken squirrel seaworthy. This is a job for a surgeon – and for a right smart one an’ all. There be only one man I know who could save yon crittur’s life. And that’s John Dolittle.”

“Who is John Dolittle?” I asked. “Is he a vet?”

“No,” said the mussel-man. “He’s no vet. Doctor Dolittle is a nacheralist.”

“What’s a nacheralist?”

“A nacheralist,” said Joe, putting away his glasses and starting to fill his pipe, “is a man who knows all about animals and butterflies and plants and rocks an’ all. John Dolittle is a very great nacheralist. I’m surprised you never heard of him – and you daft over animals. He knows a whole lot about shellfish – that I know from my own knowledge. He’s a quiet man and don’t talk much; but there’s folks who do say he’s the greatest nacheralist in the world.”

“Where does he live?” I asked.

“Over on the Oxenthorpe Road, t’other side the town. Don’t know just which house it is, but ’most anyone ’cross there could tell you, I reckon. Go and see him. He’s a great man.”

So I thanked the mussel-man, took up my squirrel again and started oft towards the Oxenthorpe Road.

The first thing I heard as I came into the market-place was some one calling “Meat! M-E-A-T!”

“There’s Matthew Mugg,” I said to myself. “He’ll know where this Doctor lives. Matthew knows everyone.”

So I hurried across the market-place and caught him up.

“Matthew,” I said, “do you know Doctor Dolittle?”

“Do I know John Dolittle!” said he. “Well, I should think I do! I know him as well as I know my own wife – better, I sometimes think. He’s a great man – a very great man.”

“Can you show me where he lives?” I asked. “I want to take this squirrel to him. It has a broken leg.”

“Certainly,” said the Cat’s-meat-Man. “I’ll be going right by his house directly. Come along and I’ll show you.”

So off we went together.

“Oh, I’ve known John Dolittle for years and years,” said Matthew as we made our way out of the market-place. “But I’m pretty sure he ain’t home just now. He’s away on a voyage. But he’s liable to be back any day. I’ll show you his house and then you’ll know where to find him.”

All the way down the Oxenthorpe Road Matthew hardly stopped talking about his great friend, Doctor John Dolittle – “M.D.” He talked so much that he forgot all about calling out “Meat!” until we both suddenly noticed that we had a whole procession of dogs following us patiently.

“Where did the Doctor go to on this voyage?” I asked as Matthew handed round the meat to them.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he answered. “Nobody never knows where he goes, nor when he’s going, nor when he’s coming back. He lives all alone except for his pets. He’s made some great voyages and some wonderful discoveries. Last time he came back he told me he’d found a tribe of Red Indians in the Pacific Ocean – lived on two islands, they did. The husbands lived on one island and the wives lived on the other. Sensible people, some of them savages. They only met once a year, when the husbands came over to visit the wives for a great feast – Christmas-time, most likely. Yes, he’s a wonderful man is the Doctor. And as for animals, well, there ain’t no one knows as much about ’em as what he does.”

“How did he get to know so much about animals?” I asked.

The Cat’s-meat-Man stopped and leant down to whisper in my ear.

“He talks their language,” he said in a hoarse, mysterious voice.

“The animals’ language?” I cried.

“Why certainly,” said Matthew. “All animals have some kind of a language. Some sorts talk more than others; some only speak in sign-language, like deaf-and-dumb. But the Doctor, he understands them all – birds as well as animals. We keep it a secret though, him and me, because folks only laugh at you when you speak of it. Why, he can even write animal-language. He reads aloud to his pets. He’s wrote history-books in monkey-talk, poetry in canary language and comic songs for magpies to sing. It’s a fact. He’s now busy learning the language of the shellfish. But he says it’s hard work – and he has caught some terrible colds, holding his head under water so much. He’s a great man.”

“He certainly must be,” I said. “I do wish he were home so I could meet him.”

“Well, there’s his house, look,” said the cat’s, meat-man – “that little one at the bend in the road there – the one high up – like it was sitting on the wall above the street.”

We were now come beyond the edge of the town. And the house that Matthew pointed out was quite a small one standing by itself. There seemed to be a big garden around it; and this garden was much higher than the road, so you had to go up a flight of steps in the wall before you reached the front gate at the top. I could see that there were many fine fruit trees in the garden, for their branches hung down over the wall in places. But the wall was so high I could not see anything else.

When we reached the house Matthew went up the steps to the front gate and I followed him. I thought he was going to go into the garden; but the gate was locked. A dog came running down from the house; and he took several pieces of meat which the Cat’s-meat-Man pushed through the bars of the gate, and some paper bags full of corn and bran, I noticed that this dog did not stop to eat the meat, as any ordinary dog would have done, but he took all the things back to the house and disappeared. He had a curious wide collar round his neck which looked as though it were made of brass or something. Then we came away.

“The Doctor isn’t back yet,” said Matthew, “or the gate wouldn’t be locked.”

“What were all those things in paper-bags you gave the dog?” I asked.

“Oh, those were provisions,” said Matthew – “things for the animals to eat. The Doctor’s house is simply full of pets. I give the things to the dog, while the Doctor’s away, and the dog gives them to the other animals.”

“And what was that curious collar he was wearing round his neck?”

“That’s a solid gold dog-collar,” said Matthew. “It was given to him when he was with the Doctor on one of his voyages long ago. He saved a man’s life.”

“How long has the Doctor had him?” I asked.

“Oh, a long time. Jip’s getting pretty old now. That’s why the Doctor doesn’t take him on his voyages any more. He leaves him behind to take care of the house. Every Monday and Thursday I bring the food to the gate here and give it him through the bars. He never lets any one come inside the garden while the Doctor’s away – not even me, though he knows me well. But you’ll always be able to tell if the Doctor’s back or not – because if he is, the gate will surely be open.”

So I went off home to my father’s house and put my squirrel to bed in an old wooden box full of straw. And there I nursed him myself and took care of him as best I could till the time should come when the Doctor would return. And every day I went to the little house with the big garden on the edge of the town and tried the gate to see if it were locked. Sometimes the dog, Jip, would come down to the gate to meet me. But though he always wagged his tail and seemed glad to see me, he never let me come inside the garden.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Doctor’s Home

One Monday afternoon towards the end of April my father asked me to take some shoes which he had mended to a house on the other side of the town. They were for a Colonel Bellowes who was very particular.

I found the house and rang the bell at the front door. The Colonel opened it, stuck out a very red face and said, “Go round to the tradesmen’s entrance – go to the back door.” Then he slammed the door shut.

I felt inclined to throw the shoes into the middle of his flower-bed. But I thought my father might be angry, so I didn’t. I went round to the back door, and there the Colonel’s wife met me and took the shoes from me. She looked a timid little woman and had her hands all over flour as though she were making bread. She seemed to be terribly afraid of her husband whom I could still hear stumping round the house somewhere, grunting indignantly because I had come to the front door. Then she asked me in a whisper if I would have a bun and a glass of milk. And I said, “Yes, please.” After I had eaten the bun and milk, I thanked the Colonel’s wife and came away. Then I thought that before I went home I would go and see if the Doctor had come back yet. I had been to his house once already that morning. But I thought I’d just like to go and take another look. My squirrel wasn’t getting any better and I was beginning to be worried about him.

So I turned into the Oxenthorpe Road and started off towards the Doctor’s house. On the way I noticed that the sky was clouding over and that it looked as though it might rain.

I reached the gate and found it still locked. I felt very discouraged. I had been coming here every day for a week now. The dog, Jip, came to the gate and wagged his tail as usual, and then sat down and watched me closely to see that I didn’t get in.

I began to fear that my squirrel would die before the Doctor came back. I turned away sadly, went down the steps on to the road and turned towards home again.

I wondered if it were supper-time yet. Of course I had no watch of my own, but I noticed a gentleman coming towards me down the road; and when he got nearer I saw it was the Colonel out for a walk. He was all wrapped up in smart overcoats and mufflers and bright-coloured gloves. It was not a very cold day but he had so many clothes on he looked like a pillow inside a roll of blankets. I asked him if he would please tell me the time.

He stopped, grunted and glared down at me – his red face growing redder still; and when he spoke it sounded like the cork coming out of a gingerbeer-bottle.

“Do you imagine for one moment,” he spluttered, “that I am going to get myself all unbuttoned just to tell a little boy like you the time!” And he went stumping down the street, grunting harder than ever.

I stood still a moment looking after him and wondering how old I would have to be, to have him go to the trouble of getting his watch out. And then, all of a sudden, the rain came down in torrents.

I have never seen it rain so hard. It got dark, almost like night. The wind began to blow; the thunder rolled; the lightning flashed, and in a moment the gutters of the road were flowing like a river. There was no place handy to take shelter, so I put my head down against the driving wind and started to run towards home.

I hadn’t gone very far when my head bumped into something soft and I sat down suddenly on the pavement. I looked up to see whom I had run into. And there in front of me, sitting on the wet pavement like myself, was a little round man with a very kind face. He wore a shabby high hat and in his hand he had a small black bag.

“I’m very sorry,” I said. “I had my head down and I didn’t see you coming.”

To my great surprise, instead of getting angry at being knocked down, the little man began to laugh.

“You know this reminds me,” he said, “of a time once when I was in India. I ran full tilt into a woman in a thunderstorm. But she was carrying a pitcher of molasses on her head and I had treacle in my hair for weeks afterwards – the flies followed me everywhere. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,” I said. “I’m all right.”

“It was just as much my fault as it was yours, you know,” said the little man. “I had my head down too – but look here, we mustn’t sit talking like this. You must be soaked. I know I am. How far have you got to go?”

“My home is on the other side of the town,” I said, as we picked ourselves up.

“My Goodness, but that was a wet pavement!” said he. “And I declare it’s coming down worse than ever. Come along to my house and get dried. A storm like this can’t last.”

He took hold of my hand and we started running back down the road together. As we ran I began to wonder who this funny little man could be, and where he lived. I was a perfect stranger to him, and yet he was taking me to his own home to get dried. Such a change, after the old red-faced Colonel who had refused even to tell me the time! Presently we stopped.

“Here we are,” he said.

I looked up to see where we were and found myself back at the foot of the steps leading to the little house with the big garden! My new friend was already running up the steps and opening the gate with some keys he took from his pocket.

“Surely,” I thought, “this cannot be the great Doctor Dolittle himself!”

I suppose after hearing so much about him I had expected some one very tall and strong and marvellous. It was hard to believe that this funny little man with the kind smiling face could be really he. Yet here he was, sure enough, running up the steps and opening the very gate which I had been watching for so many days!

The dog, Jip, came rushing out and started jumping up on him and barking with happiness. The rain was splashing down heavier than ever.

“Are you Doctor Dolittle?” I shouted as we sped up the short garden-path to the house.

“Yes, I’m Doctor Dolittle,” said he, opening the front door with the same bunch of keys. “Get in! Don’t bother about wiping your feet. Never mind the mud. Take it in with you. Get in out of the rain!”

I popped in, he and Jip following. Then he slammed the door to behind us.

The storm had made it dark enough outside; but inside the house, with the door closed, it was as black as night. Then began the most extraordinary noise that I have ever heard. It sounded like all sorts and kinds of animals and birds calling and squeaking and screeching at the same time. I could hear things trundling down the stairs and hurrying along passages. Somewhere in the dark a duck was quacking, a cock was crowing, a dove was cooing, an owl was hooting, a lamb was bleating and Jip was barking. I felt birds’ wings fluttering and fanning near my face. Things kept bumping into my legs and nearly upsetting me. The whole front hall seemed to be filling up with animals. The noise, together with the roaring of the rain, was tremendous; and I was beginning to grow a little bit scared when I felt the Doctor take hold of my arm and shout into my ear.

“Don’t be alarmed. Don’t be frightened. These are just some of my pets. I’ve been away three months and they are glad to see me home again. Stand still where you are till I strike a light. My Gracious, what a storm! – Just listen to that thunder!”

So there I stood in the pitch-black dark, while all kinds of animals which I couldn’t see chattered and jostled around me. It was a curious and a funny feeling. I had often wondered, when I had looked in from the front gate, what Doctor Dolittle would be like and what the funny little house would have inside it. But I never imagined it would be anything like this. Yet somehow after I had felt the Doctor’s hand upon my arm I was not frightened, only confused. It all seemed like some queer dream; and I was beginning to wonder if I was really awake, when I heard the Doctor speaking again:

“My blessed matches are all wet. They won’t strike. Have you got any?”

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t,” I called back.

“Never mind,” said he. “Perhaps Dab-Dab can raise us a light somewhere.”

Then the Doctor made some funny clicking noises with his tongue and I heard some one trundle up the stairs again and start moving about in the rooms above.

Then we waited quite a while without anything happening.

“Will the light be long in coming?” I asked. “Some animal is sitting on my foot and my toes are going to sleep.”

“No, only a minute,” said the Doctor. “She’ll be back in a minute.”

And just then I saw the first glimmerings of a light around the landing above. At once all the animals kept quiet.

“I thought you lived alone,” I said to the Doctor.

“So I do,” said he. “It is Dab-Dab who is bringing the light.”

I looked up the stairs trying to make out who was coming. I could not see around the landing but I heard the most curious footstep on the upper flight. It sounded like some one hopping down from one step to the other, as though he were using only one leg.

As the light came lower, it grew brighter and began to throw strange jumping shadows on the walls.

“Ah – at last!” said the Doctor. “Good old Dab-Dab!”

And then I thought I really must be dreaming. For there, craning her neck round the bend of the landing, hopping down the stairs on one leg, came a spotless white duck. And in her right foot she carried a lighted candle!

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Wiff-Waff

When at last I could look around me I found that the hall was indeed simply full of animals. It seemed to me that almost every kind of creature from the countryside must be there: a pigeon, a white rat, an owl, a badger, a jackdaw – there was even a small pig, just in from the rainy garden, carefully wiping his feet on the mat while the light from the candle glistened on his wet pink back.

The Doctor took the candlestick from the duck and turned to me.

“Look here,” he said: “you must get those wet clothes off – by the way, what is your name?”

“Tommy Stubbins,” I said.

“Oh, are you the son of Jacob Stubbins, the shoemaker?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Excellent bootmaker, your father,” said the Doctor. “You see these?” and he held up his right foot to show me the enormous boots he was wearing. “Your father made me those boots four years ago, and I’ve been wearing them ever since – perfectly wonderful boots – Well now, look here, Stubbins. You’ve got to change those wet things and quick. Wait a moment till I get some more candles lit, and then we’ll go upstairs and find some dry clothes. You’ll have to wear an old suit of mine till we can get yours dry again by the kitchen-fire.”

So presently when more candles had been lighted round different parts of the house, we went upstairs; and when we had come into a bedroom the Doctor opened a big wardrobe and took out two suits of old clothes. These we put on. Then we carried our wet ones down to the kitchen and started a fire in the big chimney. The coat of the Doctor’s which I was wearing was so large for me that I kept treading on my own coat-tails while I was helping to fetch the wood up from the cellar. But very soon we had a huge big fire blazing up the chimney and we hung our wet clothes around on chairs.

“Now let’s cook some supper,” said the Doctor. – “You’ll stay and have supper with me, Stubbins, of course?”

Already I was beginning to be very fond of this funny little man who called me “Stubbins,” instead of “Tommy” or “little lad” (I did so hate to be called “little lad”!) This man seemed to begin right away treating me as though I were a grown-up friend of his. And when he asked me to stop and have supper with him I felt terribly proud and happy. But I suddenly remembered that I had not told my mother that I would be out late. So very sadly I answered,

“Thank you very much. I would like to stay, but I am afraid that my mother will begin to worry and wonder where I am if I don’t get back.”

“Oh, but my dear Stubbins,” said the Doctor, throwing another log of wood on the fire, “your clothes aren’t dry yet. You’ll have to wait for them, won’t you? By the time they are ready to put on we will have supper cooked and eaten – Did you see where I put my bag?”

“I think it is still in the hall,” I said. “I’ll go and see.”

I found the bag near the front door. It was made of black leather and looked very, very old. One of its latches was broken and it was tied up round the middle with a piece of string.

“Thank you,” said the Doctor when I brought it to him.

“Was that bag all the luggage you had for your voyage?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, as he undid the piece of string. “I don’t believe in a lot of baggage. It’s such a nuisance. Life’s too short to fuss with it. And it isn’t really necessary, you know – Where did I put those sausages?”

The Doctor was feeling about inside the bag. First he brought out a loaf of new bread. Next came a glass jar with a curious metal top to it. He held this up to the light very carefully before he set it down upon the table; and I could see that there was some strange little water-creature swimming about inside. At last the Doctor brought out a pound of sausages.

“Now,” he said, “all we want is a frying-pan.”

We went into the scullery and there we found some pots and pans hanging against the wall. The Doctor took down the frying-pan. It was quite rusty on the inside.

“Dear me, just look at that!” said he. “That’s the worst of being away so long. The animals are very good and keep the house wonderfully clean as far as they can. Dab-Dab is a perfect marvel as a housekeeper. But some things of course they can’t manage. Never mind, we’ll soon clean it up. You’ll find some silver-sand down there, under the sink, Stubbins. Just hand it up to me, will you?”

In a few moments we had the pan all shiny and bright and the sausages were put over the kitchen-fire and a beautiful frying smell went all through the house.

While the Doctor was busy at the cooking I went and took another look at the funny little creature swimming about in the glass jar.

“What is this animal?” I asked.

“Oh that,” said the Doctor, turning round – “that’s a Wiff-Waff. Its full name is hippocampus pippitopitus. But the natives just call it a Wiff-Waff – on account of the way it waves its tail, swimming, I imagine. That’s what I went on this last voyage for, to get that. You see I’m very busy just now trying to learn the language of the shellfish. They have languages, of that I feel sure. I can talk a little shark language and porpoise dialect myself. But what I particularly want to learn now is shellfish.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, you see, some of the shellfish are the oldest kind of animals in the world that we know of. We find their shells in the rocks – turned to stone – thousands of years old. So I feel quite sure that if I could only get to talk their language, I should be able to learn a whole lot about what the world was like ages and ages and ages ago. You see?”

“But couldn’t some of the other animals tell you as well?”

“I don’t think so,” said the Doctor, prodding the sausages with a fork. “To be sure, the monkeys I knew in Africa some time ago were very helpful in telling me about bygone days; but they only went back a thousand years or so. No, I am certain that the oldest history in the world is to be had from the shellfish – and from them only. You see most of the other animals that were alive in those very ancient times have now become extinct.”

“Have you learned any shellfish language yet?” I asked.

“No. I’ve only just begun. I wanted this particular kind of a pipe-fish because he is half a shellfish and half an ordinary fish. I went all the way to the Eastern Mediterranean after him. But I’m very much afraid he isn’t going to be a great deal of help to me. To tell you the truth, I’m rather disappointed in his appearance. He doesn’t look very intelligent, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t,” I agreed.

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “The sausages are done to a turn. Come along – hold your plate near and let me give you some.”

Then we sat down at the kitchen-table and started a hearty meal.

It was a wonderful kitchen, that. I had many meals there afterwards and I found it a better place to eat in than the grandest dining-room in the world. It was so cosy and home-like and warm. It was so handy for the food too. You took it right off the fire, hot, and put it on the table and ate it. And you could watch your toast toasting at the fender and see it didn’t burn while you drank your soup. And if you had forgotten to put the salt on the table, you didn’t have to get up and go into another room to fetch it; you just reached round and took the big wooden box off the dresser behind you. Then the fireplace – the biggest fireplace you ever saw – was like a room in itself. You could get right inside it even when the logs were burning and sit on the wide seats either side and roast chestnuts after the meal was over – or listen to the kettle singing, or tell stories, or look at picture-books by the light of the fire. It was a marvellous kitchen. It was like the Doctor, comfortable, sensible, friendly and solid.

While we were gobbling away, the door suddenly opened and in marched the duck, Dab-Dab, and the dog, Jip, dragging sheets and pillow-cases behind them over the clean tiled floor. The Doctor, seeing how surprised I was, explained:

“They’re just going to air the bedding for me in front of the fire. Dab-Dab is a perfect treasure of a housekeeper; she never forgets anything. I had a sister once who used to keep house for me (poor, dear Sarah! I wonder how she’s getting on – I haven’t seen her in many years). But she wasn’t nearly as good as Dab-Dab. Have another sausage?”

The Doctor turned and said a few words to the dog and duck in some strange talk and signs. They seemed to understand him perfectly.

“Can you talk in squirrel language?” I asked.

“Oh yes. That’s quite an easy language,” said the Doctor. “You could learn that yourself without a great deal of trouble. But why do you ask?”

“Because I have a sick squirrel at home,” I said. “I took it away from a hawk. But two of its legs are badly hurt and I wanted very much to have you see it, if you would. Shall I bring it tomorrow?”

“Well, if its leg is badly broken I think I had better see it tonight. It may be too late to do much; but I’ll come home with you and take a look at it.”

So presently we felt the clothes by the fire and mine were found to be quite dry. I took them upstairs to the bedroom and changed, and when I came down the Doctor was all ready waiting for me with his little black bag full of medicines and bandages.

“Come along,” he said. “The rain has stopped now.”

Outside it had grown bright again and the evening sky was all red with the setting sun; and thrushes were singing in the garden as we opened the gate to go down on to the road.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Polynesia

“I think your house is the most interesting house I was ever in,” I said as we set off in the direction of the town. “May I come and see you again tomorrow?”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Come any day you like. Tomorrow I’ll show you the garden and my private zoo.”

“Oh, have you a zoo?” I asked.

“Yes,” said he. “The larger animals are too big for the house, so I keep them in a zoo in the garden. It is not a very big collection but it is interesting in its way.”

“It must be splendid,” I said, “to be able to talk all the languages of the different animals. Do you think I could ever learn to do it?”

“Oh surely,” said the Doctor – “with practise. You have to be very patient, you know. You really ought to have Polynesia to start you. It was she who gave me my first lessons.”

“Who is Polynesia?” I asked.

“Polynesia was a West African parrot I had. She isn’t with me any more now,” said the Doctor sadly.

“Why – is she dead?”

“Oh no,” said the Doctor. “She is still living, I hope. But when we reached Africa she seemed so glad to get back to her own country. She wept for joy. And when the time came for me to come back here I had not the heart to take her away from that sunny land – although, it is true, she did offer to come. I left her in Africa – Ah well! I have missed her terribly. She wept again when we left. But I think I did the right thing. She was one of the best friends I ever had. It was she who first gave me the idea of learning the animal languages and becoming an animal doctor. I often wonder if she remained happy in Africa, and whether I shall ever see her funny, old, solemn face again – Good old Polynesia! – A most extraordinary bird – Well, well!”

Just at that moment we heard the noise of some one running behind us; and turning round we saw Jip the dog rushing down the road after us, as fast as his legs could bring him. He seemed very excited about something, and as soon as he came up to us, he started barking and whining to the Doctor in a peculiar way. Then the Doctor too seemed to get all worked up and began talking and making queer signs to the dog. At length he turned to me, his face shining with happiness.

“Polynesia has come back!” he cried. “Imagine it. Jip says she has just arrived at the house. My! And it’s five years since I saw her – Excuse me a minute.”

He turned as if to go back home. But the parrot, Polynesia, was already flying towards us. The Doctor clapped his hands like a child getting a new toy; while the swarm of sparrows in the roadway fluttered, gossiping, up on to the fences, highly scandalized to see a grey and scarlet parrot skimming down an English lane.

On she came, straight on to the Doctor’s shoulder, where she immediately began talking a steady stream in a language I could not understand. She seemed to have a terrible lot to say. And very soon the Doctor had forgotten all about me and my squirrel and Jip and everything else; till at length the bird clearly asked him something about me.

“Oh excuse me, Stubbins!” said the Doctor. “I was so interested listening to my old friend here. We must get on and see this squirrel of yours – Polynesia, this is Thomas Stubbins.”

The parrot, on the Doctor’s shoulder, nodded gravely towards me and then, to my great surprise, said quite plainly in English,

“How do you do? I remember the night you were born. It was a terribly cold winter. You were a very ugly baby.”

“Stubbins is anxious to learn animal language,” said the Doctor. “I was just telling him about you and the lessons you gave me when Jip ran up and told us you had arrived.”

“Well,” said the parrot, turning to me, “I may have started the Doctor learning but I never could have done even that, if he hadn’t first taught me to understand what I was saying when I spoke English. You see, many parrots can talk like a person, but very few of them understand what they are saying. They just say it because – well, because they fancy it is smart or, because they know they will get crackers given them.”

By this time we had turned and were going towards my home with Jip running in front and Polynesia still perched on the Doctor’s shoulder. The bird chattered incessantly, mostly about Africa; but now she spoke in English, out of politeness to me.

“How is Prince Bumpo getting on?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, I’m glad you asked me,” said Polynesia. “I almost forgot to tell you. What do you think? – Bumpo is in England!”

“In England! – You don’t say!” cried the Doctor. “What on earth is he doing here?”

“His father, the king, sent him here to a place called – er – Bullford, I think it was – to study lessons.”

“Bullford! – Bullford!” muttered the Doctor. “I never heard of the place – Oh, you mean Oxford.”

“Yes, that’s the place – Oxford,” said Polynesia “I knew it had cattle in it somewhere. Oxford – that’s the place he’s gone to.”

“Well, well,” murmured the Doctor. “Fancy Bumpo studying at Oxford – Well, well!”

“There were great doings in Jolliginki when he left. He was scared to death to come. He was the first man from that country to go abroad. He thought he was going to be eaten by white cannibals or something. You know what those niggers are – that ignorant! Well! – But his father made him come. He said that all the black kings were sending their sons to Oxford now. It was the fashion, and he would have to go. Bumpo wanted to bring his six wives with him. But the king wouldn’t let him do that either. Poor Bumpo went off in tears – and everybody in the palace was crying too. You never heard such a hullabaloo.”

“Do you know if he ever went back in search of The Sleeping Beauty?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh yes,” said Polynesia – “the day after you left. And a good thing for him he did: the king got to know about his helping you to escape; and he was dreadfully wild about it.”

“And The Sleeping Beauty? – did he ever find her?”

“Well, he brought back something which he said was The Sleeping Beauty. Myself, I think it was an albino niggeress. She had red hair and the biggest feet you ever saw. But Bumpo was no end pleased with her and finally married her amid great rejoicings. The feastings lasted seven days. She became his chief wife and is now known out there as the Crown-Princess Bumpah – you accent the last syllable.”

“And tell me, did he remain white?”

“Only for about three months,” said the parrot. “After that his face slowly returned to its natural colour. It was just as well. He was so conspicuous in his bathing-suit the way he was, with his face white and the rest of him black.”

“And how is Chee-Chee getting on? – Chee-Chee,” added the Doctor in explanation to me, “was a pet monkey I had years ago. I left him too in Africa when I came away.”

“Well,” said Polynesia frowning, – “Chee-Chee is not entirely happy. I saw a good deal of him the last few years. He got dreadfully homesick for you and the house and the garden. It’s funny, but I was just the same way myself. You remember how crazy I was to get back to the dear old land? And Africa is a wonderful country – I don’t care what anybody says. Well, I thought I was going to have a perfectly grand time. But somehow – I don’t know – after a few weeks it seemed to get tiresome. I just couldn’t seem to settle down. Well, to make a long story short, one night I made up my mind that I’d come back here and find you. So I hunted up old Chee-Chee and told him about it. He said he didn’t blame me a bit – felt exactly the same way himself. Africa was so deadly quiet after the life we had led with you. He missed the stories you used to tell us out of your animal books – and the chats we used to have sitting round the kitchen-fire on winter nights. The animals out there were very nice to us and all that. But somehow the dear kind creatures seemed a bit stupid. Chee-Chee said he had noticed it too. But I suppose it wasn’t they who had changed; it was we who were different. When I left, poor old Chee-Chee broke down and cried. He said he felt as though his only friend were leaving him – though, as you know, he has simply millions of relatives there. He said it didn’t seem fair that I should have wings to fly over here any time I liked, and him with no way to follow me. But mark my words, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he found a way to come – some day. He’s a smart lad, is Chee-Chee.”

At this point we arrived at my home. My father’s shop was closed and the shutters were up; but my mother was standing at the door looking down the street.

“Good evening, Mrs. Stubbins,” said the Doctor. “It is my fault your son is so late. I made him stay to supper while his clothes were drying. He was soaked to the skin; and so was I. We ran into one another in the storm and I insisted on his coming into my house for shelter.”

“I was beginning to get worried about him,” said my mother. “I am thankful to you, Sir, for looking after him so well and bringing him home.”

“Don’t mention it – don’t mention it,” said the Doctor. “We have had a very interesting chat.”

“Who might it be that I have the honour of addressing?” asked my mother staring at the grey parrot perched on the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Oh, I’m John Dolittle. I dare say your husband will remember me. He made me some very excellent boots about four years ago. They really are splendid,” added the Doctor, gazing down at his feet with great satisfaction.

“The Doctor has come to cure my squirrel, Mother,” said I. “He knows all about animals.”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor, “not all, Stubbins, not all about them by any means.”

“It is very kind of you to come so far to look after his pet,” said my mother. “Tom is always bringing home strange creatures from the woods and the fields.”

“Is he?” said the Doctor. “Perhaps he will grow up to be a naturalist some day. Who knows?”

“Won’t you come in?” asked my mother. “The place is a little untidy because I haven’t finished the spring cleaning yet. But there’s a nice fire burning in the parlour.”

“Thank you!” said the Doctor. “What a charming home you have!”

And after wiping his enormous boots very, very carefully on the mat, the great man passed into the house.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Wounded Squirrel

Inside we found my father busy practising on the flute beside the fire. This he always did, every evening, after his work was over.

The Doctor immediately began talking to him about flutes and piccolos and bassoons; and presently my father said,

“Perhaps you perform upon the flute yourself, Sir. Won’t you play us a tune?”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “it is a long time since I touched the instrument. But I would like to try. May I?”

Then the Doctor took the flute from my father and played and played and played. It was wonderful. My mother and father sat as still as statues, staring up at the ceiling as though they were in church; and even I, who didn’t bother much about music except on the mouth-organ – even I felt all sad and cold and creepy and wished I had been a better boy.

“Oh I think that was just beautiful!” sighed my mother when at length the Doctor stopped.

“You are a great musician, Sir,” said my father, “a very great musician. Won’t you please play us something else?”

“Why certainly,” said the Doctor – “Oh, but look here, I’ve forgotten all about the squirrel.”

“I’ll show him to you,” I said. “He is upstairs in my room.”

So I led the Doctor to my bedroom at the top of the house and showed him the squirrel in the packing-case filled with straw.

The animal, who had always seemed very much afraid of me – though I had tried hard to make him feel at home, sat up at once when the Doctor came into the room and started to chatter. The Doctor chattered back in the same way and the squirrel when he was lifted up to have his leg examined, appeared to be rather pleased than frightened.

I held a candle while the Doctor tied the leg up in what he called “splints,” which he made out of match-sticks with his penknife.

“I think you will find that his leg will get better now in a very short time,” said the Doctor closing up his bag. “Don’t let him run about for at least two weeks yet, but keep him in the open air and cover him up with dry leaves if the nights get cool. He tells me he is rather lonely here, all by himself, and is wondering how his wife and children are getting on. I have assured him you are a man to be trusted; and I will send a squirrel who lives in my garden to find out how his family are and to bring him news of them. He must be kept cheerful at all costs. Squirrels are naturally a very cheerful, active race. It is very hard for them to lie still doing nothing. But you needn’t worry about him. He will be all right.”

Then we went back again to the parlour and my mother and father kept him playing the flute till after ten o’clock.

Although my parents both liked the Doctor tremendously from the first moment that they saw him, and were very proud to have him come and play to us (for we were really terribly poor) they did not realize then what a truly great man he was one day to become. Of course now, when almost everybody in the whole world has heard about Doctor Dolittle and his books, if you were to go to that little house in Puddleby where my father had his cobbler’s shop you would see, set in the wall over the old-fashioned door, a stone with writing on it which says: “JOHN DOLITTLE, THE FAMOUS NATURALIST, PLAYED THE FLUTE IN THIS HOUSE IN THE YEAR 1839.”

I often look back upon that night long, long ago. And if I close my eyes and think hard I can see that parlour just as it was then: a funny little man in coat-tails, with a round kind face, playing away on the flute in front of the fire; my mother on one side of him and my father on the other, holding their breath and listening with their eyes shut; myself, with Jip, squatting on the carpet at his feet, staring into the coals; and Polynesia perched on the mantelpiece beside his shabby high hat, gravely swinging her head from side to side in time to the music. I see it all, just as though it were before me now.

And then I remember how, after we had seen the Doctor out at the front door, we all came back into the parlour and talked about him till it was still later; and even after I did go to bed (I had never stayed up so late in my life before) I dreamed about him and a band of strange clever animals that played flutes and fiddles and drums the whole night through.

• • • • •

•   7   •

Shellfish Talk

The next morning, although I had gone to bed so late the night before, I was up frightfully early. The first sparrows were just beginning to chirp sleepily on the slates outside my attic window when I jumped out of bed and scrambled into my clothes.

I could hardly wait to get back to the little house with the big garden – to see the Doctor and his private zoo. For the first time in my life I forgot all about breakfast; and creeping down the stairs on tip-toe, so as not to wake my mother and father, I opened the front door and popped out into the empty, silent street.

When I got to the Doctor’s gate I suddenly thought that perhaps it was too early to call on any one: and I began to wonder if the Doctor would be up yet. I looked into the garden. No one seemed to be about. So I opened the gate quietly and went inside.

As I turned to the left to go down a path between some hedges, I heard a voice quite close to me say,

“Good morning. How early you are!”

I turned around, and there, sitting on the top of a privet hedge, was the grey parrot, Polynesia.

“Good morning,” I said. “I suppose I am rather early. Is the Doctor still in bed?”

“Oh no,” said Polynesia. “He has been up an hour and a half. You’ll find him in the house somewhere. The front door is open. Just push it and go in, He is sure to be in the kitchen cooking breakfast – or working in his study. Walk right in. I am waiting to see the sun rise. But upon my word I believe it’s forgotten to rise. It is an awful climate, this. Now if we were in Africa the world would be blazing with sunlight at this hour of the morning. Just see that mist rolling over those cabbages. It is enough to give you rheumatism to look at it. Beastly climate – Beastly! Really I don’t know why anything but frogs ever stay in England – Well, don’t let me keep you. Run along and see the Doctor.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll go and look for him.”

When I opened the front door I could smell bacon frying, so I made my way to the kitchen. There I discovered a large kettle boiling away over the fire and some bacon and eggs in a dish upon the hearth. It seemed to me that the bacon was getting all dried up with the heat. So I pulled the dish a little further away from the fire and went on through the house looking for the Doctor.

I found him at last in the Study. I did not know then that it was called the Study. It was certainly a very interesting room, with telescopes and microscopes and all sorts of other strange things which I did not understand about but wished I did. Hanging on the walls were pictures of animals and fishes and strange plants and collections of birds’ eggs and sea-shells in glass cases.

The Doctor was standing at the main table in his dressing-gown. At first I thought he was washing his face. He had a square glass box before him full of water. He was holding one ear under the water while he covered the other with his left hand. As I came in he stood up.

“Good morning, Stubbins,” said he. “Going to be a nice day, don’t you think? I’ve just been listening to the Wiff-Waff. But he is very disappointing – very.”

“Why?” I said. “Didn’t you find that he has any language at all?”

“Oh yes,” said the Doctor, “he has a language. But it is such a poor language – only a few words, like ‘yes’ and ‘no’ – ‘hot’ and ‘cold.’ That’s all he can say. It’s very disappointing. You see he really belongs to two different families of fishes. I thought he was going to be tremendously helpful – Well, well!”

“I suppose,” said I, “that means he hasn’t very much sense if his language is only two or three words?”

“Yes, I suppose it does. Possibly it is the kind of life he leads. You see, they are very rare now, these Wiff-Waffs – very rare and very solitary. They swim around in the deepest parts of the ocean entirely by themselves – always alone. So I presume they really don’t need to talk much.”

“Perhaps some kind of a bigger shellfish would talk more,” I said. “After all, he is very small, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that’s true. Oh I have no doubt that there are shellfish who are good talkers – not the least doubt. But the big shellfish – the biggest of them, are so hard to catch. They are only to be found in the deep parts of the sea; and as they don’t swim very much, but just crawl along the floor of the ocean most of the time, they are very seldom taken in nets. I do wish I could find some way of going down to the bottom of the sea. I could learn a lot if I could only do that. But we are forgetting all about breakfast – Have you had, breakfast yet, Stubbins?”

I told the Doctor that I had forgotten all about it and he at once led the way into the kitchen.

“Yes,” he said, as he poured the hot water from the kettle into the tea-pot, “if a man could only manage to get right down to the bottom of the sea, and live there a while, he would discover some wonderful things – things that people have never dreamed of.”

“But men do go down, don’t they?” I asked – “divers and people like that?”

“Oh yes, to be sure,” said the Doctor. “Divers go down. I’ve been down myself in a diving-suit, for that matter. But my! – they only go where the sea is shallow. Divers can’t go down where it is really deep. What I would like to do is to go down to the great depths – where it is miles deep – Well, well, I dare say I shall manage it some day. Let me give you another cup of tea.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

Are You a Good Noticer?

Just at that moment Polynesia came into the room and said something to the Doctor in bird language. Of course I did not understand what it was. But the Doctor at once put down his knife and fork and left the room.

“You know it is an awful shame,” said the parrot as soon as the Doctor had closed the door. “Directly he comes back home, all the animals over the whole countryside get to hear of it and every sick cat and mangy rabbit for miles around comes to see him and ask his advice. Now there’s a big fat hare outside at the back door with a squawking baby. Can she see the Doctor, please! – Thinks it’s going to have convulsions. Stupid little thing’s been eating Deadly Nightshade again, I suppose. The animals are so inconsiderate at times – especially the mothers. They come round and call the Doctor away from his meals and wake him out of his bed at all hours of the night. I don’t know how he stands it – really I don’t. Why, the poor man never gets any peace at all! I’ve told him time and again to have special hours for the animals to come. But he is so frightfully kind and considerate. He never refuses to see them if there is anything really wrong with them. He says the urgent cases must be seen at once.”

“Why don’t some of the animals go and see the other doctors?” I asked.

“Oh Good Gracious!” exclaimed the parrot, tossing her head scornfully. “Why, there aren’t any other animal-doctors – not real doctors. Oh of course there are those vet persons, to be sure. But, bless you, they’re no good. You see, they can’t understand the animals’ language; so how can you expect them to be any use? Imagine yourself, or your father, going to see a doctor who could not understand a word you say – nor even tell you in your own language what you must do to get well! Poof! – those vets! They’re that stupid, you’ve no idea! – Put the Doctor’s bacon down by the fire, will you? – to keep hot till he comes back.”

“Do you think I would ever be able to learn the language of the animals?” I asked, laying the plate upon the hearth.

“Well, it all depends,” said Polynesia. “Are you clever at lessons?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, feeling rather ashamed. “You see, I’ve never been to school. My father is too poor to send me.”

“Well,” said the parrot, “I don’t suppose you have really missed much – to judge from what I have seen of school-boys. But listen: are you a good noticer? – Do you notice things well? I mean, for instance, supposing you saw two cock-starlings on an apple-tree, and you only took one good look at them – would you be able to tell one from the other if you saw them again the next day?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never tried.”

“Well that,” said Polynesia, brushing some crumbs off the corner of the table with her left foot – “that is what you call powers of observation – noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they use their breath or their tails or their feet instead. That is because many of them, in the olden days when lions and tigers were more plentiful, were afraid to make a noise for fear the savage creatures heard them. Birds, of course, didn’t care; for they always had wings to fly away with. But that is the first thing to remember: being a good noticer is terribly important in learning animal language.”

“It sounds pretty hard,” I said.

“You’ll have to be very patient,” said Polynesia. “It takes a long time to say even a few words properly. But if you come here often I’ll give you a few lessons myself. And once you get started you’ll be surprised how fast you get on. It would indeed be a good thing if you could learn. Because then you could do some of the work for the Doctor – I mean the easier work, like bandaging and giving pills. Yes, yes, that’s a good idea of mine. ’Twould be a great thing if the poor man could get some help – and some rest. It is a scandal the way he works. I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to help him a great deal – That is, if you are really interested in animals.”

“Oh, I’d love that!” I cried. “Do you think the Doctor would let me?”

“Certainly,” said Polynesia – “as soon as you have learned something about doctoring. I’ll speak of it to him myself – Sh! I hear him coming. Quick – bring his bacon back on to the table.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Garden of Dreams

When breakfast was over the Doctor took me out to show me the garden. Well, if the house had been interesting, the garden was a hundred times more so. Of all the gardens I have ever seen that was the most delightful, the most fascinating. At first you did not realize how big it was. You never seemed to come to the end of it. When at last you were quite sure that you had seen it all, you would peer over a hedge, or turn a corner, or look up some steps, and there was a whole new part you never expected to find.

It had everything – everything a garden can have, or ever has had. There were wide, wide lawns with carved stone seats, green with moss. Over the lawns hung weeping-willows, and their feathery bough-tips brushed the velvet grass when they swung with the wind. The old flagged paths had high, clipped, yew hedges either side of them, so that they looked like the narrow streets of some old town; and through the hedges, doorways had been made; and over the doorways were shapes like vases and peacocks and half-moons all trimmed out of the living trees. There was a lovely marble fish-pond with golden carp and blue water-lilies in it and big green frogs. A high brick wall alongside the kitchen garden was all covered with pink and yellow peaches ripening in the sun. There was a wonderful great oak, hollow in the trunk, big enough for four men to hide inside. Many summer-houses there were, too – some of wood and some of stone; and one of them was full of books to read. In a corner, among some rocks and ferns, was an outdoor fireplace, where the Doctor used to fry liver and bacon when he had a notion to take his meals in the open air. There was a couch as well on which he used to sleep, it seems, on warm summer nights when the nightingales were singing at their best; it had wheels on it so it could be moved about under any tree they sang in. But the thing that fascinated me most of all was a tiny little tree-house, high up in the top branches of a great elm, with a long rope ladder leading to it. The Doctor told me he used it for looking at the moon and the stars through a telescope.

It was the kind of a garden where you could wander and explore for days and days – always coming upon something new, always glad to find the old spots over again. That first time that I saw the Doctor’s garden I was so charmed by it that I felt I would like to live in it – always and always – and never go outside of it again. For it had everything within its walls to give happiness, to make living pleasant – to keep the heart at peace. It was the Garden of Dreams.

One peculiar thing I noticed immediately I came into it; and that was what a lot of birds there were about. Every tree seemed to have two or three nests in it. And heaps of other wild creatures appeared to be making themselves at home there, too. Stoats and tortoises and dormice seemed to be quite common, and not in the least shy. Toads of different colours and sizes hopped about the lawn as though it belonged to them. Green lizards (which were very rare in Puddleby) sat up on the stones in the sunlight and blinked at us. Even snakes were to be seen.

“You need not be afraid of them,” said the Doctor, noticing that I started somewhat when a large black snake wiggled across the path right in front of us. “These fellows are not poisonous. They do a great deal of good in keeping down many kinds of garden-pests. I play the flute to them sometimes in the evening. They love it. Stand right up on their tails and carry on no end. Funny thing, their taste for music.”

“Why do all these animals come and live here?” I asked. “I never saw a garden with so many creatures in it.”

“Well, I suppose it’s because they get the kind of food they like; and nobody worries or disturbs them. And then, of course, they know me. And if they or their children get sick I presume they find it handy to be living in a doctor’s garden – Look! You see that sparrow on the sundial, swearing at the blackbird down below? Well, he has been coming here every summer for years. He comes from London. The country sparrows round about here are always laughing at him. They say he chirps with such a Cockney accent. He is a most amusing bird – very brave but very cheeky. He loves nothing better than an argument, but he always ends it by getting rude. He is a real city bird. In London he lives around St. Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Cheapside,’ we call him.”

“Are all these birds from the country round here?” I asked.

“Most of them,” said the Doctor. “But a few rare ones visit me every year who ordinarily never come near England at all. For instance, that handsome little fellow hovering over the snapdragon there, he’s a Ruby-throated Humming-bird. Comes from America. Strictly speaking, he has no business in this climate at all. It is too cool. I make him sleep in the kitchen at night. Then every August, about the last week of the month, I have a Purple Bird-of-Paradise come all the way from Brazil to see me. She is a very great swell. Hasn’t arrived yet of course. And there are a few others, foreign birds from the tropics mostly, who drop in on me in the course of the summer months. But come, I must show you the zoo.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Private Zoo

I did not think there could be anything left in that garden which we had not seen. But the Doctor took me by the arm and started off down a little narrow path and after many windings and twistings and turnings we found ourselves before a small door in a high stone wall. The Doctor pushed it open.

Inside was still another garden. I had expected to find cages with animals inside them. But there were none to be seen. Instead there were little stone houses here and there all over the garden; and each house had a window and a door. As we walked in, many of these doors opened and animals came running out to us evidently expecting food.

“Haven’t the doors any locks on them?” I asked the Doctor.

“Oh yes,” he said, “every door has a lock. But in my zoo the doors open from the inside, not from the out. The locks are only there so the animals can go and shut themselves in any time they want to get away from the annoyance of other animals or from people who might come here. Every animal in this zoo stays here because he likes it, not because he is made to.”

“They all look very happy and clean,” I said. “Would you mind telling me the names of some of them?”

“Certainly. Well now: that funny-looking thing with plates on his back, nosing under the brick over there, is a South American armadillo. The little chap talking to him is a Canadian woodchuck. They both live in those holes you see at the foot of the wall. The two little beasts doing antics in the pond are a pair of Russian minks – and that reminds me: I must go and get them some herrings from the town before noon – it is early-closing today. That animal just stepping out of his house is an antelope, one of the smaller South African kinds. Now let us move to the other side of those bushes there and I will show you some more.”

“Are those deer over there?” I asked.

“Deer!” said the Doctor. “Where do you mean?”

“Over there,” I said, pointing – “nibbling the grass border of the bed. There are two of them.”

“Oh, that,” said the Doctor with a smile. “That isn’t two animals: that’s one animal with two heads – the only two-headed animal in the world. It’s called the ‘pushmi-pullyu.’ I brought him from Africa. He’s very tame – acts as a kind of night-watchman for my zoo. He only sleeps with one head at a time, you see very handy – the other head stays awake all night.”

“Have you any lions or tigers?” I asked as we moved on.

“No,” said the Doctor. “It wouldn’t be possible to keep them here – and I wouldn’t keep them even if I could. If I had my way, Stubbins, there wouldn’t be a single lion or tiger in captivity anywhere in the world. They never take to it. They’re never happy. They never settle down. They are always thinking of the big countries they have left behind. You can see it in their eyes, dreaming – dreaming always of the great open spaces where they were born; dreaming of the deep, dark jungles where their mothers first taught them how to scent and track the deer. And what are they given in exchange for all this?” asked the Doctor, stopping in his walk and growing all red and angry – “What are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whispering through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cool, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day’s hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for these? Why, a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths! – No, Stubbins. Lions and tigers, the Big Hunters, should never, never be seen in zoos.”

The Doctor seemed to have grown terribly serious – almost sad. But suddenly his manner changed again and he took me by the arm with his same old cheerful smile.

“But we haven’t seen the butterfly-houses yet – nor the aquariums. Come along. I am very proud of my butterfly-houses.”

Off we went again and came presently into a hedged enclosure. Here I saw several big huts made of fine wire netting, like cages. Inside the netting all sorts of beautiful flowers were growing in the sun, with butterflies skimming over them. The Doctor pointed to the end of one of the huts where little boxes with holes in them stood in a row.

“Those are the hatching-boxes,” said he. “There I put the different kinds of caterpillars. And as soon as they turn into butterflies and moths they come out into these flower-gardens to feed.”

“Do butterflies have a language?” I asked.

“Oh I fancy they have,” said the Doctor – “and the beetles too. But so far I haven’t succeeded in learning much about insect languages. I have been too busy lately trying to master the shellfish-talk. I mean to take it up though.”

At that moment Polynesia joined us and said, “Doctor, there are two guinea-pigs at the back door. They say they have run away from the boy who kept them because they didn’t get the right stuff to eat. They want to know if you will take them in.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Show them the way to the zoo. Give them the house on the left, near the gate – the one the black fox had. Tell them what the rules are and give them a square meal – Now, Stubbins, we will go on to the aquariums. And first of all I must show you my big, glass, sea-water tank where I keep the shellfish.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

My Schoolmaster, Polynesia

Well, there were not many days after that, you may be sure, when I did not come to see my new friend. Indeed I was at his house practically all day and every day. So that one evening my mother asked me jokingly why I did not take my bed over there and live at the Doctor’s house altogether.

After a while I think I got to be quite useful to the Doctor, feeding his pets for him; helping to make new houses and fences for the zoo; assisting with the sick animals that came; doing all manner of odd jobs about the place. So that although I enjoyed it all very much (it was indeed like living in a new world) I really think the Doctor would have missed me if I had not come so often.

And all this time Polynesia came with me wherever I went, teaching me bird language and showing me how to understand the talking signs of the animals. At first I thought I would never be able to learn at all – it seemed so difficult. But the old parrot was wonderfully patient with me – though I could see that occasionally she had hard work to keep her temper.

Soon I began to pick up the strange chatter of the birds and to understand the funny talking antics of the dogs. I used to practise listening to the mice behind the wainscot after I went to bed, and watching the cats on the roofs and pigeons in the market-square of Puddleby.

And the days passed very quickly – as they always do when life is pleasant; and the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months; and soon the roses in the Doctor’s garden were losing their petals and yellow leaves lay upon the wide green lawn. For the summer was nearly gone.

One day Polynesia and I were talking in the library. This was a fine long room with a grand mantelpiece and the walls were covered from the ceiling to the floor with shelves full of books: books of stories, books on gardening, books about medicine, books of travel; these I loved – and especially the Doctor’s great atlas with all its maps of the different countries of the world.

This afternoon Polynesia was showing me the books about animals which John Dolittle had written himself.

“My!” I said, “what a lot of books the Doctor has – all the way around the room! Goodness! I wish I could read! It must be tremendously interesting. Can you read, Polynesia?”

“Only a little,” said she. “Be careful how you turn those pages – don’t tear them. No, I really don’t get time enough for reading – much. That letter there is a k and this is a b.”

“What does this word under the picture mean?” I asked.

“Let me see,” she said, and started spelling it out. “B-A-B-O-O-N – that’s Monkey. Reading isn’t nearly as hard as it looks, once you know the letters.”

“Polynesia,” I said, “I want to ask you something very important.”

“What is it, my boy?” said she, smoothing down the feathers of her right wing. Polynesia often spoke to me in a very patronizing way. But I did not mind it from her. After all, she was nearly two hundred years old; and I was only ten.

“Listen,” I said, “my mother doesn’t think it is right that I come here for so many meals. And I was going to ask you: supposing I did a whole lot more work for the Doctor – why couldn’t I come and live here altogether? You see, instead of being paid like a regular gardener or workman, I would get my bed and meals in exchange for the work I did. What do you think?”

“You mean you want to be a proper assistant to the Doctor, is that it?”

“Yes. I suppose that’s what you call it,” I answered. “You know you said yourself that you thought I could be very useful to him.”

“Well” – she thought a moment – “I really don’t see why not. But is this what you want to be when you grow up, a naturalist?”

“Yes,” I said, “I have made up my mind. I would sooner be a naturalist than anything else in the world.”

“Humph! – Let’s go and speak to the Doctor about it,” said Polynesia. “He’s in the next room – in the study. Open the door very gently – he may be working and not want to be disturbed.”

I opened the door quietly and peeped in. The first thing I saw was an enormous black retriever dog sitting in the middle of the hearth-rug with his ears cocked up, listening to the Doctor who was reading aloud to him from a letter.

“What is the Doctor doing?” I asked Polynesia in a whisper.

“Oh, the dog has had a letter from his mistress and he has brought it to the Doctor to read for him. That’s all. He belongs to a funny little girl called Minnie Dooley, who lives on the other side of the town. She has pigtails down her back. She and her brother have gone away to the seaside for the Summer; and the old retriever is heart-broken while the children are gone. So they write letters to him – in English of course. And as the old dog doesn’t understand them, he brings them here, and the Doctor turns them into dog language for him. I think Minnie must have written that she is coming back – to judge from the dog’s excitement. Just look at him carrying on!”

Indeed the retriever seemed to be suddenly overcome with joy. As the Doctor finished the letter the old dog started barking at the top of his voice, wagging his tail wildly and jumping about the study. He took the letter in his mouth and ran out of the room snorting hard and mumbling to himself.

“He’s going down to meet the coach,” whispered Polynesia. “That dog’s devotion to those children is more than I can understand. You should see Minnie! She’s the most conceited little minx that ever walked. She squints too.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

My Great Idea

Presently the Doctor looked up and saw us at the door.

“Oh – come in, Stubbins,” said he, “did you wish to speak to me? Come in and take a chair.”

“Doctor,” I said, “I want to be a naturalist – like you – when I grow up.”

“Oh you do, do you?” murmured the Doctor. “Humph! – Well! – Dear me! – You don’t say! – Well, well! Have, you er – have you spoken to your mother and father about it?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “I want you to speak to them for me. You would do it better. I want to be your helper – your assistant, if you’ll have me. Last night my mother was saying that she didn’t consider it right for me to come here so often for meals. And I’ve been thinking about it a good deal since. Couldn’t we make some arrangement – couldn’t I work for my meals and sleep here?”

“But my dear Stubbins,” said the Doctor, laughing, “you are quite welcome to come here for three meals a day all the year round. I’m only too glad to have you. Besides, you do do a lot of work, as it is. I’ve often felt that I ought to pay you for what you do – But what arrangement was it that you thought of?”

“Well, I thought,” said I, “that perhaps you would come and see my mother and father and tell them that if they let me live here with you and work hard, that you will teach me to read and write. You see my mother is awfully anxious to have me learn reading and writing. And besides, I couldn’t be a proper naturalist without, could I?”

“Oh, I don’t know so much about that,” said the Doctor. “It is nice, I admit, to be able to read and write. But naturalists are not all alike, you know. For example: this young fellow Charles Darwin that people are talking about so much now – he’s a Cambridge graduate – reads and writes very well. And then Cuvier – he used to be a tutor. But listen, the greatest naturalist of them all doesn’t even know how to write his own name nor to read the ABC.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“He is a mysterious person,” said the Doctor – “a very mysterious person. His name is Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow. He is a Red Indian.”

“Have you ever seen him?” I asked.

“No,” said the Doctor, “I’ve never seen him. No white man has ever met him. I fancy Mr. Darwin doesn’t even know that he exists. He lives almost entirely with the animals and with the different tribes of Indians – usually somewhere among the mountains of Peru. Never stays long in one place. Goes from tribe to tribe, like a sort of Indian tramp.”

“How do you know so much about him?” I asked – “if you’ve never even seen him?”

“The Purple Bird-of-Paradise,” said the Doctor – “she told me all about him. She says he is a perfectly marvellous naturalist. I got her to take a message to him for me last time she was here. I am expecting her back any day now. I can hardly wait to see what answer she has brought from him. It is already almost the last week of August. I do hope nothing has happened to her on the way.”

“But why do the animals and birds come to you when they are sick?” I said – “Why don’t they go to him, if he is so very wonderful?”

“It seems that my methods are more up to date,” said the Doctor. “But from what the Purple Bird-of-Paradise tells me, Long Arrow’s knowledge of natural history must be positively tremendous. His specialty is botany – plants and all that sort of thing. But he knows a lot about birds and animals too. He’s very good on bees and beetles – But now tell me, Stubbins, are you quite sure that you really want to be a naturalist?”

“Yes,” said I, “my mind is made up.”

“Well you know, it isn’t a very good profession for making money. Not at all, it isn’t. Most of the good naturalists don’t make any money whatever. All they do is spend money, buying butterfly-nets and cases for birds’ eggs and things. It is only now, after I have been a naturalist for many years, that I am beginning to make a little money from the books I write.”

“I don’t care about money,” I said. “I want to be a naturalist. Won’t you please come and have dinner with my mother and father next Thursday – I told them I was going to ask you – and then you can talk to them about it. You see, there’s another thing: if I’m living with you, and sort of belong to your house and business, I shall be able to come with you next time you go on a voyage.”

“Oh, I see,” said he, smiling. “So you want to come on a voyage with me, do you? – Ah hah!”

“I want to go on all your voyages with you. It would be much easier for you if you had someone to carry the butterfly-nets and note-books. Wouldn’t it now?”

For a long time the Doctor sat thinking, drumming on the desk with his fingers, while I waited, terribly impatiently, to see what he was going to say.

At last he shrugged his shoulders and stood up.

“Well, Stubbins,” said he, “I’ll come and talk it over with you and your parents next Thursday. And – well, we’ll see. We’ll see. Give your mother and father my compliments and thank them for their invitation, will you?”

Then I tore home like the wind to tell my mother that the Doctor had promised to come.

• • • • •

•   13   •

A Traveller Arrives

The next day I was sitting on the wall of the Doctor’s garden after tea, talking to Dab-Dab. I had now learned so much from Polynesia that I could talk to most birds and some animals without a great deal of difficulty. I found Dab-Dab a very nice, old, motherly bird – though not nearly so clever and interesting as Polynesia. She had been housekeeper for the Doctor many years now.

Well, as I was saying, the old duck and I were sitting on the flat top of the garden-wall that evening, looking down into the Oxenthorpe Road below. We were watching some sheep being driven to market in Puddleby; and Dab-Dab had just been telling me about the Doctor’s adventures in Africa. For she had gone on a voyage with him to that country long ago.

Suddenly I heard a curious distant noise down the road, towards the town. It sounded like a lot of people cheering. I stood up on the wall to see if I could make out what was coming. Presently there appeared round a bend a great crowd of school-children following a very ragged, curious-looking woman.

“What in the world can it be?” cried Dab-Dab.

The children were all laughing and shouting. And certainly the woman they were following was most extraordinary. She had very long arms and the most stooping shoulders I have ever seen. She wore a straw hat on the side of her head with poppies on it; and her skirt was so long for her it dragged on the ground like a ball-gown’s train. I could not see anything of her face because of the wide hat pulled over her eyes. But as she got nearer to us and the laughing of the children grew louder, I noticed that her hands were very dark in colour, and hairy, like a witch’s.

Then all of a sudden Dab-Dab at my side startled me by crying out in a loud voice,

“Why, it’s Chee-Chee! – Chee-Chee come back at last! How dare those children tease him! I’ll give the little imps something to laugh at!”

And she flew right off the wall down into the road and made straight for the children, squawking away in a most terrifying fashion and pecking at their feet and legs. The children made off down the street back to the town as hard as they could run.

The strange-looking figure in the straw hat stood gazing after them a moment and then came wearily up to the gate. It didn’t bother to undo the latch but just climbed right over the gate as though it were something in the way. And then I noticed that it took hold of the bars with its feet, so that it really had four hands to climb with. But it was only when I at last got a glimpse of the face under the hat that I could be really sure it was a monkey.

Chee-Chee – for it was he – frowned at me suspiciously from the top of the gate, as though he thought I was going to laugh at him like the other boys and girls. Then he dropped into the garden on the inside and immediately started taking off his clothes. He tore the straw hat in two and threw it down into the road. Then he took off his bodice and skirt, jumped on them savagely and began kicking them round the front garden.

Presently I heard a screech from the house, and out flew Polynesia, followed by the Doctor and Jip.

“Chee-Chee! – Chee-Chee!” shouted the parrot. “You’ve come at last! I always told the Doctor you’d find a way. How ever did you do it?”

They all gathered round him shaking him by his four hands, laughing and asking him a million questions at once. Then they all started back for the house.

“Run up to my bedroom, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, turning to me. “You’ll find a bag of peanuts in the small left-hand drawer of the bureau. I have always kept them there in case he might come back unexpectedly some day. And wait a minute – see if Dab-Dab has any bananas in the pantry. Chee-Chee hasn’t had a banana, he tells me, in two months.”

When I came down again to the kitchen I found everybody listening attentively to the monkey who was telling the story of his journey from Africa.

• • • • •

•   14   •

Chee-Chee’s Voyage

It seems that after Polynesia had left, Chee-Chee had grown more homesick than ever for the Doctor and the little house in Puddleby. At last he had made up his mind that by hook or crook he would follow her. And one day, going down to the seashore, he saw a lot of people, black and white, getting on to a ship that was coming to England. He tried to get on too. But they turned him back and drove him away. And presently he noticed a whole big family of funny people passing on to the ship. And one of the children in this family reminded Chee-Chee of a cousin of his with whom he had once been in love. So he said to himself, “That girl looks just as much like a monkey as I look like a girl. If I could only get some clothes to wear I might easily slip on to the ship amongst these families, and people would take me for a girl. Good idea!”

So he went off to a town that was quite close, and hopping in through an open window he found a skirt and bodice lying on a chair. They belonged to a fashionable black lady who was taking a bath. Chee-Chee put them on. Next he went back to the seashore, mingled with the crowd there and at last sneaked safely on to the big ship. Then he thought he had better hide, for fear people might look at him too closely. And he stayed hidden all the time the ship was sailing to England – only coming out at night, when everybody was asleep, to find food.

When he reached England and tried to get off the ship, the sailors saw at last that he was only a monkey dressed up in girl’s clothes; and they wanted to keep him for a pet. But he managed to give them the slip; and once he was on shore, he dived into the crowd and got away. But he was still a long distance from Puddleby and had to come right across the whole breadth of England.

He had a terrible time of it. Whenever he passed through a town all the children ran after him in a crowd, laughing; and often silly people caught hold of him and tried to stop him, so that he had to run up lamp-posts and climb to chimney-pots to escape from them. At night he used to sleep in ditches or barns or anywhere he could hide; and he lived on the berries he picked from the hedges and the cob-nuts that grew in the copses. At length, after many adventures and narrow squeaks, he saw the tower of Puddleby Church and he knew that at last he was near his old home. When Chee-Chee had finished his story he ate six bananas without stopping and drank a whole bowlful of milk.

“My!” he said, “why wasn’t I born with wings, like Polynesia, so I could fly here? You’ve no idea how I grew to hate that hat and skirt. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. All the way from Bristol here, if the wretched hat wasn’t falling off my head or catching in the trees, those beastly skirts were tripping me up and getting wound round everything. What on earth do women wear those things for? Goodness, I was glad to see old Puddleby this morning when I climbed over the hill by Bellaby’s farm!”

“Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready for you,” said the Doctor. “We never had it disturbed in case you might come back.”

“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, “and you can have the old smoking-jacket of the Doctor’s which you used to use as a blanket, in case it is cold in the night.”

“Thanks,” said Chee-Chee. “It’s good to be back in the old house again. Everything’s just the same as when I left – except the clean roller-towel on the back of the door there – that’s new – Well, I think I’ll go to bed now. I need sleep.”

Then we all went out of the kitchen into the scullery and watched Chee-Chee climb the plate-rack like a sailor going up a mast. On the top, he curled himself up, pulled the old smoking-jacket over him, and in a minute he was snoring peacefully.

“Good old Chee-Chee!” whispered the Doctor. “I’m glad he’s back.”

“Yes – good old Chee-Chee!” echoed Dab-Dab and Polynesia.

Then we all tip-toed out of the scullery and closed the door very gently behind us.

• • • • •

•   15   •

I Become
a Doctor’s Assistant

When Thursday evening came there was great excitement at our house, My mother had asked me what were the Doctor’s favourite dishes, and I had told her: spare ribs, sliced beet-root, fried bread, shrimps and treacle-tart. Tonight she had them all on the table waiting for him; and she was now fussing round the house to see if everything was tidy and in readiness for his coming.

At last we heard a knock upon the door, and of course it was I who got there first to let him in.

The Doctor had brought his own flute with him this time. And after supper was over (which he enjoyed very much) the table was cleared away and the washing-up left in the kitchen-sink till the next day. Then the Doctor and my father started playing duets.

They got so interested in this that I began to be afraid that they would never come to talking over my business. But at last the Doctor said,

“Your son tells me that he is anxious to become a naturalist.”

And then began a long talk which lasted far into the night. At first both my mother and father were rather against the idea – as they had been from the beginning. They said it was only a boyish whim, and that I would get tired of it very soon. But after the matter had been talked over from every side, the Doctor turned to my father and said,

“Well now, supposing, Mr. Stubbins, that your son came to me for two years – that is, until he is twelve years old. During those two years he will have time to see if he is going to grow tired of it or not. Also during that time, I will promise to teach him reading and writing and perhaps a little arithmetic as well. What do you say to that?”

“I don’t know,” said my father, shaking his head. “You are very kind and it is a handsome offer you make, Doctor. But I feel that Tommy ought to be learning some trade by which he can earn his living later on.”

Then my mother spoke up. Although she was nearly in tears at the prospect of my leaving her house while I was still so young, she pointed out to my father that this was a grand chance for me to get learning.

“Now Jacob,” she said, “you know that many lads in the town have been to the Grammar School till they were fourteen or fifteen years old. Tommy can easily spare these two years for his education; and if he learns no more than to read and write, the time will not be lost. Though goodness knows,” she added, getting out her handkerchief to cry, “the house will seem terribly empty when he’s gone.”

“I will take care that he comes to see you, Mrs. Stubbins,” said the Doctor – “every day, if you like. After all, he will not be very far away.”

Well, at length my father gave in; and it was agreed that I was to live with the Doctor and work for him for two years in exchange for learning to read and write and for my board and lodging.

“Of course,” added the Doctor, “while I have money I will keep Tommy in clothes as well. But money is a very irregular thing with me; sometimes I have some, and then sometimes I haven’t.”

“You are very good, Doctor,” said my mother, drying her tears. “It seems to me that Tommy is a very fortunate boy.”

And then, thoughtless, selfish little imp that I was, I leaned over and whispered in the Doctor’s ear,

“Please don’t forget to say something about the voyages.”

“Oh, by the way,” said John Dolittle, “of course occasionally my work requires me to travel. You will have no objection, I take it, to your son’s coming with me?”

My poor mother looked up sharply, more unhappy and anxious than ever at this new turn; while I stood behind the Doctor’s chair, my heart thumping with excitement, waiting for my father’s answer.

“No,” he said slowly after a while. “If we agree to the other arrangement I don’t see that we’ve the right to make any objection to that.”

Well, there surely was never a happier boy in the world than I was at that moment. My head was in the clouds. I trod on air. I could scarcely keep from dancing round the parlour. At last the dream of my life was to come true! At last I was to be given a chance to seek my fortune, to have adventures! For I knew perfectly well that it was now almost time for the Doctor to start upon another voyage. Polynesia had told me that he hardly ever stayed at home for more than six months at a stretch. Therefore he would be surely going again within a fortnight. And I – I, Tommy Stubbins, would go with him! Just to think of it! – to cross the Sea, to walk on foreign shores, to roam the World!

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

The Crew of
“The Curlew”

From that time on of course my position in the town was very different. I was no longer a poor cobbler’s son. I carried my nose in the air as I went down the High Street with Jip in his gold collar at my side; and snobbish little boys who had despised me before because I was not rich enough to go to school now pointed me out to their friends and whispered, “You see him? He’s a doctor’s assistant – and only ten years old!”

But their eyes would have opened still wider with wonder if they had but known that I and the dog that was with me could talk to one another.

Two days after the Doctor had been to our house to dinner he told me very sadly that he was afraid that he would have to give up trying to learn the language of the shellfish – at all events for the present.

“I’m very discouraged, Stubbins, very. I’ve tried the mussels and the clams, the oysters and the whelks, cockles and scallops; seven different kinds of crabs and all the lobster family. I think I’ll leave it for the present and go at it again later on.”

“What will you turn to now?” I asked.

“Well, I rather thought of going on a voyage, Stubbins. It’s quite a time now since I’ve been away. And there is a great deal of work waiting for me abroad.”

“When shall we start?” I asked.

“Well, first I shall have to wait till the Purple Bird-of-Paradise gets here. I must see if she has any message for me from Long Arrow. She’s late. She should have been here ten days ago. I hope to goodness she’s all right.”

“Well, hadn’t we better be seeing about getting a boat?” I said. “She is sure to be here in a day or so; and there will be lots of things to do to get ready in the mean time, won’t there?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Doctor. “Suppose we go down and see your friend Joe, the mussel-man. He will know about boats.”

“I’d like to come too,” said Jip.

“All right, come along,” said the Doctor, and off we went.

Joe said yes, he had a boat – one he had just bought – but it needed three people to sail her. We told him we would like to see it anyway.

So the mussel-man took us off a little way down the river and showed us the neatest, prettiest, little vessel that ever was built. She was called The Curlew. Joe said he would sell her to us cheap. But the trouble was that the boat needed three people, while we were only two.

“Of course I shall be taking Chee-Chee,” said the Doctor. “But although he is very quick and clever, he is not as strong as a man. We really ought to have another person to sail a boat as big as that.”

“I know of a good sailor, Doctor,” said Joe – “a first-class seaman who would be glad of the job.”

“No, thank you, Joe,” said Doctor Dolittle. “I don’t want any seamen. I couldn’t afford to hire them. And then they hamper me so, seamen do, when I’m at sea. They’re always wanting to do things the proper way; and I like to do them my way – Now let me see: who could we take with us?”

“There’s Matthew Mugg, the Cat’s-meat-Man,” I said.

“No, he wouldn’t do. Matthew’s a very nice fellow, but he talks too much – mostly about his rheumatism. You have to be frightfully particular whom you take with you on long voyages.”

“How about Luke the Hermit?” I asked.

“That’s a good idea – splendid – if he’ll come. Let’s go and ask him right away.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Luke the Hermit

The Hermit was an old friend of ours, as I have already told you. He was a very peculiar person. Far out on the marshes he lived in a little bit of a shack – all alone except for his brindle bulldog. No one knew where he came from – not even his name, just “Luke the Hermit” folks called him. He never came into the town; never seemed to want to see or talk to people. His dog, Bob, drove them away if they came near his hut. When you asked anyone in Puddleby who he was or why he lived out in that lonely place by himself, the only answer you got was, “Oh, Luke the Hermit? Well, there’s some mystery about him. Nobody knows what it is. But there’s a mystery. Don’t go near him. He’ll set the dog on you.”

Nevertheless there were two people who often went out to that little shack on the fens: the Doctor and myself. And Bob, the bulldog, never barked when he heard us coming. For we liked Luke; and Luke liked us.

This afternoon, crossing the marshes we faced a cold wind blowing from the East. As we approached the hut Jip put up his ears and said,

“That’s funny!”

“What’s funny?” asked the Doctor.

“That Bob hasn’t come out to meet us. He should have heard us long ago – or smelt us. What’s that queer noise?”

“Sounds to me like a gate creaking,” said the Doctor. “Maybe it’s Luke’s door, only we can’t see the door from here; it’s on the far side of the shack.”

“I hope Bob isn’t sick,” said Jip; and he let out a bark to see if that would call him. But the only answer he got was the wailing of the wind across the wide, salt fen.

We hurried forward, all three of us thinking hard.

When we reached the front of the shack we found the door open, swinging and creaking dismally in the wind. We looked inside. There was no one there.

“Isn’t Luke at home then?” said I. “Perhaps he’s out for a walk.”

“He is always at home,” said the Doctor frowning in a peculiar sort of way. “And even if he were out for a walk he wouldn’t leave his door banging in the wind behind him. There is something queer about this – What are you doing in there, Jip?”

“Nothing much – nothing worth speaking of,” said Jip examining the floor of the hut extremely carefully.

“Come here, Jip,” said the Doctor in a stern voice. “You are hiding something from me. You see signs and you know something – or you guess it. What has happened? Tell me. Where is the Hermit?”

“I don’t know,” said Jip looking very guilty and uncomfortable. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Well, you know something. I can tell it from the look in your eye. What is it?”

But Jip didn’t answer.

For ten minutes the Doctor kept questioning him. But not a word would the dog say.

“Well,” said the Doctor at last, “it is no use our standing around here in the cold. The Hermit’s gone. That’s all. We might as well go home to luncheon.”

As we buttoned up our coats and started back across the marsh, Jip ran ahead pretending he was looking for water-rats.

“He knows something all right,” whispered the Doctor. “And I think he knows what has happened too. It’s funny, his not wanting to tell me. He has never done that before – not in eleven years. He has always told me everything – Strange – very strange!”

“Do you mean you think he knows all about the Hermit, the big mystery about him which folks hint at and all that?”

“I shouldn’t wonder if he did,” the Doctor answered slowly. “I noticed something in his expression the moment we found that door open and the hut empty. And the way he sniffed the floor too – it told him something, that floor did. He saw signs we couldn’t see – I wonder why he won’t tell me. I’ll try him again. Here, Jip! Jip! – Where is the dog? I thought he went on in front.”

“So did I,” I said. “He was there a moment ago. I saw him as large as life. Jip – Jip – Jip – Jip!”

But he was gone. We called and called. We even walked back to the hut. But Jip had disappeared.

“Oh well,” I said, “most likely he has just run home ahead of us. He often does that, you know. We’ll find him there when we get back to the house.”

But the Doctor just closed his coat-collar tighter against the wind and strode on muttering, “Odd – very odd!”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Jip and the Secret

When we reached the house the first question the Doctor asked of Dab-Dab in the hall was,

“Is Jip home yet?”

“No,” said Dab-Dab, “I haven’t seen him.”

“Let me know the moment he comes in, will you, please?” said the Doctor, hanging up his hat.

“Certainly I will,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t be long over washing your hands; the lunch is on the table.”

Just as we were sitting down to luncheon in the kitchen we heard a great racket at the front door. I ran and opened it. In bounded Jip.

“Doctor!” he cried, “come into the library quick. I’ve got something to tell you – No, Dab-Dab, the luncheon must wait. Please hurry, Doctor. There’s not a moment to be lost. Don’t let any of the animals come – just you and Tommy.”

“Now,” he said, when we were inside the library and the door was closed, “turn the key in the lock and make sure there’s no one listening under the windows.”

“It’s all right,” said the Doctor. “Nobody can hear you here. Now what is it?”

“Well, Doctor,” said Jip (he was badly out of breath from running), “I know all about the Hermit – I have known for years. But I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor.

“Because I’d promised not to tell any one. It was Bob, his dog, that told me. And I swore to him that I would keep the secret.”

“Well, and are you going to tell me now?”

“Yes,” said Jip, “we’ve got to save him. I followed Bob’s scent just now when I left you out there on the marshes. And I found him. And I said to him, ‘Is it all right,’ I said, ‘for me to tell the Doctor now? Maybe he can do something.’ And Bob says to me, ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘it’s all right because – ’”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, go on, go on!” cried the Doctor. “Tell us what the mystery is – not what you said to Bob and what Bob said to you. What has happened? Where is the Hermit?”

“He’s in Puddleby Jail,” said Jip. “He’s in prison.”

“In prison!”

“Yes.”

“What for? – What’s he done?”

Jip went over to the door and smelt at the bottom of it to see if any one were listening outside. Then he came back to the Doctor on tip-toe and whispered,

“He killed a man!”

“Lord preserve us!” cried the Doctor, sitting down heavily in a chair and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. “When did he do it?”

“Fifteen years ago – in a Mexican gold-mine. That’s why he has been a hermit ever since. He shaved off his beard and kept away from people out there on the marshes so he wouldn’t be recognized. But last week, it seems these new-fangled policemen came to Town; and they heard there was a strange man who kept to himself all alone in a shack on the fen. And they got suspicious. For a long time people had been hunting all over the world for the man that did that killing in the Mexican gold-mine fifteen years ago. So these policemen went out to the shack, and they recognized Luke by a mole on his arm. And they took him to prison.”

“Well, well!” murmured the Doctor. “Who would have thought it? – Luke, the philosopher! – Killed a man! – I can hardly believe it.”

“It’s true enough – unfortunately,” said Jip. “Luke did it. But it wasn’t his fault. Bob says so. And he was there and saw it all. He was scarcely more than a puppy at the time. Bob says Luke couldn’t help it. He had to do it.”

“Where is Bob now?” asked the Doctor.

“Down at the prison. I wanted him to come with me here to see you; but he won’t leave the prison while Luke is there. He just sits outside the door of the prison-cell and won’t move. He doesn’t even eat the food they give him. Won’t you please come down there, Doctor, and see if there is anything you can do? The trial is to be this afternoon at two o’clock. What time is it now?”

“It’s ten minutes past one.”

“Bob says he thinks they are going to kill Luke for a punishment if they can prove that he did it – or certainly keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Won’t you please come? Perhaps if you spoke to the judge and told him what a good man Luke really is they’d let him off.”

“Of course I’ll come,” said the Doctor getting up and moving to go. “But I’m very much afraid that I shan’t be of any real help.” He turned at the door and hesitated thoughtfully.

“And yet – I wonder—”

Then he opened the door and passed out with Jip and me close at his heels.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Bob

Dab-Dab was terribly upset when she found we were going away again without luncheon; and she made us take some cold pork-pies in our pockets to eat on the way.

When we got to Puddleby Court-house (it was next door to the prison), we found a great crowd gathered around the building.

This was the week of the Assizes – a business which happened every three months, when many pick-pockets and other bad characters were tried by a very grand judge who came all the way from London. And anybody in Puddleby who had nothing special to do used to come to the Court-house to hear the trials.

But today it was different. The crowd was not made up of just a few idle people. It was enormous. The news had run through the countryside that Luke the Hermit was to be tried for killing a man and that the great mystery which had hung over him so long was to be cleared up at last. The butcher and the baker had closed their shops and taken a holiday. All the farmers from round about, and all the townsfolk, were there with their Sunday clothes on, trying to get seats in the Court-house or gossiping outside in low whispers. The High Street was so crowded you could hardly move along it. I had never seen the quiet old town in such a state of excitement before. For Puddleby had not had such an Assizes since 1799, when Ferdinand Phipps, the Rector’s oldest son, had robbed the bank.

If I hadn’t had the Doctor with me I am sure I would never have been able to make my way through the mob packed around the Court-house door. But I just followed behind him, hanging on to his coat-tails; and at last we got safely into the jail.

“I want to see Luke,” said the Doctor to a very grand person in a blue coat with brass buttons standing at the door.

“Ask at the Superintendent’s office,” said the man. “Third door on the left down the corridor.”

“Who is that person you spoke to, Doctor?” I asked as we went along the passage.

“He is a policeman.”

“And what are policemen?”

“Policemen? They are to keep people in order. They’ve just been invented – by Sir Robert Peel. That’s why they are also called ‘peelers’ sometimes. It is a wonderful age we live in. They’re always thinking of something new – This will be the Superintendent’s office, I suppose.”

From there another policeman was sent with us to show us the way.

Outside the door of Luke’s cell we found Bob, the bulldog, who wagged his tail sadly when he saw us. The man who was guiding us took a large bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the door.

I had never been inside a real prison-cell before; and I felt quite a thrill when the policeman went out and locked the door after him, leaving us shut in the dimly-lighted, little, stone room. Before he went, he said that as soon as we had done talking with our friend we should knock upon the door and he would come and let us out.

At first I could hardly see anything, it was so dim inside. But after a little I made out a low bed against the wall, under a small barred window. On the bed, staring down at the floor between his feet, sat the Hermit, his head resting in his hands.

“Well, Luke,” said the Doctor in a kindly voice, “they don’t give you much light in here, do they?”

Very slowly the Hermit looked up from the floor.

“Hulloa, John Dolittle. What brings you here?”

“I’ve come to see you. I would have been here sooner, only I didn’t hear about all this till a few minutes ago. I went to your hut to ask you if you would join me on a voyage; and when I found it empty I had no idea where you could be. I am dreadfully sorry to hear about your bad luck. I’ve come to see if there is anything I can do.”

Luke shook his head.

“No, I don’t imagine there is anything can be done. They’ve caught me at last. That’s the end of it, I suppose.”

He got up stiffly and started walking up and down the little room.

“In a way I’m glad it’s over,” said he. “I never got any peace, always thinking they were after me – afraid to speak to anyone. They were bound to get me in the end – Yes, I’m glad it’s over.”

Then the Doctor talked to Luke for more than half an hour, trying to cheer him up; while I sat around wondering what I ought to say and wishing I could do something.

At last the Doctor said he wanted to see Bob; and we knocked upon the door and were let out by the policeman.

“Bob,” said the Doctor to the big bulldog in the passage, “come out with me into the porch. I want to ask you something.”

“How is he, Doctor?” asked Bob as we walked down the corridor into the Court-house porch.

“Oh, Luke’s all right. Very miserable of course, but he’s all right. Now tell me, Bob: you saw this business happen, didn’t you? You were there when the man was killed, eh?”

“I was, Doctor,” said Bob, “and I tell you—”

“All right,” the Doctor interrupted, “that’s all I want to know for the present. There isn’t time to tell me more now. The trial is just going to begin. There are the judge and the lawyers coming up the steps. Now listen, Bob: I want you to stay with me when I go into the court-room. And whatever I tell you to do, do it. Do you understand? Don’t make any scenes. Don’t bite anybody, no matter what they may say about Luke. Just behave perfectly quietly and answer any question I may ask you – truthfully. Do you understand?”

“Very well. But do you think you will be able to get him off, Doctor?” asked Bob. “He’s a good man, Doctor. He really is. There never was a better.”

“We’ll see, we’ll see, Bob. It’s a new thing I’m going to try. I’m not sure the judge will allow it. But – well, we’ll see. It’s time to go into the court-room now. Don’t forget what I told you. Remember: for Heaven’s sake don’t start biting any one or you’ll get us all put out and spoil everything.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Mendoza

Inside the court-room everything was very solemn and wonderful. It was a high, big room. Raised above the floor, against the wall was the judge’s desk; and here the judge was already sitting – an old, handsome man in a marvellous big wig of grey hair and a gown of black. Below him was another wide, long desk at which lawyers in white wigs sat. The whole thing reminded me of a mixture between a church and a school.

“Those twelve men at the side,” whispered the Doctor – “those in pews like a choir, they are what is called the jury. It is they who decide whether Luke is guilty – whether he did it or not.”

“And look!” I said, “there’s Luke himself in a sort of pulpit-thing with policemen each side of him. And there’s another pulpit, the same kind, the other side of the room, see – only that one’s empty.”

“That one is called the witness-box,” said the Doctor. “Now I’m going down to speak to one of those men in white wigs; and I want you to wait here and keep these two seats for us. Bob will stay with you. Keep an eye on him – better hold on to his collar. I shan’t be more than a minute or so.”

With that the Doctor disappeared into the crowd which filled the main part of the room.

Then I saw the judge take up a funny little wooden hammer and knock on his desk with it. This, it seemed, was to make people keep quiet, for immediately every one stopped buzzing and talking and began to listen very respectfully. Then another man in a black gown stood up and began reading from a paper in his hand.

He mumbled away exactly as though he were saying his prayers and didn’t want any one to understand what language they were in. But I managed to catch a few words:

“Biz – biz – biz – biz – biz – otherwise known as Luke the Hermit, of – biz – biz – biz – biz – for killing his partner with – biz – biz – biz – otherwise known as Bluebeard Bill on the night of the – biz – biz – biz – in the biz – biz – biz – of Mexico. Therefore Her Majesty’s – biz – biz – biz—”

At this moment I felt some one take hold of my arm from the back, and turning round I found the Doctor had returned with one of the men in white wigs.

“Stubbins, this is Mr. Percy Jenkyns,” said the Doctor. “He is Luke’s lawyer. It is his business to get Luke off – if he can.”

Mr. Jenkyns seemed to be an extremely young man with a round smooth face like a boy. He shook hands with me and then immediately turned and went on talking with the Doctor.

“Oh, I think it is a perfectly precious idea,” he was saying. “Of course the dog must be admitted as a witness; he was the only one who saw the thing take place. I’m awfully glad you came. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything. My hat! Won’t it make the old court sit up? They’re always frightfully dull, these Assizes. But this will stir things. A bulldog witness for the defence! I do hope there are plenty of reporters present – Yes, there’s one making a sketch of the prisoner. I shall become known after this – And won’t Conkey be pleased? My hat!”

He put his hand over his mouth to smother a laugh and his eyes fairly sparkled with mischief. “Who is Conkey?” I asked the Doctor.

“Sh! He is speaking of the judge up there, the Honourable Eustace Beauchamp Conckley.”

“Now,” said Mr. Jenkyns, bringing out a note-book, “tell me a little more about yourself, Doctor. You took your degree as Doctor of Medicine at Durham, I think you said. And the name of your last book was?”

I could not hear any more for they talked in whispers; and I fell to looking round the court again.

Of course I could not understand everything that was going on, though it was all very interesting. People kept getting up in the place the Doctor called the witness-box, and the lawyers at the long table asked them questions about “the night of the 29th.” Then the people would get down again and somebody else would get up and be questioned.

One of the lawyers (who, the Doctor told me afterwards, was called the Prosecutor) seemed to be doing his best to get the Hermit into trouble by asking questions which made it look as though he had always been a very bad man. He was a nasty lawyer, this Prosecutor, with a long nose.

Most of the time I could hardly keep my eyes off poor Luke, who sat there between his two policemen, staring at the floor as though he weren’t interested. The only time I saw him take any notice at all was when a small dark man with wicked, little, watery eyes got up into the witness-box. I heard Bob snarl under my chair as this person came into the court-room and Luke’s eyes just blazed with anger and contempt.

This man said his name was Mendoza and that he was the one who had guided the Mexican police to the mine after Bluebeard Bill had been killed. And at every word he said I could hear Bob down below me muttering between his teeth,

“It’s a lie! It’s a lie! I’ll chew his face. It’s a lie!”

And both the Doctor and I had hard work keeping the dog under the seat.

Then I noticed that our Mr. Jenkyns had disappeared from the Doctor’s side. But presently I saw him stand up at the long table to speak to the judge.

“Your Honour,” said he, “I wish to introduce a new witness for the defence, Doctor John Dolittle, the naturalist. Will you please step into the witness-stand, Doctor?”

There was a buzz of excitement as the Doctor made his way across the crowded room; and I noticed the nasty lawyer with the long nose lean down and whisper something to a friend, smiling in an ugly way which made me want to pinch him.

Then Mr. Jenkyns asked the Doctor a whole lot of questions about himself and made him answer in a loud voice so the whole court could hear. He finished up by saying,

“And you are prepared to swear, Doctor Dolittle, that you understand the language of dogs and can make them understand you. Is that so?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that is so.”

“And what, might I ask,” put in the judge in a very quiet, dignified voice, “has all this to do with the killing of er – er – Bluebeard Bill?”

“This, Your Honour,” said Mr. Jenkyns, talking in a very grand manner as though he were on a stage in a theatre: “there is in this court-room at the present moment a bulldog, who was the only living thing that saw the man killed. With the Court’s permission I propose to put that dog in the witness-stand and have him questioned before you by the eminent scientist, Doctor John Dolittle.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Judge’s Dog

At first there was a dead silence in the Court. Then everybody began whispering or giggling at the same time, till the whole room sounded like a great hive of bees. Many people seemed to be shocked; most of them were amused; and a few were angry.

Presently up sprang the nasty lawyer with the long nose.

“I protest, Your Honour,” he cried, waving his arms wildly to the judge. “I object. The dignity of this court is in peril. I protest.”

“I am the one to take care of the dignity of this court,” said the judge.

Then Mr. Jenkyns got up again. (If it hadn’t been such a serious matter, it was almost like a Punch-and-Judy show: somebody was always popping down and somebody else popping up).

“If there is any doubt on the score of our being able to do as we say, Your Honour will have no objection, I trust, to the Doctor’s giving the Court a demonstration of his powers – of showing that he actually can understand the speech of animals?”

I thought I saw a twinkle of amusement come into the old judge’s eyes as he sat considering a moment before he answered.

“No,” he said at last, “I don’t think so.” Then he turned to the Doctor.

“Are you quite sure you can do this?” he asked.

“Quite, Your Honour,” said the Doctor – “quite sure.”

“Very well then,” said the judge. “If you can satisfy us that you really are able to understand canine testimony, the dog shall be admitted as a witness. I do not see, in that case, how I could object to his being heard. But I warn you that if you are trying to make a laughing-stock of this Court it will go hard with you.”

“I protest, I protest!” yelled the long-nosed Prosecutor. “This is a scandal, an outrage to the Bar!”

“Sit down!” said the judge in a very stern voice.

“What animal does Your Honour wish me to talk with?” asked the Doctor.

“I would like you to talk to my own dog,” said the judge. “He is outside in the cloak-room. I will have him brought in; and then we shall see what you can do.”

Then someone went out and fetched the judge’s dog, a lovely great Russian wolf-hound with slender legs and a shaggy coat. He was a proud and beautiful creature.

“Now, Doctor,” said the judge, “did you ever see this dog before? – Remember you are in the witness-stand and under oath.”

“No, Your Honour, I never saw him before.”

“Very well then, will you please ask him to tell you what I had for supper last night? He was with me and watched me while I ate.”

Then the Doctor and the dog started talking to one another in signs and sounds; and they kept at it for quite a long time. And the Doctor began to giggle and get so interested that he seemed to forget all about the Court and the judge and everything else.

“What a time he takes!” I heard a fat woman in front of me whispering. “He’s only pretending. Of course he can’t do it! Who ever heard of talking to a dog? He must think we’re children.”

“Haven’t you finished yet?” the judge asked the Doctor. “It shouldn’t take that long just to ask what I had for supper.”

“Oh no, Your Honour,” said the Doctor. “The dog told me that long ago. But then he went on to tell me what you did after supper.”

“Never mind that,” said the judge. “Tell me what answer he gave you to my question.”

“He says you had a mutton-chop, two baked potatoes, a pickled walnut and a glass of ale.”

The Honourable Eustace Beauchamp Conckley went white to the lips.

“Sounds like witchcraft,” he muttered. “I never dreamed – ”

“And after your supper,” the Doctor went on, “he says you went to see a prize-fight and then sat up playing cards for money till twelve o’clock and came home singing, ‘We won’t get – ’”

“That will do,” the judge interrupted, “I am satisfied you can do as you say. The prisoner’s dog shall be admitted as a witness.”

“I protest, I object!” screamed the Prosecutor. “Your Honour, this is—”

“Sit down!” roared the judge. “I say the dog shall be heard. That ends the matter. Put the witness in the stand.”

And then for the first time in the solemn history of England a dog was put in the witness-stand of Her Majesty’s Court of Assizes. And it was I, Tommy Stubbins (when the Doctor made a sign to me across the room) who proudly led Bob up the aisle, through the astonished crowd, past the frowning, spluttering, long-nosed Prosecutor, and made him comfortable on a high chair in the witness-box; from where the old bulldog sat scowling down over the rail upon the amazed and gaping jury.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The End of the Mystery

The trial went swiftly forward after that. Mr. Jenkyns told the Doctor to ask Bob what he saw on the “night of the 29th;” and when Bob had told all he knew and the Doctor had turned it into English for the judge and the jury, this was what he had to say:

“On the night of the 29th of November, 1824, I was with my master, Luke Fitzjohn (otherwise known as Luke the Hermit) and his two partners, Manuel Mendoza and William Boggs (otherwise known as Bluebeard Bill) on their gold-mine in Mexico. For a long time these three men had been hunting for gold; and they had dug a deep hole in the ground. On the morning of the 29th gold was discovered, lots of it, at the bottom of this hole. And all three, my master and his two partners, were very happy about it because now they would be rich. But Manuel Mendoza asked Bluebeard Bill to go for a walk with him. These two men I had always suspected of being bad. So when I noticed that they left my master behind, I followed them secretly to see what they were up to. And in a deep cave in the mountains I heard them arrange together to kill Luke the Hermit so that they should get all the gold and he have none.”

At this point the judge asked, “Where is the witness Mendoza? Constable, see that he does not leave the court.”

But the wicked little man with the watery eyes had already sneaked out when no one was looking and he was never seen in Puddleby again.

“Then,” Bob’s statement went on, “I went to my master and tried very hard to make him understand that his partners were dangerous men. But it was no use. He did not understand dog language. So I did the next best thing: I never let him out of my sight but stayed with him every moment of the day and night.

“Now the hole that they had made was so deep that to get down and up it you had to go in a big bucket tied on the end of a rope; and the three men used to haul one another up and let one another down the mine in this way. That was how the gold was brought up too – in the bucket. Well, about seven o’clock in the evening my master was standing at the top of the mine, hauling up Bluebeard Bill who was in the bucket. Just as he had got Bill halfway up I saw Mendoza come out of the hut where we all lived. Mendoza thought that Bill was away buying groceries. But he wasn’t: he was in the bucket. And when Mendoza saw Luke hauling and straining on the rope he thought he was pulling up a bucketful of gold. So he drew a pistol from his pocket and came sneaking up behind Luke to shoot him.

“I barked and barked to warn my master of the danger he was in; but he was so busy hauling up Bill (who was a heavy fat man) that he took no notice of me. I saw that if I didn’t do something quick he would surely be shot. So I did a thing I’ve never done before: suddenly and savagely I bit my master in the leg from behind. Luke was so hurt and startled that he did just what I wanted him to do: he let go the rope with both hands at once and turned round. And then, Crash! down went Bill in his bucket to the bottom of the mine and he was killed.

“While my master was busy scolding me Mendoza put his pistol in his pocket, came up with a smile on his face and looked down the mine.

“‘Why, Good Gracious’!” said he to Luke, “You’ve killed Bluebeard Bill. I must go and tell the police’ – hoping, you see, to get the whole mine to himself when Luke should be put in prison. Then he jumped on his horse and galloped away.’

“And soon my master grew afraid; for he saw that if Mendoza only told enough lies to the police, it would look as though he had killed Bill on purpose. So while Mendoza was gone he and I stole away together secretly and came to England. Here he shaved off his beard and became a hermit. And ever since, for fifteen years, we’ve remained in hiding. This is all I have to say. And I swear it is the truth, every word.”

When the Doctor finished reading Bob’s long speech the excitement among the twelve men of the jury was positively terrific. One, a very old man with white hair, began to weep in a loud voice at the thought of poor Luke hiding on the fen for fifteen years for something he couldn’t help. And all the others set to whispering and nodding their heads to one another.

In the middle of all this up got that horrible Prosecutor again, waving his arms more wildly than ever.

“Your Honour,” he cried, “I must object to this evidence as biased. Of course the dog would not tell the truth against his own master. I object. I protest.”

“Very well,” said the judge, “you are at liberty to cross-examine. It is your duty as Prosecutor to prove his evidence untrue. There is the dog: question him, if you do not believe what he says.”

I thought the long-nosed lawyer would have a fit. He looked first at the dog, then at the Doctor, then at the judge, then back at the dog scowling from the witness-box. He opened his mouth to say something; but no words came. He waved his arms some more. His face got redder and redder. At last, clutching his forehead, he sank weakly into his seat and had to be helped out of the court-room by two friends. As he was half carried through the door he was still feebly murmuring, “I protest – I object – I protest!”

• • • • •

•   8   •

Three Cheers

Next the judge made a very long speech to the jury; and when it was over all the twelve jurymen got up and went out into the next room. And at that point the Doctor came back, leading Bob, to the seat beside me.

“What have the jurymen gone out for?” I asked.

“They always do that at the end of a trial – to make up their minds whether the prisoner did it or not.”

“Couldn’t you and Bob go in with them and help them make up their minds the right way?” I asked.

“No, that’s not allowed. They have to talk it over in secret. Sometimes it takes – My Gracious, look, they’re coming back already! They didn’t spend long over it.”

Everybody kept quite still while the twelve men came tramping back into their places in the pews. Then one of them, the leader – a little man – stood up and turned to the judge. Every one was holding his breath, especially the Doctor and myself, to see what he was going to say. You could have heard a pin drop while the whole court-room, the whole of Puddleby in fact, waited with craning necks and straining ears to hear the weighty words.

“Your Honour,” said the little man, “the jury returns a verdict of Not Guilty.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked, turning to the Doctor.

But I found Doctor John Dolittle, the famous naturalist, standing on top of a chair, dancing about on one leg like a schoolboy.

“It means he’s free!” he cried, “Luke is free!”

“Then he’ll be able to come on the voyage with us, won’t he?”

But I could not hear his answer; for the whole court-room seemed to be jumping up on chairs like the Doctor. The crowd had suddenly gone crazy. All the people were laughing and calling and waving to Luke to show him how glad they were that he was free. The noise was deafening.

Then it stopped. All was quiet again; and the people stood up respectfully while the judge left the Court. For the trial of Luke the Hermit, that famous trial which to this day they are still talking of in Puddleby, was over.

In the hush while the judge was leaving, a sudden shriek rang out, and there, in the doorway stood a woman, her arms outstretched to the Hermit.

“Luke!” she cried, “I’ve found you at last!”

“It’s his wife,” the fat woman in front of me whispered. “She ain’t seen ’im in fifteen years, poor dear! What a lovely reunion. I’m glad I came. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything!”

As soon as the judge had gone the noise broke out again; and now the folks gathered round Luke and his wife and shook them by the hand and congratulated them and laughed over them and cried over them.

“Come along, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, taking me by the arm, “let’s get out of this while we can.”

“But aren’t you going to speak to Luke?” I said – “to ask him if he’ll come on the voyage?”

“It wouldn’t be a bit of use,” said the Doctor. “His wife’s come for him. No man stands any chance of going on a voyage when his wife hasn’t seen him in fifteen years. Come along. Let’s get home to tea. We didn’t have any lunch, remember. And we’ve earned something to eat. We’ll have one of those mixed meals, lunch and tea combined – with watercress and ham. Nice change. Come along.”

Just as we were going to step out at a side door I heard the crowd shouting,

“The Doctor! The Doctor! Where’s the Doctor? The Hermit would have hanged if it hadn’t been for the Doctor. Speech! Speech! – The Doctor!”

And a man came running up to us and said,

“The people are calling for you, Sir.”

“I’m very sorry,” said the Doctor, “but I’m in a hurry.”

“The crowd won’t be denied, Sir,” said the man. “They want you to make a speech in the market-place.”

“Beg them to excuse me,” said the Doctor – “with my compliments. I have an appointment at my house – a very important one which I may not break. Tell Luke to make a speech. Come along, Stubbins, this way.”

“Oh Lord!” he muttered as we got out into the open air and found another crowd waiting for him at the side door. “Let’s go up that alleyway – to the left. Quick! – Run!”

We took to our heels, darted through a couple of side streets and just managed to get away from the crowd.

It was not till we had gained the Oxenthorpe Road that we dared to slow down to a walk and take our breath. And even when we reached the Doctor’s gate and turned to look backwards towards the town, the faint murmur of many voices still reached us on the evening wind.

“They’re still clamouring for you,” I said. “Listen!”

The murmur suddenly swelled up into a low distant roar; and although it was a mile and half away you could distinctly hear the words,

“Three cheers for Luke the Hermit: Hooray! – Three cheers for his dog: Hooray! – Three cheers for his wife: Hooray! – Three cheers for the Doctor: Hooray! Hooray! HOO-R-A-Y!”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Purple Bird-of-Paradise

Polynesia was waiting for us in the front porch. She looked full of some important news.

“Doctor,” said she, “the Purple Bird-of-Paradise has arrived!”

“At last!” said the Doctor. “I had begun to fear some accident had befallen her. And how is Miranda?”

From the excited way in which the Doctor fumbled his key into the lock I guessed that we were not going to get our tea right away, even now.

“Oh, she seemed all right when she arrived,” said Polynesia – “tired from her long journey of course, but otherwise all right. But what do you think? That mischief-making sparrow, Cheapside, insulted her as soon as she came into the garden. When I arrived on the scene she was in tears and was all for turning round and going straight back to Brazil tonight. I had the hardest work persuading her to wait till you came. She’s in the study. I shut Cheapside in one of your book-cases and told him I’d tell you exactly what had happened the moment you got home.”

The Doctor frowned, then walked silently and quickly to the study.

Here we found the candles lit; for the daylight was nearly gone. Dab-Dab was standing on the floor mounting guard over one of the glass-fronted book-cases in which Cheapside had been imprisoned. The noisy little sparrow was still fluttering angrily behind the glass when we came in.

In the centre of the big table, perched on the ink-stand, stood the most beautiful bird I have ever seen. She had a deep violet-coloured breast, scarlet wings and a long, long sweeping tail of gold. She was unimaginably beautiful but looked dreadfully tired. Already she had her head under her wing; and she swayed gently from side to side on top of the ink-stand like a bird that has flown long and far.

“Sh!” said Dab-Dab. “Miranda is asleep. I’ve got this little imp Cheapside in here. Listen, Doctor: for Heaven’s sake send that sparrow away before he does any more mischief. He’s nothing but a vulgar little nuisance. We’ve had a perfectly awful time trying to get Miranda to stay. Shall I serve your tea in here, or will you come into the kitchen when you’re ready?”

“We’ll come into the kitchen, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor. “Let Cheapside out before you go, please.”

Dab-Dab opened the bookcase-door and Cheapside strutted out trying hard not to look guilty.

“Cheapside,” said the Doctor sternly, “what did you say to Miranda when she arrived?”

“I didn’t say nothing, Doc, straight I didn’t. That is, nothing much. I was picking up crumbs off the gravel path when she comes swanking into the garden, turning up her nose in all directions, as though she owned the earth – just because she’s got a lot of coloured plumage. A London sparrow’s as good as her any day. I don’t hold by these gawdy bedizened foreigners nohow. Why don’t they stay in their own country?”

“But what did you say to her that got her so offended?”

“All I said was, ‘You don’t belong in an English garden; you ought to be in a milliner’s window.’ That’s all.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Cheapside. Don’t you realize that this bird has come thousands of miles to see me – only to be insulted by your impertinent tongue as soon as she reaches my garden? What do you mean by it? – If she had gone away again before I got back tonight I would never have forgiven you – Leave the room.”

Sheepishly, but still trying to look as though he didn’t care, Cheapside hopped out into the passage and Dab-Dab closed the door.

The Doctor went up to the beautiful bird on the ink-stand and gently stroked its back. Instantly its head popped out from under its wing.

• • • • •

•   10   •

Long Arrow,
the Son of Golden Arrow

Well, Miranda,” said the Doctor. “I’m terribly sorry this has happened. But you mustn’t mind Cheapside; he doesn’t know any better. He’s a city bird; and all his life he has had to squabble for a living. You must make allowances. He doesn’t know any better.”

Miranda stretched her gorgeous wings wearily. Now that I saw her awake and moving I noticed what a superior, well-bred manner she had. There were tears in her eyes and her beak was trembling.

“I wouldn’t have minded so much,” she said in a high silvery voice, “if I hadn’t been so dreadfully worn out – That and something else,” she added beneath her breath.

“Did you have a hard time getting here?” asked the Doctor.

“The worst passage I ever made,” said Miranda. “The weather – Well there. What’s the use? I’m here anyway.”

“Tell me,” said the Doctor as though he had been impatiently waiting to say something for a long time: “what did Long Arrow say when you gave him my message?”

The Purple Bird-of-Paradise hung her head.

“That’s the worst part of it,” she said. “I might almost as well have not come at all. I wasn’t able to deliver your message. I couldn’t find him. Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, has disappeared!”

“Disappeared!” cried the Doctor. “Why, what’s become of him?”

“Nobody knows,” Miranda answered. “He had often disappeared before, as I have told you – so that the Indians didn’t know where he was. But it’s a mighty hard thing to hide away from the birds. I had always been able to find some owl or martin who could tell me where he was – if I wanted to know. But not this time. That’s why I’m nearly a fortnight late in coming to you: I kept hunting and hunting, asking everywhere. I went over the whole length and breadth of South America. But there wasn’t a living thing could tell me where he was.”

There was a sad silence in the room after she had finished; the Doctor was frowning in a peculiar sort of way and Polynesia scratched her head.

“Did you ask the black parrots?” asked Polynesia. “They usually know everything.”

“Certainly I did,” said Miranda. “And I was so upset at not being able to find out anything, that I forgot all about observing the weather-signs before I started my flight here. I didn’t even bother to break my journey at the Azores, but cut right across, making for the Straits of Gibraltar – as though it were June or July. And of course I ran into a perfectly frightful storm in mid-Atlantic. I really thought I’d never come through it. Luckily I found a piece of a wrecked vessel floating in the sea after the storm had partly died down; and I roosted on it and took some sleep. If I hadn’t been able to take that rest I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.”

“Poor Miranda! What a time you must have had!” said the Doctor. “But tell me, were you able to find out whereabouts Long Arrow was last seen?”

“Yes. A young albatross told me he had seen him on Spidermonkey Island?”

“Spidermonkey Island? That’s somewhere off the coast of Brazil, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s it. Of course I flew there right away and asked every bird on the island – and it is a big island, a hundred miles long. It seems that Long Arrow was visiting some peculiar Indians that live there; and that when last seen he was going up into the mountains looking for rare medicine-plants. I got that from a tame hawk, a pet, which the Chief of the Indians keeps for hunting partridges with. I nearly got caught and put in a cage for my pains too. That’s the worst of having beautiful feathers: it’s as much as your life is worth to go near most humans – They say, ‘oh how pretty!’ and shoot an arrow or a bullet into you. You and Long Arrow were the only two men that I would ever trust myself near – out of all the people in the world.”

“But was he never known to have returned from the mountains?”

“No. That was the last that was seen or heard of him. I questioned the sea-birds around the shores to find out if he had left the island in a canoe. But they could tell me nothing.”

“Do you think that some accident has happened to him?” asked the Doctor in a fearful voice.

“I’m afraid it must have,” said Miranda shaking her head.

“Well,” said John Dolittle slowly, “if I could never meet Long Arrow face to face it would be the greatest disappointment in my whole life. Not only that, but it would be a great loss to the knowledge of the human race. For, from what you have told me of him, he knew more natural science than all the rest of us put together; and if he has gone without any one to write it down for him, so the world may be the better for it, it would be a terrible thing. But you don’t really think that he is dead, do you?”

“What else can I think?” asked Miranda, bursting into tears, “when for six whole months he has not been seen by flesh, fish or fowl.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Blind Travel

This news about Long Arrow made us all very sad. And I could see from the silent dreamy way the Doctor took his tea that he was dreadfully upset. Every once in a while he would stop eating altogether and sit staring at the spots on the kitchen table-cloth as though his thoughts were far away; till Dab-Dab, who was watching to see that he got a good meal, would cough or rattle the pots in the sink.

I did my best to cheer him up by reminding him of all he had done for Luke and his wife that afternoon. And when that didn’t seem to work, I went on talking about our preparations for the voyage.

“But you see, Stubbins,” said he as we rose from the table and Dab-Dab and Chee-Chee began to clear away, “I don’t know where to go now. I feel sort of lost since Miranda brought me this news. On this voyage I had planned going to see Long Arrow. I had been looking forward to it for a whole year. I felt he might help me in learning the language of the shellfish – and perhaps in finding some way of getting to the bottom of the sea. But now? – He’s gone! And all his great knowledge has gone with him.”

Then he seemed to fall a-dreaming again.

“Just to think of it!” he murmured. “Long Arrow and I, two students – Although I’d never met him, I felt as though I knew him quite well. For, in his way – without any schooling – he has, all his life, been trying to do the very things which I have tried to do in mine – And now he’s gone! – A whole world lay between us – And only a bird knew us both!”

We went back into the study, where Jip brought the Doctor his slippers and his pipe. And after the pipe was lit and the smoke began to fill the room the old man seemed to cheer up a little.

“But you will go on some voyage, Doctor, won’t you?” I asked – “even if you can’t go to find Long Arrow.”

He looked up sharply into my face; and I suppose he saw how anxious I was. Because he suddenly smiled his old, boyish smile and said,

“Yes, Stubbins. Don’t worry. We’ll go. We mustn’t stop working and learning, even if poor Long Arrow has disappeared – But where to go: that’s the question. Where shall we go?”

There were so many places that I wanted to go that I couldn’t make up my mind right away. And while I was still thinking, the Doctor sat up in his chair and said,

“I tell you what we’ll do, Stubbins: it’s a game I used to play when I was young – before Sarah came to live with me. I used to call it Blind Travel. Whenever I wanted to go on a voyage, and I couldn’t make up my mind where to go, I would take the atlas and open it with my eyes shut. Next, I’d wave a pencil, still without looking, and stick it down on whatever page had fallen open. Then I’d open my eyes and look. It’s a very exciting game, is Blind Travel. Because you have to swear, before you begin, that you will go to the place the pencil touches, come what way. Shall we play it?”

“Oh, let’s!” I almost yelled. “How thrilling! I hope it’s China – or Borneo – or Baghdad.”

And in a moment I had scrambled up the bookcase, dragged the big atlas from the top shelf and laid it on the table before the Doctor.

I knew every page in that atlas by heart. How many days and nights I had lingered over its old faded maps, following the blue rivers from the mountains to the sea; wondering what the little towns really looked like, and how wide were the sprawling lakes! I had had a lot of fun with that atlas, travelling, in my mind, all over the world. I can see it now: the first page had no map; it just told you that it was printed in Edinburgh in 1808, and a whole lot more about the book. The next page was the Solar System, showing the sun and planets, the stars and the moon. The third page was the chart of the North and South Poles. Then came the hemispheres, the oceans, the continents and the countries.

As the Doctor began sharpening his pencil a thought came to me.

“What if the pencil falls upon the North Pole,” I asked, “will we have to go there?”

“No. The rules of the game say you don’t have to go any place you’ve been to before. You are allowed another try. I’ve been to the North Pole,” he ended quietly, “so we shan’t have to go there.” I could hardly speak with astonishment.

“You’ve been to the North Pole!” I managed to gasp out at last. “But I thought it was still undiscovered. The map shows all the places explorers have reached to, trying to get there. Why isn’t your name down if you discovered it?”

“I promised to keep it a secret. And you must promise me never to tell any one. Yes, I discovered the North Pole in April, 1809. But shortly after I got there the polar bears came to me in a body and told me there was a great deal of coal there, buried beneath the snow. They knew, they said, that human beings would do anything, and go anywhere, to get coal. So would I please keep it a secret. Because once people began coming up there to start coal-mines, their beautiful white country would be spoiled – and there was nowhere else in the world cold enough for polar bears to be comfortable. So of course I had to promise them I would. Ah, well, it will be discovered again some day, by somebody else. But I want the polar bears to have their play-ground to themselves as long as possible. And I daresay it will be a good while yet – for it certainly is a fiendish place to get to – Well now, are we ready? – Good! Take the pencil and stand here close to the table. When the book falls open, wave the pencil round three times and jab it down. Ready? – All right. Shut your eyes.”

It was a tense and fearful moment – but very thrilling. We both had our eyes shut tight. I heard the atlas fall open with a bang. I wondered what page it was: England or Asia. If it should be the map of Asia, so much would depend on where that pencil would land. I waved three times in a circle. I began to lower my hand. The pencil-point touched the page.

“All right,” I called out, “it’s done.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

Destiny and Destination

We both opened our eyes; then bumped our heads together with a crack in our eagerness to lean over and see where we were to go.

The atlas lay open at a map called, Chart of the South Atlantic Ocean. My pencil-point was resting right in the centre of a tiny island. The name of it was printed so small that the Doctor had to get out his strong spectacles to read it. I was trembling with excitement.

“Spidermonkey Island,” he read out slowly. Then he whistled softly beneath his breath. “Of all the extraordinary things! You’ve hit upon the very island where Long Arrow was last seen on earth – I wonder – Well, well! How very singular!”

“We’ll go there, Doctor, won’t we?” I asked.

“Of course we will. The rules of the game say we’ve got to.”

“I’m so glad it wasn’t Oxenthorpe or Bristol,” I said. “It’ll be a grand voyage, this. Look at all the sea we’ve got to cross. Will it take us long?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor – “not very. With a good boat and a good wind we should make it easily in four weeks. But isn’t it extraordinary? Of all the places in the world you picked out that one with your eyes shut. Spidermonkey Island after all! – Well, there’s one good thing about it: I shall be able to get some Jabizri beetles.”

“What are Jabizri beetles?”

“They are a very rare kind of beetles with peculiar habits. I want to study them. There are only three countries in the world where they are to be found. Spidermonkey Island is one of them. But even there they are very scarce.”

“What is this little question-mark after the name of the island for?” I asked, pointing to the map.

“That means that the island’s position in the ocean is not known very exactly – that it is somewhere about there. Ships have probably seen it in that neighbourhood, that is all, most likely. It is quite possible we shall be the first white men to land there. But I daresay we shall have some difficulty in finding it first.”

How like a dream it all sounded! The two of us sitting there at the big study-table; the candles lit; the smoke curling towards the dim ceiling from the Doctor’s pipe – the two of us sitting there, talking about finding an island in the ocean and being the first white men to land upon it!

“I’ll bet it will be a great voyage,” I said. “It looks a lovely island on the map. Will there be black men there?”

“No. A peculiar tribe of Red Indians lives on it, Miranda tells me.”

At this point the poor Bird-of-Paradise stirred and woke up. In our excitement we had forgotten to speak low.

“We are going to Spidermonkey Island, Miranda,” said the Doctor. “You know where it is, do you not?”

“I know where it was the last time I saw it,” said the bird. “But whether it will be there still, I can’t say.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Doctor. “It is always in the same place surely?”

“Not by any means,” said Miranda. “Why, didn’t you know? – Spidermonkey Island is a floating island. It moves around all over the place – usually somewhere near southern South America. But of course I could surely find it for you if you want to go there.”

At this fresh piece of news I could contain myself no longer. I was bursting to tell some one. I ran dancing and singing from the room to find Chee-Chee.

At the door I tripped over Dab-Dab, who was just coming in with her wings full of plates, and fell headlong on my nose.

“Has the boy gone crazy?” cried the duck. “Where do you think you’re going, ninny?”

“To Spidermonkey Island!” I shouted, picking myself up and doing cart-wheels down the hall – “Spidermonkey Island! Hooray! – And it’s a floating island!”

“You’re going to Bedlam, I should say,” snorted the housekeeper. “Look what you’ve done to my best china!”

But I was far too happy to listen to her scolding; and I ran on, singing, into the kitchen to find Chee-Chee.

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

The Third Man

That same week we began our preparations for the voyage.

Joe, the mussel-man, had the Curlew moved down the river and tied it up along the river-wall, so it would be more handy for loading. And for three whole days we carried provisions down to our beautiful new boat and stowed them away.

I was surprised to find how roomy and big she was inside. There were three little cabins, a saloon (or dining-room) and underneath all this, a big place called the hold where the food and extra sails and other things were kept.

I think Joe must have told everybody in the town about our coming voyage, because there was always a regular crowd watching us when we brought the things down to put aboard. And of course sooner or later old Matthew Mugg was bound to turn up.

“My Goodness, Tommy,” said he, as he watched me carrying on some sacks of flour, “but that’s a pretty boat! Where might the Doctor be going to this voyage?”

“We’re going to Spidermonkey Island,” I said proudly.

“And be you the only one the Doctor’s taking along?”

“Well, he has spoken of wanting to take another man,” I said; “but so far he hasn’t made up his mind.”

Matthew grunted; then squinted up at the graceful masts of the Curlew.

“You know, Tommy,” said he, “if it wasn’t for my rheumatism I’ve half a mind to come with the Doctor myself. There’s something about a boat standing ready to sail that always did make me feel venturesome and travellish-like. What’s that stuff in the cans you’re taking on?”

“This is treacle,” I said – “twenty pounds of treacle.”

“My Goodness,” he sighed, turning away sadly. “That makes me feel more like going with you than ever – But my rheumatism is that bad I can’t hardly—”

I didn’t hear any more for Matthew had moved off, still mumbling, into the crowd that stood about the wharf. The clock in Puddleby Church struck noon and I turned back, feeling very busy and important, to the task of loading.

But it wasn’t very long before some one else came along and interrupted my work. This was a huge, big, burly man with a red beard and tattoo-marks all over his arms. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spat twice on to the river-wall and said,

“Boy, where’s the skipper?”

“The skipper! – Who do you mean?” I asked.

“The captain – Where’s the captain, of this craft?” he said, pointing to the Curlew.

“Oh, you mean the Doctor,” said I. “Well, he isn’t here at present.”

At that moment the Doctor arrived with his arms full of note-books and butterfly-nets and glass cases and other natural history things. The big man went up to him, respectfully touching his cap.

“Good morning, Captain,” said he. “I heard you was in need of hands for a voyage. My name’s Ben Butcher, able seaman.”

“I am very glad to know you,” said the Doctor. “But I’m afraid I shan’t be able to take on any more crew.”

“Why, but Captain,” said the able seaman, “you surely ain’t going to face deep-sea weather with nothing more than this bit of a lad to help you – and with a cutter that big!”

The Doctor assured him that he was; but the man didn’t go away. He hung around and argued. He told us he had known of many ships being sunk through “undermanning.” He got out what he called his stiffikit – a paper which said what a good sailor he was – and implored us, if we valued our lives, to take him.

But the Doctor was quite firm-polite but determined – and finally the man walked sorrowfully away, telling us he never expected to see us alive again.

Callers of one sort and another kept us quite busy that morning. The Doctor had no sooner gone below to stow away his note-books than another visitor appeared upon the gang-plank. This was a most extraordinary-looking black man. The only other negroes I had seen had been in circuses, where they wore feathers and bone necklaces and things like that. But this one was dressed in a fashionable frock coat with an enormous bright red cravat. On his head was a straw hat with a gay band; and over this he held a large green umbrella. He was very smart in every respect except his feet. He wore no shoes or socks.

“Pardon me,” said he, bowing elegantly, “but is this the ship of the physician Dolittle?”

“Yes,” I said, “did you wish to see him?”

“I did – if it will not be discommodious,” he answered.

“Who shall I say it is?”

“I am Bumpo Kahbooboo, Crown Prince of Jolliginki.”

I ran downstairs at once and told the Doctor.

“How fortunate!” cried John Dolittle. “My old friend Bumpo! Well, well! – He’s studying at Oxford, you know. How good of him to come all this way to call on me!” And he tumbled up the ladder to greet his visitor.

The strange black man seemed to be overcome with joy when the Doctor appeared and shook him warmly by the hand.

“News reached me,” he said, “that you were about to sail upon a voyage. I hastened to see you before your departure. I am sublimely ecstasied that I did not miss you.”

“You very nearly did miss us,” said the Doctor. “As it happened, we were delayed somewhat in getting the necessary number of men to sail our boat. If it hadn’t been for that, we would have been gone three days ago.”

“How many men does your ship’s company yet require?” asked Bumpo.

“Only one,” said the Doctor – “But it is so hard to find the right one.”

“Methinks I detect something of the finger of Destination in this,” said Bumpo. “How would I do?”

“Splendidly,” said the Doctor. “But what about your studies? You can’t very well just go off and leave your university career to take care of itself, you know.”

“I need a holiday,” said Bumpo. “Even had I not gone with you, I intended at the end of this term to take a three-months’ absconsion – But besides, I shall not be neglecting my edification if I accompany you. Before I left Jolliginki my august father, the King, told me to be sure and travel plenty. You are a man of great studiosity. To see the world in your company is an opportunity not to be sneezed upon. No, no, indeed.”

“How did you like the life at Oxford?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, passably, passably,” said Bumpo. “I liked it all except the algebra and the shoes. The algebra hurt my head and the shoes hurt my feet. I threw the shoes over a wall as soon as I got out of the college quadrilateral this morning; and the algebra I am happily forgetting very fast – I liked Cicero – Yes, I think Cicero’s fine – so simultaneous. By the way, they tell me his son is rowing for our college next year – charming fellow.”

The Doctor looked down at the black man’s huge bare feet thoughtfully a moment.

“Well,” he said slowly, “there is something in what you say, Bumpo, about getting education from the world as well as from the college. And if you are really sure that you want to come, we shall be delighted to have you. Because, to tell you the truth, I think you are exactly the man we need.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Goodbye!

Two days after that we had all in readiness for our departure.

On this voyage Jip begged so hard to be taken that the Doctor finally gave in and said he could come. Polynesia and Chee-Chee were the only other animals to go with us. Dab-Dab was left in charge of the house and the animal family we were to leave behind.

Of course, as is always the way, at the last moment we kept remembering things we had forgotten; and when we finally closed the house up and went down the steps to the road, we were all burdened with armfuls of odd packages.

Halfway to the river, the Doctor suddenly remembered that he had left the stock-pot boiling on the kitchen-fire. However, we saw a blackbird flying by who nested in our garden, and the Doctor asked her to go back for us and tell Dab-Dab about it.

Down at the river-wall we found a great crowd waiting to see us off.

Standing right near the gang-plank were my mother and father. I hoped that they would not make a scene, or burst into tears or anything like that. But as a matter of fact they behaved quite well – for parents. My mother said something about being sure not to get my feet wet; and my father just smiled a crooked sort of smile, patted me on the back and wished me luck. Goodbyes are awfully uncomfortable things and I was glad when it was over and we passed on to the ship.

We were a little surprised not to see Matthew Mugg among the crowd. We had felt sure that he would be there; and the Doctor had intended to give him some extra instructions about the food for the animals we had left at the house.

At last, after much pulling and tugging, we got the anchor up and undid a lot of mooring-ropes. Then the Curlew began to move gently down the river with the out-running tide, while the people on the wall cheered and waved their handkerchiefs.

We bumped into one or two other boats getting out into the stream; and at one sharp bend in the river we got stuck on a mud bank for a few minutes. But though the people on the shore seemed to get very excited at these things, the Doctor did not appear to be disturbed by them in the least.

“These little accidents will happen in the most carefully regulated voyages,” he said as he leaned over the side and fished for his boots which had got stuck in the mud while we were pushing off. “Sailing is much easier when you get out into the open sea. There aren’t so many silly things to bump into.”

For me indeed it was a great and wonderful feeling, that getting out into the open sea, when at length we passed the little lighthouse at the mouth of the river and found ourselves free of the land. It was all so new and different: just the sky above you and sea below. This ship, which was to be our house and our street, our home and our garden, for so many days to come, seemed so tiny in all this wide water – so tiny and yet so snug, sufficient, safe.

I looked around me and took in a deep breath. The Doctor was at the wheel steering the boat which was now leaping and plunging gently through the waves. (I had expected to feel seasick at first but was delighted to find that I didn’t.) Bumpo had been told off to go downstairs and prepare dinner for us. Chee-Chee was coiling up ropes in the stern and laying them in neat piles. My work was fastening down the things on the deck so that nothing could roll about if the weather should grow rough when we got further from the land. Jip was up in the peak of the boat with ears cocked and nose stuck out – like a statue, so still – his keen old eyes keeping a sharp look-out for floating wrecks, sand-bars, and other dangers.

Each one of us had some special job to do, part of the proper running of a ship. Even old Polynesia was taking the sea’s temperature with the Doctor’s bath-thermometer tied on the end of a string, to make sure there were no icebergs near us. As I listened to her swearing softly to herself because she couldn’t read the pesky figures in the fading light, I realized that the voyage had begun in earnest and that very soon it would be night – my first night at sea!

• • • • •

•   3   •

Our Troubles Begin

Just before supper-time Bumpo appeared from downstairs and went to the Doctor at the wheel.

“A stowaway in the hold, Sir,” said he in a very business-like seafaring voice. “I just discovered him, behind the flour-bags.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “What a nuisance! Stubbins, go down with Bumpo and bring the man up. I can’t leave the wheel just now.”

So Bumpo and I went down into the hold; and there, behind the flour-bags, plastered in flour from head to foot, we found a man. After we had swept most of the flour off him with a broom, we discovered that it was Matthew Mugg. We hauled him upstairs sneezing and took him before the Doctor.

“Why Matthew!” said John Dolittle. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“The temptation was too much for me, Doctor,” said the Cat’s-meat-Man. “You know I’ve often asked you to take me on voyages with you and you never would. Well, this time, knowing that you needed an extra man, I thought if I stayed hid till the ship was well at sea you would find I came in handy like and keep me. But I had to lie so doubled up, for hours, behind them flour-bags, that my rheumatism came on something awful. I just had to change my position; and of course just as I stretched out my legs along comes this here African cook of yours and sees my feet sticking out – Don’t this ship roll something awful! How long has this storm been going on? I reckon this damp sea air wouldn’t be very good for my rheumatics.”

“No, Matthew it really isn’t. You ought not to have come. You are not in any way suited to this kind of a life. I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy a long voyage a bit. We’ll stop in at Penzance and put you ashore. Bumpo, please go downstairs to my bunk; and listen: in the pocket of my dressing-gown you’ll find some maps. Bring me the small one – with blue pencil-marks at the top. I know Penzance is over here on our left somewhere. But I must find out what light-houses there are before I change the ship’s course and sail inshore.”

“Very good, Sir,” said Bumpo, turning round smartly and making for the stairway.

“Now Matthew,” said the Doctor, “you can take the coach from Penzance to Bristol. And from there it is not very far to Puddleby, as you know. Don’t forget to take the usual provisions to the house every Thursday, and be particularly careful to remember the extra supply of herrings for the baby minks.”

While we were waiting for the maps Chee-Chee and I set about lighting the lamps: a green one on the right side of the ship, a red one on the left and a white one on the mast.

At last we heard some one trundling on the stairs again and the Doctor said,

“Ah, here’s Bumpo with the maps at last!”

But to our great astonishment it was not Bumpo alone that appeared but three people.

“Good Lord deliver us! Who are these?” cried John Dolittle.

“Two more stowaways, Sir,” said Bumpo stepping forward briskly. “I found them in your cabin hiding under the bunk. One woman and one man, Sir. Here are the maps.”

“This is too much,” said the Doctor feebly. “Who are they? I can’t see their faces in this dim light. Strike a match, Bumpo.”

You could never guess who it was. It was Luke and his wife. Mrs. Luke appeared to be very miserable and seasick.

They explained to the Doctor that after they had settled down to live together in the little shack out on the fens, so many people came to visit them (having heard about the great trial) that life became impossible; and they had decided to escape from Puddleby in this manner – for they had no money to leave any other way – and try to find some new place to live where they and their story wouldn’t be so well known. But as soon as the ship had begun to roll Mrs. Luke had got most dreadfully unwell.

Poor Luke apologized many times for being such a nuisance and said that the whole thing had been his wife’s idea.

The Doctor, after he had sent below for his medicine-bag and had given Mrs. Luke some sal volatile and smelling-salts, said he thought the best thing to do would be for him to lend them some money and put them ashore at Penzance with Matthew. He also wrote a letter for Luke to take with him to a friend the Doctor had in the town of Penzance who, it was hoped, would be able to find Luke work to do there.

As the Doctor opened his purse and took out some gold coins I heard Polynesia, who was sitting on my shoulder watching the whole affair, mutter beneath her breath,

“There he goes – lending his last blessed penny – three pounds ten – all the money we had for the whole trip! Now we haven’t the price of a postage-stamp aboard if we should lose an anchor or have to buy a pint of tar – Well, let’s, pray we don’t run out of food – Why doesn’t he give them the ship and walk home?”

Presently with the help of the map the course of the boat was changed and, to Mrs. Luke’s great relief, we made for Penzance and dry land.

I was tremendously interested to see how a ship could be steered into a port at night with nothing but light-houses and a compass to guide you. It seemed to me that the Doctor missed all the rocks and sand-bars very cleverly.

We got into that funny little Cornish harbour about eleven o’clock that night. The Doctor took his stowaways on shore in our small row-boat which we kept on the deck of the Curlew and found them rooms at the hotel there. When he got back he told us that Mrs. Luke had gone straight to bed and was feeling much better.

It was now after midnight; so we decided to stay in the harbour and wait till morning before setting out again.

I was glad to get to bed, although I felt that staying up so tremendously late was great fun. As I climbed into the bunk over the Doctor’s and pulled the blankets snugly round me, I found I could look out of the port-hole at my elbow, and, without raising my head from the pillow, could see the lights of Penzance swinging gently up and down with the motion of the ship at anchor. It was like being rocked to sleep with a little show going on to amuse you. I was just deciding that I liked the life of the sea very much when I fell fast asleep.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Our Troubles Continue

The next morning when we were eating a very excellent breakfast of kidneys and bacon, prepared by our good cook Bumpo, the Doctor said to me,

“I was just wondering, Stubbins, whether I should stop at the Capa Blanca Islands or run right across for the coast of Brazil. Miranda said we could expect a spell of excellent weather now – for four and a half weeks at least.”

“Well,” I said, spooning out the sugar at the bottom of my cocoa-cup, “I should think it would be best to make straight across while we are sure of good weather. And besides the Purple Bird-of-Paradise is going to keep a look-out for us, isn’t she? She’ll be wondering what’s happened to us if we don’t get there in about a month.”

“True, quite true, Stubbins. On the other hand, the Capa Blancas make a very convenient stopping place on our way across. If we should need supplies or repairs it would be very handy to put in there.”

“How long will it take us from here to the Capa Blancas?” I asked.

“About six days,” said the Doctor – “Well, we can decide later. For the next two days at any rate our direction would be the same practically in either case. If you have finished breakfast let’s go and get under way.”

Upstairs I found our vessel surrounded by white and grey seagulls who flashed and circled about in the sunny morning air, looking for food-scraps thrown out by the ships into the harbour.

By about half past seven we had the anchor up and the sails set to a nice steady breeze; and this time we got out into the open sea without bumping into a single thing. We met the Penzance fishing fleet coming in from the night’s fishing, and very trim and neat they looked, in a line like soldiers, with their red-brown sails all leaning over the same way and the white water dancing before their bows.

For the next three or four days everything went smoothly and nothing unusual happened. During this time we all got settled down into our regular jobs; and in spare moments the Doctor showed each of us how to take our turns at the wheel, the proper manner of keeping a ship on her right course, and what to do if the wind changed suddenly. We divided the twenty-four hours of the day into three spells; and we took it in turns to sleep our eight hours and be awake sixteen. So the ship was well looked after, with two of us always on duty.

Besides that, Polynesia, who was an older sailor than any of us, and really knew a lot about running ships, seemed to be always awake – except when she took her couple of winks in the sun, standing on one leg beside the wheel. You may be sure that no one ever got a chance to stay abed more than his eight hours while Polynesia was around. She used to watch the ship’s clock; and if you overslept a half-minute, she would come down to the cabin and peck you gently on the nose till you got up.

I very soon grew to be quite fond of our funny black friend Bumpo, with his grand way of speaking and his enormous feet which some one was always stepping on or falling over. Although he was much older than I was and had been to college, he never tried to lord it over me. He seemed to be forever smiling and kept all of us in good humour. It wasn’t long before I began to see the Doctor’s good sense in bringing him – in spite of the fact that he knew nothing whatever about sailing or travel.

On the morning of the fifth day out, just as I was taking the wheel over from the Doctor, Bumpo appeared and said,

“The salt beef is nearly all gone, Sir.”

“The salt beef!” cried the Doctor. “Why, we brought a hundred and twenty pounds with us. We couldn’t have eaten that in five days. What can have become of it?”

“I don’t know, Sir, I’m sure. Every time I go down to the stores I find another hunk missing. If it is rats that are eating it, then they are certainly colossal rodents.”

Polynesia who was walking up and down a stay-rope taking her morning exercise, put in,

“We must search the hold. If this is allowed to go on we will all be starving before a week is out. Come downstairs with me, Tommy, and we will look into this matter.”

So we went downstairs into the store-room and Polynesia told us to keep quite still and listen. This we did. And presently we heard from a dark corner of the hold the distinct sound of someone snoring.

“Ah, I thought so,” said Polynesia. “It’s a man – and a big one. Climb in there, both of you, and haul him out. It sounds as though he were behind that barrel – Gosh! We seem to have brought half of Puddleby with us. Anyone would think we were a penny ferry-boat. Such cheek! Haul him out.”

So Bumpo and I lit a lantern and climbed over the stores. And there, behind the barrel, sure enough, we found an enormous bearded man fast asleep with a well-fed look on his face. We woke him up.

“Washamarrer?” he said sleepily.

It was Ben Butcher, the able seaman.

Polynesia spluttered like an angry fire-cracker.

“This is the last straw,” said she. “The one man in the world we least wanted. Shiver my timbers, what cheek!”

“Would it not be advisable,” suggested Bumpo, “while the varlet is still sleepy, to strike him on the head with some heavy object and push him through a port-hole into the sea?”

“No. We’d get into trouble,” said Polynesia. “We’re not in Jolliginki now, you know – worse luck! – Besides, there never was a port-hole big enough to push that man through. Bring him upstairs to the Doctor.”

So we led the man to the wheel where he respectfully touched his cap to the Doctor.

“Another stowaway, Sir,” said Bumpo smartly. I thought the poor Doctor would have a fit.

“Good morning, Captain,” said the man. “Ben Butcher, able seaman, at your service. I knew you’d need me, so I took the liberty of stowing away – much against my conscience. But I just couldn’t bear to see you poor landsmen set out on this voyage without a single real seaman to help you. You’d never have got home alive if I hadn’t come – Why look at your mainsail, Sir – all loose at the throat. First gust of wind come along, and away goes your canvas overboard – Well, it’s all right now I’m here. We’ll soon get things in shipshape.”

“No, it isn’t all right,” said the Doctor, “it’s all wrong. And I’m not at all glad to see you. I told you in Puddleby I didn’t want you. You had no right to come.”

“But Captain,” said the able seaman, “you can’t sail this ship without me. You don’t understand navigation. Why, look at the compass now: you’ve let her swing a point and a half off her course. It’s madness for you to try to do this trip alone – if you’ll pardon my saying so, Sir. Why – why, you’ll lose the ship!”

“Look here,” said the Doctor, a sudden stern look coming into his eyes, “losing a ship is nothing to me. I’ve lost ships before and it doesn’t bother me in the least. When I set out to go to a place, I get there. Do you understand? I may know nothing whatever about sailing and navigation, but I get there just the same. Now you may be the best seaman in the world, but on this ship you’re just a plain ordinary nuisance – very plain and very ordinary. And I am now going to call at the nearest port and put you ashore.”

“Yes, and think yourself lucky,” Polynesia put in, “that you are not locked up for stowing away and eating all our salt beef.”

“I don’t know what the mischief we’re going to do now,” I heard her whisper to Bumpo. “We’ve no money to buy any more; and that salt beef was the most important part of the stores.”

“Would it not be good political economy,” Bumpo whispered back, “if we salted the able seaman and ate him instead? I should judge that he would weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“How often must I tell you that we are not in Jolliginki,” snapped Polynesia. “Those things are not done on white men’s ships – Still,” she murmured after a moment’s thought, “it’s an awfully bright idea. I don’t suppose anybody saw him come on to the ship – Oh, but Heavens! we haven’t got enough salt. Besides, he’d be sure to taste of tobacco.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Polynesia Has a Plan

Then the Doctor told me to take the wheel while he made a little calculation with his map and worked out what new course we should take.

“I shall have to run for the Capa Blancas after all,” he told me when the seaman’s back was turned. “Dreadful nuisance! But I’d sooner swim back to Puddleby than have to listen to that fellow’s talk all the way to Brazil.”

Indeed he was a terrible person, this Ben Butcher. You’d think that any one after being told he wasn’t wanted would have had the decency to keep quiet. But not Ben Butcher. He kept going round the deck pointing out all the things we had wrong. According to him there wasn’t a thing right on the whole ship. The anchor was hitched up wrong; the hatches weren’t fastened down properly; the sails were put on back to front; all our knots were the wrong kind of knots.

At last the Doctor told him to stop talking and go downstairs. He refused – said he wasn’t going to be sunk by landlubbers while he was still able to stay on deck.

This made us feel a little uneasy. He was such an enormous man there was no knowing what he might do if he got really obstreperous.

Bumpo and I were talking about this downstairs in the dining-saloon when Polynesia, Jip and Chee-Chee came and joined us. And, as usual, Polynesia had a plan.

“Listen,” she said, “I am certain this Ben Butcher is a smuggler and a bad man. I am a very good judge of seamen, remember, and I don’t like the cut of this man’s jib. I—”

“Do you really think,” I interrupted, “that it is safe for the Doctor to cross the Atlantic without any regular seamen on his ship?”

You see it had upset me quite a good deal to find that all the things we had been doing were wrong; and I was beginning to wonder what might happen if we ran into a storm – particularly as Miranda had only said the weather would be good for a certain time; and we seemed to be having so many delays. But Polynesia merely tossed her head scornfully.

“Oh, bless you, my boy,” said she, “you’re always safe with John Dolittle. Remember that. Don’t take any notice of that stupid old salt. Of course it is perfectly true the Doctor does do everything wrong. But with him it doesn’t matter. Mark my words, if you travel with John Dolittle you always get there, as you heard him say. I’ve been with him lots of times and I know. Sometimes the ship is upside down when you get there, and sometimes it’s right way up. But you get there just the same. And then of course there’s another thing about the Doctor,” she added thoughtfully: “he always has extraordinary good luck. He may have his troubles; but with him things seem to have a habit of turning out all right in the end. I remember once when we were going through the Straits of Magellan the wind was so strong—”

“But what are we going to do about Ben Butcher?” Jip put in. “You had some plan Polynesia, hadn’t you?”

“Yes. What I’m afraid of is that he may hit the Doctor on the head when he’s not looking and make himself captain of the Curlew. Bad sailors do that sometimes. Then they run the ship their own way and take it where they want. That’s what you call a mutiny.”

“Yes,” said Jip, “and we ought to do something pretty quick. We can’t reach the Capa Blancas before the day after tomorrow at best. I don’t like to leave the Doctor alone with him for a minute. He smells like a very bad man to me.”

“Well, I’ve got it all worked out,” said Polynesia. “Listen: is there a key in that door?”

We looked outside the dining-room and found that there was.

“All right,” said Polynesia. “Now Bumpo lays the table for lunch and we all go and hide. Then at twelve o’clock Bumpo rings the dinner-bell down here. As soon as Ben hears it he’ll come down expecting more salt beef. Bumpo must hide behind the door outside. The moment that Ben is seated at the dining-table Bumpo slams the door and locks it. Then we’ve got him. See?”

“How stratagenious!” Bumpo chuckled. “As Cicero said, parrots cum parishioners facilime congregation. I’ll lay the table at once.”

“Yes and take that Worcestershire sauce off the dresser with you when you go out,” said Polynesia. “Don’t leave any loose eatables around. That fellow has had enough to last any man for three days. Besides, he won’t be so inclined to start a fight when we put him ashore at the Capa Blancas if we thin him down a bit before we let him out.”

So we all went and hid ourselves in the passage where we could watch what happened. And presently Bumpo came to the foot of the stairs and rang the dinner-bell like mad. Then he hopped behind the dining-room door and we all kept still and listened.

Almost immediately, thump, thump, thump, down the stairs tramped Ben Butcher, the able seaman. He walked into the dining-saloon, sat himself down at the head of the table in the Doctor’s place, tucked a napkin under his fat chin and heaved a sigh of expectation.

Then, bang! Bumpo slammed the door and locked it.

“That settles him for a while,” said Polynesia coming out from her hiding-place. “Now let him teach navigation to the side-board. Gosh, the cheek of the man! I’ve forgotten more about the sea than that lumbering lout will ever know. Let’s go upstairs and tell the Doctor. Bumpo, you will have to serve the meals in the cabin for the next couple of days.”

And bursting into a rollicking Norwegian sea-song, she climbed up to my shoulder and we went on deck.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Bed-Maker
of Monteverde

We remained three days in the Capa Blanca Islands.

There were two reasons why we stayed there so long when we were really in such a hurry to get away. One was the shortage in our provisions caused by the able seaman’s enormous appetite. When we came to go over the stores and make a list, we found that he had eaten a whole lot of other things besides the beef. And having no money, we were sorely puzzled how to buy more. The Doctor went through his trunk to see if there was anything he could sell. But the only thing he could find was an old watch with the hands broken and the back dented in; and we decided this would not bring us in enough money to buy much more than a pound of tea. Bumpo suggested that he sing comic songs in the streets which he had learned in Jolliginki. But the Doctor said he did not think that the islanders would care for African music.

The other thing that kept us was the bullfight. In these islands, which belonged to Spain, they had bullfights every Sunday. It was on a Friday that we arrived there; and after we had got rid of the able seaman we took a walk through the town.

It was a very funny little town, quite different from any that I had ever seen. The streets were all twisty and winding and so narrow that a waggon could only just pass along them. The houses overhung at the top and came so close together that people in the attics could lean out of the windows and shake hands with their neighbours on the opposite side of the street. The Doctor told us the town was very, very old. It was called Monteverde.

As we had no money of course we did not go to a hotel or anything like that. But on the second evening when we were passing by a bed-maker’s shop we noticed several beds, which the man had made, standing on the pavement outside. The Doctor started chatting in Spanish to the bed-maker who was sitting at his door whistling to a parrot in a cage. The Doctor and the bed-maker got very friendly talking about birds and things. And as it grew near to supper-time the man asked us to stop and sup with him.

This of course we were very glad to do. And after the meal was over (very nice dishes they were, mostly cooked in olive-oil – I particularly liked the fried bananas) we sat outside on the pavement again and went on talking far into the night.

At last when we got up, to go back to our ship, this very nice shopkeeper wouldn’t hear of our going away on any account. He said the streets down by the harbour were very badly lighted and there was no moon. We would surely get lost. He invited us to spend the night with him and go back to our ship in the morning.

Well, we finally agreed; and as our good friend had no spare bedrooms, the three of us, the Doctor, Bumpo and I, slept on the beds set out for sale on the pavement before the shop. The night was so hot we needed no coverings. It was great fun to fall asleep out of doors like this, watching the people walking to and fro and the gay life of the streets. It seemed to me that Spanish people never went to bed at all. Late as it was, all the little restaurants and cafés around us were wide open, with customers drinking coffee and chatting merrily at the small tables outside. The sound of a guitar strumming softly in the distance mingled with the clatter of chinaware and the babble of voices.

Somehow it made me think of my mother and father far away in Puddleby, with their regular habits, the evening practise on the flute and the rest – doing the same thing every day. I felt sort of sorry for them in a way, because they missed the fun of this travelling life, where we were doing something new all the time – even sleeping differently. But I suppose if they had been invited to go to bed on a pavement in front of a shop they wouldn’t have cared for the idea at all. It is funny how some people are.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Doctor’s Wager

Next morning we were awakened by a great racket. There was a procession coming down the street, a number of men in very gay clothes followed by a large crowd of admiring ladies and cheering children. I asked the Doctor who they were.

“They are the bullfighters,” he said. “There is to be a bullfight tomorrow.”

“What is a bullfight?” I asked.

To my great surprise the Doctor got red in the face with anger. It reminded me of the time when he had spoken of the lions and tigers in his private zoo.

“A bullfight is a stupid, cruel, disgusting business,” said he. “These Spanish people are most lovable and hospitable folk. How they can enjoy these wretched bullfights is a thing I could never understand.”

Then the Doctor went on to explain to me how a bull was first made very angry by teasing and then allowed to run into a circus where men came out with red cloaks, waved them at him, and ran away. Next the bull was allowed to tire himself out by tossing and killing a lot of poor, old, broken-down horses who couldn’t defend themselves. Then, when the bull was thoroughly out of breath and wearied by this, a man came out with a sword and killed the bull.

“Every Sunday,” said the Doctor, “in almost every big town in Spain there are six bulls killed like that and as many horses.”

“But aren’t the men ever killed by the bull?” I asked.

“Unfortunately very seldom,” said he. “A bull is not nearly as dangerous as he looks, even when he’s angry, if you are only quick on your feet and don’t lose your head. These bullfighters are very clever and nimble. And the people, especially the Spanish ladies, think no end of them. A famous bullfighter (or matador, as they call them) is a more important man in Spain than a king – Here comes another crowd of them round the corner, look. See the girls throwing kisses to them. Ridiculous business!”

At that moment our friend the bed-maker came out to see the procession go past. And while he was wishing us good morning and enquiring how we had slept, a friend of his walked up and joined us. The bed-maker introduced this friend to us as Don Enrique Cardenas.

Don Enrique when he heard where we were from, spoke to us in English. He appeared to be a well-educated, gentlemanly sort of person.

“And you go to see the bullfight tomorrow, yes?” he asked the Doctor pleasantly.

“Certainly not,” said John Dolittle firmly. “I don’t like bullfights – cruel, cowardly shows.”

Don Enrique nearly exploded. I never saw a man get so excited. He told the Doctor that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He said bullfighting was a noble sport and that the matadors were the bravest men in the world.

“Oh, rubbish!” said the Doctor. “You never give the poor bull a chance. It is only when he is all tired and dazed that your precious matadors dare to try and kill him.”

I thought the Spaniard was going to strike the Doctor he got so angry. While he was still spluttering to find words, the bed-maker came between them and took the Doctor aside. He explained to John Dolittle in a whisper that this Don Enrique Cardenas was a very important person; that he it was who supplied the bulls – a special, strong black kind – from his own farm for all the bullfights in the Capa Blancas. He was a very rich man, the bed-maker said, a most important personage. He mustn’t be allowed to take offence on any account.

I watched the Doctor’s face as the bed-maker finished, and I saw a flash of boyish mischief come into his eyes as though an idea had struck him. He turned to the angry Spaniard.

“Don Enrique,” he said, “you tell me your bullfighters are very brave men and skilful. It seems I have offended you by saying that bullfighting is a poor sport. What is the name of the best matador you have for tomorrow’s show?”

“Pepito de Malaga,” said Don Enrique, “one of the greatest names, one of the bravest men, in all Spain.”

“Very well,” said the Doctor, “I have a proposal to make to you. I have never fought a bull in my life. Now supposing I were to go into the ring tomorrow with Pepito de Malaga and any other matadors you choose; and if I can do more tricks with a bull than they can, would you promise to do something for me?”

Don Enrique threw back his head and laughed.

“Man,” he said, “you must be mad! You would be killed at once. One has to be trained for years to become a proper bullfighter.”

“Supposing I were willing to take the risk of that – You are not afraid, I take it, to accept my offer?”

The Spaniard frowned.

“Afraid!” he cried, “Sir, if you can beat Pepito de Malaga in the bull-ring I’ll promise you anything it is possible for me to grant.”

“Very good,” said the Doctor, “now I understand that you are quite a powerful man in these islands. If you wished to stop all bullfighting here after tomorrow, you could do it, couldn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Don Enrique proudly – “I could.”

“Well that is what I ask of you – if I win my wager,” said John Dolittle. “If I can do more with angry bulls than can Pepito de Malaga, you are to promise me that there shall never be another bullfight in the Capa Blancas so long as you are alive to stop it. Is it a bargain?”

The Spaniard held out his hand.

“It is a bargain,” he said – “I promise. But I must warn you that you are merely throwing your life away, for you will certainly be killed. However, that is no more than you deserve for saying that bullfighting is an unworthy sport. I will meet you here tomorrow morning if you should wish to arrange any particulars. Good day, Sir.”

As the Spaniard turned and walked into the shop with the bed-maker, Polynesia, who had been listening as usual, flew up on to my shoulder and whispered in my ear,

“I, have a plan. Get hold of Bumpo and come some place where the Doctor can’t hear us. I want to talk to you.”

I nudged Bumpo’s elbow and we crossed the street and pretended to look into a jeweller’s window; while the Doctor sat down upon his bed to lace up his boots, the only part of his clothing he had taken off for the night.

“Listen,” said Polynesia, “I’ve been breaking my head trying to think up some way we can get money to buy those stores with; and at last I’ve got it.”

“The money?” said Bumpo.

“No, stupid. The idea – to make the money with. Listen: the Doctor is simply bound to win this game tomorrow, sure as you’re alive. Now all we have to do is to make a side bet with these Spaniards – they’re great on gambling – and the trick’s done.”

“What’s a side bet?” I asked.

“Oh I know what that is,” said Bumpo proudly. “We used to have lots of them at Oxford when boat-racing was on. I go to Don Enrique and say, ‘I bet you a hundred pounds the Doctor wins.’ Then if he does win, Don Enrique pays me a hundred pounds; and if he doesn’t, I have to pay Don Enrique.”

“That’s the idea,” said Polynesia. “Only don’t say a hundred pounds: say two-thousand five-hundred pesetas. Now come and find old Don Ricky-ticky and try to look rich.”

So we crossed the street again and slipped into the bed-maker’s shop while the Doctor was still busy with his boots.

“Don Enrique,” said Bumpo, “allow me to introduce myself. I am the Crown Prince of Jolliginki. Would you care to have a small bet with me on tomorrow’s bullfight?”

Don Enrique bowed.

“Why certainly,” he said, “I shall be delighted. But I must warn you that you are bound to lose. How much?”

“Oh a mere truffle,” said Bumpo – “just for the fun of the thing, you know. What do you say to three thousand pesetas?”

“I agree,” said the Spaniard bowing once more. “I will meet you after the bullfight tomorrow.”

“So that’s all right,” said Polynesia as we came out to join the Doctor. “I feel as though quite a load had been taken off my mind.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Great Bullfight

The next day was a great day in Monteverde. All the streets were hung with flags; and everywhere gaily dressed crowds were to be seen flocking towards the bull-ring, as the big circus was called where the fights took place.

The news of the Doctor’s challenge had gone round the town and, it seemed, had caused much amusement to the islanders. The very idea of a mere foreigner daring to match himself against the great Pepito de Malaga! – Serve him right if he got killed!

The Doctor had borrowed a bullfighter’s suit from Don Enrique; and very gay and wonderful he looked in it, though Bumpo and I had hard work getting the waistcoat to close in front and even then the buttons kept bursting off it in all directions.

When we set out from the harbour to walk to the bull-ring, crowds of small boys ran after us making fun of the Doctor’s fatness, calling out, “Juan Hagapoco, el grueso matador!” which is the Spanish for, “John Dolittle, the fat bullfighter.”

As soon as we arrived the Doctor said he would like to take a look at the bulls before the fight began; and we were at once led to the bull pen where, behind a high railing, six enormous black bulls were tramping around wildly.

In a few hurried words and signs the Doctor told the bulls what he was going to do and gave them careful instructions for their part of the show. The poor creatures were tremendously glad when they heard that there was a chance of bullfighting being stopped; and they promised to do exactly as they were told.

Of course the man who took us in there didn’t understand what we were doing. He merely thought the fat Englishman was crazy when he saw the Doctor making signs and talking in ox tongue.

From there the Doctor went to the matadors’ dressing-rooms while Bumpo and I with Polynesia made our way into the bull-ring and took our seats in the great open-air theatre.

It was a very gay sight. Thousands of ladies and gentlemen were there, all dressed in their smartest clothes; and everybody seemed very happy and cheerful.

Right at the beginning Don Enrique got up and explained to the people that the first item on the program was to be a match between the English Doctor and Pepito de Malaga. He told them what he had promised if the Doctor should win. But the people did not seem to think there was much chance of that. A roar of laughter went up at the very mention of such a thing.

When Pepito came into the ring everybody cheered, the ladies blew kisses and the men clapped and waved their hats.

Presently a large door on the other side of the ring was rolled back and in galloped one of the bulls; then the door was closed again. At once the matador became very much on the alert. He waved his red cloak and the bull rushed at him. Pepito stepped nimbly aside and the people cheered again.

This game was repeated several times. But I noticed that whenever Pepito got into a tight place and seemed to be in real danger from the bull, an assistant of his, who always hung around somewhere near, drew the bull’s attention upon himself by waving another red cloak. Then the bull would chase the assistant and Pepito was left in safety. Most often, as soon as he had drawn the bull off, this assistant ran for the high fence and vaulted out of the ring to save himself. They evidently had it all arranged, these matadors; and it didn’t seem to me that they were in any very great danger from the poor clumsy bull so long as they didn’t slip and fall.

After about ten minutes of this kind of thing the small door into the matadors’ dressing-room opened and the Doctor strolled into the ring. As soon as his fat figure, dressed In sky-blue velvet, appeared, the crowd rocked in their seats with laughter.

Juan Hagapoco, as they had called him, walked out into the centre of the ring and bowed ceremoniously to the ladies in the boxes. Then he bowed to the bull. Then he bowed to Pepito. While he was bowing to Pepito’s assistant the bull started to rush at him from behind.

“Look out! Look out! – The bull! You will be killed!” yelled the crowd.

But the Doctor calmly finished his bow. Then turning round he folded his arms, fixed the on-rushing bull with his eye and frowned a terrible frown.

Presently a curious thing happened: the bull’s speed got slower and slower. It almost looked as though he were afraid of that frown. Soon he stopped altogether. The Doctor shook his finger at him. He began to tremble. At last, tucking his tail between his legs, the bull turned round and ran away.

The crowd gasped. The Doctor ran after him. Round and round the ring they went, both of them puffing and blowing like grampuses. Excited whispers began to break out among the people. This was something new in bullfighting, to have the bull running away from the man, instead of the man away from the bull. At last in the tenth lap, with a final burst of speed, Juan Hagapoco, the English matador, caught the poor bull by the tail.

Then leading the now timid creature into the middle of the ring, the Doctor made him do all manner of tricks: standing on the hind legs, standing on the front legs, dancing, hopping, rolling over. He finished up by making the bull kneel down; then he got on to his back and did handsprings and other acrobatics on the beast’s horns.

Pepito and his assistant had their noses sadly out of joint. The crowd had forgotten them entirely. They were standing together by the fence not far from where I sat, muttering to one another and slowly growing green with jealousy.

Finally the Doctor turned towards Don Enrique’s seat and bowing said in a loud voice, “This bull is no good any more. He’s terrified and out of breath. Take him away, please.”

“Does the caballero wish for a fresh bull?” asked Don Enrique.

“No,” said the Doctor, “I want five fresh bulls. And I would like them all in the ring at once, please.”

At this a cry of horror burst from the people. They had been used to seeing matadors escaping from one bull at a time. But five! – That must mean certain death.

Pepito sprang forward and called to Don Enrique not to allow it, saying it was against all the rules of bullfighting. (“Ha!” Polynesia chuckled into my ear. “It’s like the Doctor’s navigation: he breaks all the rules; but he gets there. If they’ll only let him, he’ll give them the best show for their money they ever saw.”) A great argument began. Half the people seemed to be on Pepito’s side and half on the Doctor’s side. At last the Doctor turned to Pepito and made another very grand bow which burst the last button off his waistcoat.

“Well, of course if the caballero is afraid—” he began with a bland smile.

“Afraid!” screamed Pepito. “I am afraid of nothing on earth. I am the greatest matador in Spain. With this right hand I have killed nine hundred and fifty-seven bulls.”

“All right then,” said the Doctor, “let us see if you can kill five more. Let the bulls in!” he shouted. “Pepito de Malaga is not afraid.”

A dreadful silence hung over the great theatre as the heavy door into the bull pen was rolled back. Then with a roar the five big bulls bounded into the ring.

“Look fierce,” I heard the Doctor call to them in cattle language. “Don’t scatter. Keep close. Get ready for a rush. Take Pepito, the one in purple, first. But for Heaven’s sake don’t kill him. Just chase him out of the ring – Now then, all together, go for him!”

The bulls put down their heads and all in line, like a squadron of cavalry, charged across the ring straight for poor Pepito.

For one moment the Spaniard tried his hardest to look brave. But the sight of the five pairs of horns coming at him at full gallop was too much. He turned white to the lips, ran for the fence, vaulted it and disappeared.

“Now the other one,” the Doctor hissed. And in two seconds the gallant assistant was nowhere to be seen. Juan Hagapoco, the fat matador, was left alone in the ring with five rampaging bulls.

The rest of the show was really well worth seeing. First, all five bulls went raging round the ring, butting at the fence with their horns, pawing up the sand, hunting for something to kill. Then each one in turn would pretend to catch sight of the Doctor for the first time and giving a bellow of rage, would lower his wicked looking horns and shoot like an arrow across the ring as though he meant to toss him to the sky.

It was really frightfully exciting. And even I who knew it was all arranged beforehand, held my breath in terror for the Doctor’s life when I saw how near they came to sticking him. But just at the last moment, when the horns’ points were two inches from the sky-blue waistcoat, the Doctor would spring nimbly to one side and the great brutes would go thundering harmlessly by, missing him by no more than a hair.

Then all five of them went for him together, completely surrounding him, slashing at him with their horns and bellowing with fury. How he escaped alive I don’t know. For several minutes his round figure could hardly be seen at all in that scrimmage of tossing heads, stamping hoofs and waving tails. – It was, as Polynesia had prophesied, the greatest bullfight ever seen.

One woman in the crowd got quite hysterical and screamed up to Don Enrique,

“Stop the fight! Stop the fight! He is too brave a man to be killed. This is the most wonderful matador in the world. Let him live! Stop the fight!”

But presently the Doctor was seen to break loose from the mob of animals that surrounded him. Then catching each of them by the horns, one after another, he would give their heads a sudden twist and throw them down flat on the sand. The great fellows acted their parts extremely well. I have never seen trained animals in a circus do better. They lay there panting on the ground where the Doctor threw them as if they were exhausted and completely beaten.

Then with a final bow to the ladies John Dolittle took a cigar from his pocket, lit it and strolled out of the ring.

• • • • •

•   9   •

We Depart in a Hurry

As soon as the door closed behind the Doctor the most tremendous noise I have ever heard broke loose. Some of the men appeared to be angry (friends of Pepito’s, I suppose); but the ladies called and called to have the Doctor come back into the ring.

When at length he did so, the women seemed to go entirely mad over him. They blew kisses to him. They called him a darling. Then they started taking off their flowers, their rings, their necklaces, and their brooches and threw them down at his feet. You never saw anything like it – a perfect shower of jewellry and roses.

But the Doctor just smiled up at them, bowed once more and backed out.

“Now, Bumpo,” said Polynesia, “this is where you go down and gather up all those trinkets and we’ll sell ’em. That’s what the big matadors do: leave the jewellry on the ground and their assistants collect it for them. We might as well lay in a good supply of money while we’ve got the chance – you never know when you may need it when you’re travelling with the Doctor. Never mind the roses – you can leave them – but don’t leave any rings. And when you’ve finished go and get your three thousand pesetas out of Don Ricky-ticky. Tommy and I will meet you outside and we’ll pawn the gew-gaws at that Jew’s shop opposite the bed-maker’s. Run along – and not a word to the Doctor, remember.”

Outside the bull-ring we found the crowd still in a great state of excitement. Violent arguments were going on everywhere. Bumpo joined us with his pockets bulging in all directions; and we made our way slowly through the dense crowd to that side of the building where the matadors’ dressing-room was. The Doctor was waiting at the door for us.

“Good work, Doctor!” said Polynesia, flying on to his shoulder – “Great work! – But listen: I smell danger. I think you had better get back to the ship now as quick and as quietly as you can. Put your overcoat on over that giddy suit. I don’t like the looks of this crowd. More than half of them are furious because you’ve won. Don Ricky-ticky must now stop the bullfighting – and you know how they love it. What I’m afraid of is that some of these matadors who are just mad with jealousy may start some dirty work. I think this would be a good time for us to get away.”

“I dare say you’re right, Polynesia,” said the Doctor – “You usually are. The crowd does seem to be a bit restless. I’ll slip down to the ship alone – so I shan’t be so noticeable; and I’ll wait for you there. You come by some different way. But don’t be long about it. Hurry!”

As soon as the Doctor had departed Bumpo sought out Don Enrique and said,

“Honourable Sir, you owe me three thousand pesetas.”

Without a word, but looking cross-eyed with annoyance, Don Enrique paid his bet.

We next set out to buy the provisions; and on the way we hired a cab and took it along with us.

Not very far away we found a big grocer’s shop which seemed to sell everything to eat. We went in and bought up the finest lot of food you ever saw in your life.

As a matter of fact, Polynesia had been right about the danger we were in. The news of our victory must have spread like lightning through the whole town. For as we came out of the shop and loaded the cab up with our stores, we saw various little knots of angry men hunting round the streets, waving sticks and shouting,

“The Englishmen! Where are those accursed Englishmen who stopped the bullfighting? – Hang them to a lamp-post! – Throw them in the sea! The Englishmen! – We want the Englishmen!”

After that we didn’t waste any time, you may be sure. Bumpo grabbed the Spanish cab-driver and explained to him in signs that if he didn’t drive down to the harbour as fast as he knew how and keep his mouth shut the whole way, he would choke the life out of him. Then we jumped into the cab on top of the food, slammed the door, pulled down the blinds and away we went.

“We won’t get a chance to pawn the jewellry now,” said Polynesia, as we bumped over the cobbly streets. “But never mind – it may come in handy later on. And anyway we’ve got two-thousand five-hundred pesetas left out of the bet. Don’t give the cabby more than two pesetas fifty, Bumpo. That’s the right fare, I know.”

Well, we reached the harbour all right and we were mighty glad to find that the Doctor had sent Chee-Chee back with the row-boat to wait for us at the landing-wall.

Unfortunately while we were in the middle of loading the supplies from the cab into the boat, the angry mob arrived upon the wharf and made a rush for us. Bumpo snatched up a big beam of wood that lay near and swung it round and round his head, letting out dreadful African battle-yells the while. This kept the crowd off while Chee-Chee and I hustled the last of the stores into the boat and clambered in ourselves. Bumpo threw his beam of wood into the thick of the Spaniards and leapt in after us. Then we pushed off and rowed like mad for the Curlew.

The mob upon the wall howled with rage, shook their fists and hurled stones and all manner of things after us. Poor old Bumpo got hit on the head with a bottle. But as he had a very strong head it only raised a small bump while the bottle smashed into a thousand pieces.

When we reached the ship’s side the Doctor had the anchor drawn up and the sails set and everything in readiness to get away. Looking back we saw boats coming out from the harbour-wall after us, filled with angry, shouting men. So we didn’t bother to unload our row-boat but just tied it on to the ship’s stern with a rope and jumped aboard.

It only took a moment more to swing the Curlew round into the wind; and soon we were speeding out of the harbour on our way to Brazil.

“Ha!” sighed Polynesia, as we all flopped down on the deck to take a rest and get our breath. “That wasn’t a bad adventure – quite reminds me of my old seafaring days when I sailed with the smugglers – Golly, that was the life! – Never mind your head, Bumpo. It will be all right when the Doctor puts a little arnica on it. Think what we got out of the scrap: a boat-load of ship’s stores, pockets full of jewellry and thousands of pesetas. Not bad, you know – not bad.”

• • • • •

Part Four

•   1   •

Shellfish Languages Again

Miranda, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise had prophesied rightly when she had foretold a good spell of weather. For three weeks the good ship Curlew ploughed her way through smiling seas before a steady powerful wind.

I suppose most real sailors would have found this part of the voyage dull. But not I. As we got further South and further West the face of the sea seemed different every day. And all the little things of a voyage which an old hand would have hardly bothered to notice were matters of great interest for my eager eyes.

We did not pass many ships. When we did see one, the Doctor would get out his telescope and we would all take a look at it. Sometimes he would signal to it, asking for news, by hauling up little coloured flags upon the mast; and the ship would signal back to us in the same way. The meaning of all the signals was printed in a book which the Doctor kept in the cabin. He told me it was the language of the sea and that all ships could understand it whether they be English, Dutch, or French.

Our greatest happening during those first weeks was passing an iceberg. When the sun shone on it it burst into a hundred colours, sparkling like a jewelled palace in a fairy-story. Through the telescope we saw a mother polar bear with a cub sitting on it, watching us. The Doctor recognized her as one of the bears who had spoken to him when he was discovering the North Pole. So he sailed the ship up close and offered to take her and her baby on to the Curlew if she wished it. But she only shook her head, thanking him; she said it would be far too hot for the cub on the deck of our ship, with no ice to keep his feet cool. It had been indeed a very hot day; but the nearness of that great mountain of ice made us all turn up our coat-collars and shiver with the cold.

During those quiet peaceful days I improved my reading and writing a great deal with the Doctor’s help. I got on so well that he let me keep the ship’s log. This is a big book kept on every ship, a kind of diary, in which the number of miles run, the direction of your course and everything else that happens is written down.

The Doctor too, in what spare time he had, was nearly always writing – in his note-books. I used to peep into these sometimes, now that I could read, but I found it hard work to make out the Doctor’s handwriting. Many of these note-books seemed to be about sea things. There were six thick ones filled full with notes and sketches of different seaweeds; and there were others on sea birds; others on sea worms; others on sea-shells. They were all some day to be re-written, printed and bound like regular books.

One afternoon we saw, floating around us, great quantities of stuff that looked like dead grass. The Doctor told me this was gulf-weed. A little further on it became so thick that it covered all the water as far as the eye could reach; it made the Curlew look as though she were moving across a meadow instead of sailing the Atlantic.

Crawling about upon this weed, many crabs were to be seen. And the sight of them reminded the Doctor of his dream of learning the language of the shellfish. He fished several of these crabs up with a net and put them in his listening-tank to see if he could understand them. Among the crabs he also caught a strange-looking, chubby, little fish which he told me was called a Silver Fidgit.

After he had listened to the crabs for a while with no success, he put the fidgit into the tank and began to listen to that. I had to leave him at this moment to go and attend to some duties on the deck. But presently I heard him below shouting for me to come down again.

“Stubbins,” he cried as soon as he saw me – “a most extraordinary thing – Quite unbelievable – I’m not sure whether I’m dreaming – Can’t believe my own senses. I – I – I—”

“Why, Doctor,” I said, “what is it? – What’s the matter?”

“The fidgit,” he whispered, pointing with a trembling finger to the listening-tank in which the little round fish was still swimming quietly, “he talks English! And – and – and he whistles tunes – English tunes!”

“Talks English!” I cried – “Whistles! – Why, it’s impossible.”

“It’s a fact,” said the Doctor, white in the face with excitement. “It’s only a few words, scattered, with no particular sense to them – all mixed up with his own language which I can’t make out yet. But they’re English words, unless there’s something very wrong with my hearing – And the tune he whistles, it’s as plain as anything – always, the same tune. Now you listen and tell me what you make of it. Tell me everything you hear. Don’t miss a word.”

I went to the glass tank upon the table while the Doctor grabbed a note-book and a pencil. Undoing my collar I stood upon the empty packing-case he had been using for a stand and put my right ear down under the water.

For some moments I detected nothing at all – except, with my dry ear, the heavy breathing of the Doctor as he waited, all stiff and anxious, for me to say something. At last from within the water, sounding like a child singing miles and miles away, I heard an unbelievably thin, small voice.

“Ah!” I said.

“What is it?” asked the Doctor in a hoarse, trembly whisper. “What does he say?”

“I can’t quite make it out,” I said. “It’s mostly in some strange fish language – Oh, but wait a minute! – Yes, now I get it – ‘No smoking’…. ‘My, here’s a queer one!’ ‘Popcorn and picture postcards here…. This way out…. Don’t spit’ – What funny things to say, Doctor! – Oh, but wait! – Now he’s whistling the tune.”

“What tune is it?” gasped the Doctor.

“John Peel.”

“Ah hah,” cried the Doctor, “that’s what I made it out to be.” And he wrote furiously in his note-book.

I went on listening.

“This is most extraordinary,” the Doctor kept muttering to himself as his pencil went wiggling over the page – “Most extraordinary – but frightfully thrilling. I wonder where he—”

“Here’s some more,” I cried – “some more English…. ‘The big tank needs cleaning’…. That’s all. Now he’s talking fish-talk again.”

“The big tank!” the Doctor murmured frowning in a puzzled kind of way. “I wonder where on earth he learned—”

Then he bounded up out of his chair.

“I have it,” he yelled, “this fish has escaped from an aquarium. Why, of course! Look at the kind of things he has learned: ‘Picture postcards’ – they always sell them in aquariums; ‘Don’t spit’; ‘No smoking’; ‘This way out’ – the things the attendants say. And then, ‘My, here’s a queer one!’ That’s the kind of thing that people exclaim when they look into the tanks. It all fits. There’s no doubt about it, Stubbins: we have here a fish who has escaped from captivity. And it’s quite possible – not certain, by any means, but quite possible – that I may now, through him, be able to establish communication with the shellfish. This is a great piece of luck.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Fidgit’s Story

Well, now that he was started once more upon his old hobby of the shellfish languages, there was no stopping the Doctor. He worked right through the night.

A little after midnight I fell asleep in a chair; about two in the morning Bumpo fell asleep at the wheel; and for five hours the Curlew was allowed to drift where she liked. But still John Dolittle worked on, trying his hardest to understand the fidgit’s language, struggling to make the fidgit understand him.

When I woke up it was broad daylight again. The Doctor was still standing at the listening-tank, looking as tired as an owl and dreadfully wet. But on his face there was a proud and happy smile.

“Stubbins,” he said as soon as he saw me stir, “I’ve done it. I’ve got the key to the fidgit’s language. It’s a frightfully difficult language – quite different from anything I ever heard. The only thing it reminds me of – slightly – is ancient Hebrew. It isn’t shellfish; but it’s a big step towards it. Now, the next thing, I want you to take a pencil and a fresh note-book and write down everything I say. The fidgit has promised to tell me the story of his life. I will translate it into English and you put it down in the book. Are you ready?”

Once more the Doctor lowered his ear beneath the level of the water; and as he began to speak, I started to write. And this is the story that the fidgit told us.

THIRTEEN MONTHS IN AN AQUARIUM

“I was born in the Pacific Ocean, close to the coast of Chile. I was one of a family of two-thousand five-hundred and ten. Soon after our mother and father left us, we youngsters got scattered. The family was broken up – by a herd of whales who chased us. I and my sister, Clippa (she was my favourite sister) had a very narrow escape for our lives. As a rule, whales are not very hard to get away from if you are good at dodging – if you’ve only got a quick swerve. But this one that came after Clippa and myself was a very mean whale, Every time he lost us under a stone or something he’d come back and hunt and hunt till he routed us out into the open again. I never saw such a nasty, persevering brute.

“Well, we shook him at last – though not before he had worried us for hundreds of miles northward, up the west coast of South America. But luck was against us that day. While we were resting and trying to get our breath, another family of fidgits came rushing by, shouting, ‘Come on! Swim for your lives! The dog-fish are coming!’

“Now dog-fish are particularly fond of fidgits. We are, you might say, their favourite food – and for that reason we always keep away from deep, muddy waters. What’s more, dog-fish are not easy to escape from; they are terribly fast and clever hunters. So up we had to jump and on again.

“After we had gone a few more hundred miles we looked back and saw that the dog-fish were gaining on us. So we turned into a harbour. It happened to be one on the west coast of the United States. Here we guessed, and hoped, the dog-fish would not be likely to follow us. As it happened, they didn’t even see us turn in, but dashed on northward and we never saw them again. I hope they froze to death in the Arctic Seas.

“But, as I said, luck was against us that day. While I and my sister were cruising gently round the ships anchored in the harbour looking for orange-peels, a great delicacy with us – – swoop! bang! – we were caught in a net.

“We struggled for all we were worth; but it was no use. The net was small-meshed and strongly made. Kicking and flipping we were hauled up the side of the ship and dumped down on the deck, high and dry in a blazing noonday sun.

“Here a couple of old men in whiskers and spectacles leant over us, making strange sounds. Some codling had got caught in the net the same time as we were. These the old men threw back into the sea; but us they seemed to think very precious. They put us carefully into a large jar and after they had taken us on shore they went to a big house and changed us from the jar into glass boxes full of water. This house was on the edge of the harbour; and a small stream of sea-water was made to flow through the glass tank so we could breathe properly. Of course we had never lived inside glass walls before; and at first we kept on trying to swim through them and got our noses awfully sore bumping the glass at full speed.

“Then followed weeks and weeks of weary idleness. They treated us well, so far as they knew how. The old fellows in spectacles came and looked at us proudly twice a day and saw that we had the proper food to eat, the right amount of light and that the water was not too hot or too cold. But oh, the dullness of that life! It seemed we were a kind of a show. At a certain hour every morning the big doors of the house were thrown open and everybody in the city who had nothing special to do came in and looked at us. There were other tanks filled with different kinds of fishes all round the walls of the big room. And the crowds would go from tank to tank, looking in at us through the glass – with their mouths open, like half-witted flounders. We got so sick of it that we used to open our mouths back at them; and this they seemed to think highly comical.

“One day my sister said to me, ‘Think you, Brother, that these strange creatures who have captured us can talk?’

“‘Surely,’ said I, ‘have you not noticed that some talk with the lips only, some with the whole face, and yet others discourse with the hands? When they come quite close to the glass you can hear them. Listen!’

“At that moment a female, larger than the rest, pressed her nose up against the glass, pointed at me and said to her young behind her, ‘Oh, look, here’s a queer one!’

“And then we noticed that they nearly always said this when they looked in. And for a long time we thought that such was the whole extent of the language, this being a people of but few ideas. To help pass away the weary hours we learned it by heart, ‘Oh, look, here’s a queer one!’ But we never got to know what it meant. Other phrases, however, we did get the meaning of; and we even learned to read a little in man-talk. Many big signs there were, set up upon the walls; and when we saw that the keepers stopped the people from spitting and smoking, pointed to these signs angrily and read them out loud, we knew then that these writings signified, No Smoking and Don’t Spit.

“Then in the evenings, after the crowd had gone, the same aged male with one leg of wood, swept up the peanut-shells with a broom every night. And while he was so doing he always whistled the same tune to himself. This melody we rather liked; and we learned that too by heart – thinking it was part of the language.

“Thus a whole year went by in this dismal place. Some days new fishes were brought in to the other tanks; and other days old fishes were taken out. At first we had hoped we would only be kept here for a while, and that after we had been looked at sufficiently we would be returned to freedom and the sea. But as month after month went by, and we were left undisturbed, our hearts grew heavy within our prison-walls of glass and we spoke to one another less and less.

“One day, when the crowd was thickest in the big room, a woman with a red face fainted from the heat. I watched through the glass and saw that the rest of the people got highly excited – though to me it did not seem to be a matter of very great importance. They threw cold water on her and carried her out into the open air.

“This made me think mightily; and presently a great idea burst upon me.

“‘Sister,’ I said, turning to poor Clippa who was sulking at the bottom of our prison trying to hide behind a stone from the stupid gaze of the children who thronged about our tank, ‘supposing that we pretended we were sick: do you think they would take us also from this stuffy house?’

“‘Brother,’ said she wearily, ‘that they might do. But most likely they would throw us on a rubbish-heap, where we would die in the hot sun.’

“‘But,’ said I, ‘why should they go abroad to seek a rubbish-heap, when the harbour is so close? While we were being brought here I saw men throwing their rubbish into the water. If they would only throw us also there, we could quickly reach the sea.’

“‘The Sea!’ murmured poor Clippa with a far-away look in her eyes (she had fine eyes, had my sister, Clippa). ‘How like a dream it sounds – the Sea! Oh brother, will we ever swim in it again, think you? Every night as I lie awake on the floor of this evil-smelling dungeon I hear its hearty voice ringing in my ears. How I have longed for it! Just to feel it once again, the nice, big, wholesome homeliness of it all! To jump, just to jump from the crest of an Atlantic wave, laughing in the trade wind’s spindrift, down into the blue-green swirling trough! To chase the shrimps on a summer evening, when the sky is red and the light’s all pink within the foam! To lie on the top, in the doldrums’ noonday calm, and warm your tummy in the tropic sun! To wander hand in hand once more through the giant seaweed forests of the Indian Ocean, seeking the delicious eggs of the pop-pop! To play hide-and-seek among the castles of the coral towns with their pearl and jasper windows spangling the floor of the Spanish Main! To picnic in the anemone-meadows, dim blue and lilac-grey, that lie in the lowlands beyond the South Sea Garden! To throw somersaults on the springy sponge-beds of the Mexican Gulf! To poke about among the dead ships and see what wonders and adventures lie inside! – And then, on winter nights when the Northeaster whips the water into froth, to swoop down and down to get away from the cold, down to where the water’s warm and dark, down and still down, till we spy the twinkle of the fire-eels far below where our friends and cousins sit chatting round the Council Grotto – chatting, Brother, over the news and gossip of the sea!… Oh – ’

“And then she broke down completely, sniffling.

“‘Stop it!’ I said. ‘You make me homesick. Look here: let’s pretend we’re sick – or better still, let’s pretend we’re dead; and see what happens. If they throw us on a rubbish-heap and we fry in the sun, we’ll not be much worse off than we are here in this smelly prison. What do you say? Will you risk it?’

“‘I will,’ she said – ‘and gladly.’

“So next morning two fidgits were found by the keeper floating on the top of the water in their tank, stiff and dead. We gave a mighty good imitation of dead fish – although I say it myself. The keeper ran and got the old gentlemen with spectacles and whiskers. They threw up their hands in horror when they saw us. Lifting us carefully out of the water they laid us on wet cloths. That was the hardest part of all. If you’re a fish and get taken out of the water you have to keep opening and shutting your mouth to breathe at all – and even that you can’t keep up for long. And all this time we had to stay stiff as sticks and breathe silently through half-closed lips.

“Well, the old fellows poked us and felt us and pinched us till I thought they’d never be done. Then, when their backs were turned a moment, a wretched cat got up on the table and nearly ate us. Luckily the old men turned round in time and shooed her away. You may be sure though that we took a couple of good gulps of air while they weren’t looking; and that was the only thing that saved us from choking. I wanted to whisper to Clippa to be brave and stick it out. But I couldn’t even do that; because, as you know, most kinds of fish-talk cannot be heard – not even a shout – unless you’re under water.

“Then, just as we were about to give it up and let on that we were alive, one of the old men shook his head sadly, lifted us up and carried us out of the building.

“‘Now for it!’ I thought to myself. ‘We’ll soon know our fate: liberty or the garbage-can.’

“Outside, to our unspeakable horror, he made straight for a large ash-barrel which stood against the wall on the other side of a yard. Most happily for us, however, while he was crossing this yard a very dirty man with a waggon and horses drove up and took the ash-barrel away. I suppose it was his property.

“Then the old man looked around for some other place to throw us. He seemed about to cast us upon the ground. But he evidently thought that this would make the yard untidy and he desisted. The suspense was terrible. He moved outside the yard-gate and my heart sank once more as I saw that he now intended to throw us in the gutter of the roadway. But (fortune was indeed with us that day), a large man in, blue clothes and silver buttons stopped him in the nick of time. Evidently, from the way the large man lectured and waved a short thick stick, it was against the rules of the town to throw dead fish in the streets.

“At last, to our unutterable joy, the old man turned and moved off with us towards the harbour. He walked so slowly, muttering to himself all the way and watching the man in blue out of the corner of his eye, that I wanted to bite his finger to make him hurry up. Both Clippa and I were actually at our last gasp.

“Finally he reached the sea-wall and giving us one last sad look he dropped us into the waters of the harbour.

“Never had we realized anything like the thrill of that moment, as we felt the salt wetness close over our heads. With one flick of our tails we came to life again. The old man was so surprised that he fell right into the water, almost on top of us. From this he was rescued by a sailor with a boat-hook; and the last we saw of him, the man in blue was dragging him away by the coat-collar, lecturing him again. Apparently it was also against the rules of the town to throw dead fish into the harbour.

“But we? – What time or thought had we for his troubles? We were free! In lightning leaps, in curving spurts, in crazy zig-zags – whooping, shrieking with delight, we sped for home and the open sea!

“That is all of my story and I will now, as I promised last night, try to answer any questions you may ask about the sea, on condition that I am set at liberty as soon as you have done.”

The Doctor: “Is there any part of the sea deeper than that known as the Nero Deep – I mean the one near the Island of Guam?”

The Fidgit: “Why, certainly. There’s one much deeper than that near the mouth of the Amazon River. But it’s small and hard to find. We call it ‘The Deep Hole.’ And there’s another in the Antarctic Sea.”

The Doctor: “Can you talk any shellfish language yourself?”

The Fidgit: “No, not a word. We regular fishes don’t have anything to do with the shellfish. We consider them a low class.”

The Doctor: “But when you’re near them, can you hear the sound they make talking – I mean without necessarily understanding what they say?”

The Fidgit: “Only with the very largest ones. Shellfish have such weak small voices it is almost impossible for any but their own kind to hear them. But with the bigger ones it is different. They make a sad, booming noise, rather like an iron pipe being knocked with a stone – only not nearly so loud of course.”

The Doctor: “I am most anxious to get down to the bottom of the sea – to study many things. But we land animals, as you no doubt know, are unable to breathe under water. Have you any ideas that might help me?”

The Fidgit: “I think that for both your difficulties the best thing for you to do would be to try and get hold of the Great Glass Sea Snail.”

The Doctor: “Er – who, or what, is the Great Glass Sea Snail?”

The Fidgit: “He is an enormous salt-water snail, one of the winkle family, but as large as a big house. He talks quite loudly – when he speaks, but this is not often. He can go to any part of the ocean, at all depths because he doesn’t have to be afraid of any creature in the sea. His shell is made of transparent mother-o’-pearl so that you can see through it; but it’s thick and strong. When he is out of his shell and he carries it empty on his back, there is room in it for a waggon and a pair of horses. He has been seen carrying his food in it when travelling.”

The Doctor: “I feel that that is just the creature I have been looking for. He could take me and my assistant inside his shell and we could explore the deepest depths in safety. Do you think you could get him for me?”

The Fidgit: “Alas! no. I would willingly if I could; but he is hardly ever seen by ordinary fish. He lives at the bottom of the Deep Hole, and seldom comes out – And into the Deep Hole, the lower waters of which are muddy, fishes such as we are afraid to go.”

The Doctor: “Dear me! That’s a terrible disappointment. Are there many of this kind of snail in the sea?”

The Fidgit: “Oh no. He is the only one in existence, since his second wife died long, long ago. He is the last of the Giant Shellfish. He belongs to past ages when the whales were land-animals and all that. They say he is over seventy thousand years old.”

The Doctor: “Good Gracious, what wonderful things he could tell me! I do wish I could meet him.”

The Fidgit: “Were there any more questions you wished to ask me? This water in your tank is getting quite warm and sickly. I’d like to be put back into the sea as soon as you can spare me.”

The Doctor: “Just one more thing: when Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492, he threw overboard two copies of his diary sealed up in barrels. One of them was never found. It must have sunk. I would like to get it for my library. Do you happen to know where it is?”

The Fidgit: “Yes, I do. That too is in the Deep Hole. When the barrel sank the currents drifted it northwards down what we call the Orinoco Slope, till it finally disappeared into the Deep Hole. If it was any other part of the sea I’d try and get it for you; but not there.”

The Doctor: “Well, that is all, I think. I hate to put you back into the sea, because I know that as soon as I do, I’ll think of a hundred other questions I wanted to ask you. But I must keep my promise. Would you care for anything before you go? – it seems a cold day – some cracker-crumbs or something?”

The Fidgit: “No, I won’t stop. All I want just at present is fresh sea-water.”

The Doctor: “I cannot thank you enough for all the information you have given me. You have been very helpful and patient.”

The Fidgit: “Pray do not mention it. It has been a real pleasure to be of assistance to the great John Dolittle. You are, as of course you know, already quite famous among the better class of fishes. Goodbye! – and good luck to you, to your ship and to all your plans!”

The Doctor carried the listening-tank to a port-hole, opened it and emptied the tank into the sea. “Goodbye!” he murmured as a faint splash reached us from without.

I dropped my pencil on the table and leaned back with a sigh. My fingers were so stiff with writers’ cramp that I felt as though I should never be able to open my hand again. But I, at least, had had a night’s sleep. As for the poor Doctor, he was so weary that he had hardly put the tank back upon the table and dropped into a chair, when his eyes closed and he began to snore.

In the passage outside Polynesia scratched angrily at the door. I rose and let her in.

“A nice state of affairs!” she stormed. “What sort of a ship is this? There’s that coloured man upstairs asleep under the wheel; the Doctor asleep down here; and you making pot-hooks in a copy-book with a pencil! Expect the ship to steer herself to Brazil? We’re just drifting around the sea like an empty bottle – and a week behind time as it is. What’s happened to you all?”

She was so angry that her voice rose to a scream. But it would have taken more than that to wake the Doctor.

I put the note-book carefully in a drawer and went on deck to take the wheel.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Bad Weather

As soon as I had the Curlew swung round upon her course again I noticed something peculiar: we were not going as fast as we had been. Our favourable wind had almost entirely disappeared.

This, at first, we did not worry about, thinking that at any moment it might spring up again. But the whole day went by; then two days; then a week, – ten days, and the wind grew no stronger. The Curlew just dawdled along at the speed of a toddling babe.

I now saw that the Doctor was becoming uneasy. He kept getting out his sextant (an instrument which tells you what part of the ocean you are in) and making calculations. He was forever looking at his maps and measuring distances on them. The far edge of the sea, all around us, he examined with his telescope a hundred times a day.

“But Doctor,” I said when I found him one afternoon mumbling to himself about the misty appearance of the sky, “it wouldn’t matter so much would it, if we did take a little longer over the trip? We’ve got plenty to eat on board now; and the Purple Bird-of-Paradise will know that we have been delayed by something that we couldn’t help.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said thoughtfully. “But I hate to keep her waiting. At this season of the year she generally goes to the Peruvian mountains – for her health. And besides, the good weather she prophesied is likely to end any day now and delay us still further. If we could only keep moving at even a fair speed, I wouldn’t mind. It’s this hanging around, almost dead still, that gets me restless – Ah, here comes a wind – Not very strong – but maybe it’ll grow.”

A gentle breeze from the Northeast came singing through the ropes; and we smiled up hopefully at the Curlew’s leaning masts.

“We’ve only got another hundred and fifty miles to make, to sight the coast of Brazil,” said the Doctor. “If that wind would just stay with us, steady, for a full day we’d see land.”

But suddenly the wind changed, swung to the East, then back to the Northeast – then to the North. It came in fitful gusts, as though it hadn’t made up its mind which way to blow; and I was kept busy at the wheel, swinging the Curlew this way and that to keep the right side of it.

Presently we heard Polynesia, who was in the rigging keeping a look-out for land or passing ships, screech down to us,

“Bad weather coming. That jumpy wind is an ugly sign. And look! – over there in the East – see that black line, low down? If that isn’t a storm I’m a land-lubber. The gales round here are fierce, when they do blow – tear your canvas out like paper. You take the wheel, Doctor: it’ll need a strong arm if it’s a real storm. I’ll go wake Bumpo and Chee-Chee. This looks bad to me. We’d best get all the sail down right away, till we see how strong she’s going to blow.”

Indeed the whole sky was now beginning to take on a very threatening look. The black line to the eastward grew blacker as it came nearer and nearer. A low, rumbly, whispering noise went moaning over the sea. The water which had been so blue and smiling turned to a ruffled ugly grey. And across the darkening sky, shreds of cloud swept like tattered witches flying from the storm.

I must confess I was frightened. You see, I had only so far seen the sea in friendly moods: sometimes quiet and lazy; sometimes laughing, venturesome and reckless; sometimes brooding and poetic, when moonbeams turned her ripples into silver threads and dreaming snowy night-clouds piled up fairy-castles in the sky. But as yet I had not known, or even guessed at, the terrible strength of the Sea’s wild anger.

When that storm finally struck us we leaned right over flatly on our side, as though some invisible giant had slapped the poor Curlew on the cheek.

After that things happened so thick and so fast that what with the wind that stopped your breath, the driving, blinding water, the deafening noise and the rest, I haven’t a very clear idea of how our shipwreck came about.

I remember seeing the sails, which we were now trying to roll up upon the deck, torn out of our hands by the wind and go overboard like a penny balloon – very nearly carrying Chee-Chee with them. And I have a dim recollection of Polynesia screeching somewhere for one of us to go downstairs and close the port-holes.

In spite of our masts being bare of sail we were now scudding along to the southward at a great pace. But every once in a while huge grey-black waves would arise from under the ship’s side like nightmare monsters, swell and climb, then crash down upon us, pressing us into the sea; and the poor Curlew would come to a standstill, half under water, like a gasping, drowning pig.

While I was clambering along towards the wheel to see the Doctor, clinging like a leech with hands and legs to the rails lest I be blown overboard, one of these tremendous seas tore loose my hold, filled my throat with water and swept me like a cork the full length of the deck. My head struck a door with an awful bang. And then I fainted.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Wrecked!

When I awoke I was very hazy in my head. The sky was blue and the sea was calm. At first I thought that I must have fallen asleep in the sun on the deck of the Curlew. And thinking that I would be late for my turn at the wheel, I tried to rise to my feet. I found I couldn’t; my arms were tied to something behind me with a piece of rope. By twisting my neck around I found this to be a mast, broken off short. Then I realized that I wasn’t sitting on a ship at all; I was only sitting on a piece of one. I began to feel uncomfortably scared. Screwing up my eyes, I searched the rim of the sea North, East, South and West: no land: no ships; nothing was in sight. I was alone in the ocean!

At last, little by little, my bruised head began to remember what had happened: first, the coming of the storm; the sails going overboard; then the big wave which had banged me against the door. But what had become of the Doctor and the others? What day was this, tomorrow or the day after? – And why was I sitting on only part of a ship?

Working my hand into my pocket, I found my penknife and cut the rope that tied me. This reminded me of a shipwreck story which Joe had once told me, of a captain who had tied his son to a mast in order that he shouldn’t be washed overboard by the gale. So of course it must have been the Doctor who had done the same to me.

But where was he?

The awful thought came to me that the Doctor and the rest of them must be drowned, since there was no other wreckage to be seen upon the waters. I got to my feet and stared around the sea again – Nothing – nothing but water and sky!

Presently a long way off I saw the small dark shape of a bird skimming low down over the swell. When it came quite close I saw it was a Stormy Petrel. I tried to talk to it, to see if it could give me news. But unluckily I hadn’t learned much sea-bird language and I couldn’t even attract its attention, much less make it understand what I wanted.

Twice it circled round my raft, lazily, with hardly a flip of the wing. And I could not help wondering, in spite of the distress I was in, where it had spent last night – how it, or any other living thing, had weathered such a smashing storm. It made me realize the great big difference between different creatures; and that size and strength are not everything. To this petrel, a frail little thing of feathers, much smaller and weaker than I, the Sea could do anything she liked, it seemed; and his only answer was a lazy, saucy flip of the wing! He was the one who should be called the able seaman. For, come raging gale, come sunlit calm, this wilderness of water was his home.

After swooping over the sea around me (just looking for food, I supposed) he went off in the direction from which he had come. And I was alone once more.

I found I was somewhat hungry – and a little thirsty too. I began to think all sorts of miserable thoughts, the way one does when he is lonesome and has missed breakfast. What was going to become of me now, if the Doctor and the rest were drowned? I would starve to death or die of thirst. Then the sun went behind some clouds and I felt cold. How many hundreds or thousands of miles was I from any land? What if another storm should come and smash up even this poor raft on which I stood?

I went on like this for a while, growing gloomier and gloomier, when suddenly I thought of Polynesia. “You’re always safe with the Doctor,” she had said. “He gets there. Remember that.”

I’m sure I wouldn’t have minded so much if he had been here with me. It was this being all alone that made me want to weep. And yet the petrel was alone! – What a baby I was, I told myself, to be scared to the verge of tears just by loneliness! I was quite safe where I was – for the present anyhow. John Dolittle wouldn’t get scared by a little thing like this. He only got excited when he made a discovery, found a new bug or something. And if what Polynesia had said was true, he couldn’t be drowned and things would come out all right in the end somehow.

I threw out my chest, buttoned up my collar and began walking up and down the short raft to keep warm. I would be like John Dolittle. I wouldn’t cry – And I wouldn’t get excited.

How long I paced back and forth I don’t know. But it was a long time – for I had nothing else to do.

At last I got tired and lay down to rest. And in spite of all my troubles, I soon fell fast asleep.

This time when I woke up, stars were staring down at me out of a cloudless sky. The sea was still calm; and my strange craft was rocking gently under me on an easy swell. All my fine courage left me as I gazed up into the big silent night and felt the pains of hunger and thirst set to work in my stomach harder than ever.

“Are you awake?” said a high silvery voice at my elbow.

I sprang up as though some one had stuck a pin in me. And there, perched at the very end of my raft, her beautiful golden tail glowing dimly in the starlight, sat Miranda, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise!

Never have I been so glad to see any one in my life. I almost fell into the water as I leapt to hug her.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” said she. “I guessed you must be tired after all you’ve been through – Don’t squash the life out of me, boy: I’m not a stuffed duck, you know.”

“Oh, Miranda, you dear old thing,” said I, “I’m so glad to see you. Tell me, where is the Doctor? Is he alive?”

“Of course he’s alive – and it’s my firm belief he always will be. He’s over there, about forty miles to the westward.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“He’s sitting on the other half of the Curlew shaving himself – or he was, when I left him.”

“Well, thank Heaven he’s alive!” said I – “And Bumpo – and the animals, are they all right?”

“Yes, they’re with him. Your ship broke in half in the storm. The Doctor had tied you down when he found you stunned. And the part you were on got separated and floated away. Golly, it was a storm! One has to be a gull or an albatross to stand that sort of weather. I had been watching for the Doctor for three weeks, from a cliff-top; but last night I had to take refuge in a cave to keep my tail-feathers from blowing out. As soon as I found the Doctor, he sent me off with some porpoises to look for you. A Stormy Petrel volunteered to help us in our search. There had been quite a gathering of sea-birds waiting to greet the Doctor; but the rough weather sort of broke up the arrangements that had been made to welcome him properly. It was the petrel that first gave us the tip where you were.”

“Well, but how can I get to the Doctor, Miranda? – I haven’t any oars.”

“Get to him! – Why, you’re going to him now. Look behind you.”

I turned around. The moon was just rising on the sea’s edge. And I now saw that my raft was moving through the water, but so gently that I had not noticed it before.

“What’s moving us?” I asked.

“The porpoises,” said Miranda.

I went to the back of the raft and looked down into the water. And just below the surface I could see the dim forms of four big porpoises, their sleek skins glinting in the moonlight, pushing at the raft with their noses.

“They’re old friends of the Doctor’s,” said Miranda. “They’d do anything for John Dolittle. We should see his party soon now. We’re pretty near the place I left them – Yes, there they are! See that dark shape? – No, more to the right of where you’re looking. Can’t you make out the figure of the black man standing against the sky? – Now Chee-Chee spies us – he’s waving. Don’t you see them?”

I didn’t – for my eyes were not as sharp as Miranda’s. But presently from somewhere in the murky dusk I heard Bumpo singing his African comic songs with the full force of his enormous voice. And in a little, by peering and peering in the direction of the sound, I at last made out a dim mass of tattered, splintered wreckage – all that remained of the poor Curlew – floating low down upon the water.

A hulloa came through the night. And I answered it. We kept it up, calling to one another back and forth across the calm night sea. And a few minutes later the two halves of our brave little ruined ship bumped gently together again.

Now that I was nearer and the moon was higher I could see more plainly. Their half of the ship was much bigger than mine.

It lay partly upon its side; and most of them were perched upon the top munching ship’s biscuit.

But close down to the edge of the water, using the sea’s calm surface for a mirror and a piece of broken bottle for a razor, John Dolittle was shaving his face by the light of the moon.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Land!

They all gave me a great greeting as I clambered off my half of the ship on to theirs. Bumpo brought me a wonderful drink of fresh water which he drew from a barrel; and Chee-Chee and Polynesia stood around me feeding me ship’s biscuit.

But it was the sight of the Doctor’s smiling face – just knowing that I was with him once again – that cheered me more than anything else. As I watched him carefully wipe his glass razor and put it away for future use, I could not help comparing him in my mind with the Stormy Petrel. Indeed the vast strange knowledge which he had gained from his speech and friendship with animals had brought him the power to do things which no other human being would dare to try. Like the petrel, he could apparently play with the sea in all her moods. It was no wonder that many of the ignorant savage peoples among whom he passed in his voyages made statues of him showing him as half a fish, half a bird, and half a man. And ridiculous though it was, I could quite understand what Miranda meant when she said she firmly believed that he could never die. Just to be with him gave you a wonderful feeling of comfort and safety.

Except for his appearance (his clothes were crumpled and damp and his battered high hat was stained with salt water) that storm which had so terrified me had disturbed him no more than getting stuck on the mud-bank in Puddleby River.

Politely thanking Miranda for getting me so quickly, he asked her if she would now go ahead of us and show us the way to Spidermonkey Island. Next, he gave orders to the porpoises to leave my old piece of the ship and push the bigger half wherever the Bird-of-Paradise should lead us.

How much he had lost in the wreck besides his razor I did not know – everything, most likely, together with all the money he had saved up to buy the ship with. And still he was smiling as though he wanted for nothing in the world. The only things he had saved, as far as I could see – beyond the barrel of water and bag of biscuit – were his precious note-books. These, I saw when he stood up, he had strapped around his waist with yards and yards of twine. He was, as old Matthew Mugg used to say, a great man. He was unbelievable.

And now for three days we continued our journey slowly but steadily – southward.

The only inconvenience we suffered from was the cold. This seemed to increase as we went forward. The Doctor said that the island, disturbed from its usual paths by the great gale, had evidently drifted further South than it had ever been before.

On the third night poor Miranda came back to us nearly frozen. She told the Doctor that in the morning we would find the island quite close to us, though we couldn’t see it now as it was a misty dark night. She said that she must hurry back at once to a warmer climate; and that she would visit the Doctor in Puddleby next August as usual.

“Don’t forget, Miranda,” said John Dolittle, “if you should hear anything of what happened to Long Arrow, to get word to me.”

The Bird-of-Paradise assured him she would. And after the Doctor had thanked her again and again for all that she had done for us, she wished us good luck and disappeared into the night.

We were all awake early in the morning, long before it was light, waiting for our first glimpse of the country we had come so far to see. And as the rising sun turned the eastern sky to grey, of course it was old Polynesia who first shouted that she could see palm-trees and mountain tops.

With the growing light it became plain to all of us: a long island with high rocky mountains in the middle – and so near to us that you could almost throw your hat upon the shore.

The porpoises gave us one last push and our strange-looking craft bumped gently on a low beach. Then, thanking our lucky stars for a chance to stretch our cramped legs, we all bundled off on to the land – the first land, even though it was floating land, that we had trodden for six weeks. What a thrill I felt as I realized that Spidermonkey Island, the little spot in the atlas which my pencil had touched, lay at last beneath my feet!

When the light increased still further we noticed that the palms and grasses of the island seemed withered and almost dead. The Doctor said that it must be on account of the cold that the island was now suffering from in its new climate. These trees and grasses, he told us, were the kind that belonged to warm, tropical weather.

The porpoises asked if we wanted them any further. And the Doctor said that he didn’t think so, not for the present – nor the raft either, he added; for it was already beginning to fall to pieces and could not float much longer.

As we were preparing to go inland and explore the island, we suddenly noticed a whole band of Red Indians watching us with great curiosity from among the trees. The Doctor went forward to talk to them. But he could not make them understand. He tried by signs to show them that he had come on a friendly visit. The Indians didn’t seem to like us however. They had bows and arrows and long hunting spears, with stone points, in their hands; and they made signs back to the Doctor to tell him that if he came a step nearer they would kill us all. They evidently wanted us to leave the island at once. It was a very uncomfortable situation.

At last the Doctor made them understand that he only wanted to see the island all over and that then he would go away – though how he meant to do it, with no boat to sail in, was more than I could imagine.

While they were talking among themselves another Indian arrived – apparently with a message that they were wanted in some other part of the island. Because presently, shaking their spears threateningly at us, they went off with the newcomer.

“What discourteous pagans!” said Bumpo. “Did you ever see such inhospitability? – Never even asked us if we’d had breakfast, the benighted bounders!”

“Sh! They’re going off to their village,” said Polynesia. “I’ll bet there’s a village on the other side of those mountains. If you take my advice, Doctor, you’ll get away from this beach while their backs are turned. Let us go up into the higher land for the present – some place where they won’t know where we are. They may grow friendlier when they see we mean no harm. They have honest, open faces and look like a decent crowd to me. They’re just ignorant – probably never saw white folks before.”

So, feeling a little bit discouraged by our first reception, we moved off towards the mountains in the centre of the island.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Jabizri

We found the woods at the feet of the hills thick and tangly and somewhat hard to get through. On Polynesia’s advice, we kept away from all paths and trails, feeling it best to avoid meeting any Indians for the present.

But she and Chee-Chee were good guides and splendid jungle-hunters; and the two of them set to work at once looking for food for us. In a very short space of time they had found quite a number of different fruits and nuts which made excellent eating, though none of us knew the names of any of them. We discovered a nice clean stream of good water which came down from the mountains; so we were supplied with something to drink as well.

We followed the stream up towards the heights. And presently we came to parts where the woods were thinner and the ground rocky and steep. Here we could get glimpses of wonderful views all over the island, with the blue sea beyond.

While we were admiring one of these the Doctor suddenly said, “Sh! – A Jabizri! – Don’t you hear it?”

We listened and heard, somewhere in the air about us, an extraordinarily musical hum-like a bee, but not just one note. This hum rose and fell, up and down – almost like some one singing.

“No other insect but the Jabizri beetle hums like that,” said the Doctor. “I wonder where he is – quite near, by the sound – flying among the trees probably. Oh, if I only had my butterfly-net! Why didn’t I think to strap that around my waist too. Confound the storm: I may miss the chance of a lifetime now of getting the rarest beetle in the world – Oh look! There he goes!”

A huge beetle, easily three inches long I should say, suddenly flew by our noses. The Doctor got frightfully excited. He took off his hat to use as a net, swooped at the beetle and caught it. He nearly fell down a precipice on to the rocks below in his wild hurry, but that didn’t bother him in the least. He knelt down, chortling, upon the ground with the Jabizri safe under his hat. From his pocket he brought out a glass-topped box, and into this he very skilfully made the beetle walk from under the rim of the hat. Then he rose up, happy as a child, to examine his new treasure through the glass lid.

It certainly was a most beautiful insect. It was pale blue underneath; but its back was glossy black with huge red spots on it.

“There isn’t an entomologist in the whole world who wouldn’t give all he has to be in my shoes today,” said the Doctor – “Hulloa! This Jabizri’s got something on his leg – Doesn’t look like mud. I wonder what it is.”

He took the beetle carefully out of the box and held it by its back in his fingers, where it waved its six legs slowly in the air. We all crowded about him peering at it. Rolled around the middle section of its right foreleg was something that looked like a thin dried leaf. It was bound on very neatly with strong spider-web.

It was marvellous to see how John Dolittle with his fat heavy fingers undid that cobweb cord and unrolled the leaf, whole, without tearing it or hurting the precious beetle. The Jabizri he put back into the box. Then he spread the leaf out flat and examined it.

You can imagine our surprise when we found that the inside of the leaf was covered with signs and pictures, drawn so tiny that you almost needed a magnifying-glass to tell what they were. Some of the signs we couldn’t make out at all; but nearly all of the pictures were quite plain, figures of men and mountains mostly. The whole was done in a curious sort of brown ink.

For several moments there was a dead silence while we all stared at the leaf, fascinated and mystified.

“I think this is written in blood,” said the Doctor at last. “It turns that colour when it’s dry. Somebody pricked his finger to make these pictures. It’s an old dodge when you’re short of ink – but highly unsanitary – What an extraordinary thing to find tied to a beetle’s leg! I wish I could talk beetle language, and find out where the Jabizri got it from.”

“But what is it?” I asked – “Rows of little pictures and signs. What do you make of it, Doctor?”

“It’s a letter,” he said – “a picture letter. All these little things put together mean a message – But why give a message to a beetle to carry – and to a Jabizri, the rarest beetle in the world? – What an extraordinary thing!”

Then he fell to muttering over the pictures.

“I wonder what it means: men walking up a mountain; men walking into a hole in a mountain; a mountain falling down – it’s a good drawing, that; men pointing to their open mouths; bars – prison-bars, perhaps; men praying; men lying down – they look as though they might be sick; and last of all, just a mountain – a peculiar-shaped mountain.”

All of a sudden the Doctor looked up sharply at me, a wonderful smile of delighted understanding spreading over his face.

“Long Arrow!” he cried, “don’t you see, Stubbins? – Why, of course! Only a naturalist would think of doing a thing like this: giving his letter to a beetle – not to a common beetle, but to the rarest of all, one that other naturalists would try to catch – Well, well! Long Arrow! – A picture-letter from Long Arrow. For pictures are the only writing that he knows.”

“Yes, but who is the letter to?” I asked.

“It’s to me very likely. Miranda had told him, I know, years ago, that some day I meant to come here. But if not for me, then it’s for any one who caught the beetle and read it. It’s a letter to the world.”

“Well, but what does it say? It doesn’t seem to me that it’s much good to you now you’ve got it.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, “because, look, I can read it now. First picture: men walking up a mountain – that’s Long Arrow and his party; men going into a hole in a mountain – they enter a cave looking for medicine-plants or mosses; a mountain falling down – some hanging rocks must have slipped and trapped them, imprisoned them in the cave. And this was the only living creature that could carry a message for them to the outside world – a beetle, who could burrow his way into the open air. Of course it was only a slim chance that the beetle would be ever caught and the letter read. But it was a chance; and when men are in great danger they grab at any straw of hope…. All right. Now look at the next picture: men pointing to their open mouths – they are hungry; men praying – begging any one who finds this letter to come to their assistance; men lying down – they are sick, or starving. This letter, Stubbins, is their last cry for help.”

He sprang to his feet as he ended, snatched out a note-book and put the letter between the leaves. His hands were trembling with haste and agitation.

“Come on!” he cried – “up the mountain – all of you. There’s not a moment to lose. Bumpo, bring the water and nuts with you. Heaven only knows how long they’ve been pining underground. Let’s hope and pray we’re not too late!”

“But where are you going to look?” I asked. “Miranda said the island was a hundred miles long and the mountains seem to run all the way down the centre of it.”

“Didn’t you see the last picture?” he said, grabbing up his hat from the ground and cramming it on his head. “It was an oddly shaped mountain – looked like a hawk’s head. Well, there’s where he is if he’s still alive. First thing for us to do, is to get up on a high peak and look around the island for a mountain shaped like a hawks’ head – just to think of it! There’s a chance of my meeting Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, after all! – Come on! Hurry! To delay may mean death to the greatest naturalist ever born!”

• • • • •

•   7   •

Hawk’s-Head Mountain

We all agreed afterwards that none of us had ever worked so hard in our lives before as we did that day. For my part, I know I was often on the point of dropping exhausted with fatigue; but I just kept on going – like a machine – determined that, whatever happened, I would not be the first to give up.

When we had scrambled to the top of a high peak, almost instantly we saw the strange mountain pictured in the letter. In shape it was the perfect image of a hawk’s head, and was, as far as we could see, the second highest summit in the island.

Although we were all out of breath from our climb, the Doctor didn’t let us rest a second as soon as he had sighted it. With one look at the sun for direction, down he dashed again, breaking through thickets, splashing over brooks, taking all the short cuts. For a fat man, he was certainly the swiftest cross-country runner I ever saw.

We floundered after him as fast as we could. When I say we, I mean Bumpo and myself; for the animals, Jip, Chee-Chee and Polynesia, were a long way ahead – even beyond the Doctor – enjoying the hunt like a paper-chase.

At length we arrived at the foot of the mountain we were making for; and we found its sides very steep. Said the Doctor,

“Now we will separate and search for caves. This spot where we now are, will be our meeting-place. If anyone finds anything like a cave or a hole where the earth and rocks have fallen in, he must shout and hulloa to the rest of us. If we find nothing we will all gather here in about an hour’s time – Everybody understand?”

Then we all went off our different ways.

Each of us, you may be sure, was anxious to be the one to make a discovery. And never was a mountain searched so thoroughly. But alas! nothing could we find that looked in the least like a fallen-in cave. There were plenty of places where rocks had tumbled down to the foot of the slopes; but none of these appeared as though caves or passages could possibly lie behind them.

One by one, tired and disappointed, we straggled back to the meeting-place. The Doctor seemed gloomy and impatient but by no means inclined to give up.

“Jip,” he said, “couldn’t you smell anything like an Indian anywhere?”

“No,” said Jip. “I sniffed at every crack on the mountainside. But I am afraid my nose will be of no use to you here, Doctor. The trouble is, the whole air is so saturated with the smell of spider-monkeys that it drowns every other scent – And besides, it’s too cold and dry for good smelling.”

“It is certainly that,” said the Doctor – “and getting colder all the time. I’m afraid the island is still drifting to the southward. Let’s hope it stops before long, or we won’t be able to get even nuts and fruit to eat – everything in the island will perish – Chee-Chee, what luck did you have?”

“None, Doctor. I climbed to every peak and pinnacle I could see. I searched every hollow and cleft. But not one place could I find where men might be hidden.”

“And Polynesia,” asked the Doctor, “did you see nothing that might put us on the right track?”

“Not a thing, Doctor – But I have a plan.”

“Oh good!” cried John Dolittle, full of hope renewed. “What is it? Let’s hear it.”

“You still have that beetle with you,” she asked – “the Biz-biz, or whatever it is you call the wretched insect?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, producing the glass-topped box from his pocket, “here it is.”

“All right. Now listen,” said she. “If what you have supposed is true – that is, that Long Arrow had been trapped inside the mountain by falling rock, he probably found that beetle inside the cave – perhaps many other different beetles too, eh? He wouldn’t have been likely to take the Biz-biz in with him, would he? – He was hunting plants, you say, not beetles. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that’s probably so.”

“Very well. It is fair to suppose then that the beetle’s home, or his hole, is in that place – the part of the mountain where Long Arrow and his party are imprisoned, isn’t it?”

“Quite, quite.”

“All right. Then the thing to do is to let the beetle go – and watch him; and sooner or later he’ll return to his home in Long Arrow’s cave. And there we will follow him – Or at all events,” she added smoothing down her wing-feathers with a very superior air, “we will follow him till the miserable bug starts nosing under the earth. But at least he will show us what part of the mountain Long Arrow is hidden in.”

“But he may fly, if I let him out,” said the Doctor. “Then we shall just lose him and be no better off than we were before.”

“Let him fly,” snorted Polynesia scornfully. “A parrot can wing it as fast as a Biz-biz, I fancy. If he takes to the air, I’ll guarantee not to let the little devil out of my sight. And if he just crawls along the ground you can follow him yourself.”

“Splendid!” cried the Doctor. “Polynesia, you have a great brain. I’ll set him to work at once and see what happens.”

Again we all clustered round the Doctor as he carefully lifted off the glass lid and let the big beetle climb out upon his finger.

“Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home!” crooned Bumpo. “Your house is on fire and your chil—”

“Oh, be quiet!” snapped Polynesia crossly. “Stop insulting him! Don’t you suppose he has wits enough to go home without your telling him?”

“I thought perchance he might be of a philandering disposition,” said Bumpo humbly. “It could be that he is tired of his home and needs to be encouraged. Shall I sing him ‘Home Sweet Home,’ think you?”

“No. Then he’d never go back. Your voice needs a rest. Don’t sing to him: just watch him – Oh, and Doctor, why not tie another message to the creature’s leg, telling Long Arrow that we’re doing our best to reach him and that he mustn’t give up hope?”

“I will,” said the Doctor. And in a minute he had pulled a dry leaf from a bush near by and was covering it with little pictures in pencil.

At last, neatly fixed up with his new mail-bag, Mr. Jabizri crawled off the Doctor’s finger to the ground and looked about him. He stretched his legs, polished his nose with his front feet and then moved off leisurely to the westward.

We had expected him to walk up the mountain; instead, he walked around it. Do you know how long it takes a beetle to walk round a mountain? Well, I assure you it takes an unbelievably long time. As the hours dragged by, we hoped and hoped that he would get up and fly the rest, and let Polynesia carry on the work of following him. But he never opened his wings once. I had not realized before how hard it is for a human being to walk slowly enough to keep up with a beetle. It was the most tedious thing I have ever gone through. And as we dawdled along behind, watching him like hawks lest we lose him under a leaf or something, we all got so cross and ill-tempered we were ready to bite one another’s heads off. And when he stopped to look at the scenery or polish his nose some more, I could hear Polynesia behind me letting out the most dreadful seafaring swear-words you ever heard.

After he had led us the whole way round the mountain he brought us to the exact spot where we started from and there he came to a dead stop.

“Well,” said Bumpo to Polynesia, “what do you think of the beetle’s sense now? You see he doesn’t know enough to go home.”

“Oh, be still, you Hottentot!” snapped Polynesia. “Wouldn’t you want to stretch your legs for exercise if you’d been shut up in a box all day. Probably his home is near here, and that’s why he’s come back.”

“But why,” I asked, “did he go the whole way round the mountain first?”

Then the three of us got into a violent argument. But in the middle of it all the Doctor suddenly called out,

“Look, look!”

We turned and found that he was pointing to the Jabizri, who was now walking up the mountain at a much faster and more business-like gait.

“Well,” said Bumpo sitting down wearily; “if he is going to walk over the mountain and back, for more exercise, I’ll wait for him here. Chee-Chee and Polynesia can follow him.”

Indeed it would have taken a monkey or a bird to climb the place which the beetle was now walking up. It was a smooth, flat part of the mountain’s side, steep as a wall.

But presently, when the Jabizri was no more than ten feet above our heads, we all cried out together. For, even while we watched him, he had disappeared into the face of the rock like a raindrop soaking into sand.

“He’s gone,” cried Polynesia. “There must be a hole up there.” And in a twinkling she had fluttered up the rock and was clinging to the face of it with her claws.

“Yes,” she shouted down, “we’ve run him to earth at last. His hole is right here, behind a patch of lichen – big enough to get two fingers in.”

“Ah,” cried the Doctor, “this great slab of rock then must have slid down from the summit and shut off the mouth of the cave like a door. Poor fellows! What a dreadful time they must have spent in there! – Oh, if we only had some picks and shovels now!”

“Picks and shovels wouldn’t do much good,” said Polynesia. “Look at the size of the slab: a hundred feet high and as many broad. You would need an army for a week to make any impression on it.”

“I wonder how thick it is,” said the Doctor; and he picked up a big stone and banged it with all his might against the face of the rock. It made a hollow booming sound, like a giant drum. We all stood still listening while the echo of it died slowly away.

And then a cold shiver ran down my spine. For, from within the mountain, back came three answering knocks: Boom!… Boom!… Boom!

Wide-eyed we looked at one another as though the earth itself had spoken. And the solemn little silence that followed was broken by the Doctor.

“Thank Heaven,” he said in a hushed reverent voice, “some of them at least are alive!”

• • • • •

Part Five

•   1   •

A Great Moment

The next part of our problem was the hardest of all: how to roll aside, pull down or break open, that gigantic slab. As we gazed up at it towering above our heads, it looked indeed a hopeless task for our tiny strength.

But the sounds of life from inside the mountain had put new heart in us. And in a moment we were all scrambling around trying to find any opening or crevice which would give us something to work on. Chee-Chee scaled up the sheer wall of the slab and examined the top of it where it leaned against the mountain’s side; I uprooted bushes and stripped off hanging creepers that might conceal a weak place; the Doctor got more leaves and composed new picture-letters for the Jabizri to take in if he should turn up again; whilst Polynesia carried up a handful of nuts and pushed them into the beetle’s hole, one by one, for the prisoners inside to eat.

“Nuts are so nourishing,” she said.

But Jip it was who, scratching at the foot of the slab like a good ratter, made the discovery which led to our final success.

“Doctor,” he cried, running up to John Dolittle with his nose all covered with black mud, “this slab is resting on nothing but a bed of soft earth. You never saw such easy digging. I guess the cave behind must be just too high up for the Indians to reach the earth with their hands, or they could have scraped a way out long ago. If we can only scratch the earth-bed away from under, the slab might drop a little. Then maybe the Indians can climb out over the top.”

The Doctor hurried to examine the place where Jip had dug.

“Why, yes,” he said, “if we can get the earth away from under this front edge, the slab is standing up so straight, we might even make it fall right down in this direction. It’s well worth trying. Let’s get at it, quick.”

We had no tools but the sticks and slivers of stone which we could find around. A strange sight we must have looked, the whole crew of us squatting down on our heels, scratching and burrowing at the foot of the mountain, like six badgers in a row.

After about an hour, during which in spite of the cold the sweat fell from our foreheads in all directions, the Doctor said,

“Be ready to jump from under, clear out of the way, if she shows signs of moving. If this slab falls on anybody, it will squash him flatter than a pancake.”

Presently there was a grating, grinding sound.

“Look out!” yelled John Dolittle, “here she comes! – Scatter!”

We ran for our lives, outwards, toward the sides. The big rock slid gently down, about a foot, into the trough which we had made beneath it. For a moment I was disappointed, for like that, it was as hopeless as before – no signs of a cave-mouth showing above it.

But as I looked upward, I saw the top coming very slowly away from the mountainside. We had unbalanced it below. As it moved apart from the face of the mountain, sounds of human voices, crying gladly in a strange tongue, issued from behind. Faster and faster the top swung forward, downward. Then, with a roaring crash which shook the whole mountain-range beneath our feet, it struck the earth and cracked in halves.

How can I describe to any one that first meeting between the two greatest naturalists the world ever knew, Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow and John Dolittle, M.D., of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh? The scene rises before me now, plain and clear in every detail, though it took place so many, many years ago. But when I come to write of it, words seem such poor things with which to tell you of that great occasion.

I know that the Doctor, whose life was surely full enough of big happenings, always counted the setting free of the Indian scientist as the greatest thing he ever did. For my part, knowing how much this meeting must mean to him, I was on pins and needles of expectation and curiosity as the great stone finally thundered down at our feet and we gazed across it to see what lay behind.

The gloomy black mouth of a tunnel, full twenty feet high, was revealed. In the centre of this opening stood an enormous red Indian, seven feet tall, handsome, muscular, slim and naked – but for a beaded cloth about his middle and an eagle’s feather in his hair. He held one hand across his face to shield his eyes from the blinding sun which he had not seen in many days.

“It is he!” I heard the Doctor whisper at my elbow. “I know him by his great height and the scar upon his chin.”

And he stepped forward slowly across the fallen stone with his hand outstretched to the red man.

Presently the Indian uncovered his eyes. And I saw that they had a curious piercing gleam in them – like the eyes of an eagle, but kinder and more gentle. He slowly raised his right arm, the rest of him still and motionless like a statue, and took the Doctor’s hand in his. It was a great moment. Polynesia nodded to me in a knowing, satisfied kind of way. And I heard old Bumpo sniffle sentimentally.

Then the Doctor tried to speak to Long Arrow. But the Indian knew no English of course, and the Doctor knew no Indian. Presently, to my surprise, I heard the Doctor trying him in different animal languages.

“How do you do?” he said in dog-talk; “I am glad to see you,” in horse-signs; “How long have you been buried?” in deer-language. Still the Indian made no move but stood there, straight and stiff, understanding not a word.

The Doctor tried again, in several other animal dialects. But with no result.

Till at last he came to the language of eagles.

“Great Red-Skin,” he said in the fierce screams and short grunts that the big birds use, “never have I been so glad in all my life as I am today to find you still alive.”

In a flash Long Arrow’s stony face lit up with a smile of understanding; and back came the answer in eagle-tongue,

“Mighty White Man, I owe my life to you. For the remainder of my days I am your servant to command.”

Afterwards Long Arrow told us that this was the only bird or animal language that he had ever been able to learn. But that he had not spoken it in a long time, for no eagles ever came to this island.

Then the Doctor signaled to Bumpo who came forward with the nuts and water. But Long Arrow neither ate nor drank. Taking the supplies with a nod of thanks, he turned and carried them into the inner dimness of the cave. We followed him.

Inside we found nine other Indians, men, women and boys, lying on the rock floor in a dreadful state of thinness and exhaustion.

Some had their eyes closed, as if dead. Quickly the Doctor went round them all and listened to their hearts. They were all alive; but one woman was too weak even to stand upon her feet.

At a word from the Doctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia sped off into the jungles after more fruit and water.

While Long Arrow was handing round what food we had to his starving friends, we suddenly heard a sound outside the cave. Turning about we saw, clustered at the entrance, the band of Indians who had met us so inhospitably at the beach.

They peered into the dark cave cautiously at first. But as soon as they saw Long Arrow and the other Indians with us, they came rushing in, laughing, clapping their hands with joy and jabbering away at a tremendous rate.

Long Arrow explained to the Doctor that the nine Indians we had found in the cave with him were two families who had accompanied him into the mountains to help him gather medicine-plants. And while they had been searching for a kind of moss – good for indigestion – which grows only inside of damp caves, the great rock slab had slid down and shut them in. Then for two weeks they had lived on the medicine-moss and such fresh water as could be found dripping from the damp walls of the cave. The other Indians on the island had given them up for lost and mourned them as dead; and they were now very surprised and happy to find their relatives alive.

When Long Arrow turned to the newcomers and told them in their own language that it was the white man who had found and freed their relatives, they gathered round John Dolittle, all talking at once and beating their breasts.

Long Arrow said they were apologizing and trying to tell the Doctor how sorry they were that they had seemed unfriendly to him at the beach. They had never seen a white man before and had really been afraid of him – especially when they saw him conversing with the porpoises. They had thought he was the Devil, they said.

Then they went outside and looked at the great stone we had thrown down, big as a meadow; and they walked round and round it, pointing to the break running through the middle and wondering how the trick of felling it was done.

Travellers who have since visited Spidermonkey Island tell me that that huge stone slab is now one of the regular sights of the island. And that the Indian guides, when showing it to visitors, always tell their story of how it came there. They say that when the Doctor found that the rocks had entrapped his friend, Long Arrow, he was so angry that he ripped the mountain in halves with his bare hands and let him out.

• • • • •

•   2   •

“The Men of
the Moving Land”

From that time on the Indians’ treatment of us was very different. We were invited to their village for a feast to celebrate the recovery of the lost families. And after we had made a litter from saplings to carry the sick woman in, we all started off down the mountain.

On the way the Indians told Long Arrow something which appeared to be sad news, for on hearing it, his face grew very grave. The Doctor asked him what was wrong. And Long Arrow said he had just been informed that the chief of the tribe, an old man of eighty, had died early that morning.

“That,” Polynesia whispered in my ear, “must have been what they went back to the village for, when the messenger fetched them from the beach. – Remember?”

“What did he die of?” asked the Doctor.

“He died of cold,” said Long Arrow.

Indeed, now that the sun was setting, we were all shivering ourselves.

“This is a serious thing,” said the Doctor to me. “The island is still in the grip of that wretched current flowing southward. We will have to look into this tomorrow. If nothing can be done about it, the Indians had better take to canoes and leave the island. The chance of being wrecked will be better than getting frozen to death in the ice-floes of the Antarctic.”

Presently we came over a saddle in the hills, and looking downward on the far side of the island, we saw the village – a large cluster of grass huts and gaily coloured totem-poles close by the edge of the sea.

“How artistic!” said the Doctor – “Delightfully situated. What is the name of the village?”

“Popsipetel,” said Long Arrow. “That is the name also of the tribe. The word signifies in Indian tongue, The Men of The Moving Land. There are two tribes of Indians on the island: the Popsipetels at this end and the Bag-jagderags at the other.”

“Which is the larger of the two peoples?”

“The Bag-jagderags, by far. Their city covers two square leagues. But,” added Long Arrow a slight frown darkening his handsome face, “for me, I would rather have one Popsipetel than a hundred Bag-jagderags.”

The news of the rescue we had made had evidently gone ahead of us. For as we drew nearer to the village we saw crowds of Indians streaming out to greet the friends and relatives whom they had never thought to see again.

These good people, when they too were told how the rescue had been the work of the strange white visitor to their shores, all gathered round the Doctor, shook him by the hands, patted him and hugged him. Then they lifted him up upon their strong shoulders and carried him down the hill into the village.

There the welcome we received was even more wonderful. In spite of the cold air of the coming night, the villagers, who had all been shivering within their houses, threw open their doors and came out in hundreds. I had no idea that the little village could hold so many. They thronged about us, smiling and nodding and waving their hands; and as the details of what we had done were recited by Long Arrow they kept shouting strange singing noises, which we supposed were words of gratitude or praise.

We were next escorted to a brand-new grass house, clean and sweet-smelling within, and informed that it was ours. Six strong Indian boys were told off to be our servants.

On our way through the village we noticed a house, larger than the rest, standing at the end of the main street. Long Arrow pointed to it and told us it was the Chief’s house, but that it was now empty – no new chief having yet been elected to take the place of the old one who had died.

Inside our new home a feast of fish and fruit had been prepared. Most of the more important men of the tribe were already seating themselves at the long dining-table when we got there. Long Arrow invited us to sit down and eat.

This we were glad enough to do, as we were all hungry. But we were both surprised and disappointed when we found that the fish had not been cooked. The Indians did not seem to think this extraordinary in the least, but went ahead gobbling the fish with much relish the way it was, raw.

With many apologies, the Doctor explained to Long Arrow that if they had no objection we would prefer our fish cooked.

Imagine our astonishment when we found that the great Long Arrow, so learned in the natural sciences, did not know what the word cooked meant!

Polynesia who was sitting on the bench between John Dolittle and myself pulled the Doctor by the sleeve.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Doctor,” she whispered as he leant down to listen to her: “these people have no fires! They don’t know how to make a fire. Look outside: It’s almost dark, and there isn’t a light showing in the whole village. This is a fireless people.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Fire

Then the Doctor asked Long Arrow if he knew what fire was, explaining it to him by pictures drawn on the buckskin table-cloth. Long Arrow said he had seen such a thing – coming out of the tops of volcanoes; but that neither he nor any of the Popsipetels knew how it was made.

“Poor perishing heathens!” muttered Bumpo. “No wonder the old chief died of cold!”

At that moment we heard a crying sound at the door. And turning round, we saw a weeping Indian mother with a baby in her arms. She said something to the Indians which we could not understand; and Long Arrow told us the baby was sick and she wanted the white doctor to try and cure it.

“Oh Lord!” groaned Polynesia in my ear – “Just like Puddleby: patients arriving in the middle of dinner. Well, one thing: the food’s raw, so nothing can get cold anyway.”

The Doctor examined the baby and found at once that it was thoroughly chilled.

“Fire – fire! That’s what it needs,” he said turning to Long Arrow – “That’s what you all need. This child will have pneumonia if it isn’t kept warm.”

“Aye, truly. But how to make a fire,” said Long Arrow – “where to get it: that is the difficulty. All the volcanoes in this land are dead.”

Then we fell to hunting through our pockets to see if any matches had survived the shipwreck. The best we could muster were two whole ones and a half – all with the heads soaked off them by salt water.

“Hark, Long Arrow,” said the Doctor: “divers ways there be of making fire without the aid of matches. One: with a strong glass and the rays of the sun. That however, since the sun has set, we cannot now employ. Another is by grinding a hard stick into a soft log – Is the daylight gone without? – Alas yes. Then I fear we must await the morrow; for besides the different woods, we need an old squirrel’s nest for fuel – And that without lamps you could not find in your forests at this hour.”

“Great are your cunning and your skill, oh White Man,” Long Arrow replied. “But in this you do us an injustice. Know you not that all fireless peoples can see in the dark? Having no lamps we are forced to train ourselves to travel through the blackest night, lightless. I will despatch a messenger and you shall have your squirrel’s nest within the hour.”

He gave an order to two of our boy-servants who promptly disappeared running. And sure enough, in a very short space of time a squirrel’s nest, together with hard and soft woods, was brought to our door.

The moon had not yet risen and within the house it was practically pitch-black. I could feel and hear, however, that the Indians were moving about comfortably as though it were daylight. The task of making fire the Doctor had to perform almost entirely by the sense of touch, asking Long Arrow and the Indians to hand him his tools when he mislaid them in the dark. And then I made a curious discovery: now that I had to, I found that I was beginning to see a little in the dark myself. And for the first time I realized that of course there is no such thing as pitch-dark, so long as you have a door open or a sky above you.

Calling for the loan of a bow, the Doctor loosened the string, put the hard stick into a loop and began grinding this stick into the soft wood of the log. Soon I smelt that the log was smoking. Then he kept feeding the part that was smoking with the inside lining of the squirrel’s nest, and he asked me to blow upon it with my breath. He made the stick drill faster and faster. More smoke filled the room. And at last the darkness about us was suddenly lit up. The squirrel’s nest had burst into flame.

The Indians murmured and grunted with astonishment. At first they were all for falling on their knees and worshipping the fire. Then they wanted to pick it up with their bare hands and play with it. We had to teach them how it was to be used; and they were quite fascinated when we laid our fish across it on sticks and cooked it. They sniffed the air with relish as, for the first time in history, the smell of fried fish passed through the village of Popsipetel.

Then we got them to bring us piles and stacks of dry wood; and we made an enormous bonfire in the middle of the main street. Round this, when they felt its warmth, the whole tribe gathered and smiled and wondered. It was a striking sight, one of the pictures from our voyages that I most frequently remember: that roaring jolly blaze beneath the black night sky, and all about it a vast ring of Indians, the firelight gleaming on bronze cheeks, white teeth and flashing eyes – a whole town trying to get warm, giggling and pushing like school-children.

In a little, when we had got them more used to the handling of fire, the Doctor showed them how it could be taken into their houses if a hole were only made in the roof to let the smoke out. And before we turned in after that long, long, tiring day, we had fires going in every hut in the village.

The poor people were so glad to get really warm again that we thought they’d never go to bed. Well on into the early hours of the morning the little town fairly buzzed with a great low murmur: the Popsipetels sitting up talking of their wonderful pale-faced visitor and this strange good thing he had brought with him – fire!

• • • • •

•   4   •

What Makes
an Island Float

Very early in our experience of Popsipetel kindness we saw that if we were to get anything done at all, we would almost always have to do it secretly. The Doctor was so popular and loved by all that as soon as he showed his face at his door in the morning crowds of admirers, waiting patiently outside, flocked about him and followed him wherever he went. After his fire-making feat, this childlike people expected him, I think, to be continually doing magic; and they were determined not to miss a trick.

It was only with great difficulty that we escaped from the crowd the first morning and set out with Long Arrow to explore the island at our leisure.

In the interior we found that not only the plants and trees were suffering from the cold: the animal life was in even worse straits. Everywhere shivering birds were to be seen, their feathers all fluffed out, gathering together for flight to summer lands. And many lay dead upon the ground. Going down to the shore, we watched land-crabs in large numbers taking to the sea to find some better home. While away to the Southeast we could see many icebergs floating – a sign that we were now not far from the terrible region of the Antarctic.

As we were looking out to sea, we noticed our friends the porpoises jumping through the waves. The Doctor hailed them and they came inshore.

He asked them how far we were from the South Polar Continent.

About a hundred miles, they told him. And then they asked why he wanted to know.

“Because this floating island we are on,” said he, “is drifting southward all the time in a current. It’s an island that ordinarily belongs somewhere in the tropic zone – real sultry weather, sunstrokes and all that. If it doesn’t stop going southward pretty soon everything on it is going to perish.”

“Well,” said the porpoises, “then the thing to do is to get it back into a warmer climate, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but how?” said the Doctor. “We can’t row it back.”

“No,” said they, “but whales could push it – if you only got enough of them.”

“What a splendid idea! – Whales, the very thing!” said the Doctor. “Do you think you could get me some?”

“Why, certainly,” said the porpoises, “we passed one herd of them out there, sporting about among the icebergs. We’ll ask them to come over. And if they aren’t enough, we’ll try and hunt up some more. Better have plenty.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “You are very kind – By the way, do you happen to know how this island came to be a floating island? At least half of it, I notice, is made of stone. It is very odd that it floats at all, isn’t it?”

“It is unusual,” they said. “But the explanation is quite simple. It used to be a mountainous part of South America – an overhanging part – sort of an awkward corner, you might say. Way back in the glacial days, thousands of years ago, it broke off from the mainland; and by some curious accident the inside of it, which is hollow, got filled with air as it fell into the ocean. You can only see less than half of the island: the bigger half is under water. And in the middle of it, underneath, is a huge rock air-chamber, running right up inside the mountains. And that’s what keeps it floating.”

“What a pecurious phenometer!” said Bumpo.

“It is indeed,” said the Doctor. “I must make a note of that.” And out came the everlasting note-book.

The porpoises went bounding off towards the icebergs. And not long after, we saw the sea heaving and frothing as a big herd of whales came towards us at full speed.

They certainly were enormous creatures; and there must have been a good two hundred of them.

“Here they are,” said the porpoises, poking their heads out of the water.

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Now just explain to them, will you please? that this is a very serious matter for all the living creatures in this land. And ask them if they will be so good as to go down to the far end of the island, put their noses against it and push it back near the coast of Southern Brazil.”

The porpoises evidently succeeded in persuading the whales to do as the Doctor asked; for presently we saw them thrashing through the seas, going off towards the south end of the island.

Then we lay down upon the beach and waited.

After about an hour the Doctor got up and threw a stick into the water. For a while this floated motionless. But soon we saw it begin to move gently down the coast.

“Ah!” said the Doctor, “see that? – The island is going North at last. Thank goodness!”

Faster and faster we left the stick behind; and smaller and dimmer grew the icebergs on the skyline.

The Doctor took out his watch, threw more sticks into the water and made a rapid calculation.

“Humph! – Fourteen and a half knots an hour,” he murmured – “A very nice speed. It should take us about five days to get back near Brazil. Well, that’s that – Quite a load off my mind. I declare I feel warmer already. Let’s go and get something to eat.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

War!

On our way back to the village the Doctor began discussing natural history with Long Arrow. But their most interesting talk, mainly about plants, had hardly begun when an Indian runner came dashing up to us with a message.

Long Arrow listened gravely to the breathless, babbled words, then turned to the Doctor and said in eagle tongue,

“Great White Man, an evil thing has befallen the Popsipetels. Our neighbours to the southward, the thievish Bag-jagderags, who for so long have cast envious eyes on our stores of ripe corn, have gone upon the war-path; and even now are advancing to attack us.”

“Evil news indeed,” said the Doctor. “Yet let us not judge harshly. Perhaps it is that they are desperate for food, having their own crops frost-killed before harvest. For are they not even nearer the cold South than you?”

“Make no excuses for any man of the tribe of the Bag-jagderags,” said Long Arrow shaking his head. “They are an idle shiftless race. They do but see a chance to get corn without the labour of husbandry. If it were not that they are a much bigger tribe and hope to defeat their neighbour by sheer force of numbers, they would not have dared to make open war upon the brave Popsipetels.”

When we reached the village we found it in a great state of excitement. Everywhere men were seen putting their bows in order, sharpening spears, grinding battle-axes and making arrows by the hundred. Women were raising a high fence of bamboo poles all round the village. Scouts and messengers kept coming and going, bringing news of the movements of the enemy. While high up in the trees and hills about the village we could see look-outs watching the mountains to the southward.

Long Arrow brought another Indian, short but enormously broad, and introduced him to the Doctor as Big Teeth, the chief warrior of the Popsipetels.

The Doctor volunteered to go and see the enemy and try to argue the matter out peacefully with them instead of fighting; for war, he said, was at best a stupid wasteful business. But the two shook their heads. Such a plan was hopeless, they said. In the last war when they had sent a messenger to do peaceful arguing, the enemy had merely hit him with an axe.

While the Doctor was asking Big Teeth how he meant to defend the village against attack, a cry of alarm was raised by the look-outs.

“They’re coming! – The Bag-jagderags – swarming down the mountains in thousands!”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “it’s all in the day’s work, I suppose. I don’t believe in war; but if the village is attacked we must help defend it.”

And he picked up a club from the ground and tried the heft of it against a stone.

“This,” he said, “seems like a pretty good tool to me.” And he walked to the bamboo fence and took his place among the other waiting fighters.

Then we all got hold of some kind of weapon with which to help our friends, the gallant Popsipetels: I borrowed a bow and a quiver full of arrows; Jip was content to rely upon his old, but still strong teeth; Chee-Chee took a bag of rocks and climbed a palm where he could throw them down upon the enemies’ heads; and Bumpo marched after the Doctor to the fence armed with a young tree in one hand and a door-post in the other.

When the enemy drew near enough to be seen from where we stood we all gasped with astonishment. The hillsides were actually covered with them – thousands upon thousands. They made our small army within the village look like a mere handful.

“Saints alive!” muttered Polynesia, “our little lot will stand no chance against that swarm. This will never do. I’m going off to get some help.”

Where she was going and what kind of help she meant to get, I had no idea. She just disappeared from my side. But Jip, who had heard her, poked his nose between the bamboo bars of the fence to get a better view of the enemy and said,

“Likely enough she’s gone after the Black Parrots. Let’s hope she finds them in time. Just look at those ugly ruffians climbing down the rocks – millions of ’em! This fight’s going to keep us all hopping.”

And Jip was right. Before a quarter of an hour had gone by our village was completely surrounded by one huge mob of yelling, raging Bag-jagderags.

I now come again to a part in the story of our voyages where things happened so quickly, one upon the other, that looking backwards I see the picture only in a confused kind of way. I know that if it had not been for the Terrible Three – as they came afterwards to be fondly called in Popsipetel history – Long Arrow, Bumpo and the Doctor, the war would have been soon over and the whole island would have belonged to the worthless Bag-jagderags. But the Englishman, the African and the Indian were a regiment in themselves; and between them they made that village a dangerous place for any man to try to enter.

The bamboo fencing which had been hastily set up around the town was not a very strong affair; and right from the start it gave way in one place after another as the enemy thronged and crowded against it. Then the Doctor, Long Arrow and Bumpo would hurry to the weak spot, a terrific hand-to-hand fight would take place and the enemy be thrown out. But almost instantly a cry of alarm would come from some other part of the village-wall; and the Three would have to rush off and do the same thing all over again.

The Popsipetels were themselves no mean fighters; but the strength and weight of those three men of different lands and colours, standing close together, swinging their enormous war-clubs, was really a sight for the wonder and admiration of any one.

Many weeks later when I was passing an Indian camp-fire at night I heard this song being sung. It has since become one of the traditional folksongs of the Popsipetels.

THE SONG OF THE TERRIBLE THREE

Oh hear ye the Song of the Terrible Three

And the fight that they fought by the edge of the sea.

Down from the mountains, the rocks and the crags,

Swarming like wasps, came the Bag-jagderags.

Surrounding our village, our walls they broke down.

Oh, sad was the plight of our men and our town!

But Heaven determined our land to set free

And sent us the help of the Terrible Three.

One was a Black – he was dark as the night;

One was a Red-skin, a mountain of height;

But the chief was a White Man, round like a bee;

And all in a row stood the Terrible Three.

Shoulder to shoulder, they hammered and hit.

Like demons of fury they kicked and they bit.

Like a wall of destruction they stood in a row,

Flattening enemies, six at a blow.

Oh, strong was the Red-skin fierce was the Black.

Bag-jagderags trembled and tried to turn back.

But ’twas of the White Man they shouted, “Beware!

He throws men in handfuls, straight up in the air!”

Long shall they frighten bad children at night

With tales of the Red and the Black and the White.

And long shall we sing of the Terrible Three

And the fight that they fought by the edge of the sea.

• • • • •

•   6   •

General Polynesia

But alas! even the Three, mighty though they were, could not last forever against an army which seemed to have no end. In one of the hottest scrimmages, when the enemy had broken a particularly wide hole through the fence, I saw Long Arrow’s great figure topple and come down with a spear sticking in his broad chest.

For another half-hour Bumpo and the Doctor fought on side by side. How their strength held out so long I cannot tell, for never a second were they given to get their breath or rest their arms.

The Doctor – the quiet, kindly, peaceable, little Doctor! – well, you wouldn’t have known him if you had seen him that day dealing out whacks you could hear a mile off, walloping and swatting in all directions.

As for Bumpo, with staring eye-balls and grim set teeth, he was a veritable demon. None dared come within yards of that wicked, wide-circling door-post. But a stone, skilfully thrown, struck him at last in the centre of the forehead. And down went the second of the Three. John Dolittle, the last of the Terribles, was left fighting alone.

Jip and I rushed to his side and tried to take the places of the fallen ones. But, far too light and too small, we made but a poor exchange. Another length of the fence crashed down, and through the widened gap the Bag-jagderags poured in on us like a flood.

“To the canoes! – To the sea!” shouted the Popsipetels. “Fly for your lives! – All is over! – The war is lost!”

But the Doctor and I never got a chance to fly for our lives. We were swept off our feet and knocked down flat by the sheer weight of the mob. And once down, we were unable to get up again. I thought we would surely be trampled to death.

But at that moment, above the din and racket of the battle, we heard the most terrifying noise that ever assaulted human ears: the sound of millions and millions of parrots all screeching with fury together.

The army, which in the nick of time Polynesia had brought to our rescue, darkened the whole sky to the westward. I asked her afterwards, how many birds there were; and she said she didn’t know exactly but that they certainly numbered somewhere between sixty and seventy millions. In that extraordinarily short space of time she had brought them from the mainland of South America.

If you have ever heard a parrot screech with anger you will know that it makes a truly frightful sound; and if you have ever been bitten by one, you will know that its bite can be a nasty and a painful thing.

The Black Parrots (coal-black all over, they were – except for a scarlet beak and a streak of red in wing and tail) on the word of command from Polynesia set to work upon the Bag-jagderags who were now pouring through the village looking for plunder.

And the Black Parrots’ method of fighting was peculiar. This is what they did: on the head of each Bag-jagderag three or four parrots settled and took a good foot-hold in his hair with their claws; then they leant down over the sides of his head and began clipping snips out of his ears, for all the world as though they were punching tickets. That is all they did. They never bit them anywhere else except the ears. But it won the war for us.

With howls pitiful to hear, the Bag-jagderags fell over one another in their haste to get out of that accursed village. It was no use their trying to pull the parrots off their heads; because for each head there were always four more parrots waiting impatiently to get on.

Some of the enemy were lucky; and with only a snip or two managed to get outside the fence – where the parrots immediately left them alone. But with most, before the black birds had done with them, the ears presented a very singular appearance – like the edge of a postage-stamp. This treatment, very painful at the time, did not however do them any permanent harm beyond the change in looks. And it later got to be the tribal mark of the Bag-jagderags. No really smart young lady of this tribe would be seen walking with a man who did not have scalloped ears – for such was a proof that he had been in the Great War. And that (though it is not generally known to scientists) is how this people came to be called by the other Indian nations, the Ragged-Eared Bag-jagderags.

As soon as the village was cleared of the enemy the Doctor turned his attention to the wounded.

In spite of the length and fierceness of the struggle, there were surprisingly few serious injuries. Poor Long Arrow was the worst off. However, after the Doctor had washed his wound and got him to bed, he opened his eyes and said he already felt better. Bumpo was only badly stunned.

With this part of the business over, the Doctor called to Polynesia to have the Black Parrots drive the enemy right back into their own country and to wait there, guarding them all night.

Polynesia gave the short word of command; and like one bird those millions of parrots opened their red beaks and let out once more their terrifying battle-scream.

The Bag-jagderags didn’t wait to be bitten a second time, but fled helter-skelter over the mountains from which they had come; whilst Polynesia and her victorious army followed watchfully behind like a great, threatening, black cloud.

The Doctor picked up his high hat which had been knocked off in the fight, dusted it carefully and put it on.

“Tomorrow,” he said, shaking his fist towards the hills, “we will arrange the terms of peace – and we will arrange them – in the City of Bag-jagderag.”

His words were greeted with cheers of triumph from the admiring Popsipetels. The war was over.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Peace of the Parrots

The next day we set out for the far end of the island, and reaching it in canoes (for we went by sea) after a journey of twenty-five hours, we remained no longer than was necessary in the City of Bag-jagderag.

When he threw himself into that fight at Popsipetel, I saw the Doctor really angry for the first time in my life. But his anger, once aroused, was slow to die. All the way down the coast of the island he never ceased to rail against this cowardly people who had attacked his friends, the Popsipetels, for no other reason but to rob them of their corn, because they were too idle to till the land themselves. And he was still angry when he reached the City of Bag-jagderag.

Long Arrow had not come with us for he was as yet too weak from his wound. But the Doctor – always clever at languages – was already getting familiar with the Indian tongue. Besides, among the half-dozen Popsipetels who accompanied us to paddle the canoes, was one boy to whom we had taught a little English. He and the Doctor between them managed to make themselves understood to the Bag-jagderags. This people, with the terrible parrots still blackening the hills about their stone town, waiting for the word to descend and attack, were, we found, in a very humble mood.

Leaving our canoes we passed up the main street to the palace of the chief. Bumpo and I couldn’t help smiling with satisfaction as we saw how the waiting crowds which lined the roadway bowed their heads to the ground, as the little, round, angry figure of the Doctor strutted ahead of us with his chin in the air.

At the foot of the palace-steps the chief and all the more important personages of the tribe were waiting to meet him, smiling humbly and holding out their hands in friendliness. The Doctor took not the slightest notice. He marched right by them, up the steps to the door of the palace. There he turned around and at once began to address the people in a firm voice.

I never heard such a speech in my life – and I am quite sure that they never did either. First he called them a long string of names: cowards, loafers, thieves, vagabonds, good-for-nothings, bullies and what not. Then he said he was still seriously thinking of allowing the parrots to drive them on into the sea, in order that this pleasant land might be rid, once for all, of their worthless carcases.

At this a great cry for mercy went up, and the chief and all of them fell on their knees, calling out that they would submit to any conditions of peace he wished.

Then the Doctor called for one of their scribes – that is, a man who did picture-writing. And on the stone walls of the palace of Bag-jagderag he bade him write down the terms of the peace as he dictated it. This peace is known as The Peace of The Parrots, and – unlike most peaces – was, and is, strictly kept – even to this day.

It was quite long in words. The half of the palace-front was covered with picture-writing, and fifty pots of paint were used, before the weary scribe had done. But the main part of it all was that there should be no more fighting; and that the two tribes should give solemn promise to help one another whenever there was corn-famine or other distress in the lands belonging to either.

This greatly surprised the Bag-jagderags. They had expected from the Doctor’s angry face that he would at least chop a couple of hundred heads off – and probably make the rest of them slaves for life.

But when they saw that he only meant kindly by them, their great fear of him changed to a tremendous admiration. And as he ended his long speech and walked briskly down the steps again on his way back to the canoes, the group of chieftains threw themselves at his feet and cried,

“Do but stay with us. Great Lord, and all the riches of Bag-jagderag shall be poured into your lap. Gold-mines we know of in the mountains and pearl-beds beneath the sea. Only stay with us, that your all-powerful wisdom may lead our Council and our people in prosperity and peace.” The Doctor held up his hand for silence.

“No man,” said he, “would wish to be the guest of the Bag-jagderags till they had proved by their deeds that they are an honest race. Be true to the terms of the Peace and from yourselves shall come good government and prosperity – Farewell!”

Then he turned and followed by Bumpo, the Popsipetels and myself, walked rapidly down to the canoes.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Hanging Stone

But the change of heart in the Bag-jagderags was really sincere. The Doctor had made a great impression on them – a deeper one than even he himself realized at the time. In fact I sometimes think that that speech of his from the palace-steps had more effect upon the Indians of Spidermonkey Island than had any of his great deeds which, great though they were, were always magnified and exaggerated when the news of them was passed from mouth to mouth.

A sick girl was brought to him as he reached the place where the boats lay. She turned out to have some quite simple ailment which he quickly gave the remedy for. But this increased his popularity still more. And when he stepped into his canoe, the people all around us actually burst into tears. It seems (I learned this afterwards) that they thought he was going away across the sea, for good, to the mysterious foreign lands from which he had come.

Some of the chieftains spoke to the Popsipetels as we pushed off. What they said I did not understand; but we noticed that several canoes filled with Bag-jagderags followed us at a respectful distance all the way back to Popsipetel.

The Doctor had determined to return by the other shore, so that we should be thus able to make a complete trip round the island’s shores.

Shortly after we started, while still off the lower end of the island, we sighted a steep point on the coast where the sea was in a great state of turmoil, white with soapy froth. On going nearer, we found that this was caused by our friendly whales who were still faithfully working away with their noses against the end of the island, driving us northward. We had been kept so busy with the war that we had forgotten all about them. But as we paused and watched their mighty tails lashing and churning the sea, we suddenly realized that we had not felt cold in quite along while. Speeding up our boat lest the island be carried away from us altogether, we passed on up the coast; and here and there we noticed that the trees on the shore already looked greener and more healthy. Spidermonkey Island was getting back into her home climates.

About halfway to Popsipetel we went ashore and spent two or three days exploring the central part of the island. Our Indian paddlers took us up into the mountains, very steep and high in this region, overhanging the sea. And they showed us what they called the Whispering Rocks.

This was a very peculiar and striking piece of scenery. It was like a great vast basin, or circus, in the mountains, and out of the centre of it there rose a table of rock with an ivory chair upon it. All around this the mountains went up like stairs, or theatre-seats, to a great height – except at one narrow end which was open to a view of the sea. You could imagine it a council-place or concert-hall for giants, and the rock table in the centre the stage for performers or the stand for the speaker.

We asked our guides why it was called the Whispering Rocks; and they said, “Go down into it and we will show you.”

The great bowl was miles deep and miles wide. We scrambled down the rocks and they showed us how, even when you stood far, far apart from one another, you merely had to whisper in that great place and every one in the theatre could hear you. This was, the Doctor said, on account of the echoes which played backwards and forwards between the high walls of rock.

Our guides told us that it was here, in days long gone by when the Popsipetels owned the whole of Spidermonkey Island, that the kings were crowned. The ivory chair upon the table was the throne in which they sat. And so great was the big theatre that all the Indians in the island were able to get seats in it to see the ceremony.

They showed us also an enormous hanging stone perched on the edge of a volcano’s crater – the highest summit in the whole island. Although it was very far below us, we could see it quite plainly, and it looked wobbly enough to be pushed off its perch with the hand. There was a legend among the people, they said, that when the greatest of all Popsipetel kings should be crowned in the ivory chair, this hanging stone would tumble into the volcano’s mouth and go straight down to the centre of the earth.

The Doctor said he would like to go and examine it closer.

And when we were come to the lip of the volcano (it took us half a day to get up to it) we found the stone was unbelievably large – big as a cathedral. Underneath it we could look right down into a black hole which seemed to have no bottom. The Doctor explained to us that volcanoes sometimes spurted up fire from these holes in their tops; but that those on floating islands were always cold and dead.

“Stubbins,” he said, looking up at the great stone towering above us, “do you know what would most likely happen if that boulder should fall in?”

“No,” said I, “what?”

“You remember the air-chamber which the porpoises told us lies under the centre of the island?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this stone is heavy enough, if it fell into the volcano, to break through into that air-chamber from above. And once it did, the air would escape and the floating island would float no more. It would sink.”

“But then everybody on it would be drowned, wouldn’t they?” said Bumpo.

“Oh no, not necessarily. That would depend on the depth of the sea where the sinking took place. The island might touch bottom when it had only gone down, say, a hundred feet. But there would be lots of it still sticking up above the water then, wouldn’t there?”

“Yes,” said Bumpo, “I suppose there would. Well, let us hope that the ponderous fragment does not lose its equilibriosity, for I don’t believe it would stop at the centre of the earth – more likely it would fall right through the world and come out the other side.”

Many other wonders there were which these men showed us in the central regions of their island. But I have not time or space to tell you of them now.

Descending towards the shore again, we noticed that we were still being watched, even here among the highlands, by the Bag-jagderags who had followed us. And when we put to sea once more a boat-load of them proceeded to go ahead of us in the direction of Popsipetel. Having lighter canoes, they travelled faster than our party; and we judged that they should reach the village – if that was where they were going – many hours before we could.

The Doctor was now becoming anxious to see how Long Arrow was getting on, so we all took turns at the paddles and went on travelling by moonlight through the whole night.

We reached Popsipetel just as the dawn was breaking.

To our great surprise we found that not only we, but the whole village also, had been up all night. A great crowd was gathered about the dead chief’s house. And as we landed our canoes upon the beach we saw a large number of old men, the seniors of the tribe, coming out at the main door.

We inquired what was the meaning of all this; and were told that the election of a new chief had been going on all through the whole night. Bumpo asked the name of the new chief; but this, it seemed, had not yet been given out. It would be announced at mid-day.

As soon as the Doctor had paid a visit to Long Arrow and seen that he was doing nicely, we proceeded to our own house at the far end of the village. Here we ate some breakfast and then lay down to take a good rest.

Rest, indeed, we needed; for life had been strenuous and busy for us ever since we had landed on the island. And it wasn’t many minutes after our weary heads struck the pillows that the whole crew of us were sound asleep.

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Election

We were awakened by music. The glaring noonday sunlight was streaming in at our door, outside of which some kind of a band appeared to be playing.

We got up and looked out. Our house was surrounded by the whole population of Popsipetel. We were used to having quite a number of curious and admiring Indians waiting at our door at all hours; but this was quite different. The vast crowd was dressed in its best clothes. Bright beads, gaudy feathers and gay blankets gave cheerful colour to the scene. Every one seemed in very good humour, singing or playing on musical instruments – mostly painted wooden whistles or drums made from skins.

We found Polynesia – who while we slept had arrived back from Bag-jagderag – sitting on our door-post watching the show. We asked her what all the holiday-making was about.

“The result of the election has just been announced,” said she. “The name of the new chief was given out at noon.”

“And who is the new chief?” asked the Doctor.

“You are,” said Polynesia quietly.

“I!” gasped the Doctor – “Well, of all things!”

“Yes,” said she. “You’re the one – And what’s more, they’ve changed your surname for you. They didn’t think that Dolittle was a proper or respectful name for a man who had done so much. So you are now to be known as Jong Thinkalot. How do you like it?”

“But I don’t want to be a chief,” said the Doctor in an irritable voice.

“I’m afraid you’ll have hard work to get out of it now,” said she – “unless you’re willing to put to sea again in one of their rickety canoes. You see you’ve been elected not merely the Chief of the Popsipetels; you’re to be a king – the King of the whole of Spidermonkey Island. The Bag-jagderags, who were so anxious to have you govern them, sent spies and messengers ahead of you; and when they found that you had been elected Chief of the Popsipetels overnight they were bitterly disappointed. However, rather than lose you altogether, the Bag-jagderags were willing to give up their independence, and insisted that they and their lands be united to the Popsipetels in order that you could be made king of both. So now you’re in for it.”

“Oh Lord!” groaned the Doctor, “I do wish they wouldn’t be so enthusiastic! Bother it, I don’t want to be a king!”

“I should think, Doctor,” said I, “you’d feel rather proud and glad. I wish I had a chance to be a king.”

“Oh I know it sounds grand,” said he, pulling on his boots miserably. “But the trouble is, you can’t take up responsibilities and then just drop them again when you feel like it. I have my own work to do. Scarcely one moment have I had to give to natural history since I landed on this island. I’ve been doing some one else’s business all the time. And now they want me to go on doing it! Why, once I’m made King of the Popsipetels, that’s the end of me as a useful naturalist. I’d be too busy for anything. All I’d be then is just a er – er just a king.”

“Well, that’s something!” said Bumpo. “My father is a king and has a hundred and twenty wives.”

“That would make it worse,” said the Doctor – “a hundred and twenty times worse. I have my work to do. I don’t want to be a king.”

“Look,” said Polynesia, “here come the head men to announce your election. Hurry up and get your boots laced.”

The throng before our door had suddenly parted asunder, making a long lane; and down this we now saw a group of personages coming towards us. The man in front, a handsome old Indian with a wrinkled face, carried in his hands a wooden crown – a truly beautiful and gorgeous crown, even though of wood. Wonderfully carved and painted, it had two lovely blue feathers springing from the front of it. Behind the old man came eight strong Indians bearing a litter, a sort of chair with long handles underneath to carry it by.

Kneeling down on one knee, bending his head almost to the ground, the old man addressed the Doctor who now stood in the doorway putting on his collar and tie.

“Oh, Mighty One,” said he, “we bring you word from the Popsipetel people. Great are your deeds beyond belief, kind is your heart and your wisdom, deeper than the sea. Our chief is dead. The people clamour for a worthy leader. Our old enemies, the Bag-jagderags are become, through you, our brothers and good friends. They too desire to bask beneath the sunshine of your smile. Behold then, I bring to you the Sacred Crown of Popsipetel which, since ancient days when this island and its peoples were one, beneath one monarch, has rested on no kingly brow. Oh Kindly One, we are bidden by the united voices of the peoples of this land to carry you to the Whispering Rocks, that there, with all respect and majesty, you may be crowned our king – King of all the Moving Land.”

The good Indians did not seem to have even considered the possibility of John Dolittle’s refusing. As for the poor Doctor, I never saw him so upset by anything. It was in fact the only time I have known him to get thoroughly fussed.

“Oh dear!” I heard him murmur, looking around wildly for some escape. “What shall I do? – Did any of you see where I laid that stud of mine? – How on earth can I get this collar on without a stud? What a day this is, to be sure I – Maybe it rolled under the bed, Bumpo – I do think they might have given me a day or so to think it over in. Who ever heard of waking a man right out of his sleep, and telling him he’s got to be a king, before he has even washed his face? Can’t any of you find it? Maybe you’re standing on it, Bumpo. Move your feet.”

“Oh don’t bother about your stud,” said Polynesia. “You will have to be crowned without a collar. They won’t know the difference.”

“I tell you I’m not going to be crowned,” cried the Doctor – “not if I can help it. I’ll make them a speech. Perhaps that will satisfy them.” He turned back to the Indians at the door.

“My friends,” he said, “I am not worthy of this great honour you would do me. Little or no skill have I in the arts of kingcraft. Assuredly among your own brave men you will find many better fitted to lead you. For this compliment, this confidence and trust, I thank you. But, I pray you, do not think of me for such high duties which I could not possibly fulfill.”

The old man repeated his words to the people behind him in a louder voice. Stolidly they shook their heads, moving not an inch. The old man turned back to the Doctor.

“You are the chosen one,” said he. “They will have none but you.”

Into the Doctor’s perplexed face suddenly there came a flash of hope.

“I’ll go and see Long Arrow,” he whispered to me. “Perhaps he will know of some way to get me out of this.”

And asking the personages to excuse him a moment, he left them there, standing at his door, and hurried off in the direction of Long Arrow’s house. I followed him.

We found our big friend lying on a grass bed outside his home, where he had been moved that he might witness the holiday-making.

“Long Arrow,” said the Doctor speaking quickly in eagle tongue so that the bystanders should not overhear, “in dire peril I come to you for help. These men would make me their king. If such a thing befall me, all the great work I hoped to do must go undone, for who is there unfreer than a king? I pray you speak with them and persuade their kind well-meaning hearts that what they plan to do would be unwise.”

Long Arrow raised himself upon his elbow.

“Oh Kindly One,” said he (this seemed now to have become the usual manner of address when speaking to the Doctor), “sorely it grieves me that the first wish you ask of me I should be unable to grant. Alas! I can do nothing. These people have so set their hearts on keeping you for king that if I tried to interfere they would drive me from their land and likely crown you in the end in any case. A king you must be, if only for a while. We must so arrange the business of governing that you may have time to give to Nature’s secrets. Later we may be able to hit upon some plan to relieve you of the burden of the crown. But for now you must be king. These people are a headstrong tribe and they will have their way. There is no other course.”

Sadly the Doctor turned away from the bed and faced about. And there behind him stood the old man again, the crown still held in his wrinkled hands and the royal litter waiting at his elbow. With a deep reverence the bearers motioned towards the seat of the chair, inviting the white man to get in.

Once more the poor Doctor looked wildly, hopelessly about him for some means of escape. For a moment I thought he was going to take to his heels and run for it. But the crowd around us was far too thick and densely packed for anyone to break through it. A band of whistles and drums near by suddenly started the music of a solemn processional march. He turned back pleadingly again to Long Arrow in a last appeal for help. But the big Indian merely shook his head and pointed, like the bearers, to the waiting chair.

At last, almost in tears, John Dolittle stepped slowly into the litter and sat down. As he was hoisted on to the broad shoulders of the bearers I heard him still feebly muttering beneath his breath,

“Botheration take it! – I don’t want to be a king!”

“Farewell!” called Long Arrow from his bed, “and may good fortune ever stand within the shadow of your throne!”

“He comes! – He comes!” murmured the crowd. “Away! Away! – To the Whispering Rocks!”

And as the procession formed up to leave the village, the crowd about us began hurrying off in the direction of the mountains to make sure of good seats in the giant theatre where the crowning ceremony would take place.

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Coronation
of King Jong

In my long lifetime I have seen many grand and inspiring things, but never anything that impressed me half as much as the sight of the Whispering Rocks as they looked on the day King Jong was crowned. As Bumpo, Chee-Chee, Polynesia, Jip and I finally reached the dizzy edge of the great bowl and looked down inside it, it was like gazing over a never-ending ocean of copper-coloured faces; for every seat in the theatre was filled, every man, woman and child in the island – including Long Arrow who had been carried up on his sick bed – was there to see the show.

Yet not a sound, not a pin-drop, disturbed the solemn silence of the Whispering Rocks. It was quite creepy and sent chills running up and down your spine. Bumpo told me afterwards that it took his breath away too much for him to speak, but that he hadn’t known before that there were that many people in the world.

Away down by the Table of the Throne stood a brand-new, brightly coloured totem-pole. All the Indian families had totem-poles and kept them set up before the doors of their houses. The idea of a totem-pole is something like a door-plate or a visiting card. It represents in its carvings the deeds and qualities of the family to which it belongs. This one, beautifully decorated and much higher than any other, was the Dolittle or, as it was to be henceforth called, the Royal Thinkalot totem. It had nothing but animals on it, to signify the Doctor’s great knowledge of creatures. And the animals chosen to be shown were those which to the Indians were supposed to represent good qualities of character, such as, the deer for speed; the ox for perseverance; the fish for discretion, and so on. But at the top of the totem is always placed the sign or animal by which the family is most proud to be known. This, on the Thinkalot pole, was an enormous parrot, in memory of the famous Peace of the Parrots.

The Ivory Throne had been all polished with scented oil and it glistened whitely in the strong sunlight. At the foot of it there had been strewn great quantities of branches of flowering trees, which with the new warmth of milder climates were now blossoming in the valleys of the island.

Soon we saw the royal litter, with the Doctor seated in it, slowly ascending the winding steps of the Table. Reaching the flat top at last, it halted and the Doctor stepped out upon the flowery carpet. So still and perfect was the silence that even at that distance above I distinctly heard a twig snap beneath his tread.

Walking to the throne accompanied by the old man, the Doctor got up upon the stand and sat down. How tiny his little round figure looked when seen from that tremendous height! The throne had been made for longer-legged kings; and when he was seated, his feet did not reach the ground but dangled six inches from the top step.

Then the old man turned round and looking up at the people began to speak in a quiet even voice; but every word he said was easily heard in the furthest corner of the Whispering Rocks.

First he recited the names of all the great Popsipetel kings who in days long ago had been crowned in this ivory chair. He spoke of the greatness of the Popsipetel people, of their triumphs, of their hardships. Then waving his hand towards the Doctor he began recounting the things which this king-to-be had done. And I am bound to say that they easily outmatched the deeds of those who had gone before him.

As soon as he started to speak of what the Doctor had achieved for the tribe, the people, still strictly silent, all began waving their right hands towards the throne. This gave to the vast theatre a very singular appearance: acres and acres of something moving – with never a sound.

At last the old man finished his speech and stepping up to the chair, very respectfully removed the Doctor’s battered high hat. He was about to put it upon the ground; but the Doctor took it from him hastily and kept it on his lap. Then taking up the Sacred Crown he placed it upon John Dolittle’s head. It did not fit very well (for it had been made for smaller-headed kings), and when the wind blew in freshly from the sunlit sea the Doctor had some difficulty in keeping it on. But it looked very splendid.

Turning once more to the people, the old man said,

“Men of Popsipetel, behold your elected king! – Are you content?”

And then at last the voice of the people broke loose.

“JONG! JONG!” they shouted, “Long Live KING JONG!”

The sound burst upon the solemn silence with the crash of a hundred cannon. There, where even a whisper carried miles, the shock of it was like a blow in the face. Back and forth the mountains threw it to one another. I thought the echoes of it would never die away as it passed rumbling through the whole island, jangling among the lower valleys, booming in the distant sea-caves.

Suddenly I saw the old man point upward, to the highest mountain in the island; and looking over my shoulder, I was just in time to see the Hanging Stone topple slowly out of sight – down into the heart of the volcano.

“See ye, Men of the Moving Land!” the old man cried: “The stone has fallen and our legend has come true: the King of Kings is crowned this day!”

The Doctor too had seen the stone fall and he was now standing up looking at the sea expectantly.

“He’s thinking of the air-chamber,” said Bumpo in my ear. “Let us hope that the sea isn’t very deep in these parts.”

After a full minute (so long did it take the stone to fall that depth) we heard a muffled, distant, crunching thud – and then immediately after, a great hissing of escaping air. The Doctor, his face tense with anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of the ocean with staring eyes.

Soon we felt the island slowly sinking beneath us. We saw the sea creep inland over the beaches as the shores went down – one foot, three feet, ten feet, twenty, fifty, a hundred. And then, thank goodness, gently as a butterfly alighting on a rose, it stopped! Spidermonkey Island had come to rest on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic, and earth was joined to earth once more.

Of course many of the houses near the shores were now under water. Popsipetel Village itself had entirely disappeared. But it didn’t matter. No one was drowned; for every soul in the island was high up in the hills watching the coronation of King Jong.

The Indians themselves did not realize at the time what was taking place, though of course they had felt the land sinking beneath them. The Doctor told us afterwards that it must have been the shock of that tremendous shout, coming from a million throats at once, which had toppled the Hanging Stone off its perch. But in Popsipetel history the story was handed down (and it is firmly believed to this day) that when King Jong sat upon the throne, so great was his mighty weight, that the very island itself sank down to do him honour and never moved again.

• • • • •

Part Six

•   1   •

New Popsipetel

Jong Thinkalot had not ruled over his new kingdom for more than a couple of days before my notions about kings and the kind of lives they led changed very considerably. I had thought that all that kings had to do was to sit on a throne and have people bow down before them several times a day. I now saw that a king can be the hardest-working man in the world – if he attends properly to his business.

From the moment that he got up, early in the morning, till the time he went to bed, late at night – seven days in the week – John Dolittle was busy, busy, busy. First of all there was the new town to be built. The village of Popsipetel had disappeared: the City of New Popsipetel must be made. With great care a place was chosen for it – and a very beautiful position it was, at the mouth of a large river. The shores of the island at this point formed a lovely wide bay where canoes – and ships too, if they should ever come – could lie peacefully at anchor without danger from storms.

In building this town the Doctor gave the Indians a lot of new ideas. He showed them what town-sewers were, and how garbage should be collected each day and burnt. High up in the hills he made a large lake by damming a stream. This was the water-supply for the town. None of these things had the Indians ever seen; and many of the sicknesses which they had suffered from before were now entirely prevented by proper drainage and pure drinking-water.

Peoples who don’t use fire do not of course have metals either; because without fire it is almost impossible to shape iron and steel. One of the first things that John Dolittle did was to search the mountains till he found iron and copper mines. Then he set to work to teach the Indians how these metals could be melted and made into knives and ploughs and water-pipes and all manner of things.

In his kingdom the Doctor tried his hardest to do away with most of the old-fashioned pomp and grandeur of a royal court. As he said to Bumpo and me, if he must be a king he meant to be a thoroughly democratic one, that is a king who is chummy and friendly with his subjects and doesn’t put on airs. And when he drew up the plans for the City of New Popsipetel he had no palace shown of any kind. A little cottage in a back street was all that he had provided for himself.

But this the Indians would not permit on any account. They had been used to having their kings rule in a truly grand and kingly manner; and they insisted that he have built for himself the most magnificent palace ever seen. In all else they let him have his own way absolutely; but they wouldn’t allow him to wriggle out of any of the ceremony or show that goes with being a king. A thousand servants he had to keep in his palace, night and day, to wait on him. The Royal Canoe had to be kept up – a gorgeous, polished mahogany boat, seventy feet long, inlaid with mother-o’-pearl and paddled by the hundred strongest men in the island. The palace-gardens covered a square mile and employed a hundred and sixty gardeners.

Even in his dress the poor man was compelled always to be grand and elegant and uncomfortable. The beloved and battered high hat was put away in a closet and only looked at secretly. State robes had to be worn on all occasions. And when the Doctor did once in a while manage to sneak off for a short, natural-history expedition he never dared to wear his old clothes, but had to chase his butterflies with a crown upon his head and a scarlet cloak flying behind him in the wind.

There was no end to the kinds of duties the Doctor had to perform and the questions he had to decide upon – everything, from settling disputes about lands and boundaries, to making peace between husband and wife who had been throwing shoes at one another. In the east wing of the Royal Palace was the Hall of Justice. And here King Jong sat every morning from nine to eleven passing judgment on all cases that were brought before him.

Then in the afternoon he taught school. The sort of things he taught were not always those you find in ordinary schools. Grown-ups as well as children came to learn. You see, these Indians were ignorant of many of the things that quite small white children know – though it is also true that they knew a lot that white grown-ups never dreamed of.

Bumpo and I helped with the teaching as far as we could – simple arithmetic, and easy things like that. But the classes in astronomy, farming science, the proper care of babies, with a host of other subjects, the Doctor had to teach himself. The Indians were tremendously keen about the schooling and they came in droves and crowds; so that even with the open-air classes (a school-house was impossible of course) the Doctor had to take them in relays and batches of five or six thousand at a time and used a big megaphone or trumpet to make himself heard.

The rest of his day was more than filled with road-making, building water-mills, attending the sick and a million other things.

In spite of his being so unwilling to become a king, John Dolittle made a very good one – once he got started. He may not have been as dignified as many kings in history who were always running off to war and getting themselves into romantic situations; but since I have grown up and seen something of foreign lands and governments I have often thought that Popsipetel under the reign of Jong Thinkalot was perhaps the best ruled state in the history of the world.

The Doctor’s birthday came round after we had been on the island six months and a half. The people made a great public holiday of it and there was much feasting, dancing, fireworks, speech-making and jollification.

Towards the close of the day the chief men of the two tribes formed a procession and passed through the streets of the town, carrying a very gorgeously painted tablet of ebony wood, ten feet high. This was a picture-history, such as they preserved for each of the ancient kings of Popsipetel to record their deeds.

With great and solemn ceremony it was set up over the door of the new palace: and everybody then clustered round to look at it.

It had six pictures on it commemorating the six great events in the life of King Jong and beneath were written the verses that explained them. They were composed by the Court Poet; and this is a translation:

I

( HIS LANDING ON THE ISLAND )

Heaven-sent,

In his dolphin-drawn canoe

From worlds unknown

He landed on our shores.

The very palms

Bowed down their heads

In welcome to the coming King.

II

( HIS MEETING WITH THE BEETLE )

By moonlight in the mountains

He communed with beasts.

The shy Jabizri brings him picture-words

Of great distress.

III

( HE LIBERATES THE LOST FAMILIES )

Big was his heart with pity;

Big were his hands with strength.

See how he tears the mountain like a yam!

See how the lost ones

Dance forth to greet the day!

IV

( HE MAKES FIRE )

Our land was cold and dying.

He waved his hand and lo!

Lightning leapt from cloudless skies;

The sun leant down;

And Fire was born!

Then while we crowded round

The grateful glow, pushed he

Our wayward, floating land

Back to peaceful anchorage

In sunny seas.

V

( HE LEADS THE PEOPLE TO VICTORY IN WAR )

Once only

Was his kindly countenance

Darkened by a deadly frown.

Woe to the wicked enemy

That dares attack

The tribe with Thinkalot for Chief!

VI

( HE IS CROWNED KING )

The birds of the air rejoiced;

The Sea laughed and gambolled with her shores;

All Red-skins wept for joy

The day we crowned him King.

He is the Builder, the Healer, the Teacher and the Prince;

He is the greatest of them all.

May he live a thousand thousand years,

Happy in his heart,

To bless our land with Peace.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Thoughts of Home

In the Royal Palace Bumpo and I had a beautiful suite of rooms of our very own – which Polynesia, Jip and Chee-Chee shared with us.

Officially Bumpo was Minister of the Interior; while I was First Lord of the Treasury. Long Arrow also had quarters there; but at present he was absent, travelling abroad.

One night after supper when the Doctor was away in the town somewhere visiting a new-born baby, we were all sitting round the big table in Bumpo’s reception-room. This we did every evening, to talk over the plans for the following day and various affairs of state. It was a kind of Cabinet Meeting.

Tonight however we were talking about England – and also about things to eat. We had got a little tired of Indian food. You see, none of the natives knew how to cook; and we had the most discouraging time training a chef for the Royal Kitchen. Most of them were champions at spoiling good food. Often we got so hungry that the Doctor would sneak downstairs with us into the palace basement, after all the cooks were safe in bed, and fry pancakes secretly over the dying embers of the fire. The Doctor himself was the finest cook that ever lived. But he used to make a terrible mess of the kitchen; and of course we had to be awfully careful that we didn’t get caught.

Well, as I was saying, tonight food was the subject of discussion at the Cabinet Meeting; and I had just been reminding Bumpo of the nice dishes we had had at the bed-maker’s house in Monteverde.

“I tell you what I would like now,” said Bumpo: “a large cup of cocoa with whipped cream on the top of it. In Oxford we used to be able to get the most wonderful cocoa. It is really too bad they haven’t any cocoa-trees in this island, or cows to give cream.”

“When do you suppose,” asked Jip, “the Doctor intends to move on from here?”

“I was talking to him about that only yesterday,” said Polynesia. “But I couldn’t get any satisfactory answer out of him. He didn’t seem to want to speak about it.”

There was a pause in the conversation.

“Do you know what I believe?” she added presently. “I believe the Doctor has given up even thinking of going home.”

“Good Lord!” cried Bumpo. “You don’t say!”

“Sh!” said Polynesia. “What’s that noise?”

We listened; and away off in the distant corridors of the palace we heard the sentries crying,

“The King! – Make way! – The King!”

“It’s he – at last,” whispered Polynesia – “late, as usual. Poor man, how he does work! – Chee-Chee, get the pipe and tobacco out of the cupboard and lay the dressing-gown ready on his chair.”

When the Doctor came into the room he looked serious and thoughtful. Wearily he took off his crown and hung it on a peg behind the door. Then he exchanged the royal cloak for the dressing-gown, dropped into his chair at the head of the table with a deep sigh and started to fill his pipe.

“Well,” asked Polynesia quietly, “how did you find the baby?”

“The baby?” he murmured – his thoughts still seemed to be very far away – “Ah yes. The baby was much better, thank you – It has cut its second tooth.”

Then he was silent again, staring dreamily at the ceiling through a cloud of tobacco-smoke; while we all sat round quite still, waiting.

“We were wondering, Doctor,” said I at last, – “just before you came in – when you would be starting home again. We will have been on this island seven months tomorrow.”

The Doctor sat forward in his chair looking rather uncomfortable.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said he after a moment, “I meant to speak to you myself this evening on that very subject. But it’s – er – a little hard to make any one exactly understand the situation. I am afraid that it would be impossible for me to leave the work I am now engaged on…. You remember, when they first insisted on making me king, I told you it was not easy to shake off responsibilities, once you had taken them up. These people have come to rely on me for a great number of things. We found them ignorant of much that white people enjoy. And we have, one might say, changed the current of their lives considerably. Now it is a very ticklish business, to change the lives of other people. And whether the changes we have made will be, in the end, for good or for bad, is our look-out.”

He thought a moment – then went on in a quieter, sadder voice:

“I would like to continue my voyages and my natural history work; and I would like to go back to Puddleby – as much as any of you. This is March, and the crocuses will be showing in the lawn…. But that which I feared has come true: I cannot close my eyes to what might happen if I should leave these people and run away. They would probably go back to their old habits and customs: wars, superstitions, devil-worship and what not; and many of the new things we have taught them might be put to improper use and make their condition, then, worse by far than that in which we found them…. They like me; they trust me; they have come to look to me for help in all their problems and troubles. And no man wants to do unfair things to them who trust him…. And then again, I like them. They are, as it were, my children – I never had any children of my own – and I am terribly interested in how they will grow up. Don’t you see what I mean? – How can I possibly run away and leave them in the lurch?… No. I have thought it over a good deal and tried to decide what was best. And I am afraid that the work I took up when I assumed the crown I must stick to. I’m afraid – I’ve got to stay.”

“For good – for your whole life?” asked Bumpo in a low voice.

For some moments the Doctor, frowning, made no answer.

“I don’t know,” he said at last – “Anyhow for the present there is certainly no hope of my leaving. It wouldn’t be right.”

The sad silence that followed was broken finally by a knock upon the door.

With a patient sigh the Doctor got up and put on his crown and cloak again.

“Come in,” he called, sitting down in his chair once more.

The door opened and a footman – one of the hundred and forty-three who were always on night duty – stood bowing in the entrance.

“Oh, Kindly One,” said he, “there is a traveller at the palace-gate who would have speech with Your Majesty.”

“Another baby’s been born, I’ll bet a shilling,” muttered Polynesia.

“Did you ask the traveller’s name?” enquired the Doctor.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said the footman. “It is Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Red Man’s Science

Long Arrow!” cried the Doctor. “How splendid! Show him in – show him in at once.”

“I’m so glad,” he continued, turning to us as soon as the footman had gone. “I’ve missed Long Arrow terribly. He’s an awfully good man to have around – even if he doesn’t talk much. Let me see: it’s five months now since he went off to Brazil. I’m so glad he’s back safe. He does take such tremendous chances with that canoe of his – clever as he is. It’s no joke, crossing a hundred miles of open sea in a twelve-foot canoe. I wouldn’t care to try it.”

Another knock; and when the door swung open in answer to the Doctor’s call, there stood our big friend on the threshold, a smile upon his strong, bronzed face. Behind him appeared two porters carrying loads done up in Indian palm-matting. These, when the first salutations were over, Long Arrow ordered to lay their burdens down.

“Behold, oh Kindly One,” said he, “I bring you, as I promised, my collection of plants which I had hidden in a cave in the Andes. These treasures represent the labours of my life.”

The packages were opened; and inside were many smaller packages and bundles. Carefully they were laid out in rows upon the table.

It appeared at first a large but disappointing display. There were plants, flowers, fruits, leaves, roots, nuts, beans, honeys, gums, bark, seeds, bees and a few kinds of insects.

The study of plants – or botany, as it is called – was a kind of natural history which had never interested me very much. I had considered it, compared with the study of animals, a dull science. But as Long Arrow began taking up the various things in his collection and explaining their qualities to us, I became more and more fascinated. And before he had done I was completely absorbed by the wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom which he had brought so far.

“These,” said he, taking up a little packet of big seeds, “are what I have called ‘laughing-beans.’”

“What are they for?” asked Bumpo.

“To cause mirth,” said the Indian.

Bumpo, while Long Arrow’s back was turned, took three of the beans and swallowed them.

“Alas!” said the Indian when he discovered what Bumpo had done. “If he wished to try the powers of these seeds he should have eaten no more than a quarter of a one. Let us hope that he does not die of laughter.”

The beans’ effect upon Bumpo was most extraordinary. First he broke into a broad smile; then he began to giggle; finally he burst into such prolonged roars of hearty laughter that we had to carry him into the next room and put him to bed. The Doctor said afterwards that he probably would have died laughing if he had not had such a strong constitution. All through the night he gurgled happily in his sleep. And even when we woke him up the next morning he rolled out of bed still chuckling.

Returning to the Reception Room, we were shown some red roots which Long Arrow told us had the property, when made into a soup with sugar and salt, of causing people to dance with extraordinary speed and endurance. He asked us to try them; but we refused, thanking him. After Bumpo’s exhibition we were a little afraid of any more experiments for the present.

There was no end to the curious and useful things that Long Arrow had collected: an oil from a vine which would make hair grow in one night; an orange as big as a pumpkin which he had raised in his own mountain-garden in Peru; a black honey (he had brought the bees that made it too and the seeds of the flowers they fed on) which would put you to sleep, just with a teaspoonful, and make you wake up fresh in the morning; a nut that made the voice beautiful for singing; a water-weed that stopped cuts from bleeding; a moss that cured snake-bite; a lichen that prevented sea-sickness.

The Doctor of course was tremendously interested. Well into the early hours of the morning he was busy going over the articles on the table one by one, listing their names and writing their properties and descriptions into a note-book as Long Arrow dictated.

“There are things here, Stubbins,” he said as he ended, “which in the hands of skilled druggists will make a vast difference to the medicine and chemistry of the world. I suspect that this sleeping-honey by itself will take the place of half the bad drugs we have had to use so far. Long Arrow has discovered a pharmacopeia of his own. Miranda was right: he is a great naturalist. His name deserves to be placed beside Linnaeus. Some day I must get all these things to England – But when,” he added sadly – “Yes, that’s the problem: when?”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Sea-Serpent

For a long time after that Cabinet Meeting of which I have just told you we did not ask the Doctor anything further about going home. Life in Spidermonkey Island went forward, month in month out, busily and pleasantly. The Winter, with Christmas celebrations, came and went, and Summer was with us once again before we knew it.

As time passed the Doctor became more and more taken up with the care of his big family; and the hours he could spare for his natural history work grew fewer and fewer. I knew that he often still thought of his house and garden in Puddleby and of his old plans and ambitions; because once in a while we would notice his face grow thoughtful and a little sad, when something reminded him of England or his old life. But he never spoke of these things. And I truly believe he would have spent the remainder of his days on Spidermonkey Island if it hadn’t been for an accident – and for Polynesia.

The old parrot had grown very tired of the Indians and she made no secret of it.

“The very idea,” she said to me one day as we were walking on the seashore – “the idea of the famous John Dolittle spending his valuable life waiting on these greasy natives! – Why, it’s preposterous!”

All that morning we had been watching the Doctor superintend the building of the new theatre in Popsipetel – there was already an opera-house and a concert-hall; and finally she had got so grouchy and annoyed at the sight that I had suggested her taking a walk with me.

“Do you really think,” I asked as we sat down on the sands, “that he will never go back to Puddleby again?”

“I don’t know,” said she. “At one time I felt sure that the thought of the pets he had left behind at the house would take him home soon. But since Miranda brought him word last August that everything was all right there, that hope’s gone. For months and months I’ve been racking my brains to think up a plan. If we could only hit upon something that would turn his thoughts back to natural history again – I mean something big enough to get him really excited – we might manage it. But how?” – she shrugged her shoulders in disgust – “How? – when all he thinks of now is paving streets and teaching papooses that twice one are two!”

It was a perfect Popsipetel day, bright and hot, blue and yellow. Drowsily I looked out to sea thinking of my mother and father. I wondered if they were getting anxious over my long absence. Beside me old Polynesia went on grumbling away in low steady tones; and her words began to mingle and mix with the gentle lapping of the waves upon the shore. It may have been the even murmur of her voice, helped by the soft and balmy air, that lulled me to sleep. I don’t know. Anyhow I presently dreamed that the island had moved again – not floatingly as before, but suddenly, jerkily, as though something enormously powerful had heaved it up from its bed just once and let it down.

How long I slept after that I have no idea. I was awakened by a gentle pecking on the nose.

“Tommy! – Tommy!” (it was Polynesia’s voice) “Wake up! – Gosh, what a boy, to sleep through an earthquake and never notice it! – Tommy, listen: here’s our chance now. Wake up, for goodness’ sake!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked sitting up with a yawn.

“Sh! – Look!” whispered Polynesia pointing out to sea.

Still only half awake, I stared before me with bleary, sleep-laden eyes. And in the shallow water, not more than thirty yards from shore I saw an enormous pale pink shell. Dome-shaped, it towered up in a graceful rainbow curve to a tremendous height; and round its base the surf broke gently in little waves of white. It could have belonged to the wildest dream.

“What in the world is it?” I asked.

“That,” whispered Polynesia, “is what sailors for hundreds of years have called the Sea-serpent. I’ve seen it myself more than once from the decks of ships, at long range, curving in and out of the water. But now that I see it close and still, I very strongly suspect that the Sea-serpent of history is no other than the Great Glass Sea-snail that the fidgit told us of. If that isn’t the only fish of its kind in the seven seas, call me a carrion-crow – Tommy, we’re in luck. Our job is to get the Doctor down here to look at that prize specimen before it moves off to the Deep Hole. If we can, then trust me, we may leave this blessed island yet. You stay here and keep an eye on it while I go after the Doctor. Don’t move or speak – don’t even breathe heavy: he might get scared – awful timid things, snails. Just watch him; and I’ll be back in two shakes.”

Stealthily creeping up the sands till she could get behind the cover of some bushes before she took to her wings, Polynesia went off in the direction of the town; while I remained alone upon the shore fascinatedly watching this unbelievable monster wallowing in the shallow sea.

It moved very little. From time to time it lifted its head out of the water showing its enormously long neck and horns. Occasionally it would try and draw itself up, the way a snail does when he goes to move, but almost at once it would sink down again as if exhausted. It seemed to me to act as though it were hurt underneath; but the lower part of it, which was below the level of the water, I could not see.

I was still absorbed in watching the great beast when Polynesia returned with the Doctor. They approached so silently and so cautiously that I neither saw nor heard them coming till I found them crouching beside me on the sand.

One sight of the snail changed the Doctor completely. His eyes just sparkled with delight. I had not seen him so thrilled and happy since the time we caught the Jabizri beetle when we first landed on the island.

“It is he!” he whispered – “the Great Glass Sea-snail himself – not a doubt of it. Polynesia, go down the shore a way and see if you can find any of the porpoises for me. Perhaps they can tell us what the snail is doing here – It’s very unusual for him to be in shallow water like this. And Stubbins, you go over to the harbour and bring me a small canoe. But be most careful how you paddle it round into this bay. If the snail should take fright and go out into the deeper water, we may never get a chance to see him again.”

“And don’t tell any of the Indians,” Polynesia added in a whisper as I moved to go. “We must keep this a secret or we’ll have a crowd of sightseers round here in five minutes. It’s mighty lucky we found the snail in a quiet bay.”

Reaching the harbour, I picked out a small light canoe from among the number that were lying there and without telling any one what I wanted it for, got in and started off to paddle it down the shore.

I was mortally afraid that the snail might have left before I got back. And you can imagine how delighted I was, when I rounded a rocky cape and came in sight of the bay, to find he was still there.

Polynesia, I saw, had got her errand done and returned ahead of me, bringing with her a pair of porpoises. These were already conversing in low tones with John Dolittle. I beached the canoe and went up to listen.

“What I want to know,” the Doctor was saying, “is how the snail comes to be here. I was given to understand that he usually stayed in the Deep Hole; and that when he did come to the surface it was always in mid-ocean.”

“Oh, didn’t you know? – Haven’t you heard?” the porpoises replied: “you covered up the Deep Hole when you sank the island. Why yes: you let it down right on top of the mouth of the Hole – sort of put the lid on, as it were. The fishes that were in it at the time have been trying to get out ever since. The Great Snail had the worst luck of all: the island nipped him by the tail just as he was leaving the Hole for a quiet evening stroll. And he was held there for six months trying to wriggle himself free. Finally he had to heave the whole island up at one end to get his tail loose. Didn’t you feel a sort of an earthquake shock about an hour ago?”

“Yes I did,” said the Doctor, “it shook down part of the theatre I was building.”

“Well, that was the snail heaving up the island to get out of the Hole,” they said. “All the other fishes saw their chance and escaped when he raised the lid. It was lucky for them he’s so big and strong. But the strain of that terrific heave told on him: he sprained a muscle in his tail and it started swelling rather badly. He wanted some quiet place to rest up; and seeing this soft beach handy he crawled in here.”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “I’m terribly sorry. I suppose I should have given some sort of notice that the island was going to be let down. But, to tell the truth, we didn’t know it ourselves; it happened by a kind of an accident. Do you imagine the poor fellow is hurt very badly?”

“We’re not sure,” said the porpoises; “because none of us can speak his language. But we swam right around him on our way in here, and he did not seem to be really seriously injured.”

“Can’t any of your people speak shellfish?” the Doctor asked.

“Not a word,” said they. “It’s a most frightfully difficult language.”

“Do you think that you might be able to find me some kind of a fish that could?”

“We don’t know,” said the porpoises. “We might try.”

“I should be extremely grateful to you if you would,” said the Doctor. “There are many important questions I want to ask this snail – And besides, I would like to do my best to cure his tail for him. It’s the least I can do. After all, it was my fault, indirectly, that he got hurt.”

“Well, if you wait here,” said the porpoises, “we’ll see what can be done.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Shellfish Riddle
Solved at Last

So Doctor Dolittle with a crown on his head sat down upon the shore like King Knut, and waited. And for a whole hour the porpoises kept going and coming, bringing up different kinds of sea-beasts from the deep to see if they could help him.

Many and curious were the creatures they produced. It would seem however that there were very few things that spoke shellfish except the shellfish themselves. Still, the porpoises grew a little more hopeful when they discovered a very old sea-urchin (a funny, ball-like, little fellow with long whiskers all over him) who said he could not speak pure shellfish, but he used to understand starfish – enough to get along – when he was young. This was coming nearer, even if it wasn’t anything to go crazy about. Leaving the urchin with us, the porpoises went off once more to hunt up a starfish.

They were not long getting one, for they were quite common in those parts. Then, using the sea-urchin as an interpreter, they questioned the starfish. He was a rather stupid sort of creature; but he tried his best to be helpful. And after a little patient examination we found to our delight that he could speak shellfish moderately well.

Feeling quite encouraged, the Doctor and I now got into the canoe; and, with the porpoises, the urchin and the starfish swimming alongside, we paddled very gently out till we were close under the towering shell of the Great Snail.

And then began the most curious conversation I have ever witnessed. First the starfish would ask the snail something; and whatever answer the snail gave, the starfish would tell it to the sea-urchin, the urchin would tell it to the porpoises and the porpoises would tell it to the Doctor.

In this way we obtained considerable information, mostly about the very ancient history of the Animal Kingdom; but we missed a good many of the finer points in the snail’s longer speeches on account of the stupidity of the starfish and all this translating from one language to another.

While the snail was speaking, the Doctor and I put our ears against the wall of his shell and found that we could in this way hear the sound of his voice quite plainly. It was, as the fidgit had described, deep and bell-like. But of course we could not understand a single word he said. However the Doctor was by this time terrifically excited about getting near to learning the language he had sought so long. And presently by making the other fishes repeat over and over again short phrases which the snail used, he began to put words together for himself. You see, he was already familiar with one or two fish languages; and that helped him quite a little. After he had practised for a while like this he leant over the side of the canoe and putting his face below the water, tried speaking to the snail direct.

It was hard and difficult work; and hours went by before he got any results. But presently I could tell by the happy look on his face, that little by little he was succeeding.

The sun was low in the West and the cool evening breeze was beginning to rustle softly through the bamboo-groves when the Doctor finally turned from his work and said to me,

“Stubbins, I have persuaded the snail to come in on to the dry part of the beach and let me examine his tail. Will you please go back to the town and tell the workmen to stop working on the theatre for today? Then go on to the palace and get my medicine-bag. I think I left it under the throne in the Audience Chamber.”

“And remember,” Polynesia whispered as I turned away, “not a word to a soul. If you get asked questions, keep your mouth shut. Pretend you have a toothache or something.”

This time when I got back to the shore – with the medicine-bag – I found the snail high and dry on the beach. Seeing him in his full length like this, it was easy to understand how old-time, superstitious sailors had called him the Sea-serpent. He certainly was a most gigantic, and in his way, a graceful, beautiful creature. John Dolittle was examining a swelling on his tail.

From the bag which I had brought the Doctor took a large bottle of embrocation and began rubbing the sprain. Next he took all the bandages he had in the bag and fastened them end to end. But even like that, they were not long enough to go more than halfway round the enormous tail. The Doctor insisted that he must get the swelling strapped tight somehow. So he sent me off to the palace once more to get all the sheets from the Royal Linen-closet. These Polynesia and I tore into bandages for him. And at last, after terrific exertions, we got the sprain strapped to his satisfaction.

The snail really seemed to be quite pleased with the attention he had received; and he stretched himself in lazy comfort when the Doctor was done. In this position, when the shell on his back was empty, you could look right through it and see the palm-trees on the other side.

“I think one of us had better sit up with him all night,” said the Doctor. “We might put Bumpo on that duty; he’s been napping all day, I know – in the summer-house. It’s a pretty bad sprain, that; and if the snail shouldn’t be able to sleep, he’ll be happier with some one with him for company. He’ll get all right though – in a few days I should judge. If I wasn’t so confoundedly busy I’d sit up with him myself. I wish I could, because I still have a lot of things to talk over with him.”

“But Doctor,” said Polynesia as we prepared to go back to the town, “you ought to take a holiday. All Kings take holidays once in the while – every one of them. King Charles, for instance – of course Charles was before your time – but he! – why, he was always holiday-making. Not that he was ever what you would call a model king. But just the same, he was frightfully popular. Everybody liked him – even the golden-carp in the fish-pond at Hampton Court. As a king, the only thing I had against him was his inventing those stupid, little, snappy dogs they call King Charles Spaniels. There are lots of stories told about poor Charles; but that, in my opinion, is the worst thing he did. However, all this is beside the point. As I was saying, kings have to take holidays the same as anybody else. And you haven’t taken one since you were crowned, have you now?”

“No,” said the Doctor, “I suppose that’s true.”

“Well now I tell you what you do,” said she: “as soon as you get back to the palace you publish a royal proclamation that you are going away for a week into the country for your health. And you’re going without any servants, you understand – just like a plain person. It’s called travelling incognito, when kings go off like that. They all do it – It’s the only way they can ever have a good time. Then the week you’re away you can spend lolling on the beach back there with the snail. How’s that?”

“I’d like to,” said the Doctor. “It sounds most attractive. But there’s that new theatre to be built; none of our carpenters would know how to get those rafters on without me to show them – And then there are the babies: these native mothers are so frightfully ignorant.”

“Oh bother the theatre – and the babies too,” snapped Polynesia. “The theatre can wait a week. And as for babies, they never have anything more than colic. How do you suppose babies got along before you came here, for heaven’s sake? – Take a holiday…. You need it.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Last Cabinet Meeting

From the way Polynesia talked, I guessed that this idea of a holiday was part of her plan.

The Doctor made no reply; and we walked on silently towards the town. I could see, nevertheless that her words had made an impression on him.

After supper he disappeared from the palace without saying where he was going – a thing he had never done before. Of course we all knew where he had gone: back to the beach to sit up with the snail. We were sure of it because he had said nothing to Bumpo about attending to the matter.

As soon as the doors were closed upon the Cabinet Meeting that night, Polynesia addressed the Ministry:

“Look here, you fellows,” said she: “we’ve simply got to get the Doctor to take this holiday somehow – unless we’re willing to stay in this blessed island for the rest of our lives.”

“But what difference,” Bumpo asked, “is his taking a holiday going to make?”

Impatiently Polynesia turned upon the Minister of the Interior.

“Don’t you see? If he has a clear week to get thoroughly interested in his natural history again – marine stuff, his dream of seeing the floor of the ocean and all that – there may be some chance of his consenting to leave this pesky place. But while he is here on duty as king he never gets a moment to think of anything outside of the business of government.”

“Yes, that’s true. He’s far too consententious,” Bumpo agreed.

“And besides,” Polynesia went on, “his only hope of ever getting away from here would be to escape secretly. He’s got to leave while he is holiday-making, incognito – when no one knows where he is or what he’s doing, but us. If he built a ship big enough to cross the sea in, all the Indians would see it, and hear it, being built; and they’d ask what it was for. They would interfere. They’d sooner have anything happen than lose the Doctor. Why, I believe if they thought he had any idea of escaping they would put chains on him.”

“Yes, I really think they would,” I agreed. “Yet without a ship of some kind I don’t see how the Doctor is going to get away, even secretly.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Polynesia. “If we do succeed in making him take this holiday, our next step will be to get the sea-snail to promise to take us all in his shell and carry us to the mouth of Puddleby River. If we can once get the snail willing, the temptation will be too much for John Dolittle and he’ll come, I know – especially as he’ll be able to take those new plants and drugs of Long Arrow’s to the English doctors, as well as see the floor of the ocean on the way.”

“How thrilling!” I cried. “Do you mean the snail could take us under the sea all the way back to Puddleby?”

“Certainly,” said Polynesia, “a little trip like that is nothing to him. He would crawl along the floor of the ocean and the Doctor could see all the sights. Perfectly simple. Oh, John Dolittle will come all right, if we can only get him to take that holiday – and if the snail will consent to give us the ride.”

“Golly, I hope he does!” sighed Jip. “I’m sick of these beastly tropics – they make you feel so lazy and good-for-nothing. And there are no rats or anything here – not that a fellow would have the energy to chase ’em even if there were. My, wouldn’t I be glad to see old Puddleby and the garden again! And won’t Dab-Dab be glad to have us back!”

“By the end of next month,” said I, “it will be two whole years since we left England – since we pulled up the anchor at Kingsbridge and bumped our way out into the river.”

“And got stuck on the mud-bank,” added Chee-Chee in a dreamy, far-away voice.

“Do you remember how all the people waved to us from the river-wall?” I asked.

“Yes. And I suppose they’ve often talked about us in the town since,” said Jip – “wondering whether we’re dead or alive.”

“Cease,” said Bumpo, “I feel I am about to weep from sediment.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Doctor’s Decision

Well, you can guess how glad we were when next morning the Doctor, after his all-night conversation with the snail, told us that he had made up his mind to take the holiday. A proclamation was published right away by the Town Crier that His Majesty was going into the country for a seven-day rest, but that during his absence the palace and the government offices would be kept open as usual.

Polynesia was immensely pleased. She at once set quietly to work making arrangements for our departure – taking good care the while that no one should get an inkling of where we were going, what we were taking with us, the hour of our leaving or which of the palace-gates we would go out by.

Cunning old schemer that she was, she forgot nothing. And not even we, who were of the Doctor’s party, could imagine what reasons she had for some of her preparations. She took me inside and told me that the one thing I must remember to bring with me was all of the Doctor’s note-books. Long Arrow, who was the only Indian let into the secret of our destination, said he would like to come with us as far as the beach to see the Great Snail; and him Polynesia told to be sure and bring his collection of plants. Bumpo she ordered to carry the Doctor’s high hat – carefully hidden under his coat. She sent off nearly all the footmen who were on night duty to do errands in the town, so that there should be as few servants as possible to see us leave. And midnight, the hour when most of the towns-people would be asleep, she finally chose for our departure.

We had to take a week’s food-supply with us for the royal holiday. So, with our other packages, we were heavy laden when on the stroke of twelve we opened the west door of the palace and stepped cautiously and quietly into the moonlit garden.

“Tiptoe incognito,” whispered Bumpo as we gently closed the heavy doors behind us.

No one had seen us leave.

At the foot of the stone steps leading from the Peacock Terrace to the Sunken Rosary, something made me pause and look back at the magnificent palace which we had built in this strange, far-off land where no white men but ourselves had ever come. Somehow I felt it in my bones that we were leaving it tonight never to return again. And I wondered what other kings and ministers would dwell in its splendid halls when we were gone. The air was hot; and everything was deadly still but for the gentle splashing of the tame flamingos paddling in the lily-pond. Suddenly the twinkling lantern of a night watchman appeared round the corner of a cypress hedge. Polynesia plucked at my stocking and, in an impatient whisper, bade me hurry before our flight be discovered.

On our arrival at the beach we found the snail already feeling much better and now able to move his tail without pain.

The porpoises (who are by nature inquisitive creatures) were still hanging about in the offing to see if anything of interest was going to happen. Polynesia, the plotter, while the Doctor was occupied with his new patient, signaled to them and drew them aside for a little private chat.

“Now see here, my friends,” said she speaking low: “you know how much John Dolittle has done for the animals – given his whole life up to them, one might say. Well, here is your chance to do something for him. Listen: he got made king of this island against his will, see? And now that he has taken the job on, he feels that he can’t leave it – thinks the Indians won’t be able to get along without him and all that – which is nonsense, as you and I very well know. All right. Then here’s the point: if this snail were only willing to take him and us – and a little baggage – not very much, thirty or forty pieces, say – inside his shell and carry us to England, we feel sure that the Doctor would go; because he’s just crazy to mess about on the floor of the ocean. What’s more this would be his one and only chance of escape from the island. Now it is highly important that the Doctor return to his own country to carry on his proper work which means such a lot to the animals of the world. So what we want you to do is to tell the sea-urchin to tell the starfish to tell the snail to take us in his shell and carry us to Puddleby River. Is that plain?”

“Quite, quite,” said the porpoises. “And we will willingly do our very best to persuade him – for it is, as you say, a perfect shame for the great man to be wasting his time here when he is so much needed by the animals.”

“And don’t let the Doctor know what you’re about,” said Polynesia as they started to move off. “He might balk if he thought we had any hand in it. Get the snail to offer on his own account to take us. See?”

John Dolittle, unaware of anything save the work he was engaged on, was standing knee-deep in the shallow water, helping the snail try out his mended tail to see if it were well enough to travel on. Bumpo and Long Arrow, with Chee-Chee and Jip, were lolling at the foot of a palm a little way up the beach. Polynesia and I now went and joined them. Half an hour passed.

What success the porpoises had met with, we did not know, till suddenly the Doctor left the snail’s side and came splashing out to us, quite breathless.

“What do you think?” he cried, “while I was talking to the snail just now he offered, of his own accord, to take us all back to England inside his shell. He says he has got to go on a voyage of discovery anyway, to hunt up a new home, now that the Deep Hole is closed. Said it wouldn’t be much out of his way to drop us at Puddleby River, if we cared to come along – Goodness, what a chance! I’d love to go. To examine the floor of the ocean all the way from Brazil to Europe! No man ever did it before. What a glorious trip! – Oh that I had never allowed myself to be made king! Now I must see the chance of a lifetime slip by.”

He turned from us and moved down the sands again to the middle beach, gazing wistfully, longingly out at the snail. There was something peculiarly sad and forlorn about him as he stood there on the lonely, moonlit shore, the crown upon his head, his figure showing sharply black against the glittering sea behind.

Out of the darkness at my elbow Polynesia rose and quietly moved down to his side.

“Now Doctor,” said she in a soft persuasive voice as though she were talking to a wayward child, “you know this king business is not your real work in life. These natives will be able to get along without you – not so well as they do with you of course – but they’ll manage – the same as they did before you came. Nobody can say you haven’t done your duty by them. It was their fault: they made you king. Why not accept the snail’s offer; and just drop everything now, and go? The work you’ll do, the information you’ll carry home, will be of far more value than what you’re doing here.”

“Good friend,” said the Doctor turning to her sadly, “I cannot. They would go back to their old unsanitary ways: bad water, uncooked fish, no drainage, enteric fever and the rest…. No. I must think of their health, their welfare. I began life as a people’s doctor: I seem to have come back to it in the end. I cannot desert them. Later perhaps something will turn up. But I cannot leave them now.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Doctor,” said she. “Now is when you should go. Nothing will ‘turn up.’ The longer you stay, the harder it will be to leave – Go now. Go tonight.”

“What, steal away without even saying goodbye to them! Why, Polynesia, what a thing to suggest!”

“A fat chance they would give you to say goodbye!” snorted Polynesia growing impatient at last. “I tell you, Doctor, if you go back to that palace tonight, for goodbyes or anything else, you will stay there. Now – this moment – is the time for you to go.”

The truth of the old parrot’s words seemed to be striking home; for the Doctor stood silent a minute, thinking.

“But there are the note-books,” he said presently: “I would have to go back to fetch them.”

“I have them here, Doctor,” said I, speaking up – “all of them.”

Again he pondered.

“And Long Arrow’s collection,” he said. “I would have to take that also with me.”

“It is here, Oh Kindly One,” came the Indian’s deep voice from the shadow beneath the palm.

“But what about provisions,” asked the Doctor – “food for the journey?”

“We have a week’s supply with us, for our holiday,” said Polynesia – “that’s more than we will need.”

For a third time the Doctor was silent and thoughtful.

“And then there’s my hat,” he said fretfully at last. “That settles it: I’ll have to go back to the palace. I can’t leave without my hat. How could I appear in Puddleby with this crown on my head?”

“Here it is, Doctor,” said Bumpo producing the hat, old, battered and beloved, from under his coat. Polynesia had indeed thought of everything.

Yet even now we could see the Doctor was still trying to think up further excuses.

“Oh Kindly One,” said Long Arrow, “why tempt ill fortune? Your way is clear. Your future and your work beckon you back to your foreign home beyond the sea. With you will go also what lore I too have gathered for mankind – to lands where it will be of wider use than it can ever here. I see the glimmerings of dawn in the eastern heaven. Day is at hand. Go before your subjects are abroad. Go before your project is discovered. For truly I believe that if you go not now you will linger the remainder of your days a captive king in Popsipetel.”

Great decisions often take no more than a moment in the making. Against the now paling sky I saw the Doctor’s figure suddenly stiffen. Slowly he lifted the Sacred Crown from off his head and laid it on the sands.

And when he spoke his voice was choked with tears.

“They will find it here,” he murmured, “when they come to search for me. And they will know that I have gone…. My children, my poor children! – I wonder will they ever understand why it was I left them…. I wonder will they ever understand – and forgive.”

He took his old hat from Bumpo; then facing Long Arrow, gripped his outstretched hand in silence.

“You decide aright, oh Kindly One,” said the Indian – “though none will miss and mourn you more than Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow – Farewell, and may good fortune ever lead you by the hand!”

It was the first and only time I ever saw the Doctor weep. Without a word to any of us, he turned and moved down the beach into the shallow water of the sea.

The snail humped up its back and made an opening between its shoulders and the edge of its shell. The Doctor clambered up and passed within. We followed him, after handing up the baggage. The opening shut tight with a whistling suction noise.

Then turning in the direction of the East, the great creature began moving smoothly forward, down the slope into the deeper waters.

Just as the swirling dark green surf was closing in above our heads, the big morning sun popped his rim up over the edge of the ocean. And through our transparent walls of pearl we saw the watery world about us suddenly light up with that most wondrously colourful of visions, a daybreak beneath the sea.

•   •   •

The rest of the story of our homeward voyage is soon told.

Our new quarters we found very satisfactory. Inside the spacious shell, the snail’s wide back was extremely comfortable to sit and lounge on – better than a sofa, when you once got accustomed to the damp and clammy feeling of it. He asked us, shortly after we started, if we wouldn’t mind taking off our boots, as the hobnails in them hurt his back as we ran excitedly from one side to another to see the different sights.

The motion was not unpleasant, very smooth and even; in fact, but for the landscape passing outside, you would not know, on the level going, that you were moving at all.

I had always thought for some reason or other that the bottom of the sea was flat. I found that it was just as irregular and changeful as the surface of the dry land. We climbed over great mountain-ranges, with peaks towering above peaks. We threaded our way through dense forests of tall sea-plants. We crossed wide empty stretches of sandy mud, like deserts – so vast that you went on for a whole day with nothing ahead of you but a dim horizon. Sometimes the scene was moss-covered, rolling country, green and restful to the eye like rich pastures; so that you almost looked to see sheep cropping on these underwater downs. And sometimes the snail would roll us forward inside him like peas, when he suddenly dipped downward to descend into some deep secluded valley with steeply sloping sides.

In these lower levels we often came upon the shadowy shapes of dead ships, wrecked and sunk Heaven only knows how many years ago; and passing them we would speak in hushed whispers like children seeing monuments in churches.

Here too, in the deeper, darker waters, monstrous fishes, feeding quietly in caves and hollows would suddenly spring up, alarmed at our approach, and flash away into the gloom with the speed of an arrow. While other bolder ones, all sorts of unearthly shapes and colours, would come right up and peer in at us through the shell.

“I suppose they think we are a sort of sanaquarium,” said Bumpo – “I’d hate to be a fish.”

It was a thrilling and ever-changing show. The Doctor wrote or sketched incessantly. Before long we had filled all the blank note-books we had left. Then we searched our pockets for any odd scraps of paper on which to jot down still more observations. We even went through the used books a second time, writing in between the lines, scribbling all over the covers, back and front.

Our greatest difficulty was getting enough light to see by. In the lower waters it was very dim. On the third day we passed a band of fire-eels, a sort of large, marine glow-worm; and the Doctor asked the snail to get them to come with us for a way. This they did, swimming alongside; and their light was very helpful, though not brilliant.

How our giant shellfish found his way across that vast and gloomy world was a great puzzle to us. John Dolittle asked him by what means he navigated – how he knew he was on the right road to Puddleby River. And what the snail said in reply got the Doctor so excited, that having no paper left, he tore out the lining of his precious hat and covered it with notes.

By night of course it was impossible to see anything; and during the hours of darkness the snail used to swim instead of crawl. When he did so he could travel at a terrific speed, just by waggling that long tail of his. This was the reason why we completed the trip in so short a time five and a half days.

The air of our chamber, not having a change in the whole voyage, got very close and stuffy; and for the first two days we all had headaches. But after that we got used to it and didn’t mind it in the least.

Early in the afternoon of the sixth day, we noticed we were climbing a long gentle slope. As we went upward it grew lighter. Finally we saw that the snail had crawled right out of the water altogether and had now come to a dead stop on a long strip of grey sand.

Behind us we saw the surface of the sea rippled by the wind. On our left was the mouth of a river with the tide running out. While in front, the low flat land stretched away into the mist – which prevented one from seeing very far in any direction. A pair of wild ducks with craning necks and whirring wings passed over us and disappeared like shadows, seaward.

As a landscape, it was a great change from the hot brilliant sunshine of Popsipetel.

With the same whistling suction sound, the snail made the opening for us to crawl out by. As we stepped down upon the marshy land we noticed that a fine, drizzling autumn rain was falling.

“Can this be Merrie England?” asked Bumpo, peering into the fog – “doesn’t look like any place in particular. Maybe the snail hasn’t brought us right after all.”

“Yes,” sighed Polynesia, shaking the rain oft her feathers, “this is England all right – You can tell it by the beastly climate.”

“Oh, but fellows,” cried Jip, as he sniffed up the air in great gulps, “it has a smell – a good and glorious smell! – Excuse me a minute: I see a water-rat.”

“Sh! – Listen!” said Chee-Chee through teeth that chattered with the cold. “There’s Puddleby church-clock striking four. Why don’t we divide up the baggage and get moving. We’ve got a long way to foot it home across the marshes.”

“Let’s hope,” I put in, “that Dab-Dab has a nice fire burning in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure she will,” said the Doctor as he picked out his old handbag from among the bundles – “With this wind from the East she’ll need it to keep the animals in the house warm. Come on. Let’s hug the river-bank so we don’t miss our way in the fog. You know, there’s something rather attractive in the bad weather of England – when you’ve got a kitchen-fire to look forward to…. Four o’clock! Come along – we’ll just be in nice time for tea.”

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PROLOGUE

THE TALES:

1 … A Message from Dab-Dab
2 … The Adventurer’s Return
3 … The Surprise Party
4 … The New Zoo
5 … Animal Town
6 … Poverty Again
7 … The Badger’s Tooth
8 … The Puddleby Gold Rush
9 … The Mouse Code
10 … The New Learning
11 … The Rat and Mouse Club
12 … The Mooniversary Dinner
13 … The Hotel Rat
14 … Leery, the Outcast
15 … The Volcano Rat
16 … The Voices in the Earth
17 … The United Rat States Republic
18 … The Museum Mouse
19 … Professor Foozlebugg’s Masterpiece
20 … The Prison Rat
21 … A Rat’s Pilgrimage
22 … The Stable Mouse
23 … The Cunning of Lucifer, the Jackdaw
24 … Moorsden Manor
25 … The Fire
26 … The Leather Boxes
27 … The Watch Dogs
28 … The Scrap of Parchment
29 … The Coming of Kling
30 … The Mystery of Moorsden Manor
31 … The Dog Detective
32 … Old Mr. Throgmorton
33 … The Secret Cupboard
34 … The Wild Ride of the White Mouse
35 … Our Arrest

• • • • •

Prologue

“Polynesia,” I said, leaning back in my chair and chewing the end of a quill pen, “what should you say would be the best way to begin another book of Doctor Dolittle’s memoirs?”

The old parrot, who was using the glass inkpot on my desk as a mirror, stopped admiring her reflection and glanced at me sharply.

“Another!” she exclaimed. “Is there going to be another Dolittle book?”

“Why – er – yes,” I said. “After all, we are writing the Doctor’s life and we haven’t nearly finished yet.”

“Oh, yes, I quite see that,” said Polynesia. “I was only wondering who decides how many books there shall be.”

“Well, I suppose – in the end – the public does,” said I. “But tell me now: how would you begin?”

“Thomas Stubbins Esquire,” said she, screwing up her eyes, “that’s a very difficult question to answer. There is so much of interest in the life of John Dolittle that the problem is what to leave out, rather than what to put in. Already I see grey hairs showing at your temples, Tommy. If you try to write down everything the Doctor did, you’ll be nearly my age before you’ve finished. Of course, you’re not writing this book for the scientists exactly, though I confess I often think since you are the only person so far – besides the Doctor – to talk animal languages at all well, that you ought to write something sort of – er – highbrow in natural history. Usefully highbrow, I mean, of course. But that can be done later perhaps. As you said, we are still engaged on the story of the great man’s life…. How to begin? – Humph! Well, why not go on from where we all got back to Puddleby River inside the Giant Sea Snail, you remember? – after our journey under the ocean?”

“Yes,” I said, “I thought of beginning there. But it was more how than where – I mean, the things to leave out and the things to put in; what parts to choose as the most interesting.”

“Ah!” said she. “Yes, that’s the problem. How often have I heard the Doctor himself say those very words as he was packing his little black bag to go on a voyage: ‘What to leave out and what to put in? That’s the problem.’ I’ve seen him spend half an hour wondering over his razor – whether he should pack it or not. He said a broken bottle did just as well, once you had learned how to use it. You remember how he hated a lot of baggage. He usually decided to go without the razor. But Dab-Dab and I were so scared he’d cut himself with the broken glass we always secretly opened the bag later and slipped the razor in before starting. And as he never could remember which way he had decided the problem, it was all right.”

“Indeed,” said I. “But you haven’t answered my question yet.”

Polynesia pondered a moment.

“What are you calling the book?” she asked presently.

“‘Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo,’” I said.

“Humph!” she murmured. “Then I suppose you ought to get on to the zoo part as soon as possible. But first I think you had better put in a little about your own homecoming and your parents and all that. You had been away nearly three years, you know. Of course it’s sort of sentimental. But some people like a little sentiment in their books. In fact, I knew an old lady once who simply loved books that made her weep. She used to—”

“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, seeing that the old parrot was drifting into another story, “but let us keep to the point.”

“Well,” said she, “I think this would be the best way: you read it all out aloud to me as you put it down; and if it starts to get tiresome you’ll know, because you’ll see me dropping off to sleep. You will have to keep it bright and lively though, for as I grow older I find it harder and harder to stay awake after lunch – and I’ve just had a big one. Have you got enough paper? Yes. And the inkpot is full? Yes. All right. Get along with it.”

So taking a new quill pen and sharpening the point very carefully, I began:

• • • • •

The Tales:

•   1   •

A Message from Dab-Dab

It suddenly occurred to John Dolittle that in the excitement of getting back he had not said good-by to the snail who had brought us through this long and perilous voyage and landed us safely on our home shores. He called to us to wait and ran down the beach again.

The farewell did not take long; and presently he left the great creature’s side and rejoined us. Then for a few moments the whole party stood there watching, with our bundles in our hands, while the giant snail, half-hidden in the mists that writhed about his towering shell, got under way. Truly, he seemed to belong to this landscape – or seascape – for his long, grey body looked like a part of the long, grey sandbar on which he rested. With easy muscular motion, so fluid and smooth that you could not tell how he moved at all, his great hulk slid out into deeper water. And as he went forward he went down, and down, and down, till only the top of his shell’s dome, a dim grey-pink in the colourless sea, could be seen. Then, without sound or splash, he was gone.

We turned our faces toward the land, Puddleby and home.

“I wonder what supplies Dab-Dab has in the house,” said the Doctor, as we formed into single file and, following Jip, began to pick our way across the boggy marshland. “I hope she has plenty to eat. I am thoroughly hungry.”

“So am I,” said Bumpo.

At that moment, out of the wet, misty air above our heads two handsome wild ducks curved fluttering down and came to a standstill at John Dolittle’s feet.

“Dab-Dab asked us to tell you,” said they, “that you’re to hurry up and get home out of this rain. She’s waiting for you.”

“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “How did she know that we were coming?”

“We told her,” said the ducks. “We were flying inland – there’s a pretty bad storm over the Irish Sea, and it’s headed this way – and we saw you landing out of the snail’s shell. We dropped down at the house to let her know the news. We were awfully glad to see you back. And she asked would we return and bring you a message – she herself was busy airing the bed linen, it seems. She says you’re to stop in at the butcher’s on the way home and bring along a pound of sausages. Also she’s short of sugar, she says, and needs a few more candles, too.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “You are very kind. I will attend to these things. You didn’t take long over getting there and back; it doesn’t seem to me as though more than a minute had passed since we landed.”

“No, we’re pretty good flyers,” said the ducks; “nothing fancy, but steady.”

“Didn’t you find the rain a great handicap?” asked the Doctor.

“No, the rain doesn’t bother us,” said the ducks, “though some of the land birds are very badly hampered by wet feathers. But, of course, for all, the going is a little slower in rain on account of the air being heavier.”

“I see,” said the Doctor. “Well, now, let us be getting along. Jip, you lead the way, will you, please? You can pick out the firm ground so much better than the rest of us.”

“Look here, you fellows,” said Polynesia, as the ducks prepared to take wing; “don’t be spreading the news of the Doctor’s arrival too fast, will you? He’s only just back from a long and tiresome journey. You know what happens when it gets known that he’s home: all the birds and beasts of the countryside come around to the back door with coughs and colds and what not. And those who haven’t anything wrong with them invent some ailment just to have an excuse to call. He needs to rest up a bit before he starts in doctoring.”

“No, we won’t tell anyone,” said the ducks; “not tonight, anyway, though a tremendous lot of wildfowl have been inquiring for him for ever so long, wondering when he was going to get back. He has never been gone so long before, you see.”

“Humph!” muttered Polynesia, as the ducks, with a whir of feathers, disappeared again into the rainy mist above our heads. “I suppose John Dolittle has to give an account of his actions now to every snipe and sandpiper that ever met him. Poor man! How dare he be away so long! Well, such is fame, I suppose. But I’m glad I’m not a doctor myself. Oh, bless this rain! Let me get under your coat, Tommy. It’s trickling down between my wings and ruining my disposition.”

If it had not been for Jip’s good guidance we would have had a hard job to make our way to the town across the marshes. The light of the late afternoon was failing. And every once in a while the fog would come billowing in from the sea and blot out everything around us, so that you could see no further than a foot before your nose. The chimes of the quarter-hours from Puddleby church tower were the only sounds or signs of civilization to reach us.

But Jip, with that wonderful nose of his, was a guide worth having in a place like this. The marsh was riddled and crossed in all directions by deep dykes, now filling up like rivers with the incoming tide. These could very easily cut off the unwary traveller and leave him stranded at the mercy of the rising waters. But in spite of continuous temptation to go off on the scent of water rats, Jip, like a good pilot, steered a safe course through all the dangers and kept us on fairly solid ground the whole way.

Finally we found he had brought us round to the long, high mound that bordered the Puddleby River. This we knew would lead us to the bridge. Presently we passed a hut or two, the outposts of the town. And occasionally in the swiftly flowing water on our left we would see through the lifting mists the grey, ghostly sails of a fishing boat coming home, like us, from the sea.

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Adventurer’s Return

As we came nearer to the town and the lights about Kingsbridge twinkled at us through the grey mist Polynesia said: “It would be wiser, Doctor, if you sent Tommy in to get the sausages and went around the town yourself. You’ll never get home if the children and dogs start recognizing you. You know that.”

“Yes, I think you’re right, Polynesia,” said the Doctor. “We can turn off here to the North and get around on to the Oxenthorpe Road by Baldwin’s Pool and the Mill Fields.”

So the rest of the party went off with the Doctor, while I went on into the town alone. I was a little sorry not to have been present at John Dolittle’s homecoming, I must admit. But I had another thrill which partly made up for it. Swaggering across Kingsbridge, alone, I returned to my native town a conquering adventurer from foreign parts. Oh, my! Christopher Columbus just back from his discovery of the New World could not have felt prouder than I, Tommy Stubbins, the cobbler’s son, did that night.

One of the little things that added to the thrill of it was that no one recognized me. I was like some enchanted person in the Arabian Nights who could see without being seen. I was three years older than when I had left, at an age when a boy shoots up and changes like a weed. As I swung along beneath the dim street lamps toward the butcher’s in the High Street I knew the faces of more than half the folk who passed me by. And I chuckled to myself to think how surprised they’d be if I told them who I was and all the great things I had seen and done since last I trod these cobble-stones. Then in a flash I saw myself back again on the river wall, where I had so often sat with legs dangling over the water, watching the ships come and go, dreaming of the lands I had never seen.

In the Market Square, before a dimly lighted shop, I saw a figure which I would have known anywhere, seen from the back or the front. It was Matthew Mugg, the cat’s-meat man. Just out of mischief, to see if he, too, would be unable to recognize me, I went up the shop front and stood, like him, looking in at the window. Presently he turned and looked at me. No. He didn’t know me from Adam. Highly amused, I went on to the butcher’s.

I asked for the sausages. They were weighed out, wrapped and handed to me. The butcher was an old acquaintance of mine, but beyond glancing at my old clothes (they were patched and mended and sadly outgrown) he showed no sign of curiosity or recognition. But when I came to pay for my purchases I found to my dismay that the only money I had in my pockets was two large Spanish silver pieces, souvenirs of our stormy visit to the Capa Blanca Islands. The butcher looked at them and shook his head.

“We only take English money here,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, “but that is all I have. Couldn’t you exchange it for me? It is, as you see, good silver. One of these pieces should be worth a crown at least.”

“Maybe it is,” said the butcher. “But I can’t take it.”

He seemed sort of suspicious and rather annoyed. While I was wondering what I should do I became aware that there was a third party in the shop interested in what was going on. I turned to look. It was Matthew Mugg. He had followed me.

This time his eye (the one that didn’t squint) fixed me with a curious look of half-recognition. Suddenly he rushed at me and grabbed me by the hand.

“It’s Tommy!” he squeaked. “As I live it’s Tommy Stubbins, grown so tall and handsome his own mother wouldn’t know him, and as brown as a berry.”

Matthew was, of course, well known to the tradesmen of the town – especially to the butcher, from whom he bought the bones and odd pieces of meat he fed to the dogs. He turned to the shopkeeper.

“Why, Alfred,” he cried, “this is Tommy Stubbins, Jacob Stubbins’s lad, back from furrin parts. No need to be worried about his credit, Alfred. He’s shopping for the Doctor, I’ll be bound. You brought the Doctor back with you?” he asked, peering at me anxiously. “Don’t tell me you come back alone?”

“No,” I said. “The Doctor’s here, safe and sound.”

“You’re just in, eh?” said he. “Tonight – huh? John Dolittle couldn’t be in this town long without my knowing it.”

“Yes,” I said. “He’s on his way up to the house now. Asked me to do a little shopping for him. But all the money I have is foreign.”

I said this with the superior air of an experienced traveller, raising my eyebrows a little disdainfully at the obstinate butcher, whose stay-at-home mind couldn’t be expected to appreciate a real adventurer’s difficulties.

“Oh, well, Alfred will let you have the sausages, I’m sure,” said Matthew.

“Why, yes, that’s all right, Tommy,” said the butcher, smiling at my airs. “Though we ain’t exactly a money exchange, you know. But if you had said at first who you were, and who the sausages were for, I’d have charged them to the Doctor without a word – even though his credit hasn’t always been of the best. Take the meat – and tell John Dolittle I’m glad he’s back safe.”

“Thank you,” I said, with dignity.

Then, with my package beneath one arm and Matthew Mugg firmly grasping the other, I stepped forth into the street.

“You know, Tommy,” said Matthew, as we set off in the direction of the Oxenthorpe Road, “all the years that John Dolittle’s been returning from voyages he ain’t never got home once without me to welcome him the first night he got in. Not that he ever tells me he’s coming, mind you. No, indeed. As often as not, I fancy, he’d rather no one knew. But somehow or other I always finds out before he’s been in the town an hour, and right away I’m up there to welcome him. And once I’m inside the house, he seems to get used to me and be glad I’m there. I suppose you seen an awful lot of adventures and strange sights and things since I saw you last?”

“Yes, Matthew,” I said. “We saw even more than I had thought or hoped we would. We have brought back notebooks by the barrow-load and a collection of wonderful herbs which were gathered by an Indian naturalist – frightfully valuable and important. And – what do you think, Matthew? – we came back inside the shell of a giant sea snail who crawled along the bottom of the ocean with us all the way from the other side of the Atlantic!”

“Oh, well,” said Matthew, “there be no end to the strange things Doctor John Dolittle’s seen and gone through. I’ve given up talking about his voyagings and queer doings. Down in the tap-room of the Red Lion I used to tell about his travels – of an evening like, when folk enjoy a tale. But never no more. It’s like this business of his speaking animal languages: people don’t believe you; so what’s the good?”

We were now some half-mile along the Oxenthorpe Road and within a short distance of the Doctor’s house. It was quite dark. But in the hedges and the trees all about us I could hear birds fluttering and chattering. In spite of Polynesia’s request, the news had already spread, in that mysterious way it does in the Animal Kingdom. The season was still cold and few more than the winter birds could be found in England now. But round about the famous Little House with the Big Garden they were gathered in thousands – sparrows, robins, blackbirds, crows and starlings – to welcome the great man back, prepared to sit up all night just to see him in the morning.

And it occurred to me, as I walked up the steps and opened the little gate at the top, that such was the great difference between this strange popularity and friendship that the Doctor enjoyed and that of ordinary human society: with some friends, if you were away three years, it would mean you’d find yourself forgotten when you returned. But with John Dolittle and his animal friends, the longer he was gone the greater the welcome and rejoicing when he came home again.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Surprise Party

As a matter of fact, I did not entirely miss witnessing the Doctor’s homecoming. When Matthew and I entered at the kitchen door we found an air of mystery in the house. We had expected, of course, an enormous amount of noise – greetings, questions and so forth. But there wasn’t a soul even visible besides the Doctor himself – and Dab-Dab who promptly berated me for taking so long over getting the sausages.

“But where is Gub-Gub?” the Doctor was asking as we came in.

“How on earth should I know, Doctor?” said Dab-Dab. “He’ll turn up presently – and the rest of them, no doubt. Have you washed your hands for supper? Please don’t leave it to the last moment. The food will be on the table in five minutes. I’ll want you to help me, Tommy, with the sausages. By the way, Doctor, we’re going to have supper in the dining room.”

“In the dining room!” cried John Dolittle. “What on earth for? Why don’t we use the kitchen as usual?”

“Not big enough,” grunted Dab-Dab.

I suspected from an odd look in the house-keeper’s eye that there was some surprise in store. And, sure enough, when the dining room door was opened, there it was. The whole crowd of them, Gub-Gub, Too-Too, Swizzle, Toby and the white mouse, all in fancy dress. It was a surprise party given in the Doctor’s honour.

The dining room was a funny old stately chamber which the Doctor had closed up years and years ago – in fact, it had not been used since his sister Sarah had left him. But tonight it was gaily decorated with coloured papers, ribbons and evergreens. The animals were all in their old pantomime costumes, even the white mouse was wearing a tiny waistcoat and pants in which he used to appear in the famous Dolittle Circus of bygone days.

Now, with the Doctor’s appearance at the door, the noise which we had missed began in earnest. Barks, yelps and squeals of greeting broke forth. But there was very little disorderly behaviour, for apparently a regular program of entertainment had been arranged. The meal was most elaborate, the table piled high with fruits and dainties of every kind.

Between courses each one of the animals who had stayed at home had some performance to give. Gub-Gub recited one of his own food poems, entitled “The Wilted Cauliflower”; Toby and Swizzle gave a boxing match (the stage was the middle of the table) with real boxing gloves tied on their front paws; and the white mouse showed us what he called “The Punchbowl Circus.” This took place in a large glass bowl, and was the most thrilling thing of its kind I have ever seen. The white mouse was ringmaster, and he swaggered about on his hind legs with a tiny top hat on his head made of paper. In his troupe he had a lady bareback rider, a clown and a lion tamer. The rider was another mouse (using a cutlet frill for a ballet skirt), and she rode a squirrel for a horse – the fastest mount I ever saw. The lion tamer was still another mouse, and his lion was a large rat dressed up with strings on his head for a mane.

Taken all in all, the Punchbowl Circus was, I think, the greatest success of the evening. The white mouse had even, in a way, made himself up. With some heavy black grease paint, which Swizzle, the old clown dog of the circus, had lent him from his own private makeup box, he had waxed his whiskers together so that they looked exactly like the long, ferocious mustachios of a regular ringmaster. The lady bareback artist leaped through paper hoops, the mouse clown (also made up with a red and white face), threw somersaults, and the rat lion roared savagely.

“I don’t know how on earth you all managed to get the show ready in time,” said the Doctor, tears of laughter running down his cheeks at the antics of the mouse clown. “It’s better than anything I ever had in my circus. And you only knew I was coming half an hour before I got here. How did you do it?”

“You’ll soon see how it was done if you go upstairs, Doctor,” said Dab-Dab severely. “It was Gub-Gub’s idea. They turned the house inside out to get the costumes and the ribbons and they turned the garden upside down to get the evergreens. Tut! Such foolishness! And just when I needed every one of them to help me put the house in proper order against your coming.”

“Oh, well, never mind, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor, still laughing. “It was worth it. I never enjoyed anything so much in all my life. We can soon get the house straightened out. You have Stubbins and Bumpo and me to help you now, you know.”

“Yes, and I don’t know where I’m going to put Bumpo to sleep, either,” said Dab-Dab. “None of the beds we have will fit him.”

“Well, we’ll manage,” said the Doctor. “If the worst comes to the worst we can put two mattresses together on the floor.”

“And now, Doctor,” said Gub-Gub, “your part of the performance begins. We want to hear all about your travels since you left here.”

“Yes, yes,” they all cried. “Begin at the beginning.”

“But, good gracious!” cried John Dolittle. “I couldn’t tell you our complete diary for three years in one evening!”

“Well, tell us some of it,” squeaked the white mouse; “and keep the rest for tomorrow night.”

So, lighting his pipe, which, with the tobacco jar, Chee-Chee brought down off the mantelpiece, the Doctor began at the beginning – the tale of his travels. It was a wonderful scene – the long dining room table packed all around with listening faces, animal and human. The Doctor’s household had never, to my knowledge, been so complete before: Bumpo, Matthew Mugg, myself, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub, Chee-Chee, Polynesia, Jip, Too-Too, Toby, Swizzle and the white mouse. And then, just as he was about to begin there came a thud at the window, and a voice said:

“Let me in. I want to listen, too.”

It was the old lame horse from the stable. He had heard the noise, and, realizing that the Doctor had arrived at last, had come across to join the party.

Greatly to Dab-Dab’s annoyance the double French windows which opened onto the garden were unlatched and the old lame horse invited to join the party. The good housekeeper did insist, however, that I brush his hoofs clean of mud before he was allowed in onto the carpets. It was surprising to see how naturally he took to such unusual surroundings. He passed through the room without upsetting anything and took up a place between the Doctor’s chair and the sideboard. He said he wanted to be near the speaker, because his hearing wasn’t what it used to be. John Dolittle was overjoyed to see him.

“I was on my way out to your stable to call on you,” he said, “when supper was announced. You know how particular Dab-Dab is. Have you been getting your oats and barley regularly since I’ve been gone?”

“Yes, thank you,” said the old horse. “Everything’s been quite all right – lonely, of course, somewhat, without you and Jip – but all right otherwise.”

Once more the Doctor settled down to begin his story and once more he was interrupted by a tapping at the window.

“Oh, goodness! Who is it now?” wailed Gub-Gub.

I opened the window and three birds fluttered in – Cheapside, with his wife Becky, and the famous Speedy-the-Skimmer.

“Bless my soul!” chirped the Cockney sparrow, flying up onto the table. “If anybody ever broke into this ’ouse ’e’d deserve all ’e could pinch. That’s what I say. Me and Becky ’as been pokin’ round the doors and windows for hours, lookin’ for a way in. Might as well try to get into the Bank of Hengland after closin’ time. Well, Doc, ’ere we are! The old firm! Glad to see you back. Me and the missis was just turnin’ in up at St. Paul’s when we ’eard the pigeons gossipin’ below us. There was a rumour, they said, that you’d got back. So I says to Becky, I says, ‘Let’s take a run down to Puddleby and see.’ ‘Right you are,’ says she. And down we come. Nobody can’t never—”

“Oh, be quiet!” Too-Too broke in. “The Doctor is about to tell us of his voyage. We don’t want to listen to you all night.”

“All right, Cross-eyes, all right,” said Cheapside, picking up a crumb from the table and talking with his mouth full, “keep your feathers on. ’Ow long ’ave you owned this ’ouse, anyway? Hey, Speedy, come over ’ere where it’s warmer.”

The famous swallow, champion speed flyer of Europe, Africa and America, modestly came forward to a warmer place under the branching candlesticks. He had returned to England a little earlier this year than usual, but the warm weather which had tempted him northward had given way to a cold snap. And now in the brighter light near the centre of the table we could plainly see that he was shivering.

“Glad to see you, Doctor,” said he quietly. “Excuse us interrupting you like this. Please begin, won’t you?”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The New Zoo

So, far into the night, John Dolittle told his household the story of his voyage. Gub-Gub kept falling asleep and then waking up very angry with himself because he was afraid he had missed the best parts.

Somewhere around two o’clock in the morning, although he was not more than half done, the Doctor insisted that everybody go to bed and the rest of the adventures be put off until tomorrow night.

The following day was, I think, the busiest day I have ever seen the Doctor put in. Everybody and everything demanded his attention at once. First of all, of course, there were patients waiting at the surgery door: a squirrel with a broken claw, a rabbit who was losing his fur, a fox with a sore eye.

Then there was the garden, the Doctor’s well-beloved garden. What a mess it was in, to be sure! Three years of weeds, three years of over-growth, three years of neglect! He almost wept as he stepped out of the kitchen door and saw the desolation of it fully revealed in the bright morning sunlight. Luckily the country birds who had been waiting all night to greet him helped to take his mind off it for a while. It reminded me of the pictures of St. Francis and the pigeons, as the starlings, crows, robins and blackbirds swarmed down about him in clouds as soon as he appeared.

Bumpo and I, realizing how deeply affected he was by the sad state of his garden, decided to put our shoulder to the wheel and see what we could do toward cleaning it up. Chee-Chee also volunteered to help, and so did a great number of smaller animals like field mice, rats, badgers and squirrels. And, despite their tiny size, it was astonishing to see how much they could do. For example, two families of moles (who are usually a great pest in a garden) dug up, after the Doctor had explained what he wanted, the entire herb bed next to the peach wall and turned it over better than any professional gardener would have done. They sorted out the weeds from the herb roots and gathered them into neat piles, which Chee-Chee collected in his wheelbarrow. The squirrels were splendid as general clean-up men. They collected all the fallen twigs and leaves and other refuse which littered the gravel walks and carried them to the compost heap behind the potting shed. The badgers helped by burrowing down and pruning the roots of the apple trees underground.

Then, in the middle of the morning Too-Too, the accountant, wanted to go into money matters with the Doctor, so that Dab-Dab might see how much she had to keep house with. Fortunately, the Spanish silver we had brought back from the Capa Blancas (largely out of Bumpo’s bet, which the Doctor didn’t know anything about) looked, when changed into English pounds, as though it should keep us all comfortably for some months at least without worry. This was a great relief to Dab-Dab, though, as usual, she kept an anxious eye on any new schemes of the Doctor’s, remembering from the past that the more money he had, the more extravagant he was likely to be.

It was a funny sight to see those wiseacres, Too-Too, Polynesia and Dab-Dab, putting their heads together over the Doctor’s money affairs while his back was turned.

“But, look here,” Polynesia put in, “the Doctor ought to make a lot of money out of all these new and precious herbs of Long Arrow’s which he brought back.”

“Oh, hardly,” said I. “You’ll probably find he’ll refuse to profit by them at all. In his eyes they are medicines for humanity’s benefit; not things to sell.”

And then, in addition to all the other departments of his strange establishment which claimed the Doctor’s attention that morning, there was the zoo. Matthew Mugg was on hand very early to go over it with him. Not very many of the old inmates were there now. Quite a number had been sent away before the Doctor left, because he felt that in his absence their care would be too ticklish a job for Matthew to manage alone. But there were a few who had begged very hard to remain, some of the more northerly animals like the Canadian woodchucks and the minks.

“You know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as we passed down between the clean, empty houses (Matthew had in our absence really kept the place in wonderful condition), “I have a notion to change the whole system of my zoo.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” said he, “so far I had kept it mostly for foreign exhibits – rather unusual animals – though, as you know, I always avoided the big hunting creatures. But now I think I’ll give it over almost entirely to our native animals. There are a great many who want to live with me – many more than we can possibly manage in the house. You see, we have a big space here, over an acre, altogether. It used to be a sort of a bowling green hundreds of years ago, when an old castle stood where the house is now. It is walled in – private and secluded. Look at it. We could make this into a regular ideal Animal Town. Something quite new. You can help me with the planning of it. I thought I would have several clubs in it. The Rat and Mouse Club is one that I have been thinking of for a long time. Several rats and mice have asked me to start it. And, then, the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs is another. A tremendous lot of dogs – of no particular breed – call on me from time to time and ask if they can live with me. Jip will tell you all about it. I hate to turn them away, because I know many of them have no place to live – and people don’t want them because they’re not what is called thoroughbred. Silly idea. Myself, I’ve usually found that the mongrels had more character and sense than the prize winners. But there you are. What do you think of my idea?”

“I think it’s just a marvellous idea, Doctor,” I cried. “And it will certainly relieve poor old Dab-Dab of an awful lot of worry. She is always grumbling over the way the mice eat the pillow slips in the linen closet and use the fringes off the bath towels to make their nests with.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “and we’ve never been able to find out who the culprits are. Each one, when I ask him, says he didn’t do it. But the linen goes on disappearing, just the same. Of course, myself, I’m not very particular if a pillow slip has an extra hole in it or not. And bath towels don’t have to have fringes. But Dab-Dab’s awfully persnickety. Her linen closet – gracious! – for her it is the same as the garden is for me: the most important thing!… Well, now, Stubbins, supposing as soon as we get some of these poor old fruit trees into shape you plan out the new zoo for me. Get Polynesia to help you. She’s full of ideas, as you know. Unfortunately, I’ve got my hands more than full already with the surgery and the writing up of the notebooks we brought back (I’ll want you to help me on that, too) – to say nothing of Long Arrow’s collection. Otherwise I could work with you on the first lay-out of the zoo. But you and Polynesia can do it between you. By the way, consult the white mouse about the quarters for the Rat and Mouse Club, will you?”

Well, that was the beginning of the new Dolittle Zoo. It was, of course, a thing that interested me tremendously, and I felt very proud that the Doctor had intrusted such a large measure of the responsibility to me. But I had very little idea, at the outset, into what an enormous institution it was to grow. “Animal Town” or “Animal Clubland” is really what it should have been called, instead of a zoo. But we had always called that part of the garden the zoo, and that name persisted.

But if it wasn’t a regular zoo to the ordinary public’s way of thinking, it was very certainly Doctor Dolittle’s idea of one. In his opinion, a zoo should be an animals’ home, not an animals’ prison. Every detail of our zoo (as with the first one the Doctor had shown me long ago) was worked out with this idea foremost in mind, that the animals should be made comfortable and happy. Many of the old things were kept the same. For example, the latches to the houses were all on the inside, so that the animals could come in and go out when they chose. Latchkeys were given out (if a tenant wanted one) when a house or room or hole was let. There were certain rules, it is true, although the Doctor was not fond of rules, but they were all drawn up to protect the animals against one another, rather than to enslave them or cut off their liberty in any way. For instance, anyone wishing to give a party had to notify his next-door neighbour (they were very close, of course); and no tenant was allowed to sing comic songs after midnight.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Animal Town

One of the greatest difficulties the Doctor had in all his dealings with the Animal Kingdom was that of keeping anything secret. But then, I suppose, when we remember how hard it is for people to keep secrets, that need not be so surprising. Polynesia, as soon as I told her about the idea of the new zoo, immediately warned me.

“Keep this to yourself, now, Tommy, as long as you can. If you don’t, neither you nor the Doctor will get any peace.”

I certainly kept it to myself. But nevertheless the news leaked out somehow that John Dolittle was reorganizing and enlarging his zoo in order that a lot of new animals might live with him. And then, exactly as Polynesia had prophesied, we were pestered to death morning, noon and night with applications. You would think that all the animals in the world had been waiting the whole of their lives for a chance to get into the Doctor’s household.

He at once had it announced that as I was to be the assistant manager of the new zoo all applications must be made through me. But even so, of course, while that did relieve him of a good deal of annoyance, a great many animals who had known him a long time applied to him direct for a home in the new establishment.

And then we had quite a difficult time sending away some of the old tenants. The Doctor had found that for many foreigners the climate of Puddleby was quite unsuitable. There were a pair of beavers, for example, who had been sick a good deal and quite noticeably out of condition almost the whole time. But they were so attached to the Doctor that although he had often suggested sending them back to Canada they had always politely but stubbornly declined. However, on the Doctor’s return this time he found them in such poor health he decided it would be kinder to be firm.

“Listen,” he said to them, “you may not know it, but this climate is very, very bad for you. It is either not cold enough or not dry enough – or something. I can’t have you throwing your health away like this out of mere sentiment. You’ve got to go back to Canada.”

Well, the beavers just burst into tears, both of them. And it was not until John Dolittle had promised them that they should come back after two years – if at the end of that time they still wanted to – that they were consoled and consented to go.

It was part of my duties as assistant manager to secure the beavers’ passage back to Canada. This was no simple matter, as you can easily imagine, because, of course, I could not just hand them over to anyone. I spent several days around the docks of Tilbury before I found a ship’s steward whose references for honesty and reliability were such as to satisfy the Doctor. For a certain sum of money he agreed to take them to Halifax on his ship’s next voyage to Nova Scotia and to let them go at the mouth of a river well outside the limits of the town.

Not only were there many applications from single animals and families of animals for accommodations in our zoo, but as soon as it got abroad that John Dolittle was going to set up his long-promised Rat and Mouse Club every other species of animal on earth, it seemed to me, sent committees to him to ask couldn’t they have a club, too.

“I told you what it would be like,” said Polynesia, as she and I were pondering one day over a map of the new zoo which I had laid out. “If the space you had was ten times as big you couldn’t accommodate them all.”

“But look here,” said the white mouse (it was most amusing to see how important he had become now that he was being consulted in the Doctor’s schemes), “suppose we set out on your drawing here all the different establishments, private houses, flats, hotels, clubs and what not, then we can see better how much room there is left and how many clubs we can have.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s a good idea, because once we get the zoo running it will be very hard to dig things out and change them around afterwards. The animals would very naturally object to that.”

“And then I think we ought to have some shops,” said the white mouse. “Don’t you?”

“Shops!” I cried. “What on earth for?”

“Well, you see,” said he, “by the time we’re finished it will be like a town anyhow – an animal town – with a main street, I suppose, and the houses and clubs either side. A few shops where the squirrels could buy nuts and the mice could get acorns and grains of wheat – don’t you see? – it would liven things up a bit. Nothing cheers a town up so much as good shops. And I think a restaurant or two where we could go and get our meals if we came home late and hadn’t time to raise our own supper – yes, that’s a good notion – we should surely have a restaurant or two.”

“But who are you going to get to run these shops?” asked Polynesia. “Stores and cafés don’t run themselves, you know.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” laughed the white mouse. “I know lots of mice – and rats, too – who would jump at the chance to run a nut store or a restaurant – just have a natural gift for business, especially catering.”

“Maybe, for the rats and mice,” said Polynesia. “But they’re not the only ones in the zoo, remember. This isn’t just a rat and mouse town.”

“Well, I imagine it will probably separate itself into districts anyway,” said the white mouse. “You won’t forget, Tommy, that you’ve promised us the top end, near the gate, for our club? I have that whole section laid out in my mind’s eye complete. And it is going to be just the niftiest little neighbourhood you ever saw.”

Well, after a tremendous amount of planning and working out we finally got the new zoo going. The list of public institutions with which it began was as follows: The Rabbits’ Apartment House (this consisted of an enormous mound full of rabbit holes with a community lettuce garden attached), the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs, the Rat and Mouse Club, the Badgers’ Tavern, the Foxes’ Meeting House and the Squirrels’ Hotel.

Each of these was a sort of club in its way. And we had to be most particular about limiting the membership, because from the outset thousands of creatures of each kind wanted to join. The best we could do for those who were not taken in was to keep their names on a waiting list, and as members left (which was very seldom) admit them one by one. Each club had its president and committee who were responsible for the proper organization and orderly carrying on of the establishment.

As the white mouse had prophesied, our new animal town within the high walls of the old bowling green did naturally divide itself up into districts. And the animals from each, while they often mingled in the main street with those from other quarters of the town, minded their own business, and no one interfered with anybody else.

This we had to make the first and most important rule of the Dolittle Zoo: within the walls of the town all hunting was forbidden. No member of the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs was allowed to go ratting – in the zoo. No fox was permitted to chase birds or squirrels.

And it was surprising how, when the danger of pursuit by their natural enemies was removed, all the different sorts of animals took up a new, freer and more open kind of life. For instance, it was no unusual thing in Animal Town to see a mother squirrel lolling on her veranda, surrounded by her children, while a couple of terriers walked down the street within a yard of them.

The shops and restaurants, of course, were mostly patronized by the rats and mice, who had a natural love for city life, and the majority of them were situated in the section at the north end of the inclosure which came to be known as Mouse Town. Nevertheless at the main grocery on a Saturday night we often saw foxes and dogs and crows all mixed up, buying their Sunday dinner from a large rat. And the mouse errand boys who delivered goods at the customers’ houses were not afraid to walk right into a bulldog’s kennel or a fox’s den.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Poverty Again

Of course it would be quite too much to expect that with lots of different kinds of animals housed in the same enclosure there would be no quarrels or disputes. It was in fact part of the Doctor’s plan to see what could be done in getting different creatures who were born natural enemies to live together in harmony.

“Obviously, Stubbins,” said he, “we can’t expect foxes to give up their taste for spring chickens, or dogs their love of ratting, all in a moment. My hope is that by getting them to agree to live peaceably together while within my zoo, we will tend toward a better understanding among them permanently.”

Yes, there were fights, especially in the first few months before the different communities got settled down. But, curiously enough, many of the quarrels were among animals of the same kind. I think the badgers were the worst. In the evenings at their tavern they used to play games. Neither the Doctor nor I could ever make out what these games were about. One was played with stones on a piece of ground marked out with scratches. It was almost like draughts or checkers. The badgers used to take this game quite seriously – the badger is rather a heavy type of personality anyway. And there seemed to be championships played and great public interest taken in the outcome of matches. Frequently these ended in a quarrel. And in the middle of the night a frightened squirrel would come and wake me or the Doctor and tell us there was a fight going on in the Badgers’ Tavern and the whole town was being disturbed.

In the end, at the white mouse’s suggestion (he was more proud and important than ever, now that he had been elected first Mayor of Animal Town), this led to the Doctor instituting the Zoo Police Force. Two dogs, two foxes, two squirrels, two rabbits and two rats were elected as constables, with a bulldog for captain and a fox as head of the Secret Service. After that woe betide any quarrelsome member who tried to start a brawl in the Badgers’ Tavern! He promptly found himself being trotted down the street under arrest to spend the night in the town jail.

One of the first arrests to be made by the zoo police was that of poor Gub-Gub. Having noticed that the vegetable garden attached to the Rabbits’ Apartment House was promising a nice harvest of early lettuce, he made a descent on it one night secretly. But the chief of the fox detectives spotted him and he was handcuffed (or trotter-cuffed) before he could say Jack Robinson. It was only on the Doctor’s forbidding him entrance to the zoo compound for the future and going security for his good behaviour that he was dismissed the following morning with a caution.

“Next time,” said his honour the Mayor (the white mouse who was acting as magistrate), “we will give you six days’ hard labour in the rabbits’ garden – with a muzzle on.”

Besides the Rat and Mouse Club, of which I shall speak further later on, the other more important department in the new zoo was the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs. This was an institution which Jip had long pestered John Dolittle to establish. Ever since the days of the Canary Opera, when Jip had tried to run a Dogs’ Free Bone Kitchen in the East End of London, he had been hoping that the Doctor would discover a way to give all the strays and outcasts of dogdom a decent home. Now, in the seventh heaven of contentment, he, with Toby and Swizzle, was very busy working out the details of the new club.

“Now some dogs,” said Jip to me, “like to live in kennels – prefer to be private, you know – and others like to live in houses. So we’ll have to have a lot of kennels and at least one good house.”

Thereupon he persuaded me and Bumpo to build a house according to his, Swizzle’s and Toby’s directions. Toby, always a fussy, bossy little dog, had a whole heap of ideas, mostly for the benefit of the small dogs who were to come. You would think they were surely the most important. And when we finally had it finished I am bound to say the Dogs’ House was quite an unusual building. All doors were made to open just with a lift of the nose-latch and a push. The fireplaces were built especially wide, so that at least a dozen dogs could find room to lie in front of each one. All sofas (of which there were many) were made low enough so that the smallest dogs could jump up onto them with ease, and were furnished with special oilcloth upholstery and cushions, so that they could be easily cleaned if they got muddied up with dirty paws. Drinking bowls were to be found in every room. It was against the rules to leave bones lying around the floor, but a bone-rack (rather like an umbrella stand) was provided for the members near the front door. And here the dogs could leave their bones on going out and find them again on coming in – if they hadn’t been borrowed in the meantime.

Meals were served in a special dining room, where dishes were set out on very low tables; and a grand sideboard buffet with steps to it, where members could go up and make their own choice of cold meats, was an important and popular feature. This department – the supplying of bones and meat to the dogs’ kitchen – Matthew Mugg took charge of. Matthew considered himself an expert in dogs and this side of the zoo held great interest for him.

Then there was a special sort of dogs’ gymnasium, which Jip called the Roughhouse Room. It had trapezes, balls hung on strings and other special apparatus for dog exercise and dog gymnastics. And here wonderful wrestling contests, tug-o’-war matches, tag games and sham fights were staged almost every night. The Doctor, Bumpo and I were often invited down to see these sports, which were very good fun to watch, as were also the races and leaping contests which Jip arranged in the dogs’ gymnasium.

The Home for Cross-Bred Dogs was, I think, one of the happiest institutions that John Dolittle ever established. Of course, as the Doctor had said, there was to begin with a long list of dogs who had always wanted to be attached to his household. Among these almost the first to turn up at the club were Grab the bulldog and Blackie the retriever, whom John Dolittle had rescued from Harris’s animal shop a long time ago.

But in addition to this class there was the much greater number of Jip’s friends and acquaintances. Naturally a very charitable dog, Jip loved to go out and hunt round the streets for homeless vagabonds. Every day he would bring home one or two, till very soon the club had about as many members as it would hold. And even when the Doctor told him he would have to stop, he would, if he found a particularly deserving case, as he called it, sneak in with him after dark and see that at least he got a square meal off the sideboard buffet and a night’s lodging. From the outside the gate to the zoo could only be opened by a secret latch. This was worked by pulling a string carefully hidden in a ditch. All members of the zoo were specially instructed in this by the Doctor and made to promise not to give the secret away. And I am bound to say they were very conscientious about it. During the whole of the zoo’s career no outsider ever learned the secret of the gate. But when Jip brought his “deserving cases” home after dark he always made them turn their backs while he pulled the secret latchstring.

As soon as it became known in dog society that John Dolittle had formed a club many dogs who had perfectly good homes of their own just left them and came here – for no other reasons than that they preferred living with the Doctor and because they loved the gymnasium and the good company. And more than one angry owner called at the Doctor’s house and was all for having him arrested because, he said, he had lured his dog away from him.

Of course the cost of the upkeep of the new zoo was considerable, especially for the supply of food for the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs. And about six weeks after it had been established Dab-Dab and Too-Too came to me, both looking very serious.

“It is just as I thought it would be,” squawked Dab-Dab, throwing out her wings in a gesture of despair. “We are already practically at the end of our money again. I don’t know how many thousand pesetas it was you brought back with you, but it’s nearly all gone. Too-Too and I have been going over accounts and we calculate we have about enough to last for another week. Jip has no sense. The Doctor is bad enough himself, goodness knows, the way he spends money – just regardless. But nobody in the world would be rich enough to keep all the stray mongrels Jip has been bringing in the last few weeks. Well, here we are, penniless again. I don’t know what we’re going to do, I’m sure.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Badger’s Tooth

Of course, when I came (with Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Polynesia) to the Doctor to report the condition of the family bank account he, as usual, took the matter very lightly.

“Don’t bother me with such things now,” he said. “Some money will come in somehow, I have no doubt – it generally does. I’m dreadfully busy.”

But though we managed to collect a few pounds which were due him from people who published his books on natural history, that did not last us long. And soon we were as badly off as ever. Dab-Dab was terribly angry and kept insisting that the Doctor get rid of the zoo, which was almost as expensive to run as all the rest of the household put together.

But John Dolittle was right; something did turn up, and, curiously enough, it turned up inside the zoo itself and saved that institution from extinction as well as the Dolittle household from bankruptcy. This is how it happened: one night, just as the Doctor was going to bed after a hard day’s work with his new book on oceanography, a member of the Badgers’ Tavern knocked on the door asking to see him. He said he had a terrible toothache and wanted the Doctor, if he would, to look at it once. This, of course, the Doctor did. He was very clever at animal dentistry.

“Ah!” said he. “You’ve broken a corner off that tooth. No wonder it hurts. But it can be fixed. Open your mouth a little wider, please…. That’s better – why, how curious! Did I ever fill any teeth for you before?”

“No,” said the badger. “This is the first time I’ve come to you for treatment of any kind. I’m very healthy.”

“But you have gold in your teeth,” said the Doctor. “How did that come there if you haven’t been to some dentist?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the badger. “What is gold?”

“Look, I’ll show you in the mirror,” said the Doctor. “Stubbins, give me that hand glass, will you, please?”

I got it and brought it to the Doctor, who held it in front of the badger’s face while he pointed to a place in his teeth with a small instrument.

“There,” said John Dolittle, “you see that yellow metal sticking between your teeth? That’s gold.”

“Oh!” said the badger, peering into the mirror, very pleased with his own handsome reflection. “I and my wife were digging a hole out by Dobbin’s Meadow and we chewed up a whole lot of that stuff. That’s what I broke my tooth on.”

Polynesia, who was in the surgery at the time, was more interested in this statement of the badger’s than was the Doctor. She flew across the room and from one of her hanging rings she peered into the animal’s open mouth where John Dolittle was at work on the broken tooth. Then she came back to me and whispered:

“Well, of all things! He’s been eating gold. Eating it, mind you – and us as poor as church mice. Tommy, we will speak with this gentleman as soon as the Doctor has done with him.”

John Dolittle did not take long over making his patient comfortable. In spite of his pudgy fat hands he had the quickest and nimblest fingers in the world.

“I have put a dressing in your tooth which will stop the pain for the present and you’ll have to come back and see me again tomorrow,” he said as the badger closed his mouth and waddled down off the table. “You must be careful what you chew up when you’re digging holes. No teeth will stand biting on metal, you know – not even yours. Good night.”

As the patient left the surgery Polynesia made a sign to me and we followed him.

“Where did you say you were digging this hole?” asked Polynesia as we walked beside him toward the zoo enclosure.

“Over near Dobbin’s Meadow,” said the badger; “just a bit to the north of it. We were tunnelling into a bank – as much for exercise as anything else. It was a cold day. But we did hope we might find some pig nuts. Also, we need a refuge hole or two up in that direction. Some of these dogs the Doctor has here in such numbers now are getting entirely too cheeky. They never touch us while we are in the zoo, it is true, but if they get wind of us when we’re outside they think it is funny to chase us all over the landscape. Our committee down at the Badgers’ Tavern thought we ought to have a refuge hole up in that neighbourhood.”

“What is a refuge hole?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s just a public hole,” said he. “We have them stuck around all over the place. But we all know where they are. They’re just holes where any badger can take refuge if chased by dogs. We dig them very deep and sometimes provision them with food in case the dogs should besiege us for a long time. We have to protect ourselves, you know. Our pace is slow.”

“Well, now, look here,” said Polynesia, as we reached the zoo gate, “Tommy and I would like to make an appointment with you for tomorrow morning early – very early. We want to see this place where you broke your tooth. Suppose we meet you at the north end of Dobbin’s Meadow at, say, five o’clock.”

“All right,” said the badger. “But that isn’t early for me. This time of year it has been broad daylight for more than a quarter of an hour by five. We don’t go by the clock, you know; we go by the sun. We prefer to travel before dawn. I’ll meet you there at daybreak.”

The following morning Polynesia had me out of bed and dressing by candle light before the cocks had given their first crow.

“But don’t you see, Tommy,” said she, in answer to my sleepy grumbling at this unearthly hour for rising, “it’s frightfully important that we get there and do what exploring is necessary before there are people about.”

I found it hard to be enthusiastic, even over the prospect of discovering gold, so early.

“But what are you expecting to find?” I asked. “Do you fancy that old badger has run into a mine? There aren’t any gold mines in England.”

“I’ve no more idea than you have,” said she impatiently. “But just because no gold mines have been discovered so far, that doesn’t mean that none ever will be. The fact remains that that blessed animal ran into gold of some kind, or he wouldn’t have it sticking in his teeth. Hurry up and get your coat on. I think I see the dawn beginning to show in the East.”

Downstairs Polynesia made me collect a spade from the tool shed and the Doctor’s mineral hammer from his study before we started away through the chilly morning twilight for Dobbin’s Meadow.

The old badger was there, sure enough, waiting for us. And he promptly lumbered off alongside a hedge to lead us to the place where he had dug the hole. This, when we came to it, proved not to be in the Dobbin property at all, but on the other side of the hedge, in a wide, open piece of heath-land, known as Puddleby Common. It was territory I knew well. Many a time I had hunted over this semi-wild region for birds’ nests, mushrooms and blackberries. Here, too, I had often watched with fascination the Gipsy folk pitching their tents and lighting their fires. For this was common ground from which no man had the right to turn them off.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Puddleby Gold Rush

This is lucky,” whispered Polynesia as we came to a halt before the hole which the badger had dug. “Puddleby Common, public property – don’t you see, Tommy? Even if anyone does see us digging here they can’t stop us. Just the same, we must not give the show away. Get your spade now and go to work.”

I was still very sleepy. But little by little the fascination of hunting in the earth for treasure took hold of me. And before long I was working away as though my life depended on it, and, despite the chill of the morning air, the perspiration was running down my forehead in streams and I had to stop often and dry it off.

We had explained to the badger what we were after, and his assistance was very helpful. He began by going down to the bottom of the hole and bringing up several shapeless pieces of gravelly metal. These, when I cut into them with a pen-knife, showed the soft, yellow gold of which they were composed.

“That’s the piece I broke my tooth on,” said the badger – “and it is the last of it. Is the stuff any good?”

“Why, my gracious!” said Polynesia, “of course it is. That’s what they make money out of – sovereigns. Are you sure this is all there is? If we can get enough we have made the Doctor a rich man for life.”

The badger went back and dug the hole still deeper, and with my spade I cut away the bank all around and levelled out tons of gravel, which we searched and raked over diligently. But not another nugget could we find.

“Well, just the same,” said Polynesia, inspecting the array of pieces which I had laid out on my open handkerchief, “we have a tidy little fortune as it is. Now let’s get away before anyone sees what we’ve been up to.”

When we told the Doctor about it at breakfast he was much more interested in it from the geological, the scientific point of view, than he was from that of money or profit.

“It is most extraordinary,” he said, examining the specimens I had brought home in the handkerchief. “If you had found old gold coins it would not have been so surprising. But these look like nuggets – native gold. Geologically, this is something quite new for England. I would like to see the place where you found it.”

“In the meantime,” said Dab-Dab, “leave these nuggets with me, will you? I know a safe place to keep them till we can turn them into cash.”

When the Doctor set out with me and Polynesia to examine the place where the gold had been found, Jip and Gub-Gub, though they had not been invited, came along too.

Our prospecting exploration was very thorough. We searched the whole length of that gravel bank, digging and sifting and testing. Gub-Gub caught the fever, and Jip, too. They burrowed into the slope like regular prospectors, Gub-Gub using his nose as though he were digging for truffles and Jip scraping out the earth with his front paws the way he always did when he was going after rats.

But we found no more gold.

“It’s very puzzling,” said the Doctor; “very. Quite a geological mystery. This is not really gold-bearing gravel at all. And yet that gold is exactly as it would be found in gravel – in nugget form. The only explanation I can think of is that it was dug up elsewhere by some very early miners and then buried here for safe keeping.”

But if we were not successful in finding a real gold mine, we were successful in starting a prospecting boom. By the time the Doctor had finished his survey of the ground it was quite late in the morning. As we left the Common and started on our way home we noticed that one or two people had been watching us. Later we questioned Matthew Mugg and Bumpo, who had accompanied the expedition, and they swore they never told anyone. Nevertheless, it apparently leaked out that gold had been found in a gravel bank on Puddleby Common. And by four o’clock that afternoon the place was crowded with people armed with picks, shovels, garden trowels, fire tongs – every imaginable implement – all hunting for gold.

The whole of Puddleby had gone prospecting mad. Nursemaids with perambulators left their charges to bawl while they scratched in the ground with button-hooks and shoe-horns for gold. Loafers, poachers, gipsies, pedlars, the town tradesmen, respectable old gentlemen, school children – they came from all ranks and classes.

One rumour had it that the Doctor had discovered a lot of ancient Roman goblets, made of gold, and several old saucepans and kettles were dug up by the prospectors and taken away to be tested to see what they were made of.

After the second day the poor Common looked as though a cyclone or an earthquake had visited it. And the Town Council said they were going to prosecute the Doctor for the damage he had brought to public property.

For over a week the gold boom continued. People came from outside, real mining experts from London, to look into this strange rumour which had set everyone agog.

Gub-Gub, who of all the Doctor’s household had the prospecting fever the worst, could hardly be kept away from the Common. He was sure he had found his real profession at last.

“Why,” said he, “I can dig better holes with my nose than any of those duffers can with a spade – and quicker.”

He kept begging to be allowed to go back to continue the hunt. He was so afraid these other people might any minute discover a real mine which ought to be the property of the Dolittle household.

“You need not be worried, Gub-Gub,” said the Doctor. “It isn’t a mineral-bearing gravel at all. The gold we got came there by accident. The badger was probably right – there is no more than just that little hoard, which must have been specially buried there ages and ages ago.”

But Gub-Gub, while the boom continued, was not to be dissuaded, and his mining fever got worse rather than better. When the Doctor would not allow him to go back to the Common (he went several times secretly at night) he consoled himself by prospecting in the kitchen garden for mushrooms. He even brought his new profession to the table with him and went prospecting for raisins in the rice pudding.

By whatever means the gold had come, Dab-Dab was very pleased that Polynesia’s businesslike attention had secured it all for the Doctor. Left to himself he would most likely not have profited by it at all. The Town Council insisted that he give it up as Crown property. And this he willingly consented to do. But the wily Matthew Mugg consulted an attorney and found that under ancient law the finder was entitled to half of it. Even this sum, when the gold was weighed, proved to be quite considerable.

“Well,” sighed Dab-Dab, “as the Doctor would say, ‘it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’ That old badger breaking his tooth was a stroke of luck. It was just in time. I really didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. Now, thank goodness, we shan’t have to worry about the bills for another six months, anyhow.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Mouse Code

There had been a good deal of anxiety for some time past in the various departments of the zoo over Dab-Dab’s constant demand that the Doctor close the whole place up. Seeing how expensive it was to run, her argument sounded reasonable enough, and the members had all felt a bit selfish over continuing their clubs and other institutions when the cost was such a burden to the Doctor.

So with the news that half of the treasure found on the Common had been awarded to John Dolittle by the courts, the greatest rejoicing broke out in Animal Town – all the way from the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs at one end to the Rat and Mouse Club at the other. Even the timid pushmi-pullyu, who had now made his home within the peaceful, pleasant retirement of the zoo-enclosure, joined in the jubilation, as did what few foreigners we still had, like the Russian minks and the Canadian woodchucks. I never heard such a pandemonium in my life. The information was brought to the zoo about supper time by Toby and Swizzle. Immediately a demonstration began in every quarter. All the citizens spilled out of the clubs onto the main street cheering, or making noises which to them were the same as cheering.

“The Doctor’s rich again!” passed from mouth to mouth, from door to door. The mixture of barks, squeals, grunts and squawks was so extraordinary that a policeman, passing on the Oxenthorpe Road outside, knocked at the Doctor’s door and asked if everything was all right.

A little later the animals began organizing parades and went traipsing up and down the main street of Animal Town singing what they called songs. The white mouse, as Mayor of the town, was in charge – frightfully important – and he suggested, as it was now quite dark, that Mousetown have a torchlight procession. He asked me to get a box of those very small candles which they put on birthday cakes and Christmas trees. Then he insisted that I fix up a banner with “Hooray! The Doctor’s Rich Again!” on it in large letters. And fifty-four mice and fifty-four rats formed themselves up, two by two, each pair carrying a candle, and they marched round Mousetown from 8 o’clock till midnight, singing the most extraordinary songs you ever heard. Every once in a while they would come to a halt and yell in chorus: “Hooray! The Doctor’s rich again! – Hooray! Hooray!”

A little extra excitement was added when one pair of torchbearers had an accident with their candle and set light to the Squirrels’ Hotel. And as that building was largely made of dry leaves it not only burned to the ground in no time at all, but very nearly set the whole zoo in flames as well.

However, no one was injured (the squirrels were all out celebrating) and after the entire town had formed itself into a fire brigade the blaze was quickly put out. Then everyone set to on the work of reconstruction and the Squirrels’ Hotel was rebuilt in a night.

“It was a grand occasion,” declared the white mouse when it was all over. “And the bonfire was almost the best part of it.”

Indeed, the white mouse was naturally of a cheerful, pleasure-loving disposition. And after the success of this first celebration he was continually wanting to organize club parties, city fêtes, processions and shindigs of one kind or another. This, while the Doctor was always glad to see the animals enjoying themselves, could not be encouraged too far, because a lot of noise was usually a most important part of Animal Town festivities. And although the zoo stood well within the Doctor’s own land, the racket which the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs made on these occasions could be heard miles away.

Many new and interesting features developed quite naturally in the zoo, for example, the Animals’ Free Library. Shortly after I had visited my parents on our return from abroad, the Doctor had asked me to try to organize and arrange the tremendous quantity of material which he had collected and written on animal language. He had one whole bedroom above his study simply packed with books, manuscripts, notes and papers on this subject. It was all in great disorder, and the task of getting it straightened out was a heavy one.

But Polynesia and the white mouse helped me. We got Matthew Mugg to make us a lot of book-cases. And after a week of sorting and cataloguing and listing we had arranged the extraordinary collection in something like order. I think it was a surprise even to the Doctor himself, when we finally invited him into the little room above the study and showed him the bookshelves running all round the walls, to realize what a tremendous amount of work he had done on the science of animal languages.

“Why, Doctor,” squeaked the white mouse, gazing round the shelves, “this is a regular animal library you have here! It ought to be down in the zoo, where the animals could make use of it, instead of here.”

“Yes, there’s something in that,” said the Doctor. “But most of these writings of mine are only about animal languages – dictionaries and so forth – very few are actually story books written in animal language. And then besides, so few of you can read, anyway.”

“Oh, but we could soon learn,” said the white mouse. “If you got one or two of us taught we could quickly teach the rest. Oh, I do think an important institution like the Rat and Mouse Club ought to have a library of its own. Yes, indeed!”

Well, in spite of the objection which the Doctor had advanced, the white mouse stuck to his idea of an Animal Public Library for the Dolittle Zoo. He pointed out that so far as the rats and mice were concerned (and the dogs, badgers and squirrels, too, for that matter) there was nothing they enjoyed so much as stories.

“I would be delighted to do it for you,” said the Doctor, “but in rat and mouse talk, for instance, there are no characters – there is no written language.”

“But we can soon invent one, can’t we?” asked the white mouse. “Why, there must have been a time when there wasn’t any human written language. Listen, Doctor, you invent a sign alphabet for mice – simple, you know – we don’t want any physics or skizzics to begin with – and teach it to me. I’ll promise to teach the whole of the Rat and Mouse Club in a week. They’re awfully keen about learning new things. What do you say?”

Of course such a suggestion, one might be sure, would always interest John Dolittle, who had given so many years of his life to animal education. He at once set to work and with the white mouse’s coöperation devised a simple alphabet in rat and mouse language. There were only ten signs, or letters, in all. The Doctor called it the Mouse Code, but Polynesia and I called it the Squeaker-B-C, because it was all in squeaks of different kinds, and each letter had two different meanings, according as you let your squeak fall or rise at the end.

Then came the business of printing and binding the books. This the Doctor turned over to me as soon as he had established the alphabet or code. Of course, the volumes had to be terribly, terribly tiny in order that even the young mice could read and handle them with ease. The white mouse was most anxious that the young folk should be able to take advantage of the new education. What we called our “Mouse Octavo” size of book was just slightly smaller than a penny postage stamp. The binding had to be all hand-sewn and only the finest thread could be used. The pages were so small I had to have a watchmakers’ magnifying eyeglass to do my printing with, which was, of course, also all hand work. But no matter how tiny the letters were made, they were none too small for mouse eyes, which can pick out single grains of dust with the greatest ease.

We were very proud of our first book printed in mouse language. Although it was mostly the work of the Doctor, I, as printer and publisher, felt just as important as Caxton or Gutenberg as I put the name of my firm into the title page: “Stubbins & Stubbins. Puddleby-on-the-Marsh” (I didn’t know who the second “Stubbins” was, but I thought it looked better and more businesslike that way).

“This is a great occasion, Tommy,” said the white mouse as we officially declared the edition (one copy) off the press. “The first volume printed in the mouse code! We are making history as well as books.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The New Learning

As the white mouse had prophesied, the new education was taken up with great enthusiasm by all classes of Rat and Mouse Society. The famous and truly rare first imprint from the press of Stubbins & Stubbins did not survive to be handed down to posterity. It was torn to shreds in the first week by the zealous public, who thronged the Animal Public Library in the Dolittle Zoo.

For the white mouse had insisted that the book be put into the library, and that institution officially opened with great pomp and ceremony. This was an occasion also for another of his favourite celebrations. But the more serious purpose was to attract public attention in Animal Town toward education and reading generally.

But the rats and mice continued to be the most keen to learn for themselves. There was a mystery about this new art that appealed to their natural inquisitiveness. The others, dogs, badgers, squirrels, foxes and rabbits, were quite content to be read to aloud. And for the first part of its career the Public Library chiefly did duty as a general recreation room where the white mouse read aloud every afternoon to a mixed and motley company.

The demand for books in the mouse code was enormous. The public, curiously enough, seemed to be very keen about poetry – especially comic poetry. The institution of the Public Library and of the Rat and Mouse Club Library (which was established a little later) seemed to encourage this art tremendously. And many rats and mice who had no idea of being poetic heretofore suddenly, with the new education, blossomed forth into verse.

It became the custom at the restaurant in Mousetown (they called it “The Stilton Cheese”) for rat poets to get up and recite their own ballads to the assembled diners. The audience expressed its opinion of the verse by hooting or cheering. If the poet had a good voice he often sang his ballad, and when it was well received a collection was usually taken up for him by the proprietor. An egg-shell was used as a hat and it was passed round among the tables and the public dropped acorns or grains of barley into it instead of money. Nearly all the mouse poets, as I said, wrote in a cheerful vein and their comic songs were usually the most popular. Often around suppertime if the Doctor and I passed near the zoo wall we would hear shrieks of high-pitched, squeaky laughter; and then we would know that some comic ballad monger was singing his latest lampoon to the gay company at The Stilton Cheese.

Another thing that greatly encouraged the new zest for education was the mouse magazine which the Doctor established. It was called “Cellar Life,” and was issued on the first of every month. This, too, was a semi-comic periodical, and besides giving the latest news and gossip of the zoo, it contained jokes and funny pictures.

Now, on the mantelpiece of the Doctor’s old waiting room, disused ever since he had given up his practise, a miniature had always stood. It was a tiny portrait painted on ivory of John Dolittle as a young man, and for years it had never been moved from its place between the Empire clock and a Dresden china shepherdess. But one day the miniature disappeared and no one could account for it. The Doctor asked Dab-Dab, and that good housekeeper said she had seen it the previous day when she had given the waiting room its weekly dusting, but had no idea at what hour it had disappeared nor what could have become of it.

The Doctor asked Jip, Too-Too, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and me, but none of us could throw any light on the mystery. John Dolittle valued the picture only because his mother had had it painted by a well-known artist the year he had graduated in medicine. However, he had a great many things to keep him occupied, and after a few more inquiries, which met with no better success, he dismissed the matter from his mind.

It was about two weeks after the opening of the Animal Public Library that the white mouse called on the Doctor one evening, when he and I were busy over a new book he was writing on deep-sea plants.

“I have two things I would like to speak to you about, Doctor,” said the Mayor of Animal Town, gravely stroking his white whiskers. “One is, I would like to have a book written – in the mouse code, of course, a textbook on mouse traps. We need it – especially for the new generation. Young boy and girl mice wander off from the nest as soon as they get big enough. And before they’ve had time to learn anything about the world at all they get caught in the first trap that entices them with a piece of mouldy cheese.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “I think that can be done – if Stubbins here can make the pictures of the traps small enough to go into a mouse-octavo volume.”

“Oh, it could be done in rat-quarto if necessary,” said the white mouse. “This is a textbook, you see. And we are going to make it compulsory for all parents who are members of the club to read it aloud to their children. The accidents from traps this last month have been just appalling. I would like to have every known kind of mouse and rat trap shown. It should be a complete work. Of course, I will help with the writing of it. You will need an expert, an old hand, to describe what the traps smell and look like from a mouse’s point of view.”

“Oh, my gracious!” put in Dab-Dab, who was listening down by the fire. “Then we’ll have the whole world overrun with mice. It is too bad we haven’t got a few good mouse traps in my linen closet.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t like it if there were duck traps there as well,” the white mouse responded, his whiskers bristling with indignation.

“Well, now, what was the other thing you wanted to see me about?” the Doctor asked.

“The other thing is also very important,” said the white mouse. “I’ve come on behalf of the house committee to invite you and Tommy here to our club’s Mooniversary Dinner.”

“Mooniversary,” the Doctor murmured. “Er – what does that mean?”

“Yes, it’s a new word,” said the white mouse, rather proudly. “But then all languages have special words, haven’t they, which the other languages haven’t? So why shouldn’t the mouse code have a word or two of its own? It happened this way: the house committee was having a meeting and the Railway Rat – he’s one of the members, lived in a railway station, decent fellow, but he smells of kerosene – the Railway Rat got up and proposed that since the club had now been going on successfully for some time, we ought to have an anniversary dinner to celebrate.”

“You’re always celebrating,” muttered Dab-Dab from the fireside.

“Then,” the white mouse continued, “the Hansom Cab Mouse – he’s another member, lived under the floor of an old cab, knows London like a book – he gets up and he says, ‘Anniversary means a year. The club hasn’t been going for a year. A year’s a long time in a mouse’s life. I suggest we call it the Club’s Mooniversary Dinner, to celebrate our month’s birthday, not our year’s birthday.’

“Well, they argued about it a good deal, but the suggestion was finally accepted – that our celebration banquet should be called the Mooniversary Dinner. Then the Church Mouse – he’s another member, lived in a church, awful poor, fed on candle wax mostly, kind of religious type, always wants us to sing hymns instead of comic songs – he gets up and he says, ‘I would like to suggest to the committee that the Mooniversary Dinner would not be complete without the presence of Doctor John Dolittle, through whose untiring efforts’ (he rather fancies himself as a speaker, does the Church Mouse – I suppose he’s heard an awful lot of sermons) – ‘through whose untiring efforts,’ says he, ‘for the welfare of rat and mouse society this club first came into being. I propose we invite the Doctor to the Mooniversary Dinner – also that strange lad called Thomas Stubbins who has made a very good assistant manager to the Dolittle Zoo.’

“That motion was carried, too, without any question. And they chose me to come and present the club’s invitation. The dinner’s tomorrow night, Doctor. You won’t have to change or anything. Wear just whatever clothes you happen to have on. But say you’ll come.”

“Why, of course,” said John Dolittle, “I shall be delighted – and I’m sure Stubbins will, too.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Rat and Mouse Club

Without doubt the Rat and Mouse Club was the only building of its kind in the world. At the beginning the clubhouse had been no more than two and a half feet high; but as the list of members had been enlarged, first from fifty to three hundred, and then from three hundred to five thousand, it became necessary to enlarge the premises considerably.

At the time when the Doctor and I were invited to attend the Mooniversary Dinner the building was about the height of a man and just about as broad – and as long – as it was high. The architecture was very unusual. In shape the clubhouse was rather like a large bee-hive, with a great number of tiny doors. It was fourteen stories high. The upper floors were reached by outside stair-cases, in the manner of Italian houses. In the centre of the building, inside, there was a large chamber called The Assembly Room which ran the entire height of the structure from ground-floor to roof. Ordinarily this was used for concerts, theatricals and for the general meetings of the club when all the members came together to vote on some new proposal or to celebrate birthdays or occasions of importance. The whole thing was thus a sort of thick hollow dome, in the shell of which were the living rooms, furnished apartments, private dining-saloons, committee-rooms, etc.

The entrances were all of course very small – just big enough for a rat to pass through. But for this special occasion the white mouse had got the badgers to dig a tunnel down under the foundations through which the Doctor and I could reach the Assembly Room inside.

When we arrived at the mouth of this tunnel we found the white mouse and a regular committee on hand to greet us. Moreover, every doorway, all the way up the building, was thronged with rat and mouse faces waiting to witness the great man’s arrival. After the white mouse, as president of the club, had made a short speech of welcome, we began the descent of the tunnel.

“Be careful how you go, Doctor,” I said. “If we bump the top of the tunnel with our backs we’re liable to throw the whole building over.”

Without mishap we reached the Assembly Room where there was just about space enough for the two of us to stand upright, very close together. The white mouse said he wanted to show the Doctor over the clubhouse. But of course as none of the rooms, except the one in which we were standing, was big enough for a man to get into, being “shown over” the building consisted of standing where he was and peering through the tiny holes called doors. Some of the rooms were along passages; and one could not see into them direct from the Assembly Room. But to provide for this the white mouse had got me to bring the Doctor’s dentist’s mirror, so he could poke it down the passages and see into the rooms around the corners, the same as he would look at the back of a person’s tooth.

John Dolittle was tremendously interested in examining the tiny rooms which these highly civilized rats and mice had designed, set out and furnished for themselves. For this building with all it contained was (excepting the few things which I and Bumpo had done for them) entirely their own work. The Chief Mouse Architect – he was also the stone-mason – was on hand and he took great pride in pointing out to the distinguished visitor the whys and the wherefores of all the details of design.

While the Doctor was poking round among the passages and holes with his tooth-mirror he suddenly got quite excited.

“Why, Stubbins,” he cried, “come and look here. I don’t know whether I’m dreaming or not. But isn’t that a human face I see down there. Look in the mirror. It reminds me of myself.”

I looked into the mirror. Then I laughed.

“No wonder it reminds you of yourself, Doctor,” I said. “It is yourself. That’s the missing miniature of John Dolittle as a young man.”

At this moment I heard the white mouse, who had left us for a moment, scolding the architect in whispers behind the Doctor’s back.

“Didn’t I tell you,” said he furiously, “to miss the Committee Room and show the Doctor the Ladies’ Lounge instead? – Blockhead! Now we’ll lose our best painting.”

“But how did the miniature get here?” asked John Dolittle.

“Well,” said the white mouse, “we didn’t exactly steal it, Doctor. It was the Prison Rat’s idea – he’s one of the members, has always lived in jails, sort of an unscrupulous customer but has a great sense of humour and knows no end of interesting stories, crime stories. – Well, as I was saying, it was his idea. We were having a meeting about the lay-out of the new Committee Room and how it should be furnished and decorated. You see, although it’s small, it is in a way the most important room in the club. All the big decisions are made there. And someone got up and said we ought to have a picture on the wall over the president’s chair. Then the Church Mouse arose and said, ‘Brethren,’ says he, ‘I think we should have a motto there, some message of good counsel, like, Love One Another.’ ‘Well, I don’t,’ said the Prison Rat, short like. ‘We can love one another all we want without boasting about it or writing it up on the wall.’ Then the Railway Rat gets up and says, ‘No, we ought to have a picture there. We don’t want any sloppy mottoes. We want something cheerful. Let’s put up one of the comic pictures out of Cellar Life.’ At that the Prison Rat gets up again and says, ‘I believe in being light-hearted, but I think a comic picture is hardly the thing – not – er – dignified enough for our Committee Room. What we ought to have is a portrait of the founder of our club, Doctor John Dolittle – and I know where I can get one, the right size to fit that place.’ So the motion was carried – and so was the picture, by the Prison Rat who went up to your house that very night and – er – borrowed it off the mantelpiece in your waiting-room. Will you want to take it away again, Doctor?”

“No, I don’t suppose so,” said John Dolittle, smiling. “It looks very well where it is. And it is quite a compliment that you want to keep it there. I will gladly present it to the club, provided you will take care of it. But you had better not let Dab-Dab know.”

“You may be sure we won’t,” said the white mouse. “And now, Doctor, if you and Tommy will take your seats I will call in the members who are all waiting for the signal to assemble. We had to keep the hall clear till you got seated because, as you will see for yourself, there isn’t very much room.”

Thereupon the Doctor and I sort of folded ourselves up and sat down in the cramped space to this strangest banquet table that ever was laid. Our chairs were empty biscuit-tins borrowed from the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs. The table was egg-shaped, about three feet across and five feet long. The dishes, tiny little messes of cheese, nuts, dried fish, fried bread-crumbs, apple-seeds, the kernels of prune-stones, etc., were all gathered in the centre of the table, leaving a large outside ring clear for the diners to sit on. For in Mousetown one always sat, or stood, on the table at mealtimes, even in the best society.

As soon as we were seated the white mouse gave a signal somewhere and then a very curious thing happened: hundreds and thousands of rats and mice suddenly poured out of holes all around us squeaking and squealing with glee.

“You must excuse them, Doctor,” whispered the president, as a dozen rats ran around John Dolittle’s collar and down his sleeve on to the table. “Their manners are not usually so atrocious. I expected a rush for the places nearest to you – it is a great honour for them, you know, they want to boast that they sat beside you – that’s why I kept them out till you were seated. Every single member of the club bought a ticket for the dinner – five thousand, you see, as well as some extra guests from out of town. So you mustn’t mind a little crowding.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Mooniversary Dinner

The Mooniversary Dinner was a very great success. Of course neither the Doctor nor I could say afterwards that we had dined heartily. There were a vast number of dishes, it was true; but the plates were only walnut-shells, and clearly it would need a tremendous number of helpings of that size to make a square meal for a man. The drinks were served in acorn-cups.

However, the banquet was so interesting and unusual in other respects, neither of us noticed very much whether we were hungry or not. To begin with, it was quite a novel sensation to be dining, shut up in a room into which we only just fitted, with five thousand rats and mice. Once we got seated and the scramble for places near the great man was over, the members were very well-behaved. There were two sets of waiters, one on the table and the other off the table. Those on the table carried the dishes from the centre to the diners, who had seated themselves in a ring about twenty deep around the edge. The other lot were kept busy swarming up and down the legs of the table, running between the kitchen and the Assembly Room to replenish the supply of such dishes as ran out.

“More apple seeds up!” the head waiter on the table would yell. And a couple of mice down below would hustle off to the kitchen where the cooks would give them an egg-shell full of apple seeds to bring to the table. It was all excellently managed. The kitchen staff was kept very busy; for although a mouse or rat may not eat a great deal at one meal, when you have five thousand diners to feed it means considerable work.

At one of the upper doorways a small mouse orchestra played tunes throughout the dinner. Their instruments were invented by themselves and consisted of drums of different kinds and shapes and harps made by stretching threads across nutshells. One mouse had a straw which he played in the manner of a flute. Their idea of music was rather peculiar and very faint – indeed with the enormous chatter of squeaky conversation going on all around they could hardly be heard at all.

When the last course had been finished the white mouse knocked on the table for silence. Immediately the chorus of conversation died down and several members shooed the waiters who were making a noise clearing away the walnut-shells and acorn-cups. Finally, after the door into the pantry had been stopped up with a banana skin to keep out the clatter of the washing-up, His Honour the Mayor, First President of the Rat and Mouse Club, cleared his throat with a dignified cough and began a very fine after-dinner speech.

I was sorry afterwards that I had never learned shorthand so that I might take down the white mouse’s address word for word; for it was in its way the most remarkable I have ever listened to.

He began by telling the Doctor on behalf of the whole club how glad they were to see him seated at their board. Then he turned back to the vast throng of members and sketched out briefly what John Dolittle had done for mouse civilization and what it was to be hoped his efforts would lead to in the future.

“The majority of men,” said he, “would never believe it if they were told of the general advance, organization and culture which this club, through Doctor John Dolittle, has brought into rat and mouse society.” (Cries of “Hear, hear!”) “This is the first time in history that our great race has been given a chance to show what it could do.” (The white mouse pounded the table with his tiny fist and grew quite earnest and eloquent.) “What has our life always been heretofore?” he asked. “Why, getting chased, being hunted – flight, concealment, that was our daily lot. Through the Doctor’s farsightedness the rat and mouse peoples have here, in Animal Town, been able to think of other things besides keeping out of the jaws of a dog or a cat or a trap. And, I ask you, what has been the result?”

The president paused and for a silent second twirled his white whiskers, while his spellbound audience sat breathless, waiting for him to go on.

“Why, this,” he continued, waving his hand round the lofty walls of the Assembly Room: “this great institution called the Rat and Mouse Club; your education; the education of your children; all the things which our new civilization has given us, these are the results which John Dolittle has brought into rat and mouse society by removing the constant anxiety of our lives and giving us comfortable peace and honest freedom in its place. I, myself, look forward – as, I am sure, you all do, – to the time when rat and mouse civilization shall be at least on a level with that of Man; to the time when there shall be rat and mouse cities all over the world, rat and mouse railway trains, steamship lines, universities and grand opera. I propose that we give the Doctor, who has honoured us with his presence here tonight, a rising vote of thanks to express our appreciation of all he has done for the welfare of rats and mice.”

At the conclusion of the president’s speech a great tumult broke loose. Every single one of the five thousand members sprang to his feet, cheering and waving, to show that he agreed with the sentiments of the speaker. And I could see that the Doctor was quite affected by the extraordinary demonstration in his honour.

There was a slight pause during which it became quite evident that the guest of honour was expected to make some kind of an address in reply. So rising with great care lest he wreck his hosts’ clubhouse, John Dolittle made a short speech which was also received with great applause.

Then followed a considerable number of personal introductions. Of course the Doctor knew many members of the club personally. But hundreds of rats and mice who had never met him were now clamouring to be presented to the great man.

Among those who came forward there were some very interesting characters. First there were those whom the white mouse had already spoken of to the Doctor: the Prison Rat, the Church Mouse, the Railway Rat and the Hansom Cab Mouse. But besides these there were many more. They did not all live permanently at the club. Several used to drop in there two or three times a week, usually in the evening, and then go back again to their regular homes around midnight. And there were some who came from quite a long way off attracted by the reputation of this extraordinary establishment which was now getting to be known all over the country.

For instance, there was the Museum Mouse who had made his home in a natural history museum up in London and who had travelled all the way down from the city (the Railway Rat had put him on a freight train which he knew was coming to a town near Puddleby) just to be present at this important banquet. He was a funny little fellow who knew a whole lot about natural history and what new animals were being stuffed by the museum professors. John Dolittle was very interested in the news he brought with him from the scientific world of London.

Then there was the Zoo Rat who had also come from London especially for the occasion. He lived in the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park and boasted that he had often been into the lion’s den – when the lion was asleep – to steal suet. There was the Tea-house Mouse, the Volcano Rat and the Ice-box Mouse (who had very long fur which he had specially grown from living constantly in cold temperatures). Then there was the Ship’s Rat, the same old fellow who had warned the Doctor at the Canary Islands about the rottenness of the ship he was travelling in. He had now retired permanently from the sea and come to settle down in Puddleby to club life and a peaceful old age. There was the Hospital Mouse and the Theatre Mouse and several more.

Of course, with so many, it was only possible for the Doctor to talk a few moments to each. But as the president brought them up and briefly told us who they were, I realized that an assembly of rats and mice could be just as interesting, if you knew about their lives and characters, as any gathering of distinguished people.

• • • • •

•   13   •

The Hotel Rat

When most of the introductions were over the Doctor surprised me (as he often did) by his remarkable and accurate memory for animal faces. Out of the thousands of rats and mice who were all staring at him in rapt admiration he suddenly pointed to one and whispered to the white mouse:

“Who is that rat over there – the one rubbing the side of his nose with his left paw?”

“That’s the Hotel Rat,” said the white mouse. “Did you want to speak to him?”

But the rat in question had already noticed the Doctor pointing to him and, most proud to be recognized, came forward.

“Your face is very familiar,” said the Doctor. “I have been wondering where I saw it before.”

“Oh, I’m the rat who was brought to you half dead, you recollect? – About four years ago. My two brothers had to wake you up at six in the morning. It was an urgent case. I was quite unconscious.”

“Ah, yes,” said the Doctor. “Now I remember. And you were taken away again the following morning before I was up. I never got a chance to talk to you. How did you come to get so badly smashed up?”

“I was run over,” said the rat, a far-away look of reminiscence coming into his eyes, “by a perambulator containing two heavy twins. It happened – well, it’s a long story.”

“I’d like to hear it,” said the Doctor. “After dinner is a good time for stories.”

“I would gladly tell it,” said the Hotel Rat, “if the company has time for it.”

At once a little buzz of pleased expectant excitement ran through the big crowd as everyone settled down to listen in comfort. There is nothing that rats and mice love more than stories and something told them that this one would likely be interesting.

“It was about five years ago,” the Hotel Rat began, “that I first started living in hotels. Some rats say they’re dangerous places to make your home in. But I don’t think, once you get used to them, they are any more unsafe than other places. And I love the changeful life you meet with there, folks coming and going all the time. Well, I and a couple of brothers of mine found a nice old hotel in a country town, not far from here, where the cooking was good, and we determined to settle down there. It had fine rambling big cellars; and there was always lots of food lying around, from the oats in the horses’ stables across the yard to the scraps of cheese and bread on the dining room floor. With us another rat came to live – a very peculiar character. He was not quite – er – respectable, as people call it. None of the ordinary rat colonies would let him live with them. But I happened to save his life from a dog once; and ever after that he followed me around. Leery, he was called. And he only had one eye.

“Leery was a wonderful runner. They said he cheated at the races. But I never quite believed that part of his bad reputation, because with a wind and a lightning speed like his, he didn’t have to cheat – he could win everything easily without. Anyway, when he asked me could he live with us I said to my older brother, ‘Snop,’ I said (my brothers’ names were Snip and Snop) ‘I think there’s a lot of good in Leery. You know how people are: once a rat gets a bad name they’ll believe anything against him and nothing for him. Poor Leery is an outcast. Let’s take him in.’

“‘Well,’ said Snop, ‘I suppose it will mean that most of our friends will refuse to know us. And Leery surely is a tough-looking customer. He’s only got one eye, and that’s shifty. Still, I don’t care about society’s opinions. If you want to have him with us, Snap’ (that was my nickname in the family, Snap), ‘take him in by all means.’

“So Leery became part of our household in the little old country-town hotel. And it was a very good thing for me he did, as you will see later on. Now there was one subject on which Leery and I never agreed. He was quite a philosopher, was Leery. And he always used to say, ‘Rely on yourself – on your wits. That’s my motto.’ While I, I always pinned my faith to the protection of a good hole. You know there are an awful lot of dangers around a hotel – any number of dogs, two or three cats at least, plenty of traps and rat-poison and a considerable crowd of people coming and going all the time. The hole I had made for myself (it joined up with those of my brothers but it only had one door which we all used) was the nicest and snuggest I have ever been in. It was alongside the back of the kitchen chimney and the bricks around were always warm from the fire. It was a wonderful place to sleep winter nights.

“‘Well, Leery,’ I would say, ‘myself, I always feel safe when I get back to the home hole. I don’t care what happens so long as I’m in my own comfortable home.’

“Then Leery would screw up his one shifty eye and blink at me.

“‘Just because it’s familiar to you,’ he said – ‘because you know everything in it and love everything there, that doesn’t mean it’s a safe place, or a protection, at all.’

“‘Well, I don’t know, Leery,’ said I. ‘In a way it’s like a friend, one who will help defend you.’

“‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ said he. ‘You got to carry your defence with you. A good hole won’t save you always. You got to rely on yourself; that’s my motto – Rely on your wits.’

“Now there were two cats living at the hotel. Mostly they’d snooze before the parlour fire. They got fed twice a day. And of course we hotel rats knew their habits and their daily program hour by hour. We weren’t really afraid of them because they were lazy and overfed. But about once a month they’d decide to go on a rat and mouse hunt together. And they knew where our holes were just as well as we knew what their habits were.

“Well, one day the Devil got into those two cats and they went on a rat hunt that lasted for three days. We got word that they were out on the warpath from one of our scouts – we had scouts on duty day and night, of course we had to, with all those dogs and cats and people around. And from then on we took no chances on being caught too far from a hole of some sort. But my own policy, as I told you, had always been to count on reaching my own hole. I didn’t trust any others – not since I dived into a strange hole one day to get away from a dog and found a weasel in it who nearly killed me. However, to go back: late in the afternoon, returning home I ran into both the cats at once. One was standing guard over the hole and the other made for me straightaway. I kept my head. I had been chased lots of times before but never by two cats at once. There was no hope of my getting into my hole, so I turned about and leaped clear through the open window into the street.”

The Hotel Rat paused a moment to cough politely behind his paw; while the whole of the enormous audience, who had experienced the thrill of similar pursuits themselves, leaned forward in intense expectation.

“I landed,” he said at length, with a grimace of painful recollection, “right under the wheels of a baby-carriage. The rear wheels passed over my body; and I knew at once that I was pretty badly hurt. The nursemaid gave a scream – ‘Ugh! A rat!’ – and fled with the carriage and babies and all. Then I expected the cats would descend on me and polish me off right away. I was powerless; my two back legs wouldn’t work at all, and all I could do was to drag myself along by my front paws at about the speed of a tortoise.

“However, my luck wasn’t entirely out. Before the cats had time to spring on me a dog, attracted by the commotion, arrived on the scene at full gallop. He didn’t even notice me at all. But he chased those two cats down the street at forty miles an hour.

“But my plight was bad enough in all conscience. I didn’t know what was wrong, only that I was in terrific pain. Inch by inch, expecting to be caught by some enemy any moment, I began to drag myself back towards the window. Luckily it was a sort of cellar window, on a level with street. If it hadn’t been, of course I could never have got through it. It was only about a yard away from the spot where I had been injured, but never shall I forget the long agony of that short journey.

“And all the time I kept saying to myself over and over, ‘The hole! Once I’m back there I’ll be all right. I must reach the home hole before those cats return.’”

• • • • •

•   14   •

Leery, the Outcast

“More dead than alive,” the Hotel Rat went on, “I did finally reach my home hole, crawled to the bottom of it and collapsed in a faint.

“When I came to, Leery was bending over me.

“‘Ah, Snap,’ said he with tears in his eyes, ‘this is one place where your philosophy doesn’t work.’

“‘What’s the matter with me?’ I asked. ‘What’s broken?’

“‘Both your hind legs,’ said he. ‘We’ve got to get you to Doctor Dolittle, over to Puddleby. Your home hole is no help to you this time.’

“My two brothers were there, Snip and Snop; and the three of them put their heads together to work out a way to get me to the Doctor’s. They found an old slipper somewhere which they said would do for a stretcher or a sort of sleigh-ambulance. They were going to put me in it and drag it along the ground.”

“What, not all the way to Puddleby!” cried the Doctor.

“No,” said the Hotel Rat. “They had done some scouting outside. All the rats in most of the colonies around had heard about the accident and had helped with their advice and in any other way they could. And a farm wagon had been found loaded with cabbages, standing in an inn yard down the street. It was going to Puddleby first thing in the morning. Their idea was to drag me to the yard in their shoe-ambulance, hide me among the cabbages and at Puddleby watch their opportunity to get me across to your house.

“Well, everything was in readiness and they had me tucked up in the ambulance when Leery comes running back from the mouth of the hole, swearing something terrible.

“‘We can’t go yet,’ he whispered. ‘Those horrible cats have come back and they’ve mounted guard outside the hole. They know well enough we’ve only got one entrance. I nearly walked right into their paws just now. We’re nicely trapped! Give me the open, town or country, any day.’

“So, there was nothing to do but to wait. My legs were getting worse and worse all the time and I had an awful high fever. Leery got me mad by keeping on talking about relying on yourself.

“‘This shows you,’ says he: ‘What’s the good of a fine hole now? We want to get out of it and we can’t. You’ve got to rely on your wits, on yourself. That’s my motto.’

“‘Oh, be quiet!’ I cried. ‘Such a comfort you are to have at a sick bed! My head feels red-hot. Pour some cold water over it. You’ll find a thimbleful over there in the corner.’

“But if Leery’s bedside manner was not as cheerful as it might be, just the same, in the end, he saved my life – and nearly lost his own in doing it. The best part of a day went by and those horrible cats still kept watch at the mouth of the hole. I was so bad now that I was only conscious in short spells – and even then sort of delirious with fever.

“In one of my clear moments after Leery had been watching me for a few minutes he turned to my brothers and said:

“‘There’s only one thing to be done. Those cats may stick on at the mouth of the hole for another couple of days. Snap can’t last much longer. If we can’t get him to the Doctor soon, it’s all up with him. He saved my life once, did Snap. Now’s the time I can pay back the debt – or try to. I’m going to give those cats a run.’

“‘What,’ cried my brothers, ‘you mean to try and draw them off!’

“‘Just that,’ said Leery, winking with his one shifty eye. ‘I’m the fastest rat in the country. If I can’t do it, no one can. You pull the shoe up to the mouth of the hole and stand ready. In a little while it will be late enough so the streets are nearly empty. I’ll give them a run right round the town. Get Snap down to that inn-yard. There’s a cart full of cabbage leaves there every morning just about daylight. If I’m lucky I can keep those two mean brutes busy till you’ve had time to get him in among the cabbages.’

“‘There are two cats, remember,’ said my brothers. ‘Watch out! If you get caught we’ll only be one less to get him to the Doctor’s.’

“Well, they drew my shoe ambulance up to within about three inches of the mouth of the hole. Then Leery, one-eyed outcast, champion runner and faithful friend, went up to the entrance. The light of the street-lamps, coming in through the window, shone down into the hole and lit up his ugly face. You could see too the shadows of those beastly cats, waiting – waiting with the patience of the Devil.

“It was indeed a dramatic moment. Leery was a born gambler; I had often seen him bet all he had on any reckless chance, apparently for the fun of the thing. And so, I think, in his own strange way he rather enjoyed this theatrical situation.

“With a little wriggle of his hind quarters he made ready for the leap – the most daring leap of his life.

“Then, zip! – He was gone!

“Instantly we heard a scuffle as the two cats wrenched around and started off in pursuit.

“Then for a whole hour Leery played the most dangerous game a rat can play, hide-and-seek with two angry cats, touch-and-go with double death. First he led them down the street at full speed. He had his whole program mapped out in his own mind, with every stop, trick and turnabout. There was a little yard behind a house he knew of. In that yard there was a small duck-pond; and in the pond a cardboard box was floating. Leery led the chase into the yard, leaped the pond, using the box as a sort of stepping-stone. The cat who was furthest ahead followed him, but found out too late that the floating box would take a rat’s weight but not a cat’s. With a gurgle she went down out of sight and was kept busy for the rest of the night getting herself dry. She, for one, had had enough of hunting.

“But the other, realizing that she had a clever quarry to deal with, took no chances. She stuck to Leery like a leech – which was exactly what Leery wanted, so long as he could keep out of her clutches. He would slip into a hole just an inch ahead of her pounce. Then he’d get his breath while she waited, swearing, outside. And just as she was thinking of giving him up as a bad job and coming back to our hole after me, he’d pop out again and give her another run.

“All around the town he went: down into cellars; up on to roofs; along the tops of breakneck walls. He even led her up a tree, where she thought she’d surely get him in the upper branches. But right at the top he took a flying leap across on to a clothes’ line – from which he actually jeered at her and dared her to follow.

“In the meantime Snip and Snop were trundling me along the road in my shoe ambulance. I never had such a dreadful ride. Twice they spilled me into the gutter. At last they reached the inn-yard and somehow got me up into the wagon and stowed me away among the cabbages. As daylight appeared the wagon started on its way. Oh, dear, how ill I felt! Luckily that load of cabbages came into Puddleby by the Oxenthorpe Road. They dropped me off the tail of the cart right at the Doctor’s door – only just in time to save my life. But without Leery the outcast it could never have been done. One of my brothers, Snip, hustled back at once to the hole and hung around for hours waiting for Leery, worried to death that he might have paid the price of his life to save mine. For both of them realized now that even if Leery was an outcast from Rat Society, he was a hero just the same. About eight o’clock in the morning he strolled in chewing a straw as though he had spent a pleasant day in the country….

“Well, after all, I suppose he was right: in the end you have to rely on your wits, on yourself.”

• • • • •

•   15   •

The Volcano Rat

The adventure related by the Hotel Rat reminded various members of things of interest in their own lives – as is often the case with stories told to a large audience. And as soon as it was ended a buzz of general conversation and comment began.

“You know,” said the Doctor to the white mouse, “you rats and mice really lead much more thrilling and exciting lives than we humans do.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” said the white mouse. “Almost every one of the members here has had adventures of his own. The Volcano Rat, for instance, has a very unusual story which he told me a week or so ago.”

“I’d like to hear some more of these anecdotes of rat and mouse life,” said the Doctor. “But I suppose we ought to be getting home now. It’s pretty late.”

“Why don’t you drop in again some other night – soon?” said the white mouse. “There’s always quite a crowd here in the evenings. I’ve been thinking it would be nice if you or Tommy would write out a few of these life-stories of the members and make them into a book for us, a collection. We’d call it, say, ‘Tales of The Rat and Mouse Club.’”

At this suggestion quite a number of rats and mice who had been listening to our conversation joined in with remarks. They were all anxious for the honour of having their own stories included in the club’s book of adventures. And before we left that night it was agreed that we should return the following evening to hear the tale of the Volcano Rat. I knew it would be no easy matter for me to take down the stories word for word. But the white mouse said he would see that they were told slowly and distinctly; and with the Doctor’s assistance (his knowledge of rat and mouse language was of course greatly superior to mine) I thought I might be able to manage it. I was most anxious to, for we both realized that by this means we would add a book of great distinction to Animal Literature.

Considerable excitement and rejoicing were shown when it became known that we had consented to the plan. It was at once arranged that a notice should be put up on the club bulletin-board, in the room called the Lounge, showing which member was slated to tell his story for each night in the week. And as we carefully rose from our seats and made our difficult way down the tunnel into the open air, we heard rats and mice all around us assuring one another they would be sure to come tomorrow night.

When he arose amid a storm of applause the following evening to address the large audience gathered to hear his story, the Volcano Rat struck me at once by his distinctly foreign appearance. He was the same colour as most rats, neither larger nor smaller; but there was something Continental about him – almost Italian, one might say. He had sparkling eyes and very smooth movements, yet clearly he was no longer young. His manner was a rather curious mixture of gaiety and extreme worldliness.

“Our president,” he began with a graceful bow towards the white mouse, “was speaking last night of the high state of civilization to which, through Doctor John Dolittle and our club, this community has reached. Tonight I would like to tell you of another occasion – perhaps the only other occasion in history – when our race rose to great heights of culture and refinement.

“Many years ago I lived on the side of a volcano. For all we knew, it was a dead volcano. On its slopes there were two or three villages and one town. I knew every inch of the whole mountain well. Once or twice I had explored the crater at the top – a great mysterious basin of sponge-like rock, with enormous cracks in it running way down into the heart of the earth. In these, if you listened carefully, you could hear strange rumbling noises deep, deep down.

“The third occasion when I went up to the crater I was trying to get away from some farm dogs who had been following my scent through the vineyards and olive groves of the lower slopes. I stayed up there a whole night. The funny noises sort of worried me; they sounded so exactly like people groaning and crying. But in the morning I met an old, old rat who, it seemed, lived there regularly. He was a nice old chap and we got to chatting. He took me all round the crater and showed me the sights – grottoes, steaming underground lakes and lots of queer things. He lived in these cracks in the mountain.

“‘How do you manage for food?’ I asked.

“‘Acorns,’ he replied. ‘There are oak-trees a little way down the slope. And I lay in a good big store each Autumn. And then for water there’s a brook or two. I manage all right.’

“‘Why, you live the same as a squirrel!’ I said – ‘storing up your nuts over the Winter. What made you choose this place for a home?’

“‘Well, you see,’ said he, ‘truth is, I’m getting old and feeble. Can’t run the way I used. Any cat or dog could catch me in the towns. But they never come up here to the crater. Superstitious. They’re afraid of the rumbling voices. They believe there are demons here.’

“Well, I lived with the old Hermit Rat for two days. It was a nice change after the noisy bustling life of the town. It was a great place just to sit and think, that crater. In the evenings we would squat on the edge of it, looking down at the twinkling lights of the town way, way below – and the sea, a misty horizon in blue-black, far out beyond.

“I asked the old rat if he didn’t often get lonely, living up there all alone.

“‘Oh, sometimes,’ said he. ‘But to make up for the loneliness, I have peace. I could never get that down there.’

“Every once in a while, when the rumbling voices coming out of the heart of the mountain got louder, he’d go down a crack and listen. And I asked him what it was he expected to hear. At first he wouldn’t tell me and seemed afraid that I might laugh at him or something. But at last he told me.

“‘I’m listening for an eruption,’ says he.

“‘What on earth is that?’ I asked.

“‘That’s when a volcano blows up,’ says he. ‘This one has been quiet a long time, many years. But I’ve listened to those voices so long, I’ve got so I can understand ’em. – Yes, you needn’t laugh,’ he added, noticing I was beginning to grin. ‘I tell you I’ve an idea I shall know – for sure – when this mountain is going to blow up. The voices will tell me.’

“Well, of course I thought he was crazy. And after I had grown tired of the lonely life myself, I bade him good-by and came back to live in the town.

“It was not long after that that the citizens imported a whole lot of cats of a new kind. Us rats had got sort of plentiful and the townsfolk had made up their minds to drive us out. Well, they did. These cats were awful hunters. They never let up; went after us day and night. And as there were thousands of them, life for us became pretty nearly impossible.

“After a good many of our people had been killed some of the leaders of the colonies got together in an old cellar one night to discuss what we should do about it. And after several had made suggestions which weren’t worth much, I got to thinking of my old friend the hermit and the peaceful life of his crater-home. And I suggested to the meeting that I lead them all up there where we could live undisturbed by cats or dogs. Some didn’t like the idea much. But beggars can’t be choosers. And it was finally decided that word should be passed round to all the rats in the town that at dawn the next day I would lead them forth beyond the walls and guide them to a new home.”

• • • • •

•   16   •

The Voices in the Earth

“So,” the Volcano Rat continued, “the following day a great departure of rats took place from that town. And the old hermit of the mountain-top had the surprise of his life when from his crow’s nest lookout he saw several thousand of us trailing up the slope to share his loneliness.

“Fortunately the Autumn was not yet over and there were still great quantities of acorns lying beneath the oak trees. These we harvested into the many funny little underground chambers with which the walls of the crater were riddled.

“Because I had led them out of danger into this land of safety I came to be looked upon as a sort of leader. Of course after the first excitement of the migration was over a good deal of grumbling began. It seems people always have to grumble. Many young fellows who thought themselves clever made speeches to those willing to listen. They told the crowd that I had led them into as bad a plight as they were in before. Rat and mouse civilization had gone backward, they said, instead of forward. Now they were no better than squirrels living on stored-up acorns. Whereas in the towns, though they may have had the constant dangers that always had to be faced in cities, life at least had some colour and variety; they didn’t have to eat the same food every day; and if they wanted to line their nests with silk, or felt they knew where to find it, etc., etc., etc., and a whole lot more.

“These discontented orators got the common people so worked up against me that for a time my life was actually in danger from the mob. Finally – though I am a rat of few words – I had to make a speech on my own account in self-defence. I pointed out to the people that the life we were now leading was nothing more nor less than the original life of our forefathers. ‘After the Flood,’ I told them, ‘this was how you lived, the simple outdoor life of the fields. Then when the cities of Men arose with their abominable crowding you were tempted by the gay life of cellars and larders. We rats,’ I said proudly, ‘were at the first a hardy race of agriculturists, living by corn and the fruits of the earth. Lured by idleness and ease, we became a miserable lot of crumb-snatchers and cheese-stealers. I gave you the chance to return to your healthy, independent, outdoor life. Now, after you have listened to these wretched cellar-loungers, you long to go back to the sneaking servitude of the dwellings of Men. Go then, you fleas, you parasites!’ (I was dreadfully mad.) ‘But never,’ I said, ‘never ask me to lead you again!’

“And yet Fate seemed to plot and conspire to make me a leader of rats. I didn’t want to be. I never had any taste or ambition for politics. But no sooner had I ended my speech, even while the cheers and yells of the audience were still ringing in my ears (for I had completely won them over to my side) the old hermit came up behind me and croaked into my ear, ‘The eruption! – the voices in the earth have spoken. Beware! We must fly!’

“Something prompted me to believe him – though even to this day I don’t see how he could have known, and I thought I had better act, and act quickly, while I had the crowd on my side.

“‘Hark!’ I shouted, springing to my feet once more. ‘This mountain is no longer safe. Its inner fires are about to burst forth. All must leave. Do not wait to take your acorns with you. For there is no time to lose.’

“Then like one rat they rose up and shouted, ‘Lead us and we will follow. We believe in you. You are the leader whom we trust!’

“After that came a scene of the wildest kind. In a few minutes I had to organize a train of thousands of rats and mice and get it down that mountain-side the quickest possible way. Somehow or other I managed it – even though darkness came on before I started them off and the route was precipitous and dangerous. In addition to everything else, I had to make arrangements for six rats to carry the old hermit who couldn’t walk fast enough to keep up with the rest.

“So, through the night, past the walls of the town – the town which had turned us out – we hurried on and on and on, down, down into the valley. Even there, tired though we all were, I would not let them halt for long, but hurried the train on after a few moments’ rest across the valley, over the wide river by a stone bridge and up the slopes of another range of hills twenty miles away from the spot we had started from. And even as I wearily shouted the command to halt, the volcano-top opened with a roar and sent a funnel of red fire and flying rocks hurtling into the black night sky.

“Never have I seen anything so terrifying as the anger of that death-spitting mountain. A sea of red-hot stones and molten mud flowed down the slopes, destroying all in its path. Even where we stood and watched, twenty miles away across the valley, a light shower of ashes and dust fell around us.

“The next day the fire had ceased and only a feather of smoke rising from the summit remained. But the villages were no more; the town, the town that had turned us out, could not be seen.

“Well, we settled down to country life and for some years lived in peace. My position as leader, whether I willed it or no, seemed more than ever confirmed now that I had led the people out of further dangers.

“And so time passed and the Second Migration was declared a great success. But presently, as always seemed to be the way, I foresaw that before long we would have to move again. Our trouble this time was weasels.

Suddenly in great numbers they cropped up all over the countryside and made war on rats, mice, rabbits and every living thing. I began to wonder where I would lead the people this time. Often I had looked across the valley at our old mountain, our old home. The hermit had told me that he was sure that the volcano would not speak again for fifty years. He had been right once: he probably would be again. One day I made up my mind to go back across the valley and take a look around. Alone I set off.

“Dear me, how desolate! The beautiful slopes that had been covered with vineyards, olive groves and fig trees were now grey wastes of ashes, shadeless and hot in the glaring sun. Wearily I walked up the mountain till I came to about the place where I reckoned the town had stood. I began wondering what the buildings looked like underneath. I hunted around and finally found a hole in the lava; through it I made my way downward. Everything of course after all these years was quite cold; and to get out of the sun into the shade beneath the surface of the ground was in itself quite gratifying. I started off to do some subterranean exploring.

“Down and down I burrowed. In some places it was easy and in some places it was hard. But finally I got through all that covering of ashes and lava crust and came into the town beneath.

“I almost wept as I ran all over it. I knew every inch of the streets, every stone in the buildings. Nothing had changed. The dead city stood beneath the ground, silent and at peace, but in all else just as it had been when the rain of fire had blotted it out from the living world.

“‘So!’ I said aloud, ‘here I will bring the people – back to the town that turned us out. At last we have a city of our own!’”

• • • • •

•   17   •

The United Rat States Republic

The white mouse, seeing that the Volcano Rat seemed a little hoarse, motioned to a club waiter to fetch water – which was promptly done.

With a nod of thanks to the chairman the Volcano Rat took a sip from the acorn-cup and then proceeded.

“On my return I called the people together and told them that the time had come for our Third Migration. Many, when they found out whither I meant to lead them, grumbled as usual – this time that I was taking them back to the place from which we had already once taken flight.

“‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You complained years ago that I had set your civilization back, that I had reduced you to the level of squirrels. Well, now I’m going to give you a chance to advance your civilization to a point it never dreamed of before. Have patience.’

“So, once more under the protection of darkness, I led the people across the valley and up the slopes of the sleeping mountain. When I had shown them where to dig, holes were made by the hundred; and through them we entered into possession of our subterranean town.

“It took us about a month to get the place in working order. Tons of ashes had to be removed from doorways, a great deal of cleaning up was needed and many other things required attention. But it would take me more than a month to tell you in detail of the wonderful Rat City we made of it in the end. All the things which Men had used were now ours.

We slept in feather beds. We had a marble swimming pool, built originally by the Romans, to bathe in. We had barbers’ shops furnished with every imaginable perfume, pomade and hair-oil. Fashionable rat ladies went to the manicure establishments and beauty-parlours at least twice a week. And well-groomed dandies promenaded of an evening up and down the main street. We had athletic clubs where wrestling, swimming, boxing and jumping contests were held. All the best homes were filled with costly works of art. And an atmosphere of education and culture was everywhere noticeable.

“Of course much of the food which was in the town when the catastrophe happened had since decayed and become worthless. But there were great quantities of things that were not perishable, like corn, raisins, dried beans, and what not. These at the beginning were taken over by me and the Town Council as City property; and for the first month every rat who wanted an ounce of corn had to work for it. In that way we got a tremendous lot of things done for the public good, such as cleaning up the streets, repairing the houses, carrying away rotting refuse, etc.

“But perhaps the most interesting part of our new city life was the development of professions and government. In our snug town beneath the earth we were never disturbed by enemies of any kind except occasional sickness; and we grew and flourished. At the end of our first year of occupation a census was taken; and it showed our population as ten and three quarter millions. So you see we were one of the largest cities in history. For such an enormous colony a proper system of government became very necessary. Quite early we decided to give up the municipal plan and formed ourselves into a city republic with departments and a Chamber of Deputies. Still later, when we outgrew that arrangement, we reorganized and called ourselves The United Rat States Republic. I had the honour of being elected the first Premier of the Union Parliament.

“After a while of course rats from outside colonies got to hear of our wonderful city and tourists were to be seen on our streets almost any day in the week looking at the sights. But we were very particular about whom we took in as citizens. If you wanted citizenship you had to pass quite serious examinations both for education and for health. We were especially exacting on health. Our Medical College – which turned out exceptionally good rat doctors – had decided that most of our catching diseases had been brought in first by foreigners. So after a while a law was passed that not even tourists and sight-seers could be admitted to the town without going through a careful medical examination. This, with the exceptionally good feeding conditions, the freedom of the life and the popular interest in sports and athletics, made the standard of physical development very high. I don’t suppose that at any time in the whole history of our race have there been bigger or finer rats than the stalwart sons of the United Rat States Republic. Why, I’ve seen young fellows on our high-school athletic teams as big as rabbits and twice as strong.

“Building and architecture were brought to a very fine level too. In order to keep the lava and ashes from falling in on us we constructed in many places regular roofs over the streets and squares. Some rats will always love a hole even if you give them a palace to live in. And many of us clung to this form of dwelling still.

“One morning I was being measured for a new hole by a well-known digging contractor when my second valet rushed in excitedly waving the curling-irons with which he used to curl my whiskers.

“‘Sir,’ he cried, ‘the Chief of the Street Cleaning Department is downstairs and wants to be admitted at once. Some Men have come. They are digging into the mountain-side above our heads. The roof over the Market Square is falling in and the people are in a panic!’

“I hurried at once with the Chief of the Street Cleaning Department to the Market Square. There I found all in the greatest confusion. Men with pick-axes and shovels were knocking in the roof of lava and ashes which hid our city from the world. The moment I saw them I knew it was the end. Man had returned to reclaim the lost town and restore it to its former glory.

“Some of our people thought at first that the newcomers might only dig for a little while and then go away again. But not I. And sure enough, the following day still more Men came and put up temporary houses and tents and went on digging and digging. Many of our hot-headed young fellows were for declaring war. A volunteer army, calling itself The Sons of Rat Freedom, three million strong, raised itself at the street-corners overnight. A committee of officers from this army came to me the third day and pointed out that with such vast numbers they could easily drive these few Men off. But I said to them:

“‘No. The town, before it was ours, belonged to Man. You might drive them off for a while; but they would come back stronger than ever, with cats and dogs and ferrets and poison; and in the end we would be vanquished and destroyed. No. Once more we must migrate, my people, and find ourselves new homes.’

“I felt terribly sad, as you can easily imagine. While I was making my way back through the wrecked streets to my home, I saw some of the Men preparing to take away a statue of myself carved by one of our most famous rat sculptors. It had been set up over a fountain by the grateful townsfolk to commemorate what I had done for them. On the base was written, ‘The Saviour of His People – The Greatest of All Leaders.’

The men were peering at the writing, trying to decipher it. I suppose that later they put the statue into one of their museums as a Roman relic or something. It was a good work of art – even if the rat sculptor did make my stomach too large. Anyhow, as I watched them I determined that I would be a leader of rats no more. I had, as it were, reached the top rung of the ladder; I had brought the people to a higher pitch of civilization than they had ever seen before. And now I would let someone else lead them. The Fourth Migration would be made without me.

“Sneaking quietly into my home I gathered a few things together in a cambric handkerchief. Then I slipped out, and by unfrequented back streets made my way down the mountain-side – suddenly transformed from a Prime Minister of the biggest government, the greatest empire our race had ever seen, into a tramp-rat, a lonely vagabond.”

• • • • •

•   18   •

The Museum Mouse

As the Volcano Rat ended his story there followed a queer little silence. That final picture of the great leader leaving the wonderful civilization he had built up and journeying forth alone rather saddened the audience. John Dolittle was the first to speak.

“But what became of the rest of your people?” he asked.

“I did not hear until much later,” the Volcano Rat replied. “I took to the sea. I boarded a ship in the first harbour I came to and sailed away for foreign shores. A year or more afterwards I learned from some rats I met – when I was changing ships to come here – that several of the young wild volunteers had succeeded in getting the people to go to war. The results had been just about what I had prophesied. In the first battle between Men and Rats the rats had easily won and driven the enemy from the mountain-side. But a week later the Men came back armed with shot-guns, smoke-pots and other engines of war; and in their train came cats and dogs and ferrets. The slaughter of rats was apparently just horrible. Millions were wiped out. Panic seized the rest and a general mad flight followed. The slopes were simply grey with rats as the whole population left the underground city and ran for the valley. There were entirely too many for the dogs and cats to kill and so quite a few reached safety; but they were widely scattered. And no attempt was made to reorganize the remnant of a great race under another government. The United Rat States Republic was no more.”

•   •   •

The white mouse now arose from the presidential chair and after thanking the Volcano Rat for his story reminded the members that tomorrow night, Tuesday the fifteenth, the Museum Mouse had promised to entertain them. The meeting was then declared adjourned and everyone went home.

The next evening, in spite of the fact that both the Doctor and I were very busy, we were in our places in the Assembly Room by eight o’clock because we did not want to miss the adventures of the Museum Mouse. We knew him to be quite a personality. He had already interested us considerably by his observations on natural history. He looked something like a little old professor himself. He had tiny beady black eyes and a funny screwed-up look to his sharp-nosed face. His manner was cut and dried.

“I’ve lived all my life in natural history museums,” he began. “Main reason why I like them is because when they’re closed to the public you have the place to yourself – from six in the evening to ten o’clock the next morning, and till two in the afternoon on Sundays. This story is mainly concerned with the nest of the Three-ringed Yah-yah, a strange East Indian bird who builds a peculiar home; and with Professor Jeremiah Foozlebugg, one of the silliest animal-stuffers I ever knew.

“Why, just to show you how stupid that professor was: one day he was putting together the skeleton of a prehistoric beast, the Five-toed Pinkidoodle—”

“The what?” cried the Doctor sitting up.

“Well, I was never good on names,” said the Museum Mouse. “It was a five-toed something. Anyway, while he was out of the room a moment his dog dragged in an old ham bone and left it among the parts of the skeleton. And would you believe it? Jeremiah Foozlebugg spent days and nights trying to fit that ham bone into the skeleton of the five-toed – er – thimajigg and wondering why there was one bone left over.

“Now when I was first married I took my wife for a wedding trip to the natural history museum. And after I had shown her all over it she thought she’d like to settle down there. And we began to look around to decide where in the building we would make our home.

“‘It must be a snug, warm place, Nutmeg,’ says she, ‘on the children’s account. It’s a pesky business raising young mice where there are draughts and cold winds.’

“‘All right, Sarsparilla,’ I said. ‘I know the very spot. Come with me.’

“Now what we called the Stuffing Room was a long workshop downstairs where Foozlebugg and his assistants stuffed birds and animals and prepared specimens of plants and butterflies and things to be brought up later and put in the glass cases for the public to look at. All natural history museums have more collections and specimens presented to them than they can possibly use. And our Stuffing Room was always cluttered up with everything from elephants’ tusks to fleas in bottles. Among all this junk there was a collection of birds’ nests – many of them with the limb of the tree in which they had been built. For months and months this collection had lain upon a dusty shelf – nests of all sizes, shapes and sorts. One was quite peculiar. It was the nest of the Three-ringed Yah-yah. In form it was quite round, like a ball, and had for entrance one little hole – just big enough for a mouse to slip through. When you were inside no one would know you were there.

“I showed it to Sarsparilla and she was delighted. Without further delay we got some extra scraps of silk, which Foozlebugg had been using for some of his stuffing business, and lined it soft and snug – although it was already well padded with horse-hair and thistledown by the Three-ringed Yah-yah who had built it. Then for several days we led a peaceful happy life in our new home. During regular hours in the workshop we lay low and often had hard work stopping our giggles as we watched Professor Foozlebugg stuffing animals all out of shape and calling on his assistants to admire them.

“Well, the children came and then we were very glad about our selection of a home. For no place could have been more ideal for baby mice than was that old bird’s nest with its round walls and draught-proof ceiling and floor. Now there is one disadvantage in living in museums: you have to go out for all your meals. There’s practically nothing to eat in the building, and what there is, like waxes and things of that sort, you soon learn to leave strictly alone; because those old professors use strong poisons on all their stuffing materials to keep the bugs from getting into them. Of course even with all the doors locked any mouse can find his way in and out of a building somewhere. But occasionally when the weather is bad it is very inconvenient to have to go out for every single thing you eat. And now with a family of youngsters to feed this problem became more serious than usual.

“So Sarsparilla and I used to take it in turns to look after the youngsters while the other went out foraging for food. Sometimes we had to go a long way and to bring crumbs from various places to the lobby of the building before we hauled them down to the Stuffing Room. Well, one night I had been up very late foraging for food and didn’t get in until nearly daylight. I was dog-tired, but even then I didn’t get any sleep because the children were querulous and fretful and they kept me awake. As soon as evening came Sarsparilla left me in charge and started out on her food hunt. Shortly after she had gone the children settled down quietly, and right away, worn out with fatigue, I fell into a deep sleep.

“When I awoke the sunlight was streaming in through the entrance-hole of our nest. I supposed I must have long overslept. But I never remembered the direct rays of the sun to have shone in at our door like this before. I got up and peeped out cautiously.

“I could hardly believe my eyes. Our nest was no longer in the Stuffing Room! Instead we were in a glass case in one of the main halls of the museum. Around us, on various twigs and stands and things, were the other nests of the old collection which had lain so long on the dusty shelf. Our house had been put on show for the public, shut up tight in a glass case; and that stupid old duffer Foozlebugg who had put it there was still standing outside, displaying his handiwork with great pride to a fat woman and two children who were visiting the museum!”

• • • • •

•   19   •

Professor Foozlebugg’s Masterpiece

“Well,” sighed the Museum Mouse, “you can imagine how I felt. There I was with a whole family of youngsters, shut up in a glass case. I dare not show myself outside the nest, hardly, because even when that ridiculous Professor Foozlebugg had moved away with the fat woman, odd visitors in ones and twos were always browsing by and looking in. It would be difficult to think of a more uncomfortable, un-private home than ours had become.

“However, there were moments when that end of the hall was free from visitors and attendants. And during one of these I suddenly saw Sarsparilla with a wild look in her eye frantically hunting around outside for her lost family. Standing at the door of the nest, I waved and made signs to her and finally caught her attention. She rushed up to the glass and called through it:

“‘Get the children out of there, Nutmeg. Get them out at once!’

“That was the last straw.

“Sarsparilla,’ I called back, ‘don’t be a fool. Do you think I brought the nest and the children here myself? How am I to get them out? I can’t bite through glass.’

“‘But they must be fed!’ she wailed. ‘It is long past their morning meal-time.’

“‘Bother their morning meal-time!’ said I. ‘What about my morning meal-time? They’ll have to wait. We can’t do anything till the museum closes to the public – at five o’clock. You had better get away from there before you get seen.’

“But Sarsparilla, like all women, was quite unreasonable. She just kept running up and down outside the glass, moaning and wringing her hands.

“‘Can’t you give them some of that stuffed duck there, on the shelf above your head?’ she moaned.

“‘I could not,’ I said. ‘Stuffed museum duck is full of arsenic. Don’t worry. They can manage until five – the same as me.’

“Sarsparilla would have gone on arguing all day, I believe, if an attendant hadn’t come strolling down to that end of the wing and made it necessary for her to hide.

“The rest of the day I had my hands full. For the children, having missed two meals, suddenly got as lively as crickets. They were all for climbing out of the nest – though they hadn’t had their eyes open more than a few days. I could have slapped them.

“‘Where’s Ma?’ they kept on saying. ‘What’s happened to Ma? I’m hungry. Where’s Ma? – Let’s go and find her.’

“I tell you they had me busy, yanking them down from the hole one after another. They didn’t care how many people were looking in the glass case. All that they cared about was that they were hungry and wanted Ma – the stupid little things!

“Never was I so glad in all my experience of museum routine to see the attendants clearing the people out of the halls and locking up the doors. I knew all those old fellows in uniform well. It was a funny life they led – generally pleasant enough. One of the things they had to do was to look out for bomb-throwers. Why people should want to throw bombs or set infernal machines in museums, of all places, I don’t know. But they do – or, at all events, it is always expected that they will. That’s why the attendants won’t allow visitors to bring in parcels: they are afraid they may contain dynamite.

“One of these old men regularly brought his lunch with him and ate it behind the stuffed elephant when nobody was looking – he wasn’t supposed to, you see. And the few crumbs he left upon the floor were the only food that I ever managed to get inside the museum. As he changed his coat this evening some crusts fell out of the paper in which his bread and cheese had been wrapped. I knew that if I didn’t get them that night the charwoman would sweep them up in the morning. But while I was still gazing at them hungrily out of my glass prison Sarsparilla came and collected them and brought them over to the case.

“‘Nutmeg, I want to get these into the children,’ she said.

“‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, have some sense!’ I snapped back. ‘The first thing we’ve got to do is to find a way in – or rather a way out.’

“‘Gnaw a hole through the floor,’ said she – ‘quite simple. You needn’t be afraid of anyone seeing you now. The night watchman won’t be stirring for another hour yet.’

“‘Don’t you know,’ I said wearily, ‘that all these cases are zinc-lined? I can’t bite through zinc any more than I can through glass.’

“That started her off again. She threw up her hands.

“‘Why, the children will starve to death!’ she cried. And she recommenced her running backwards and forwards like a crazy thing.

“I saw I wasn’t going to get any helpful ideas from her so I began to look over the situation myself with an eye to working something out. First, I climbed all around the whole case, carefully inspecting the joints in the walls, the floor and the roof, to see if I could find a weak spot anywhere. Then I examined each shelf in turn to see if by chance I might come upon anything that could help me. And finally on the top shelf I discovered something that suggested a plan of escape.

“It was this: among the collection of birds’ nests there were some of sea birds. These were set among stones, the way certain gulls and such build – just a rough hollow of twigs and seaweed laid on the shingle of the beach. Here Professor Foozlebugg had quite surpassed himself in the art of tastefully displaying specimens. He had the whole top shelf set out like a scene on a lonely island where sea birds would build. At the back there was a picture of the ocean painted, with lighthouses and sailboats and everything. And in front of this there were several stuffed birds and nests set among the stones of the beach. The stones were mostly round, of all sizes. And it occurred to me that I might very easily roll some of the larger ones off the top shelf. Then, if they struck something slanting when they reached the bottom of the case, they would fly against the glass wall and break it.

“I wasted no time in getting to work. It was necessary to prepare a bouncing place where the stone would fall if my plan was to be a success. I slid down to the bottom of the case and gathered together a large pile of stiff twigs which I took from the other nests. It was hard work, because most birds put their nests together pretty firmly. I made a frightful mess of the collection before I was done.

“In the meantime, not being able to keep the children in order while I was at work, I had let them follow their own sweet wills. Every one of the little beggars had got out of the nest; and now having seen ‘Ma’ outside the case, they too were running up and down alongside the glass and careering all over the place trying to find a way out. If Professor Foozlebugg had come in at that moment to inspect his latest work of art he would have had a great shock.

“Well, when all was ready I went down below and chased all the children up on to the upper shelves so they wouldn’t get hurt by falling stones or flying glass. Then I explained to Sarsparilla, in shouts, what I was going to do.

“‘Stand by,’ I yelled, ‘to get the youngsters to a place of safety. They’re not easy to handle.’

“‘All right,’ she called back. ‘I’ll take three and you take three. And for pity’s sake be careful how you get them through the hole in the broken glass.’

“Then, just as I was about to put my shoulder under the round stone and topple it down, there came another shout from my wife:

“‘Look out! – Night watchman coming! – Hide the children quick!’

“It was all very well for Sarsparilla to say, ‘Hide the children, quick!’ They had no intention of being hidden. They had seen ‘Ma’ and they meant to get to her as soon as possible. And as soon as she disappeared again they went entirely crazy, rushing all over the place crying, ‘Where’s Ma gone? We’re hungry. What’s become of Ma?’

“Oh, dear! I never had such a time. I had no sooner caught a couple of them and hidden them behind a stuffed bird or something, before they would pop out again while I was running after the next pair.

“Luckily the night watchman was not a very wide-awake old man at the best of times, and as it happened tonight he did not swing his lantern near our case.

“When he had gone, Sarsparilla showed up again outside the glass and I got ready to try my plan once more.

“Crash!

“It worked all right and no mistake. The stone knocked a hole in the front of the case big enough for a bulldog to get through. In fact everything would have gone splendidly if it hadn’t been for those half-witted children of mine. With the crashing of the glass they just ran around like lunatics and we couldn’t catch a single one of them. We had time to get away easily. But while we were still falling all over the place trying to get the family together, alarm bells in every corridor of the museum started ringing violently. The next thing, the night watchman came running through the hall shouting:

“‘A bomb, a bomb! – Hey! Help! – Fire! Police! – A bomb’s gone off somewhere! HELP!’

“‘It’s no use, Sarsparilla,’ I said. ‘We can’t manage it now. Bring in one of those crusts of bread with you and come inside until the excitement dies down. Was anyone ever blessed with such children? Help me get them into the nest quick. With you here, they’ll be quieter and more manageable. Later, if luck is still with us, we may get away.’

“And we only just got those little nuisances stowed out of sight in time. In less than five minutes from the crash of the glass people began arriving on the run. First, a constable with a notebook from the beat outside the museum’s main entrance. Then six firemen came rushing in dragging a hose. Next, the watchman’s wife carrying bandages and a bottle of brandy.

“And all of them stood around the broken glass case asking about the ‘bomb’ – Yes, the watchman was quite sure it was a bomb – Look how it had wrecked all the nests inside!

“Then they gave their opinions, one after another: ‘Russian nihilists’; ‘suffragettes’; ‘East End anarchists,’ etc., etc. While all the time we who were responsible for the whole thing sat inside the home of the Three-ringed Yah-yah and listened to their silly chatter.

“Finally the great Professor Foozlebugg arrived on the scene, summoned from his bed – for it was now nearly midnight – by a messenger from the watchman. He nearly wept when he saw his latest work of art – his masterpiece – knocked all skiddle-daddle. He was much more upset about his beautiful scene on the seashore than he was over the museum’s narrow escape from being blown up by an infernal machine. He was about to wade into the wreckage then and there and put it to rights but – fortunately for us – one of the policemen warned him off.

“‘Don’t touch it, Sir, please. With these infernal machines one never knows. A second, and more serious, explosion, Sir, is liable to follow the moment you lay a finger on it. We will get the bomb experts from Police Headquarters. They know how to handle these things, Sir.’

“Well, just that saved us from a pretty serious situation. After a little more discussion between the firemen and the constable it was decided to let well enough alone until the morning – when the bomb experts from Police Headquarters would take charge of affairs. Meanwhile the policeman, the firemen and the professor felt they might as well go back to bed. As for the old watchman, he was so scared of that second explosion that the policeman had spoken of, that the moment the rest of them had departed he locked up the doors and left that hall severely to itself.

“Which of course was exactly what we wanted. We had seven peaceful hours before us – before the charwoman would come to sweep – in which to do our moving. The first thing we did, after we had all the children safely lifted out through the broken glass, was to sit down in the middle of the hall and eat a hearty meal of the crusts which the old attendant had left behind. Then we herded the children down below by easy stages to the Stuffing Room. And there Sarsparilla kept them together while I hunted up a new home among the lumber and stuff with which the shelves were cluttered.

“But this time, you may be sure, I did not pick a bird’s nest nor anything else that was likely to get put on exhibition while we slept.”

• • • • •

•   20   •

The Prison Rat

“I would like very much to know,” said John Dolittle the following night when the Prison Rat was about to begin his story, “what made you take to living in prisons. I’ve been in prison myself. And while I always found the life very quiet and restful, I would not recommend a jail as exactly a cheerful place to make one’s permanent home.”

“Well,” the Prison Rat began, “as a matter of fact, the story I am going to tell you explains how I took to prison life.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. And everyone settled down to listen.

“To begin with then,” said the Prison Rat, “you must know that I began life as a studio rat. I patronized artists’ studios. They’re not bad places to live. For one thing, artists, as a rule, are not very particular people; and a rat more or less doesn’t bother them. And secondly, they always cook their own meals and very seldom wash the dishes – after the meals; when they do, they do it before meals. Consequently there is always lots to eat. In almost any artist’s studio you can be sure of finding a fish-head, or a chop-bone, or a plate with gravy stuck to the bottom, if you only hunt long enough.

“Well, then, after I had lived in several artists’ studios and got sort of fond of the Bohemian life I came to reside in one where the artist was kind of peculiar. He lived all alone and didn’t seem to have many friends nor to put himself out to make any. This was unusual. At my other studios they had parties – often – with lots of gaiety, laughter and good company. But this man hardly ever saw anyone. I think, maybe, he had been disappointed in love. But of that I am not sure. One old philosopher used to come and see him occasionally and they’d sit and talk and argue over politics far into the night.

“I never bothered about listening to them much; but one evening I overheard a word that made me stop behind the coal-scuttle with ears cocked. With practise I had become pretty good at understanding Man Talk – especially certain words that were repeated quite often.

“‘Michael’ – that was the artist’s name – ‘why don’t you get a cat?’ asked the philosopher.

“‘How absurd! What on earth would I get a cat for?’ answered the other.

“You can be sure I was glad to hear him say that.

“‘Well, a dog then – or something,’ the philosopher went on. ‘You’re too lonely here altogether. It isn’t good for you.’

“‘Oh, no,’ said the artist with a sort of far-away look in his eyes. ‘I don’t need company. I can manage … alone.’

“And then followed a very interesting discussion. It seemed that the artist was more of a philosopher than was the philosopher himself.

“‘Why should I get a cat?’ he repeated – ‘or a dog, or a goldfish, or a canary – or a wife? I tell you’ – he leaned over and tapped the philosopher on the knee – ‘if you have attachments you are not free. I am alone. If I want to go away, I can go. If I had a family or a house full of pets, I could not.’

“The philosopher finally was bound to agree with him. But just the same, I knew he was lonely, all by himself in that studio, in spite of his arguments. And the way I found it out was this: one day I slipped while I was hunting round the dishes and things for food and fell into a pail alongside the sink. The pail had no water in it; and ordinarily I could have leaped out again easily. But somehow I caught my leg as I fell and sprained it badly; and I couldn’t jump an inch. And of course climbing out up the slippery sides was also quite impossible. I was trapped.

“Some time later the artist comes along, wanting the pail to carry water in. He looks into it and sees me. Of course I thought the end had come. You know how most people are: they all seem to think there is something virtuous about killing rats. And I’m pretty sure that even into his mind that was the first thought that came. Because he went off to the stove and came back with the poker. He looked determined and terrible enough.

But suddenly his expression changed.

“‘Oh, well,’ he muttered, ‘I suppose your life means something to you. Why should I kill you after all?… Get out of my pail. I want to wash.’

“And he deliberately rolled the pail over on to its side so I could escape. I limped off, thanking my lucky stars. I made kind of slow progress with my sprained leg; and he watched me thoughtfully as I scrambled for a hole under the sink.

“‘Humph! Had an accident?’ he murmured. ‘Here, take this with you for supper.’

“And he threw me a bacon-rind off the draining-board. I took it and tried to look gratefully at him before I disappeared into the hole.

“Then for several days after that he used to watch for me. And when I appeared, instead of firing a boot at me, as most people do to rats, he used to throw crumbs of bread and meat. He was trying to make my acquaintance.

“That’s how I knew that he was lonely.

“Another thing by which I was made still surer of it was that he used to talk to me a good deal – for want of someone else to chat with – also that he talked to himself a good deal. After a while I got quite tame; and as soon as I realized he didn’t mind me knocking around the place quite freely, I used to sit up on a stool beside him and watch him paint. And I took my meals with him too. He gave me an upturned bucket to sit on and seemed really interested in what I liked to eat. He always called me Machiavelli. I never understood why. Perhaps that was a friend of his.

“‘Machiavelli,’ he would say, ‘you’re the right kind of a friend to have. You don’t affect my liberty. If I leave the studio I don’t have to bother about you. You’ll look after yourself. Here’s your good health, Machiavelli – my friend who leaves me free.’

“And he would drink to me, with a bow, out of his shaving-mug filled with beer.

“Now there were two or three other rats who lived under the floor of that studio. And one day in Spring three of us went off together for a day’s jaunt – just for a sort of exploring trip, the way folks do in springtime. As luck would have it, a terrier picked up our trail and we got separated. The dog stuck to me finally, leaving the others alone. And he chased me a long way from home before I shook him.

“I didn’t get back to the studio until three days later. To my astonishment, I found that the artist was gone. The other rats had never been as tame with him as I was. They didn’t trust Humans, they said, considering them a low-down, cruel and deceitful race, not in any way to be compared with rats for frankness and honesty. I asked them when and where the artist had gone. All that they could tell me was that some policemen had come and taken him away. They didn’t understand Man Talk – at least, not as well as I did. But they had got the impression that it was something to do with a revolution in which the artist had taken part.

“Well, I cannot tell you how I felt. He had said that I was the right kind of a friend to have; that if he went away – it almost seemed as though he had foreseen it – it wouldn’t make any difference to me. But it did. I positively wept as I went through the empty studio looking at his paintings. They were good pictures, too. And I made up my mind that I would find him if I had to seek through all the prisons in the land.

“And that was how I began my career as a prison rat.”

• • • • •

•   21   •

A Rat’s Pilgrimage

“Well, my search indeed took me to strange places and brought me into touch with queer folk. I suppose I must have visited a good two dozen jails in all. I got to know a lot of prisoners, all kinds: political prisoners, as they were called, that is, people who had quarrelled with the Government; pickpockets; coiners, makers of bad money; dog thieves; card sharps; men who had killed their fellow-men. It was quite interesting in a way – though most of it was pretty sad.

“They were all – or nearly all – anxious to make my acquaintance. And that was the first time that I discovered that, generally speaking, it is only in prison Men want to make friends of rats. Rather strange. I suppose it is because they are lonely and miserable in prison. All other places those same men would throw a brick at a rat, make a wry face and say, ‘Ooh! The brute!’ But in prison they would make a friend of him – yes, in prison, where they have no friends. My artist, on the other hand, had been kind to me when he was free. That was the difference, to my way of thinking, between him and other people. And I made up my mind harder than ever to keep on hunting till I found him.

“Of course in my wanderings I also made the acquaintance of many other regular prison rats. And them I questioned always, hoping they might be able to give me some clue as to where my man had been taken. Some of them thought I was a fool to keep on searching for him.

“‘Oh,’ they said, ‘he has forgotten about you long ago. Like as not, he won’t know you when he sees you. If he wanted to make pets of rats there are always lots of them in every prison. And anyway, never trust a man. Men are the sworn enemies of rats.’

“But all I answered was, ‘He is in trouble and I want to find him. He was kind to me once – when I was in difficulties. Such things I don’t forget.’

“One of the prison rats I met suggested I go back to the studio and wait till someone came who might be connected with the man I was seeking. Then by tracking him when he left, I might be led to the prison where the artist had been taken. I thought the idea was a good one and I acted on it. I went back to my old home and waited. About a week later the philosopher called. I watched him like a cat. He gathered some things together – clothes and books – wrapped them in a bundle and started away on foot.

“I followed. Luckily it was evening and the darkness gave me some chance of keeping in touch without being seen. It isn’t so hard for a dog to follow a man through a town; but it is a very different matter for a rat.

“Well, in spite of several cats who tried to chase me off the trail I stuck to the old philosopher for a full half-hour.

“And then good luck deserted me – and him, too, poor fellow. He was run over at a street corner – a frightened horse. It was all done and finished so quickly there was hardly any telling how it happened. At first I thought the old man was killed. But he wasn’t. Nevertheless he was badly enough hurt to make it necessary to call an ambulance and take him off to a hospital.

“So there went that hope. As I crouched in the shadow of a doorway and watched them taking him away, I realized with a sinking heart that not only was I losing my one clue, but my friend, the artist, was also losing the only other being in the world who would be likely to help him.

“Just the same, I set off on my hunt once more, more determined on this account than ever that I would find him – if I spent the rest of my life in doing it.

“Then for many weeks my pilgrimage continued without anything of importance happening. I went patiently from jail to jail, only staying in each one long enough to make sure that he wasn’t there. After a while I got to do it more quickly than I had at the beginning. But it wasn’t easy. You see, in most jails there were a great number of cells; and the first thing I did when I came to a new prison was to find out how many cells there were and how many of them were occupied. Then I had to discover some way of getting into each one in turn. If I couldn’t get in – some of the newer jails were pretty hard even for a rat to get in or out of – I had to hang around somewhere till the prisoner was brought out for exercise so I could get a look at his face. And, because in some cases the prisoners were brought out very seldom, this took a long time.

“Well, after two or three months I began to get somewhat discouraged, I must admit. However, I did not give up hope. Something told me, in spite of what the rats had said, that I was going to find him and that I was going to be of help to him.

“Now there was a certain tune he had been in the habit of whistling around the studio when at work. And one day I had come to a new jail and looked at the prisoners in all the cells – all but one. This I couldn’t find a way into; and the prisoner never seemed to get brought out. For nearly a week I had hung around that jail for the sake of that one cell alone, hoping a chance would come for me to see who was in there.

“At the end of the week I began seriously thinking of moving on to the next jail. After all it did not seem worthwhile for me to stay so long in one prison just on account of a single cell, when there were so many other jails yet to be visited. Still, I didn’t quite like to go until I had made sure.

“And I’m glad I didn’t. For that same night, as I hung around on watch outside the door, I heard – at last – the familiar whistle, his favourite tune. After nearly three months’ search I had run him down! My, didn’t I feel pleased and proud!

“I set to work now with a lighter heart to the business of getting into that cell. So anxious was I to see him, that I took a fearful big chance. I decided to try and slip in with the warder who brought him his breakfast in the morning. This was pretty risky, because, as some of you may know, prison cells have precious little furniture that a rat can hide behind.

“Nevertheless I managed it. I stood ready in the shadow outside the door; and when the warder came along with the breakfast I slid in close behind his heels without being noticed. Then choosing the right moment, just as he was laying down the food, I nipped across under the prison cot and waited till he went out again, locking the door behind him. Then I came boldly forth from my hiding place and showed myself.

“‘Hulloa!’ said the artist. ‘Why, you look cheeky and brazen enough to be my friend Machiavelli.’

“And then:

“‘By George!’ he added in a curious whisper. ‘It is Machiavelli! I know him by that limp!’

“He looked thin and pale. But he seemed just as philosophical and just as ready to say funny, crazy, unexpected things as ever. He was really overjoyed to see me. He picked me up and patted me like a pet poodle.

“‘My first visitor!’ he kept saying – ‘My only visitor, in fact. Machiavelli! – Good old Mack!’

“He invited me to share his breakfast with him, making apologies for the poorness of the fare.

“But the first thing I wanted to do, now that I knew where he was, was to find a way by which I could come in and go out of that cell with more or less safety. I looked around the walls and the floor, but there was no trace of a hole anywhere – and no chance of making any in the new, well-cemented stonework. Then I looked up at the little window, high in the wall. And that gave me an idea.

“I felt pretty sure that I could gain the sill of this window by scrambling up the rough stonework inside. I tried it. He stood below watching me climb, really terrified that I might fall and break my neck. From the sill I found that the window could also be reached from the outside by means of a rainwater pipe which ran down the building near it.

“As soon as I got out I hunted up one of the rats who lived in the jail and questioned him. Also – I have told you that I was pretty good at understanding Man Talk – I listened at every opportunity I got to the conversations of the warders and attendants. And from what I could gather I came to the conclusion that my friend was soon to be transported, that is, sent away to serve a long term of imprisonment and labour in foreign parts. Exactly when he was to be taken I could not find out for certain. But I had a feeling that it was to be soon and that there was no time to lose.

“The next thing was to find out what my friend needed for escape. I consulted a very old rat who had lived in prisons all his life and seen several men escape. And he told me that the most important thing was a file to saw window-bars with. So a file, I determined, my man should have without delay. Now the jail had a workshop in it where some of the prisoners were put to making things. But the men were always examined before they left the workshop to make sure they took no tools away to their cells. It didn’t take me long to find my way into that workshop and pick out a nice sharp file – a small one that I could easily carry.

“In the middle of the night I revisited my friend – entering by way of the rainwater pipe and the window – and found him asleep. I woke him up by laying the file on his nose. At first he didn’t know what to make of it. But when he realized what the piece of cold metal was that I had laid on his face he got up and set quietly to work at once.

“Well, that’s about the end of my story. It took him two nights to cut through the bar; and I had to bring him a fresh file to replace the old one which was worn smooth. He got out of the window about midnight on the second night. No one saw him leave. Luck was with him and the sentry at the outside wall was kind of drowsy. He got clean away and left the country before they found him. I never saw him again. My assistance had only just got there in time though. For when they came in on the third morning and found his cell empty, the prison van was already drawn up outside the gates of the jail waiting to take him to the ship.”

• • • • •

•   22   •

The Stable Mouse

My book entitled Tales of The Rat and Mouse Club was by now beginning to look pretty thick and bulky. Of course rewritten, or rather printed, the way it would be in the bound volume itself, it would not take up as much space as it did in my rough copy. Nevertheless I could see by the end of the fourth story (that of the Prison Rat) that only about one more could be included in the book. I told this to the white mouse.

“Well,” said he, “of course I see that you can’t make the book too thick, otherwise it would be too heavy for the mouse readers to handle – and the rats have most of the volumes in the club library as it is. But there will be a terrible lot of disappointment. There are no less than nine members still hoping that their stories will be included – And I thought myself that you’d be able to get in another two anyway.”

“Who are the members whose stories are still to be heard?” asked the Doctor.

“Oh, heavens, there’s hundreds! – hoping,” said the white mouse. “But there are nine whom I had sort of half promised they would stand a chance. Out of that nine we will now have to pick one – and of course there will be hard feelings. Let me see: there’s the Railway Rat. His is a story of travel. Then – another voyager – the Ship’s Rat, our old friend of the Canary Islands, Doctor. And there’s the Ice-box Mouse and the Theatre Mouse. I don’t know much about them – newcomers to the club. Then there’s the Zoo Rat, the chap who is always boasting of his acquaintance with the lion – and Cheapside says he does really go in and out of his den. Next? – Let me think…. Oh, the Tea-house Mouse. He is a sort of a tittering nincompoop. A regular gossip, giggles all the time. It is easy to see how and why he chose tea-houses to live in. I don’t suppose his story is much. Scandal, most likely. I’ll be glad to cross him off the list. The Church Mouse, too, we can count him out. His story will be a sort of a lecture, full of quotations and advice to young mice. And I’m so tired of hearing how poor he is. That leaves the Hansom Cab Mouse – his yarn will be good, I suspect…. And the Hospital Mouse. I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll get them all to give me a rough outline of their stories and I’ll pick the one which I think is the best and relate it at the club tomorrow night, eh?”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “And you can tell the others that maybe there will be a second volume of The Tales of the Rat and Mouse Club – later – which they can all be in.”

To our surprise, when the Doctor and I took our places in the Assembly Room of the Rat and Mouse Club the following evening, we found that none of the members whom the President had spoken of last night had been selected to tell the fifth story for the book. Instead a mouse whom neither of us had seen or heard of before got up and was introduced as the Stable Mouse.

“Her story was sort of different, I thought,” the white mouse whispered in my ear. “We want variety in the book. And those others were all jealous of one another anyway. So I decided I’d take a new member altogether.”

The Stable Mouse was a quiet, ladylike little individual – rather shy. And at the beginning she had to be asked several times to speak louder, because some of the members at the back of the hall (a few of the old-age pensioners who lived in the club) could not hear her.

“This story is mostly about my first husband, Corky,” she began, “a good-natured mouse, but the most frivolous-minded mate that anybody was ever asked to live with. It was largely on Corky’s account that I became a stable mouse – thinking it was a safer place for him, one where he would be less likely to get into mischief and hot water. Stables are generally very good places for mice to live. There are always oats, which after all form the most nourishing and digestible food that can be found anywhere. And it is pleasant in the evenings when the horses come home from their work to sit up in the rafters and listen to them gossip about the day’s doings.

“But even in a stable that husband of mine could find plenty of occasions to get himself into trouble and to keep me worried to death. One day he found a large watering hose in a corner of the stable. And he thought it would be great fun to get into it and run up and down inside, as though it were a tunnel – sort of switchback idea. He was a regular child – I see that now: he never really grew up. Well, while he was playing this game, sliding and whooping round the loops of the hose, one of the stable-boys came and turned the water on to wash the stable floor. And of course with the terrific force of the water my husband was shot out of the hose like a bullet from a gun. His switchback gave him a much bigger ride than he expected. As it happened, the stable-boy had the hose pointed out into the yard when the water first rushed forth. And I suddenly saw Corky, gasping and half-drowned, flying over the pig-house roof. He landed in the pigs’ trough on the other side – and very nearly got eaten by a large hog who mistook him for a floating turnip before he scrambled out to safety.

“Often I used to think that that light-headed husband of mine used to deliberately get himself into hot water – just for sheer devilment. And no amount of hard lessons seemed to teach him any sense. How it was that he wasn’t killed in the first year of his life I don’t know.

“Would you believe it? Time after time he used to get into the horses’ nose-bags to steal their oats while they were actually eating! I told him often that one of these days he would get chewed up. What usually happened was that his moving around in the bags would tickle the horses’ noses until they sneezed and blew him out on to the floor like a piece of chaff.

“One day this happened when the farmer who owned the place was standing in the stable with his wife. But this time the horse sneezed so hard that Corky was shot right up, nearly to the rafters. And when he came down he landed on the farmer’s hat. The farmer thought it was just a drop of water leaking from the roof – it was raining at the time – and didn’t take any notice. But presently while his wife was talking to him she suddenly saw Corky’s nose peering over the brim of her husband’s hat – wondering how he was going to get down to solid ground. Being, like most women, terrified of mice, she just lost her head, screamed and struck at Corky with her umbrella. She didn’t hit him but she nearly brained her husband – who of course thought that she had suddenly gone crazy. And in the general excitement that followed Corky, as usual, got away.

“But one day he had a very narrow escape; and if I hadn’t been there to come to his assistance it would have surely been the end of his adventurous career. Now there was an old jackdaw who used to hang around that stable yard. Corky took a dislike to him from the start. And I am bound to say that he certainly was a churlish, grouchy curmudgeon of a bird. He used to watch from the stable roof, and if the farmer’s wife threw out any nice tit-bits of food he would be down on them before we ever got a chance to start out for them. If we did get there first he would drive us off savagely with that great scissors-like bill of his. It didn’t matter how much food there was, he wouldn’t let us get any. The largest rats were scared of him, for he was worse than a game-cock to fight with. Even the cat wouldn’t face him. She would try to pounce on him when his back was turned but she would never face a duel with that terrible bill.

“The result was that Mr. Jackdaw – Lucifer we called him – got to be pretty much the boss of the roost round that stable yard. He knew it, too. And everybody hated him.

“Well, one day Corky came to me just brimming over with news and excitement.

“‘What do you think?’ says he. ‘You know that new stable lad, the cross-eyed one with red hair? – Well, he’s making a trap to catch Lucifer. I saw him myself.’

“‘Oh,’ I said, ‘don’t get excited over that. He’ll never catch him. That bird knows every kind of trap that was ever invented.’

“Nevertheless Corky was very hopeful. And he used to spend hours and days watching that red-headed lad trying to bag Mr. Jackdaw. First the boy used a sieve and a string, baiting the arrangement with raw meat. But Lucifer gave that clumsy contrivance one glance and never even looked at it again. Next the lad rigged up various sorts of nets into which he hoped the bird would fly or could be driven. Corky kept running to me with reports, two or three times a day, to keep me posted on how things were going. Then horse-hair nooses were tried – and paper bags with raisins and treacle inside.

“But as I had told Corky, Lucifer was a wily bird and he seemed to know just as much about traps as the boy did. What was more, he soon got on to the fact that Corky was watching the proceedings with great interest. Because one morning he chased him away from some soup-meat on the garbage heap, saying,

“‘Hoping to see me get trapped, eh? You little imp! Get out of that before I nip the tail off you!’

“‘You may get caught yet, you big black bully,’ Corky threw back at him as he ran for a hole. ‘And I hope you do!’

“‘Oh, hah, hah!’ croaked the jackdaw as he set to on the meat. ‘That red-haired bumpkin couldn’t catch me if he tried for a lifetime.’

“But the red-haired bumpkin was a persevering lad and not so stupid as he looked. He had made up his mind that he was going to have that jackdaw in a cage for a pet. And after a good many failures, instead of giving up, he set to work observing the quarry and his habits and trying to find just why it was that he hadn’t caught him. And among other things he noticed that the jackdaw had one favourite drinking-place, a little pool under a tap in a corner of the stable yard. Also he noticed that the bird never flew down to settle where anything new had been set up or anything old taken away.

“In other words, the stable lad had stumbled upon the truth that birds, like mice, are afraid of anything unfamiliar. That’s their great protection. They’ve a keen sense of observation; and whenever a yard or a corner of a garden has anything new or changed about it, they are at once suspicious and on their guard.

“So, having learned this, the bumpkin went about his job differently. He saw that whatever was changed, whatever he put out to catch the jackdaw, must be changed or put out gradually. He began by laying a twig down near the watering-place – just one. Lucifer when he came eyed it suspiciously. But finally he decided it was innocent, walked around it and took his drink. The next morning the boy had two twigs there. Lucifer behaved in the same way. Three mornings later there were four or five twigs there. And so on, until a regular little bank of twigs surrounded the tiny pool beneath the tap; and the jackdaw couldn’t get at the water without stepping on them.

“But at this point Mr. Lucifer became very wary. He walked all around the twigs several times and finally flew away. He had gone to find another drinking-place.

“Corky came to me in despair.

“‘You are right,’ he said dolefully. ‘That bird is related to the devil, I do believe. I’m afraid he’ll never be caught.’

“But suddenly the weather came to the assistance of our red-headed trapper. It was late November; and one morning we woke up to find the ground and everything covered with a white mantle of snow and every puddle, pool and stream topped with ice. Mr. Jackdaw came into the stable yard looking for breakfast – as usual. There wasn’t any. Everything was covered, cold and silent. He looked in at the stable door. There he saw us, nibbling oats on the top of the bin. He would have come in, only he was afraid.

“‘You vermin,’ he sneered from the door, ‘are well off, guzzling in shelter, dry and warm, while honest folk can starve outdoors, with every blade of grass buried in the snow. A pest on the weather!’

“‘We would throw you some oats,’ said I, ‘if you hadn’t always been such a mean, selfish grouch to us, driving us from every tit-bit even when there was enough for all. Yes, you’re right: it is bad weather – for folks who’ve gone through life making no friends.’”

• • • • •

•   23   •

The Cunning of Lucifer,
the Jackdaw

At this point some of the old pensioners at the back of the hall made another request that the Stable Mouse speak a little louder. John Dolittle suggested that she be given a tea-canister or something to stand on, so that her voice would carry to the rear of the Assembly Room. After a short delay an empty mustard tin was found, which served the purpose very well. And as soon as she had climbed up onto it and overcome her embarrassment the speaker continued:

“The jackdaw made some vulgar remark in answer to what I had said and hopped away from the door. We got onto the window-sill and watched him flopping across the yard through the deep, loose, fluffy snow. I felt sort of sorry for him. I could see he was hungry; and in that weather he might not find a scrap to eat in a whole day. I was about to call him back and give him some oats but Corky wouldn’t let me.

“‘Don’t worry,’ said he. ‘He’ll take care of himself. – Serve him right, the mean bully!’

“As he passed his old drinking-place the jackdaw just glanced at it expecting to find it frozen like all the other water out of doors. But behold! It wasn’t. As a matter of fact the red-haired lad had specially come and broken the ice even before Mr. Jackdaw was abroad.

“Lucifer was just as thirsty as he was hungry. He floundered, half flying through the snow, towards the tap. Corky got dreadfully excited as he watched him. We both guessed that those twigs were some sort of trap – though how they worked neither of us knew as yet. This morning they were half covered with snow and looked like a regular innocent part of the landscape. The water was very tempting. Lucifer hopped nearer. And Corky got even more worked up.

“Finally Mr. Jackdaw jumped up on to the mound of twigs and took a long, long drink. Corky was disappointed. Nothing seemed to happen. It looked as though whatever machinery the twigs contained had failed to go off. And it was only when the bird started to leave the drinking-place that we realized what the trap was. The mound he was standing on stuck to his feet. The twigs had been covered with birdlime.

“Dear me, how he floundered and flopped and fluttered. And the more he fought and pulled and worked, the more the sticky twigs got gummed up with his feathers. We could see now that there were a whole lot of them beneath the snow; and by the time that the jackdaw had them all stuck to him it was quite clear that for the present he stood no chance whatever of flying or getting away.

“Then suddenly a door opened across the yard and the red-haired lad triumphantly came forth and took possession of the helpless Mr. Lucifer. Whereupon Corky proceeded to do somersaults of joy all over the stable.

“Well, you can be sure there was general rejoicing throughout the stables and the farm yard. For not only had Lucifer made himself objectionable to us, but he was thoroughly unpopular with every living thing in the whole neighbourhood.

“The lad put him in a wicker cage whose bars were reinforced with wire; and he hung the cage – of all places – in our stable. I am bound to say that once more I felt sorry for the bird. It was bad enough to be caught and imprisoned; but then to be put where other creatures, of whom he had made enemies, could look at him all day while they rejoiced in their freedom, did seem to me a bit too much.

“And, oh, what a state he was in, poor wretch! The birdlime had made all his sleek plumage messy, so that he looked like some old silk hat brought in off the dust-heap. And for the first day he did nothing but bang his head against the bars trying to get out; so that he rubbed all the feathers off the top of his head and looked worse than ever.

“Corky, the heartless little imp, had a grand time sitting outside his cage and laughing at him. He had had to run away from Lucifer so often when he was free, he was determined to make up for it now that he had a chance. I thought this was mean and I told Corky so.

“‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I’m still scared of him – even now.’

“‘Oh,’ said Corky, laughing, ‘what can he do, the big bully? He’s fixed now for good.’

“‘Just the same,’ I said, ‘watch out. He’s clever, don’t forget.’

“All day long the jackdaw never said a word, not even in answer to Corky’s most spiteful remarks. There was something dignified, as well as pathetic, in his downfall. He had now given up beating himself against the bars and just sat there, all huddled up at the bottom of his cage, the picture of despair. The only thing about him that seemed alive at all was his gleaming eyes full of bitter hatred. They looked like coals of fire as they followed every movement of Corky and the other mice who were taunting him outside the cage.

“It is curious how heartless some creatures can be. After Lucifer had sort of subsided that way, those little monkeys, Corky and his friends, got up on top of the cage and started dropping bits of mortar and putty down on the jackdaw’s head. I tried my best to stop them, but there were too many of them and they wouldn’t listen to me. Before long there must have been a good dozen gathered on top of the cage laughing and throwing things at their old enemy, the one-time bully of the stable yard. Truly Lucifer was paying a terrible price for a selfish life.

“And, alas! My fears proved right. That terrible bird was still dangerous, even when he was shut up in a cage. While those little fools were playing their heartless game one afternoon I was cleaning up our home under the hay-loft floor. Suddenly I heard a dreadful shriek. I rushed out of the hole and bounded down through a trap door into the stable below.

“Corky’s friends were all standing around the jackdaw’s cage on the window-sill, their eyes popping out of their heads with horror. I looked for Corky among them. He wasn’t there. On coming nearer I found that he was inside the cage firmly held in the jackdaw’s right claw! As usual, he had been more daring than the rest. And as he had crawled over the cage he had come just a fraction of an inch too near the bird he was teasing. Like a flash – he told me this afterwards – Lucifer had thrust his long beak between the bars, caught him by the tail and pulled him inside. When I came up Corky was still bawling blue murder at the top of his voice.

“‘Be quiet!’ said the jackdaw. ‘Stop struggling or I’ll kill you right away. – Where’s his wife?’ he asked, turning to the others.

“‘Here I am,’ said I, stepping up to the cage.

“‘Good!’ said he. ‘You are just in time to save your husband’s life. I want a hole gnawed through the bottom of this cage right away – one big enough for me to get out of. Mice can eat through wood. I can’t. There is room for you to get under – the legs of the cage are high enough. But please waste no time. That lad is likely to come back any moment.’

“‘But,’ I began, ‘it would take…’

“‘Don’t argue!’ said he shortly. ‘If a hole isn’t made in the bottom of this cage large enough for me to escape through before nightfall, I’ll bite your husband’s head off.’

“Well, I could see he meant it. And the only thing for me to do was to obey – unless I wanted to be left a widow. Lucky for me it was that the other mice were standing around. I knew I could never nibble a hole alone, in so short a time, big enough for that great hulk to pass through. And, scared to death as Corky’s brave friends were, I finally persuaded them to help me.

“With the jackdaw still firmly clutching his vitals, Corky watched us as we slipped under the floor of the cage and set to work.

“It wasn’t easy. And if my husband’s life hadn’t depended on it I doubt very much whether it would have been done in time. The main difficulty was in getting started. As you all know – but perhaps the Doctor and Tommy do not – to begin biting a hole in the middle of a flat board is, even for a mouse, an almost impossible task. To chew off a corner, or to widen an old hole that has been already begun, that’s different.

“However, I was desperate; and somehow – my teeth were sore for weeks afterwards – I got four holes started in the bottom of that cage, one in each corner, in the first quarter of an hour. Then I got eight other mice, two to each hole, to continue the work. As soon as one mouse’s jaws got tired I took him off the job and put a fresh mouse on. I even went down into the foundations of the stables and gathered together all the mice I could find. Corky had always been popular with the neighbourhood; and as soon as they heard that his life was in danger they were willing enough to assist. In this way I had continuous relays of fresh help at work.

“Before very long we had those four holes pretty nearly joined up. There was only a little strip of wood scarcely wider than a pencil keeping the bottom of that cage from falling right out, whole.

“The old jackdaw, still clutching his wretched victim, watched the work with an eagle eye. His plan was, as soon as the bottom fell, to pry the cage over on its side. This he could easily do directly he got his feet on the window-sill, because the cage wasn’t very heavy.

“Well, we only just finished in time – in time for Corky, that is. Because I’m certain that if we had been interrupted before we had it done the jackdaw would have surely killed him. As the bottom of the cage clattered out Lucifer let go his victim at last, and with one twist of his powerful bill, not only threw the cage on its side, but hurled it right down to the stable floor – with Corky inside it.

“At that moment the lad came in and saw his precious pet standing, free, on the window-sill. He leaped to grab him. But Lucifer with one curving swoop skimmed neatly over his head and out through the stable door into the wide world; while all around the bewildered lad the mice, who had freed the bird whom they hated worse than poison, scuttled and scattered to safety.”

• • • • •

•   24   •

Moorsden Manor

At this point, before anyone was quite certain whether the Stable Mouse had finished her story or not, some sort of a commotion started at the back of the hall. There was a great deal of excited whispering and we could see that some new arrival had just turned up in a very breathless state. He seemed to be demanding to speak with the Doctor at once.

The white mouse, as president and chairman of the meeting, started for the back of the hall to see what all the excitement was about. But the newcomer was apparently in much too great a hurry to stand on ceremony; and before the white mouse had more than got out of his seat he could be seen elbowing his way through the crowd making for John Dolittle.

“Doctor,” he cried, “there’s a fire over at Moorsden Manor. It’s in the cellar. And everybody’s asleep and no one knows anything about it.”

“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor, rising and looking at his watch – “Asleep! Is it as late as that? – Why, so it is. Nearly an hour past midnight! What’s in the cellar – wood, coal?”

“It’s chock full of wood,” said the mouse. “But the fire hasn’t got to it yet – thank goodness! My nest, with five babies in it, is right in the middle of the wood pile. The wife thought the best thing I could do would be to come and tell you. Nobody else understands our language, anyway. She’s staying with the children. The fire started in a heap of old sacks lying in a corner of the cellar. The place is full of smoke already. There is no chance of our carrying the babies out because there are too many cats around. Once the fire reaches the wood it’s all up with us. Won’t you come – quick, Doctor?”

“Of course I will,” said John Dolittle. He was already scrabbling his way out through the tunnel, nearly wrecking the Rat and Mouse Club on the way. “Stubbins,” he called as he reached the top, “go and wake Bumpo – and send Jip along to Matthew’s house. We’d better get all the help we can. If the blaze hasn’t gone too far we can probably get it under all right. Here’s a note that Jip can give to Matthew, for the fire brigade – but it always takes them an eternity to get on the scene.”

He hastily scribbled a few words on an old envelope with which I dashed off in one direction while he disappeared in another.

For the next fifteen minutes I was occupied in getting first Jip and then Bumpo aroused and informed of the situation. Bumpo was always the slowest man in the world to wake up. But after a good deal of hard work I managed to get him interested in clothes – and fires. Jip I had already sent trotting down the Oxenthorpe Road with his note to fetch Matthew to the scene.

Then I clutched Bumpo (still only half dressed and half awake) firmly by the hand and hurried off after the Doctor in the direction of the fire.

Now Moorsden Manor was the largest and most pretentious private residence in Puddleby. Like the Doctor’s home, it was on the outskirts of the town and was surrounded by a large tract of its own land. Its present owner, Mr. Sidney Throgmorton, was a middle-aged man who had only recently come into the property. His millionaire father had died the year before, leaving him this and several other handsome estates in different parts of England and Scotland. And many people had expressed surprise that he remained at the Manor all the year round when he had so many other castles and fine properties to go to.

The main gates to the estate were guarded by a lodge. And when I arrived I found the Doctor hammering on the door trying to wake the lodge-keeper up. The gates of course were locked; and the whole of the grounds were enclosed by a high wall which was much too high to climb over.

Almost at the same moment that Bumpo and I got there Matthew Mugg, led by Jip, also arrived.

“Good gracious!” the Doctor was saying as he thumped the door with his fist. “What sleepers! The whole place could burn down while we’re standing here. Can it be that the lodge is empty?”

“No,” said Matthew. “The keeper’s here – or his wife. One of them is always on duty. That I know. I’ll throw a stone against the window.”

It was only a small pebble that he threw; but the cat’s-meat man put such force behind it that it went right through the pane with a crash.

Indignant shouts from inside told us that at last we had succeeded in arousing someone. And a few moments later a man in a nightshirt, with a shotgun in one hand and a candle in the other, appeared at the door. As the Doctor stepped forward he quickly set the candle down and raised the gun as if to shoot.

“It’s all right,” said John Dolittle. “I’ve only come to warn you. There’s a fire up at the Manor – in the cellar. The people must be roused at once. Let me through, please.”

“I will not let you through,” said the man stubbornly. “I heard tell of hold-up gangs playing that game afore. The cheek of you, coming breaking into my windows this time of night! And how do you come to know what’s going on up at the Manor?”

“A mouse told me about it,” said the Doctor. Then seeing the look of disbelief coming over the man’s face, he added, “Oh, don’t argue with me! I know there’s a fire there. Won’t you please let us in?”

But the man had apparently no intention whatever of doing so. And I cannot say that he should be altogether blamed for that. For with Bumpo and Matthew we certainly must have seemed a queer delegation to call in the middle of the night.

Goodness only knows how long we would have stood there while the fire in the Manor cellar went on growing, if Matthew hadn’t decided to deal with the situation in his own peculiar way. With a whispered word to Bumpo he suddenly ducked forward and wrenched the shotgun out of the lodge-keeper’s hands. Bumpo grabbed the candle that stood beside the door. And the fort was in our possession.

“Come on, Doctor,” said the cat’s-meat man. “There’s another door through here which leads into the grounds. We can’t wait to talk things over with him. Maybe when the brigade comes along in an hour or so he will believe there really is a fire.”

Bumpo had already found and opened the second door. And before the astonished keeper had had time to get his breath we were all through it and running up the drive that led to the big house.

“I suppose it will take us another age to get anyone awake here,” gasped the Doctor, as we arrived breathless before the imposing portico and gazed up at the high double doors.

“No, it won’t,” said Matthew. And he let off the lodge-keeper’s shotgun at the stars and started yelling, “Fire!” at the top of his voice. This din the Doctor, Bumpo and I added to by hammering on the panels and calling loudly for admittance.

But we did not have long to wait this time. The shotgun was a good alarm. Almost immediately lights appeared in various parts of the house. Next, several windows were thrown open and heads popped out demanding to know what was the matter.

“There’s a fire,” the Doctor kept shouting – “A fire in your house. Open the doors and let us in.”

A few minutes later the heavy bolts were shot back and an old man-servant with a candle opened the door.

“I can’t find the master,” he said to the Doctor. “He isn’t in his room. He must have fallen asleep in some other part of the house. All the rest have been woken up. But I can’t find the master.”

“Where’s the cellar?” asked the Doctor, taking the candle and hurrying by him. “Show me the way to the cellar.”

“But the master wouldn’t be in the cellar, Sir,” said the old man. “What do you want in the cellar?”

“A family of mice,” said the Doctor – “Young ones. They’re in great danger. Their nest is in the wood-pile. Show me the way, quick!”

• • • • •

•   25   •

The Fire

I think that, for both the Doctor and myself, that was one of the most extraordinary nights we ever experienced. John Dolittle, as everyone knows, had for a long time now taken no part whatever in the neighbourhood’s human affairs. Ever since he had given up his practise as an ordinary doctor and come to be looked upon as a crank naturalist, he had accepted the reputation and retired from all social life. While he was pleasant and kind to everyone, he avoided his neighbours even more than they avoided him.

And now suddenly, through this alarm of fire brought by the mouse from the Manor cellar, he found himself pitchforked by Fate, as it were, into a whole chain of happenings and concerns which he would have given a great deal to stay out of.

When Matthew, Bumpo and I followed him into the hall of the great house we found things in a pretty wild state of confusion. In various stages of dress and undress people were running up and down stairs, dragging trunks, throwing valuables over the banisters and generally behaving like a hen-roost in a panic. The smell of smoke was strong and pungent; and when more candles had been lit I could see that the hall was partly filled with it.

There was no need for the Doctor now to ask the way to the cellar. Over to the left of the hall there was a door leading downward by an old-fashioned winding stair. And through it the smoke was pouring upward at a terrible rate.

To my horror, the Doctor tied a handkerchief about his face, dashed through this doorway and disappeared into the screen of smoke before anyone had time to stop him. Seeing that Bumpo and I had it in our minds to follow, Matthew held out his hand.

“Don’t. You’d be more trouble than help to him,” he said. “If you keeled over, the Doctor would have to fetch you up too. Let’s get outside and break the cellar windows. It must be full of smoke down there – more smoke than fire, most likely. If we can let some of it out, maybe the Doctor can see what he’s doing.”

With that all three of us ran for the front door. On the way we bumped into the old man-servant who was still wandering aimlessly around, wringing his hands and wailing that he couldn’t find “the master.” Matthew grabbed him and shoved him along ahead of us into the front garden.

“Now,” said he, “where are the cellar windows? – Quick, lead us to ’em!”

Well, finally we got the poor old doddering butler to take us to the back of the house where, on either side of the kitchen door, there were two areaways with cellar windows in them. To his great astonishment and horror we promptly proceeded to kick the glass out of them. Heavy choking smoke immediately belched forth into our faces.

“Hulloa there! – Doctor!” gasped Matthew. “Are you all right?”

The cat’s-meat man had brought a bullseye lantern with him. He shone it down into the reeking blackness of the cellar. For a few moments, which seemed eternally long, I was in an agony of suspense waiting for the answering shout that didn’t come. Matthew glanced upward over his shoulder.

“Humph!” he grunted with a frown. “Looks as though we’ll have to organize a rescue party by the stair anyway.”

But just as he was about to step up out of the area I clutched him by the arm.

“Look!” I said, pointing downward.

And there in the beam of his lantern a hand could be seen coming through the reeking hole in the broken window. It was the Doctor’s hand. And in the hollow of the half-open palm five pink and hairless baby mice were nestling.

“Well, for the love of Methuselah!” muttered Matthew, taking the family and passing it up to me.

The Doctor’s hand withdrew and almost immediately reappeared again, this time with the thoroughly frightened mother-mouse – whom I also pocketed.

But Matthew didn’t wait for the Doctor’s hand to go back for anything else. He grabbed it by the wrist and with a mighty heave pulled John Dolittle, with the window-sash and all, up into the areaway. We saw at once that he was staggering and in pretty bad condition; and we half dragged, half lifted him out of the area, away from the choking smoke, to a lawn nearby. Here we stretched him out flat and undid his collar.

But before we had time to do anything else for him he began to struggle to his feet.

“I’m all right,” he gasped. “It was only the smoke. We must get a bucket chain started. The fire has just reached the wood pile. If it’s allowed to get a good hold the whole place will burn down.”

There is not the least doubt that that mouse who brought the news of the fire to the Doctor saved Moorsden Manor from total destruction – and possibly several lives as well. Certainly if it had not been for our efforts the place would never have been saved by those living there, even if they had been awakened in time. I never saw such an hysterical crew in my life. Everybody gave advice and nobody did anything. And the head of the servants, the old white-haired butler, continued to dodder around getting in everyone’s way, still asking if the master had been seen yet.

However, without waiting for assistance from anyone else, the Doctor, Matthew, Bumpo and I formed a bucket line on our own; and by it we conveyed from the kitchen sink a continuous supply of water to those burning sacks and firewood. And before very long nothing remained but a charred and hissing mass of what had promised to be a very serious conflagration.

In addition to this Matthew discovered a tap in the garden; and with the help of a hose which we got out of the stable we brought another stream into the cellar through the broken window which could be kept in constant readiness if the fire should break out again.

While we were attaching the hose in the garden a man suddenly appeared out of a shrubbery and accosted the Doctor in a distinctly unfriendly manner.

“Who are you?”

“I?” said the Doctor, a little taken aback. “I’m John Dolittle. Er – and you?”

“My name is Sidney Throgmorton,” said the man. “And I would like to know what you mean by breaking into my lodge at this hour of night, smashing windows and assaulting the keeper.”

“Why, good gracious!” said the Doctor. “We wanted to warn you about the fire. We hadn’t time to stand on ceremony. The keeper wouldn’t let us in. As it was, we only just got here in time. I think I can assure you that if we hadn’t got here the house would have been burned to the ground.”

I now saw in the gloom behind the man’s shoulder that the lodge-keeper was with him.

“You have acted in a very high-handed manner, Sir,” said Sidney Throgmorton. “My lodge-keeper has his orders as to whom he shall, and whom he shall not, admit. And there is a fire department in the town whose business it is to look after conflagrations. For you to thrust your way into my home in this violent and unwarrantable manner, in the middle of the night, is nothing short of a scandal, Sir – for which I have a good mind to have you arrested. I will ask you and your friends to leave my premises at once.”

• • • • •

•   26   •

The Leather Boxes

For a moment or two the Doctor was clearly about to reply. I could see by the dim light of Matthew’s lantern the anger and mortification struggling in his face. But finally he seemed to feel that to a man of this nature no words of explanation or justice would mean anything.

And certainly this Throgmorton person was an extraordinary individual. From his speech he seemed fairly well educated. But the whole of his bloated, red-faced appearance was as vulgar and as unprepossessing as it could be.

“My coat is in your cellar,” said the Doctor quietly at last. “I will get it. Then we will go.”

To add insult to injury, the man actually followed us down into the cellar, as though we might steal something if we were not watched. Here lamps were still burning which we had lit to help us in making sure that there were no sparks of fire left that might smoulder up again. The man muttered some expression of annoyance beneath his breath when he saw the water which flooded the floor.

At this last show of ingratitude for what we had done, Bumpo could contain his indignation no longer.

“Why, you discourteous and worm-like boor!” he began, advancing upon Throgmorton with battle in his eye.

“Please! Bumpo!” the Doctor interrupted. “No further words are necessary. We will go.”

By the brighter light of the lamps I now saw that Throgmorton carried beneath his arm several small leather boxes. In climbing up over the wood pile, in order to see what damage we might have done on the other side, he laid these down for a moment on top of a wine cask. I was close to Matthew. In the fraction of a second while Throgmorton’s back was turned I saw the cat’s-meat man open the upper one of the boxes, glance into it and shut it again.

The box contained four enormous diamond shirt-studs.

As soon as he had his coat the Doctor wasted no further time, but made his way, with us following him, up the stairs and out of the house which he had saved from destruction.

The keeper accompanied us to the lodge and let us out. Matthew, like Bumpo, was just burning up to speak his mind even to this representative of the establishment which had shown us such discourtesy. But the Doctor seemed determined there should be no further controversy and checked him every time he tried to open his mouth.

However, at the gate we met the fire brigade coming to the rescue. This was too much for Matthew’s self-control and he called to them as we stepped out on to the road,

“Oh, turn around and go back to bed! We put that fire out before you’d got your boots on.”

Outside the boundaries of the Moorsden Manor estate not even the Doctor could stay the tide of Matthew’s and Bumpo’s indignant eloquence.

“Well, of all the good-for-nothing, mangy, low-down ingrates,” the cat’s-meat man began, “that stuffed pillow of a millionaire takes the prize! After all we done for him! Getting up out of our beds, working like horses – all to keep his bloomin’ mansion from burning down. And then he tells us we’ve ruined his cellar by pouring water into it!”

“Such a creature,” said Bumpo, “would make anyone feel positively rebellious. In Oxford he would not be allowed, under any circumstances, to proceed further with his obnoxious existence. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I restrained myself from hitting him on the bono publico.”

“Enough,” said the Doctor. “Please don’t say any more. I am trying to forget it. The whole affair is just one of those incidents which it is no use thinking about or getting yourself worked up over afterwards. I’m often very grateful that life has made it possible for me to keep away from my neighbours and mind my own business. This occasion couldn’t be helped – but it has made me more grateful still. Thank goodness, anyway, that we got the mice out all right before the fire reached them. You have them safely in your pocket, Stubbins, have you not?”

“Yes,” said I, putting my hand in to make sure. “Oh, but, Doctor, your hat? Where is it? You’ve left it behind.”

John Dolittle raised his hand to his bare head.

“Dear me!” said he. “What a nuisance! – Well, I’ll have to go back, that’s all.”

I knew how he hated to. But the well-beloved headgear was too precious. In silence all four of us turned about.

The gate was still open from the arrival of the fire brigade. Unchallenged, we walked in and down the drive towards the house.

Half way along the avenue the Doctor paused.

“Perhaps it would be as well,” said he, “if you waited for me here. After all, there is no need for four of us to come to fetch a hat.”

He went on alone while we stood in the shadow of the trees. The moon had now risen and we could see more plainly.

I noticed that Matthew was restless and fidgety. He kept muttering to himself and peering after the Doctor down the drive. Presently in a determined whisper he jerked out,

“No. I’m blessed if I let him go alone! I don’t trust that Mr. Throgmorton. Come on, you chaps. Let’s follow the Doctor. Keep low, behind the trees. Don’t let yourselves be seen. But I’ve a notion he may need us.”

I had no idea what was in Matthew’s mind. But from experience I knew that usually when he acted on impulse, without rime or reason like this, he acted rightly. I always put it down to some mysterious quality he inherited with his gipsy blood.

So, like a band of Indian scouts, scuttling from tree to tree, we shadowed the Doctor up the avenue drive till he came to the clearing before the house. Here the fire brigade, with a great deal of pother and fuss, was in the act of departing – after its captain had made sure that the fire was really out. The big door lamps, either side of the portico, had been lighted and the courtyard was fairly well illumined. Mr. Throgmorton could be seen dismissing the firemen and their worthy captain. We saw John Dolittle go up to him, but he pretended to be too busy to attend to anything but the business of the fire brigade.

And it was only after the engine and ladder-wagon had clattered noisily away, leaving the courtyard empty save for him and the Doctor, that he deigned to notice John Dolittle’s presence. This time he did not wait for the Doctor to speak.

“You here again!” he shouted. “Didn’t I tell you to get off the premises? Clear out of here, or I’ll set the dogs on you.”

“I’ve come back for my hat,” said the Doctor, controlling himself with truly wonderful restraint. “It’s in the hall.”

“Get out of here!” the other repeated threateningly. “I’ll have no more of you suspicious characters messing round my place tonight. I find you smashed the windows in the cellar as well as the lodge. Clear out, unless you want the dogs after you.”

“I will not go,” said the Doctor, firmly, “until I have my hat.”

(“My goodness! But I’d love to give that fellow a crack on the jaw!” whispered Matthew, who was standing behind the same tree as myself.)

The Doctor’s answer seemed to infuriate Throgmorton beyond all bounds. He drew a whistle from his pocket and blew upon it loudly. An answering shout came from somewhere in the darkness of the gardens.

“Let go Dina and Wolf!” called Throgmorton.

(“That’s his two man-killing mastiffs,” chuckled Matthew in my ear. “I know ’em – regular savages. He keeps ’em to defend the place. Now we’ll see some fun.”)

• • • • •

•   27   •

The Watch Dogs

Next moment we heard a scraping rush of paws upon the gravel and two gigantic dogs bounded out of the gloom into the lighted courtyard.

“Grab ’im! – Go get ’im!” shouted Throgmorton.

Together the two dogs hurled themselves towards the figure of the stranger. Then Mr. Throgmorton got a great surprise. The stranger did not run or indeed show any panic whatever. But as he turned his face in the direction of the oncoming dogs he made some curious sounds, almost like another kind of growl answering theirs.

At this the two hounds behaved in a most curious manner. Instead of grasping their prey by the throat, they wagged their tails, licked his hand and generally carried on as though he were no stranger at all but a very old and dear friend of theirs. Then, in response to an order he gave them, they disappeared into the darkness from which they had come.

Beside me, behind the tree, Matthew covered his face with his hand to keep from laughing.

“I will now get my hat,” said the Doctor. And he walked calmly into the house.

As for Throgmorton, he was just speechless with rage. It had been his proud boast that these two mastiffs, Dina and Wolf, had, between them, killed a burglar who had once attempted to rob the Manor. To be made ridiculous like this by such a quiet small person was more than he could bear.

Within the hall the Doctor could now be seen on his way out – with the precious hat. Throgmorton withdrew into the shadow of a door-column and waited.

“Yes, I thought so!” muttered Matthew. And he slid like a shadow out from behind the tree and crept towards the figure of the waiting Throgmorton.

John Dolittle, unaware of anything beyond the fact that he was anxious to get away from this disagreeable establishment as soon as possible, stepped briskly forth on to the gravel. An enormous weight landed on his shoulders and bore him to the ground.

“I’ll teach you,” growled Throgmorton, “to walk in and out of my house as though you—”

But he got no further, for Matthew had landed on top of him just as he had landed on the Doctor.

But Sidney Throgmorton, in spite of his bloated, unwholesome appearance, was a heavy, powerful man. He rose and threw Matthew off as though he were a fly. And he was just about to aim a kick at the Doctor lying on the ground when he suddenly found himself gripped from behind and lifted off his feet like a doll.

Indeed Bumpo, softly crooning his favourite African battle-song, not only lifted him, but was now proceeding to carry his portly victim bodily away towards the building.

“Well!” said the Doctor, rising and brushing off his clothes, “what an offensive person! Who would ever have thought he’d do that? The man must be out of his senses. – Oh, Bumpo! Stop, stop, for heaven’s sake!”

John Dolittle leaped forward – and only just in time. For the Crown Prince of the Jollinginki was apparently just on the point of knocking Mr. Throgmorton’s brains out on his own doorstep.

“Well, but,” said he as the Doctor grabbed him, “is he not a useless and unsightly cucumbrance to the earth? – Permit me, Doctor. A little tap on the geranium and all will be well.”

“No, no,” said the Doctor, quickly. “You’re not in Africa, now, Bumpo. Put him down and let us be going.”

“I’ll have you all in jail for this,” grunted Throgmorton, as Bumpo let him fall heavily, like a large sack of potatoes, to the ground.

“If you take my tip,” grinned Matthew, “you’ll keep your silly mouth shut. There’s three witnesses here saw you make that attack on the Doctor – slinkin’ up and waitin’ for him behind the door-post. And don’t forget, his honesty is as well known as yours, you know – maybe better – even if folks do call him a crank. Your money can’t do everything.”

“And I have witnesses, too,” spluttered the other, “who saw you all breaking into my lodge and using violence on the keeper.”

“Yes, to save your hide and your house from burning,” added Matthew. “Go on and do your worst. I dare you to take it to any court.”

“Come, come!” said the Doctor, herding us away like children. “Let us be going. No more, Matthew – please! Come, Bumpo!”

And leaving the fuming, spluttering master of the Manor to pick himself up from the gravel, we walked down the drive.

On the return walk all four of us were silent – also a little tired for, as Matthew had said, we had worked hard at our thankless task. And we must have been more than half way to the house before anyone spoke. It was the cat’s-meat man.

“You know,” said he breaking out suddenly, “there’s something fishy about the whole thing. That’s my opinion.”

“How do you mean?” said the Doctor sleepily, trying to show polite interest.

“About his ingratitude,” said Matthew, “his wanting to get us off the place in such a hurry and – and, well, his general manner. I don’t believe he ever thought we were suspicious characters at all – maybe the lodge-keeper might have, but not the owner. Why, everyone in Puddleby knows you, Doctor – even if you don’t mix in with the society tea parties and the afternoon muffin-worries…. And then the way things was run, up at the house there: nobody in charge unless the ‘master’ is on the job. – And the master wasn’t…. Why wasn’t he? What was he doing all that time while old Moses was runnin’ round hollerin’ for him?… And why—”

“Oh, Matthew,” the Doctor broke in, “what’s the use of guessing and speculating about it? Personally, I must confess I don’t care what he was doing – or what he ever will do. Thank goodness, the whole stupid affair is over!”

But Matthew was much too wrapped up in his subject to dismiss it like that. And though he kept his voice low, as if he were talking to himself, he continued a quite audible one-man conversation for the rest of the way home.

“Yes, there’s a mystery there, all right. And if anybody was to get to the bottom of it I’ll bet they’d get a shock…. Why, even the lodge-keeper – there’s another queer thing: supposing he was scared by the way we woke him up, just the same, no man in his senses – orders or no orders – is going to take no notice of a fire alarm. If he didn’t want to let us in, he could anyway call to his wife and send her up to the Manor to find out. And then when he does follow us up to the house, and sees that there really is a fire, does he do anything to help us put it out? No, he does not. He goes and tells the precious ‘master’ how badly we treated him getting in to save ’em all from burning to death. – And, by the way, that’s still another queer thing: how did he know where to find the master? The old butler didn’t know – no, nor nobody else.”

The Doctor sighed gratefully as we finally reached the little gate. After this hard and trying night the thought of a good bed was very pleasant – as was also the prospect of getting a respite from Matthew’s thinking aloud.

• • • • •

•   28   •

The Scrap of Parchment

The rescued mouse family which I had brought home in my pocket were given quarters in the club. The white mouse personally saw to it that the very best furnished suite was given to them. And, of course, they immediately became public heroes in Mouse Town. The thrilling story they had to tell of the fire; the father-mouse’s midnight gallop for help; their perilous rescue by John Dolittle himself; and finally the Doctor’s treatment at the hands of the churlish owner of the Manor, was undoubtedly the sensation of the season.

Many of the members were so infuriated over the discourtesy shown to the Doctor that they wanted to organize a campaign of revenge – which would, I believe, have utterly ruined the Manor if they had been allowed to carry it out. For they planned to chew up the curtains, drill the panelling, eat holes in the tapestries, break the wine glasses, and a whole lot of other mischief which rats and mice can easily accomplish if they want to. But to their indignation, as to Matthew’s, the Doctor turned a deaf ear. He wanted to forget it.

Nevertheless, in the Rat and Mouse Club Throgmorton’s ingratitude and his scandalous behaviour continued for a long time the principal topic of conversation. And any mice from the Manor who dropped in of an evening were always the centre of attention while they stayed, so great was the public interest in gossip from that quarter.

And it was through this that the poor Doctor, despite his earnest desire to stay out of the affairs of Sidney Throgmorton or any other neighbours, found himself finally forced by circumstances to take further part in matters which he insisted were “none of his business.”

It began by the white mouse coming to me one night and saying,

“There’s a mouse just run over from the Manor who has lived up there for quite a while. He has something he wants to show the Doctor. But the poor man is always so busy I thought I’d speak to you first. Will you come down to the club and see him?”

“All right,” I said. And I left what I was doing and went down right away.

When I got into the Assembly Room I found a whole crowd of members gathered around a mouse who seemed quite pleased with the sensation he was creating. They were all staring at a torn scrap of paper about the size of a visiting card.

“I thought this might be of importance,” said the mouse to me. “Of course I can’t read what it says on it. But it is made of a very unusual kind of paper. That’s a subject I do know something about, paper. I wondered whether the Doctor ought to see it. Perhaps you can tell us.”

I examined the slip. It was nibbled irregularly all round the edges like any piece of paper would be that had been part of a mouse’s nest. But it was true: the paper itself was of a special kind. It was real parchment. Then I read the few words which were written in four lines across the scrap of parchment.

Well, after that I decided that the Doctor ought to see it. And without further ado I took it to him and told him so.

Matthew happened to be with him in the study at the time. And in spite of the fact that he couldn’t read, he became quite interested as soon as he heard where the paper had come from.

“But what made the mouse think it would be of importance?” asked the Doctor, as he took it from me and put on his spectacles.

“On account of the nature of the paper,” I said. “It’s real parchment, the kind they use for special legal documents.”

While the Doctor was reading the few words written on the torn scrap I watched his face carefully. And I felt sure from his expression that he guessed what I had guessed. But he evidently wasn’t going to admit it. Rather hurriedly he handed it back to me.

“Yes, er – quite interesting, Stubbins,” said he, turning to his work at the table. “I’m rather busy just now. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”

This was his polite way of telling me to go away and not bother him. And in the circumstances I felt there wasn’t anything else for me to do but go.

Matthew’s interest, on the other hand, was growing rather than diminishing. And as I left the room he followed me out. “What do you make of that, Tommy?” he asked as soon as we had closed the door behind us.

“Why, between ourselves, Matthew,” said I, “I think it’s a will – or rather a piece of one. What’s more, I believe the Doctor thinks so, too. But it is quite clear that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. And nobody can blame him, after all he had to put up with from that horrible Throgmorton.”

“A will?” said Matthew. “Whose will?”

“We don’t know,” I said. “This is all we have, just a corner of it.”

“A will, eh?” he muttered again. “I wonder where that would fit in…. Humph!”

“What do you mean, fit in?” I asked.

“Into the puzzle,” he said, staring at the floor rapt in thought.

“I don’t understand you, Matthew,” said I rather impatiently. “What puzzle?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said he, “after I’ve found out a little more. But I knew I was right. There was a mystery in that house. Keep that piece of paper carefully.”

And at that he left me, with the scrap of parchment in my hand, pondering over his words.

• • • • •

•   29   •

The Coming of Kling

For several days after that I saw nothing of Matthew. Moreover, while I was deeply interested in what he had said, I had very little time to think further of his “mystery.” For I was kept exceptionally busy with my ordinary duties as Assistant Manager of the Dolittle Zoo, in general – and in particular with the arrival of Kling.

Kling, who later came to be known among us as “The Detective Dog,” was such an unusual animal that I feel I ought to devote a little space to telling how he came to join the zoo.

One day while Jip was wandering around the streets on his own, as he often did, he came upon a mongrel terrier who was evidently very sick. He was lying in a corner by a wall, groaning pitifully.

“What’s the matter?” said Jip, going up to him.

“I’ve just eaten a rat,” said the dog. “And I have a dreadful stomach-ache.”

“My gracious!” said Jip. “Eating rats at this season! Don’t you know any better than that? You should never eat rats when there isn’t an R in the month. Why, they’re rank poison!”

“What’s the R mean?” asked the mongrel, groaning again.

“Why, Rats of course,” said Jip. “Come along to the Doctor at once. He’ll soon give you something that will put your stomach right. What’s your name?”

“Kling,” said the mongrel. “Thanks, but I’m afraid I’m too ill to walk.”

“All right, Kling,” said Jip. “You wait here and I’ll go and get the Doctor.”

Jip dashed away at top speed, muttering to himself that he must speak to John Dolittle about instituting a Dog Ambulance for urgent cases of this kind.

When he got to the house he found that the Doctor was out. So he came to me instead. Together we hurried off at once to the rescue of the sick mongrel.

I saw right away that the patient was pretty far gone and that it would need very prompt treatment to save him. I gathered him up in my arms, sent Jip off to scour the town for the Doctor and hurried back as fast as I could to the house.

There I found that John Dolittle had returned during my absence. I rushed the patient into the surgery where the Doctor immediately examined him.

“It’s a case of poisoning,” he said. “Very likely the rat you ate had been poisoned. But we can fix you up all right. You had better stay here for a few days. You can sleep in the parlour – where I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Here, drink this. Now, Stubbins, carry him in to the sofa and put some blankets over him. He has a temperature and mustn’t get chilled. Tell me, Kling, how did you come to eat a rat anyway?”

“I was starving,” said the mongrel rather shamefacedly. “Hadn’t had a meal in two days.”

“Well, next time,” said the Doctor, “come round to our zoo – The Home for Cross-bred Dogs, you know. You can always get a meal there. But please, don’t eat rats.”

Quite early the following morning I heard a most extraordinary noise in the Doctor’s bedroom. It sounded as though he were moving every piece of furniture from its usual position and generally turning the place upside down. I was about to go up to see what was the matter, when he opened his door and called to me.

“Oh, Stubbins, have you seen anything of a boot of mine? I can’t find it anywhere – the left one.”

“No, Doctor,” I said, “I haven’t.”

“It’s most peculiar,” said he. “I could have sworn I left it – both of them – beside the bed last night, just where I always take them off.”

My own first duty that morning was of course to see how the new patient, Kling, was getting on. And as soon as I got downstairs I went straight to the parlour. Imagine my astonishment to find the sofa empty and the patient gone!

Utterly puzzled, I wandered out through the French window into the garden. And there, in the middle of the lawn, I found not only Kling, but the Doctor’s boot as well – which the new patient was thoughtfully chewing. As I ran to him, the Doctor also arrived, with his remaining boot on one foot and a bright red slipper on the other.

“Good gracious!” said John Dolittle. “You made a quick recovery, Kling. I didn’t give you permission to get up yet. What are you doing with my boot?”

There was really no need to ask. Even before the Doctor stooped and picked it up, anyone could see that the dog had chewed a large hole in the side.

“Dear me!” said John Dolittle. “Just look at that! Now what will I do?”

“Oh, did you want those boots?” said Kling apologetically. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Doctor. I thought they were an old pair you had thrown away.”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “They’re my best boots – my only boots, in fact. Listen, Stubbins: after breakfast would you mind running down with this to your father? Give him my compliments and ask him if he would be good enough to patch it while you wait. I’ve got to go up to town tonight to address a meeting of the Zoological Society, and I can’t very well go in red slippers…. But tell me, Kling: how comes it that you still chew boots? You’re no longer a puppy, you know.”

“No,” said Kling, “that’s true. But I’ve never got out of the habit since my childhood days. It is strange, I know. My mother always said it meant I was a genius; but my father said it was clearly a sign I was just a plain fool and would never grow up.”

“Well, Kling,” said the Doctor, “I suppose I’ll have to get you a pair of shoes of your own to chew. I can’t let you have mine, you know. Er – would you prefer brown or black?”

“Brown, please,” said Kling. “They usually taste better. And would you mind if I had them buttoned instead of laced. I find chewing the buttons off almost the best part – very soothing.”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “But we may find it hard to get brown buttoned boots in Puddleby. It’s not a very up-to-date shopping centre, you understand. Perhaps you had better come with me. It’s no use my buying you a pair of shoes that doesn’t suit you. And I doubt if they will change them after you’ve tried them on – on your teeth, I mean.”

So that was how John Dolittle added yet another story to his reputation in the neighbourhood for eccentricity and craziness. After breakfast, while I took his damaged boot to my father’s to be repaired, he took the mongrel Kling to the largest shoe shop in the town to buy him a pair of boots. The salesman was somewhat slow in getting it through his head that the customer (who was wearing slippers) wanted the shoes for the dog and not for himself. And for a whole week afterwards he entertained the neighbouring shop-keepers by telling them how the Doctor had requested that all the brown buttoned boots in the shop be set out in a row on the floor; and how this ill-conditioned, half-bred dog had then, at the Doctor’s invitation, gone down the line and made his selection.

Kling himself insisted that his rapid recovery from the severe attack of ptomaine poisoning was largely aided by the soothing effect of chewing brown shoe leather. And certainly by that evening he seemed entirely himself and was frisking round the garden as lively as a puppy.

“Chewing a new pair of boots always makes me feel young again,” said he, leaping over the flower beds.

The whole of the Doctor’s household as well as all the members of the Home for Cross-bred Dogs and the Dolittle Zoo took to Kling at once. And both the Doctor and I agreed that we had never met a more interesting personality in dogs – in spite of his juvenile fondness for boots. He was a good example of that rule which John Dolittle had more than once maintained: that the mongrels often have more character than the thoroughbreds. And it was, I think, greatly to the credit of our whole establishment that none of the other animals (not even Toby, the privileged) showed the least jealousy over the great popularity that Kling enjoyed from the first day of his joining the zoo.

• • • • •

•   30   •

The Mystery
of Moorsden Manor

Of course it was not long after I had taken the scrap of torn parchment to John Dolittle that the white mouse came to me demanding to know what the Doctor had said about it. I had to disappoint him terribly by telling him that he had refused to show any interest in it whatever.

Jip was in my room at the time that the white mouse called. He had never quite forgiven me for having him sent back home the night of the fire – especially after he had learned later that there had been a fight and that his beloved Doctor had been treated discourteously by Throgmorton.

It was after supper, about half past eight. And while the white mouse and I were talking the cat’s-meat man also dropped in. I had not seen him in several days.

“Well, Matthew,” I said, “how are you getting on with your mystery?”

“Humph!” he muttered, sinking into an armchair. “It’s still a mystery all right.”

Jip cocked up his ears at that and wanted to know what we were talking about. I explained to him, in dog language, that Matthew Mugg was sure from certain things he had observed that night at the Manor that there was some mystery connected with the house and its owner.

“Tommy,” said Matthew, “I can’t get much forrarder until we find the rest of that will.”

“I’m afraid that may be hard,” said I, “from what enquiries I’ve made.”

“Listen,” the white mouse whispered to me: “I can get that mouse from the Manor for you any time you want.”

“All right,” I said. “Send for him, will you, please? There’s always a chance that he may have found out something since.”

Thereupon the white mouse disappeared and Matthew and I went on with our conversation.

But it could not have been more than a quarter of an hour before the white mouse was back at my elbow again. And with him he had the mouse who had brought us the scrap of parchment.

“Tell me,” I said to the Manor mouse, “did you ever find out anything more about the rest of that paper?”

“As it happens,” said he, “I did – tonight. The scrap, as I told you, had been in a mouse nest – an old one which I had discovered by accident and taken to pieces. You see, I was going to rebuild it into a new one for myself. Well, this evening I met the owner of that old nest.”

“Ah!” I said. “That sounds like news. And what did he tell you?”

“Well,” said the Manor mouse, “the reason I hadn’t met him before – as you know, I had made enquiries of all the rats and mice in the mansion – was that he had moved out of the house to a sort of potting-shed place in the garden. I happened to go out there looking for last year’s chestnuts; and that’s how I ran into him. He’s very, very old – quite feeble in fact. But he had lived longer in the Manor than any of us.”

“Yes,” I said, “but get on to the business of the parchment. What did he tell you about that?”

“It seems that it was in the days of this Mr. Throgmorton’s father when, he told me, he had lived in the old man’s study on the first floor. He was building a nest for himself and his wife, and he made it behind the panelling – between the panelling and the wall. Nesting materials were hard to find. And he got into old Mr. Throgmorton’s desk – by drilling a hole through the back – and went through all the drawers looking for stuff he could use to make a nest of. Papers and red tape were about all he could find. And among the papers he chewed corners off, there was this large sheet which the old man kept locked up in the top drawer. My friend used it for a foundation for his nest because he saw it was nice and thick and would keep the draughts out. It seems the old man considered the paper important; because when, a few days later, he opened the drawer and found the corner chewed off, he swore and carried on something dreadful. This mouse was watching from behind the clock on the mantelpiece and he says he never saw anyone get so angry. The old man saw right away that it was the work of mice, from the way in which the paper was nibbled. He hunted high and low for that missing corner – turned all the furniture in the whole room inside out. But of course he didn’t find it because it was behind the panelling in my friend’s nest. At last he gave it up and took the larger piece of the parchment away and hid it somewhere else.”

“Where?” I asked, rising half out of my chair. “The old mouse said he didn’t know. But wherever it was, it wasn’t in the study.”

I sank back disappointed.

“Do you think,” I asked, “that if all the mice in the house went to work on it they could find it for us?”

The Manor mouse shook his head.

“As a matter of fact,” said he, “we have tried. As soon as we learned from the gossip at the Club that you were interested in the paper we began a search on our own. But no trace of it could we find.”

I translated for Matthew’s benefit what the Manor mouse had said and his disappointment was even greater than mine.

“But tell me, Matthew,” I said, “didn’t you succeed in finding anything out yourself? When last I saw you you were going to do some investigating on your own account.”

“It wasn’t so easy,” said he, “for this reason: when the old man died and this Mr. Throgmorton came into the property, all the servants were changed. That’s suspicious in itself of course. So trying to find out much about the family from gossip and hearsay was kind of hard. I learned some things, but nothing that seemed to help solve the problem.”

At this point Jip came up to my chair and nudged my knee beneath the table.

“Tommy,” said he, “for solving problems the best hands I know are Cheapside and Kling.”

“Humph!” I muttered. “Cheapside I could understand, because he is in touch with the gossip of the street sparrows. But why Kling? Why should he be good at solving problems?”

“Why, my gracious!” said Jip. “He knows an awful lot about crime and the – er – underworld and all that. He belonged to a thief once.”

“To a thief!” I cried.

“Yes. You ought to get him sometime to tell you the story of his life. You never heard anything so thrilling. When he was quite a puppy he was stolen by a sort of tramp person who specially trained him in all sorts of queer dodges. This tramp used to walk through the streets with Kling on a string. And to anybody passing who looked well-off, he’d say, ‘Do you want to buy a dog?’ And they would usually say, ‘Yes’ in the end, because Kling had been taught all manner of cunning tricks to fascinate them with. Then Kling, after he’d been sold, would run away from the new owner and come back to the tramp. He was trained to do that too, you see. And then the tramp would take him away to a new town and sell him over again. Kling says that man once sold him twelve times in one month. But later the tramp invented another way to make money even faster. He trained Kling to learn the geography of the new houses he went to, and especially where the silver and valuables were kept. And the tramp would come later and rob the house, Kling acting as guide for him and showing him over the place. Then together they would go off again to a new town.”

“Goodness me!” I said. “What an awful record!”

“Yes,” said Jip. “But Kling had no idea he was doing wrong, until one day he got talking about his adventures to a parson’s dog who was highly scandalized and persuaded him to give up the life of crime. So Kling, in spite of the fact that the tramp had always treated him kindly, ran away the first chance he got and never went back to him again.

“Oh, my, yes, Kling’s awfully well up on crime. You see, in his life with the tramp he fell in with many queer birds, regular gangs of crooks, you know. And in that way he learned a lot about the tricks and dodges of different kinds of criminals. And then later he got a job as a police dog in Belgium and he was used to hunt down lawbreakers. Why, in Brussels, I understand, he was known as ‘The Dog Detective.’ Had no end of a reputation. But he didn’t care for that work and after a year or so he ran away again. Then for a while he was a tramp himself – a dog tramp – said he wanted to see the world. He’s had a wonderful career. And you’d never think it – unassuming and quiet, the way he is. On first meeting him one might almost think he was stupid, dragging that chewed-up shoe of his around. But I feel sure that if you and Matthew have a problem you want to solve you couldn’t do better than consult Kling.”

“Yes, I believe you’re right, Jip,” I said. “Go and ask him if he’ll come and talk to us, will you? Don’t say anything about it to the other members of the Home for Cross-bred Dogs. You know how enthusiastic they get. But if you happen to see Cheapside in the garden ask him to drop in too, will you?”

While Jip was gone I explained to Matthew roughly what it was we proposed to do. Kling hadn’t met Matthew yet, having arrived during the few days while the cat’s-meat man had been off “investigating” as he called it.

But when, followed by Jip, the Detective Dog strolled into the room carrying one of his new chewing-boots, I thought I saw Matthew start almost uneasily. Kling too behaved in a rather odd manner. He stared hard at Matthew a moment through half-closed lids, as though he were trying to remember something. Then with a shake of his shoulders he settled down on the floor and began turning his boot over between his paws to find a good place to chew. Jip shot a glance at me that spoke volumes.

Knowing that Matthew didn’t understand dog talk, I began by asking Kling if he had ever seen him before.

The mongrel thoughtfully pulled a button off his boot before answering.

“Oh, well,” he said, “what does it matter? He’s a friend of yours – and the Doctor’s. I’ve met an awful lot of people, you know. After all, a man’s past is his own. I believe in letting bygones be bygones…. Jip tells me you have something you wanted to see me about.”

“Yes,” I said. “We have a problem – a sort of a mystery. Ah! Here’s Cheapside too. Good! We’ll be glad to have his opinion as well.”

• • • • •

•   31   •

The Dog Detective

Then from beginning to end, leaving out nothing that I thought might be helpful, I told Kling the story of our midnight summons to the fire at Moorsden Manor and all that followed it.

Jip was right when he said that anyone might at first sight think that Kling was stupid. While I talked he went on chewing his boot as though his whole attention was absorbed in that and not in what I was saying. But I soon found out that he had not only heard what I had said but that he remembered it, every word.

“Well,” he began when I was done, “in a case like this the first thing I would do is to build up a story. By that I mean you lay the mystery out – you solve it before you begin, by guess work, in other words. Then you go to work and see if you are right or not. Tell me: when you finally found Mr. Throgmorton – or rather when he found you – had he anything with him?”

“Yes,” I said, “some small leather boxes.”

“Did you by any chance find out what they contained?”

“Yes,” I said again. “Matthew opened one when Throgmorton wasn’t looking. It had four large diamond studs in it.”

Kling nodded thoughtfully.

“And these two ferocious watch-dogs,” he went on presently, “weren’t they usually kept inside the house? Perhaps Matthew knows.”

I questioned the cat’s-meat man.

“Yes,” said he. “And that’s still another queer thing I hadn’t thought of before. The dogs were always brought into the house after dark and left loose to roam where they would. When they killed that burglar, they caught him just as he was opening the silver drawer in the butler’s pantry. I heard that from one of the gardeners. Yes, it was queer that that night Dina and Wolf were not inside the house at all. They were being kept by someone. It seemed as though they came from the stable.”

I interpreted to Kling. And he nodded again as though it all fitted in with his picture.

“Well, then,” he said after a moment’s thought, “let us begin and build. Perhaps for the benefit of Matthew you had better explain to him once in a while what I am saying, so we can see whether he agrees with it or not. We will start off by supposing that since Mr. Throgmorton was so annoyed with you – you who came to put the fire out – that he lighted it himself.”

I jumped slightly. It was such a startling idea.

“Just a minute, Kling,” I said. “I’ll put that to Matthew.”

The cat’s-meat man, when I told him, also jumped.

“Why, that’s a notion!” said he. “A notion and a half, by Jiminy. And yet it fits in with some things, all right. I’d been thinking all the time that he was trying to get us off the place because he was doing something up there he hadn’t oughter. I never thought of his setting fire to his own mansion – must be worth thousands and thousands of pounds, that place, with all the stuff in it. And then he kicked because we’d broken the windows. That don’t sound as though he didn’t care about the house…. Just the same, it’s an idea worth followin’ up. Tell the dog to go on.”

“You see,” Kling continued, “the fact that Sidney Throgmorton had his jewellry with him, also that this was the only night that the dogs were not kept in the house, makes it look as though he expected the fire anyway.”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s so. But his loss would have been enormous just the same.”

“Wait,” said Kling. “Maybe we’ll find that his loss would have been still more enormous if he didn’t have the fire…. Well, to proceed: Now having supposed that Throgmorton set fire to his own house – it has been done before – I’ve known cases myself – the next question is: What did he want to burn it down for? He wanted to get rid of something, we’ll say. What did he want to get rid of? Had he any people in it he wanted to kill?”

I questioned Matthew. The answer was: None that he knew of.

“Any brothers or sisters?” asked Kling.

“None,” said Matthew. “That I know for sure.”

“Very well,” Kling went on, “then he wanted to destroy some thing, since people are out of the question. Why didn’t he find the thing and get rid of it, instead of burning down a valuable house? Because he had tried and couldn’t find it? Possibly. And almost certainly, if it was—”

“A will?” I broke in.

“Exactly,” said Kling nodding. “Yet why destroy a will? Because in it he knew, or guessed, that his father had left the property, not to him, the son, but to some other parties. If there was no will he would get all the property because he was the only child. So, guessing there had been a will made; almost certain it was in that house; unable to find it himself but terrified that someone else might – don’t forget that he got rid of all the old servants and bought two ferocious watch-dogs to keep people out – finally he determines to burn the whole place up and the will with it. What does that loss matter when he had a dozen other houses and estates – which he never visited, fearing to leave the Manor lest someone find the will while he is gone?”

• • • • •

•   32   •

Old Mr. Throgmorton

“It fits, it fits!” cried Matthew, jumping up in his excitement when I had explained what Kling had said. “The gardener told me the father and son could never get along together. And that’s why Sidney Throgmorton stayed abroad most of the time till after the old man died. And the father didn’t want it known that they couldn’t agree, see? So of course he would keep the will dark. It all fits like a glove. The dog’s a wizard. But listen: we ought to do something quick. That man is liable to try and burn the house down again any minute.”

One would have thought to hear the cat’s-meat man talk that it was he who would lose most by the will’s destruction. And I must confess that the fascination of the mystery and the desire to frustrate the iniquitous Sidney Throgmorton had me too in its grip by this time.

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll make another attempt in a hurry,” I said. “It would look fishy. After all, he has got to be careful, you see. If he knows there was a will, then what he tried to do was a criminal offence – goodness, I don’t wonder he was mad with us!”

“The next step for you, I should say,” Kling went on, “is to try and find out to whom the old Throgmorton would have been most likely to leave his money.”

At that Cheapside, whom in our interest we had forgotten all about, hopped onto the table and started talking.

“Folks,” said he, “I think I can help you there, maybe. I saw a good deal of the old Mr. Throgmorton, and a mighty fine gentleman he was. It wasn’t at Moorsden Manor that I saw him, because he only spent a week or two out of every year here. But to one of his other places, Bencote Castle, down in Sussex, I used to go regular, at one time, in the early Autumn. The old man, as maybe you know, retired from business when he was getting on in years. And ’e spent ’is old age, pleasant like, raisin’ prize stock, cows, sheep and horses – specially heavy draught horses. He was good to animals all round, was old Jonathan T. Throgmorton. He had bird-fountains put out in all his gardens, nesting boxes in the trees and everything. And he gave one of his footmen the special job of throwing out crumbs every morning for the sparrows and wild birds. Some days, when the old man was well enough, he used to do it himself. That’s how I came to know him. Besides all that, he did a whole lot towards making life easier for work animals – paid to have drinking-troughs put up for horses, and kept extra help-teams, at his own expense, on all the bad hills in more than one town where he had homes. He was a friend to animals and a fine old gent, if ever there was one. I wouldn’t wonder, Tommy, if he left part of this fortune to the same cause, the happiness of animals.”

Before Cheapside had quite finished speaking I got out my pocket-book in which I had carefully preserved the scrap of parchment. I spread the fragment out and re-read the few words which had been nibbled from the will. They were in four lines. The first line ran: “trustees who shall have – – .” The second line, beginning a new paragraph, was: “I bequeath – – .” The third: “by said party or parties – – .” And the last: “an Association for pre – – .”

To everyone’s astonishment I suddenly sprang up and said:

“Let’s all go and see the Doctor – just as quickly as we possibly can.”

The Manor mouse excused himself, saying that he ought to be getting back home as it was late and his wife might be anxious. As we left the room the white mouse told me he would accompany his friend as far as the gate and would rejoin me in a minute or two. Together the rest of us, Matthew, Jip, Kling, Cheapside and I, proceeded at once to the study, where we found John Dolittle, as usual, at work on his books.

“Doctor,” I cried bursting in, “I’m dreadfully sorry to interrupt you, but I really feel you ought to hear this.”

With a patient sigh he laid down his pen as I poured forth my tale.

“Now don’t you see, Doctor,” I ended showing him the scrap of parchment again, “it is practically certain that when this piece is joined to the rest that last line will read, ‘an Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,’ or some such title. For that is the cause in which this man had already spent great sums of money while he was alive. And that is the cause which the wretched son Sidney Throgmorton has robbed of probably a large fortune. Doctor, it is the animals who have been cheated.”

We all watched the Doctor’s face eagerly as he pondered for a silent moment over my somewhat dramatic harangue. At length I thought I saw from his expression signs of sympathy, if not agreement.

“But, Stubbins,” said he quietly, “aren’t you basing most of this on guesswork, conjecture – though I admit it sounds plausible enough. Tell me: what do you want me to do?”

“Doctor,” I said, “we’ve got to get that will.”

“Yes, yes, I quite see that,” said he. “But how? Even if we got into the house – risking arrest for burglary and all that – what chance would we stand of finding it, if Sidney Throgmorton, living there all the time and hunting for it ever since his father’s death, couldn’t find it?”

I saw at once that he was right. The difficulties of the task I proposed were enormous. But while I stood there silent, discouraged and perplexed, I suddenly heard the white mouse out in the passage squeaking at the top of his voice:

“Tommy, Tommy! – They’ve found it. They’ve found it! The mice have found the will.”

• • • • •

•   33   •

The Secret Cupboard

The white mouse was so breathless with running when he appeared at the study door that he could hardly talk. I lifted him to the table, where between puffs he finally managed to give us his message.

Apparently just as he was seeing the Manor mouse off at the gate a rat had run up and said that they had at last located the document. The old man had hidden it, it seemed, in a secret cupboard on the top floor of the house. They couldn’t get the will out because it was a large heavy roll of parchment; and the hole which they had made into the cupboard (through the brickwork at the back) was very, very small. Indeed, it was so tiny that the two rats who had made it couldn’t get through it. But they could see that there were papers of some sort inside. So they had got the very smallest mouse in the Manor and sent him in to make an examination and give them a report. And they were now quite certain that the document was the will, because it was made of the same kind of parchment and had a corner missing corresponding with the one in my possession.

Well, as you can imagine, the excitement among us was tremendous. And when, a moment later, the rat in question himself appeared, confirmed the story and offered to lead the Doctor at once to the secret cupboard, I could see that the thrill of the Moorsden Manor Mystery was beginning at last to take hold of John Dolittle himself. Matthew was all for starting right away.

“No, now wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Not so fast. This is a serious thing. If we should be wrong and get caught we will have hard work to explain our actions – especially with Sidney Throgmorton anxious to put us all in jail anyway. We must proceed carefully and make as few mistakes as possible. Let me see: what time is it? – Eleven forty-five. We couldn’t attempt it before two o’clock in the morning anyhow. We must be sure everyone’s abed first. Listen, Jip: you run over there to the Manor and tell – by the way, could you get into the grounds, do you think?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jip. “I can slip through the bars of that big gate easily.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “don’t be seen, for heaven’s sake. They might shoot you. Then just nose quietly round the house till you get a chance to speak to those two watch-dogs, Dina and Wolf. Tell them to expect me about two o’clock. Goodness knows how I’m going to get into the house. That I’ll have to find out when I get there. Anyway, tell them not to be worried or give any alarm if they hear latches being forced or anything like that. Do you understand?”

“All right,” said Jip. And he hopped through the open window into the darkness of the garden and was gone.

“Now the next thing,” said the Doctor, “we’ll need a rope. See if you can find my alpine rope up in the attic, Stubbins, will you, please?”

“Shall we be taking Bumpo along, Doctor?” asked Matthew. “Better, don’t you think? He’s a handy man in a tight place.”

“Er – yes, I suppose so,” said John Dolittle. “Though the trouble with Bumpo is that he is sometimes a trifle too handy.”

“Then I’ll go and start getting him woke up,” said the cat’s-meat man. “It’s a long job as a rule.”

Well, although we had two and a quarter hours in which to make our preparations it did not seem any too long. One after another the Doctor, Matthew, Kling, Cheapside, the white mouse and I would keep thinking of things we ought to take, or do, to insure success to the expedition. And when John Dolittle finally looked at his watch and said that we ought to be starting, it did not seem as though more than a few minutes had elapsed since he had made up his mind to embark upon the venture.

Fortunately there would be no moon till somewhere where about three o’clock in the morning. So, to begin with anyhow, we had the protection of pretty complete darkness.

In spite of the fact that I shared Polynesia’s confidence in the Doctor’s luck and success, I must confess I felt quite thrilled by the risks ahead of us as we quietly opened the gate and trailed down to the road.

The Doctor and Matthew had worked out most of the details of our campaign before we left and had assigned to each of us what parts we were to play. So there was no talking as we plodded silently along the road towards the Manor.

At a point where the limb of a large ash tree overhung the high wall of the estate we halted and the Doctor uncoiled his rope. With the aid of a stone tied to a long length of twine, we got the rope’s end hauled up over the branch and down to the road again. Up this we all swarmed in turn. Meanwhile Cheapside kept watch in the branches above to see that no one surprised us on the Manor side, and Kling below kept an eye open for late way-farers that might pass along the road.

When all of us were inside the grounds and the rope hauled over after us, Kling went off to enter, like Jip, through the bars of the gate.

When I got down out of the tree the first thing I noticed was Jip’s white shadow flitting across the sward to meet us.

“It’s all right,” he whispered to the Doctor. “I’ve told Dina and Wolf. They say they will be on the lookout for you and will show you round the place when you get in.”

“Yes, but it is the getting in that is going to be the job, I’m afraid,” muttered John Dolittle. “Listen, Jip: from here I’ve no idea of even where the house lies – through all this shrubbery and park land. Lead us to it, will you? And bring us up on the wooded side. We don’t want to cross any open spaces.”

“Very good,” said Jip. “I’ll take you to the kitchen-garden side. You’ll have cover all the way up. But if you should get spotted and have to run for it, tell everyone to follow me. I know the easiest and shortest way out.”

Then in single file we trailed after Jip who kept us behind bushes and hedges for what seemed like a good ten minutes’ walk. Suddenly we found ourselves against the wall of the house itself. Here I noticed for the first time that Kling had rejoined us.

“Listen,” I heard him whisper to the Doctor, “you’ve got that rat in your pocket still, haven’t you? – the one who lives here.”

“Yes,” said John Dolittle. “And the white mouse too.”

“Well, that rat is your best chance for getting in,” said Kling. “If you let Matthew force a lock you’re liable to have complications with the police afterwards. Send the rat into the house through a hole – he’ll know lots of them leading down into the cellar. And tell him to get you the master’s latch key. It’ll be in his bedroom, on the dressing table, you may be sure.”

“Splendid!” whispered the Doctor. And he at once took the rat from his pocket and explained to him what Kling had said. Then he let him go upon the ground and we waited.

It was about five minutes later, I should say, when I felt something small and sharp hit me on the head. Even through my cap it stung. From my head it bounced to the ground. And by the dim starlight I could see it shining dully where it lay. I picked it up. It was a small key. Apparently the master’s bedroom window was directly above our heads; and the rat, to save time, had thrown the key out to us.

I slipped it into the Doctor’s hand and in silence we moved round towards the front of the house.

• • • • •

•   34   •

The Wild Ride
of the White Mouse

It had been agreed that only Matthew should accompany the Doctor to the top floor. I was to remain downstairs in the hall; and Bumpo was to stay outside the house. His and my parts in the plot were mostly those of watching and standing on guard. In case of emergency we had signals arranged and were to assemble at a certain point.

As the Doctor very, very quietly opened the front door with the latch key I got my first real scare of the evening. With uncanny suddenness, both together, the two great ferocious heads of the watch-dogs popped out to greet him.

Within the hall where the darkness was quite intense, I confess that I was quite glad that my duties carried me no further. As we had arranged, I sat down on the floor by the front door and began my watch. Jip, thank goodness! stayed with me. Matthew and the Doctor, each with a hand on the collar of one of the guiding watch-dogs, were led away swiftly and silently through the inky blackness, up the carpeted stairs, to the rooms above.

It seemed a perfect eternity that they were gone. Before the evening was over I decided that I didn’t care for the profession of burglary a bit. It was a little too thrilling. Every time the breeze rattled a window or swung a curtain whispering across the floor, I was certain that we had been discovered and someone was coming after us with a pistol or a club. It was a great temptation to open the front door and let in the little light of the starry sky without. But I had been told to keep it closed lest the draught be detected by any of the household.

At last Jip whispered:

“Don’t get scared now if someone bumps into you. They’re coming down the stairs again. I can smell ’em.”

A moment later the wet muzzle of Dina, leading the Doctor across the hall, dabbed me in the ear. It was a good thing Jip had warned me – I would probably have started hitting out in all directions if he hadn’t. I rose and carefully swung open the front door. The dim forms of the Doctor and Matthew passed out. I followed. With a pat of thanks John Dolittle turned and shut the two dogs in behind us, letting the tongue of the night-latch gently into its socket with the key. Then he took the rat from his pocket, gave him the key and set him on the ground. From somewhere out of the general gloom of the garden Bumpo’s huge figure emerged and joined us.

Once more under Jip’s guidance we began the journey across the park towards the walls. I was simply burning up to ask the Doctor if he had succeeded, but I managed to restrain my curiosity till we stood again beneath the ash tree. Then at last I felt it was safe to whisper:

“Did you get it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s in my pocket. Everything went all right. We were able to open the cupboard and close it again too, leaving it so no one would know we were there. But of course I haven’t had a chance to read the will yet. Come along now, where’s that rope?”

Again, one by one, we swarmed to the top of the wall, transferred the dangling rope to the other side and slid quietly down into the roadway.

With a general sigh we set off towards home. As we passed the gate we noticed the grey of the dawn showing in the East. Like silent ghosts Kling and Jip slipped out through the bars and dropped in behind the procession.

On reaching the house we all hurried to the study. I got some candles lighted while the Doctor spread the will out on the table. It was a tense moment for all of us as we leant over his shoulder.

Sure enough, a piece had been bitten out of the document at the corner. And when I added the fragment I had in my pocket it fitted perfectly. Then, without going through the preliminary preamble of the document, the Doctor traced that paragraph with his finger. This is what he read out: “I bequeath the sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds for the endowment of an Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Trustees will select—”

But he was not permitted to get any further. Matthew, Bumpo and I suddenly started cheering and dancing round the table. And it was quite some minutes before our enthusiasm had let off enough steam to allow us to listen to any more.

As we settled down into our chairs again I noticed the Doctor staring fixedly at something Matthew was turning over in his fingers. I started as I saw what it was – one of the diamond shirt-studs from Sidney Throgmorton’s little leather box.

“Er – where – did you get that, Matthew?” asked the Doctor in a low, somewhat fearful, voice.

“Oh, this?” said the cat’s-meat man, trying hard not to look guilty. “This is a little souvenir I brought along from the Manor.”

For a moment the Doctor seemed too horrified to speak.

“Well,” Matthew went on, “it wasn’t his, you know, after all, with him robbin’ the animals of that whole fortune what was coming to them accordin’ to the will.”

“But when, how, did you take it, Matthew?” asked the Doctor. “I thought you were with me all the time.”

“Oh, I just dropped into his bedroom to take a look around, as we passed his door going up the stairs,” said Matthew. “These pretty playthings was in a box on the dressin’ table, and I couldn’t resist the temptation of bringin’ one along as a souvenir.”

With his hand to his head the Doctor sank into a chair as if stunned.

“Oh, Matthew, Matthew!” he murmured. “I thought you had promised me to give up that – that sort of thing for good.”

For a moment we were all silent. Finally the Doctor said:

“Well, I don’t know what we are to do now, really I don’t.”

The white mouse crawled up my sleeve from the table and whispered in my ear:

“What’s the matter with the Doctor? What has happened?”

I explained to him as quickly and as briefly as I could.

“Give me that stud, Doctor,” said he, suddenly darting across the table to John Dolittle. “I’ll get it back into its box before you can say Jack Robinson.”

“Goodness! Do you think you could?” cried the Doctor, immediately all cheered up. “Oh, but look: the daylight is here now. The disappearance of the diamond is most likely already discovered. And think of the time it would take you to travel there – at your pace!”

“Doctor, it wouldn’t take long if he rode on my back,” Jip put in. “If I carry him as far as the house he can soon pop in through a hole and slip upstairs. It’s worth trying.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “Any port in a storm.”

And to Matthew’s great disappointment he leant across the table, took the valuable jewel out of his hands and gave it to the white mouse.

“You’ll save us from a terrible mess,” he said, “if you can get it there in time. Good luck to you!”

The white mouse took the stud in his paws, jumped on to Jip’s back and disappeared through the garden window at a gallop.

After he had gone there was an embarrassed, uncomfortable pause. Finally the Doctor said,

“Er – Stubbins and Bumpo: you will not of course – supposing that this matter ends satisfactorily – mention it, ever, to a living soul.”

Ill at ease, but very much in earnest, we nodded our promise of silence.

“As for you, Matthew,” the Doctor went on, “I must warn you now, once and for all, that if any other occurrence of er – this sort takes place we shall have to sever relations permanently. I know I can trust you where my own property is concerned, but I must feel secure that you will regard the property of others in the same way. If not, we can have nothing further to do with one another. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand, Doctor,” said Matthew in a low voice. “I ought to have known I might be putting you in an awkward situation. But – well, no more need be said.”

The Doctor turned as though to go into the garden. He looked about him for his hat. And suddenly a look of horror came slowly into his face.

“Stubbins!” he gasped. “Where is it?”

“Don’t tell me,” I cried, “that you left it again – in the Manor!“

• • • • •

•   35   •

Our Arrest

It was true. In the thrill and excitement of our nocturnal adventure none of us had noticed whether the Doctor had come away from the Manor bareheaded or with his hat on. But now that we came to think of it we could all recall that he had worn it on the way there. Next, he himself remembered clearly that in getting into the secret cupboard he had laid it aside on a chair because it was in the way.

“Dear me!” he sighed, shaking his head. “That’s the kind of a burglar I am – leave my hat behind me, the one thing that everybody in the neighbourhood would recognize as mine…. Hah! It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. Well, more than ever depends on the white mouse now. Dear, dear! Anyhow,” he added as Dab-Dab appeared at the door, “let’s not meet our troubles half way. Breakfast ready, Dab-Dab?”

“No,” said the housekeeper, coming forward into the room and lowering her voice. “But there are three men walking up the garden path. One is carrying your hat. And one is a policeman.”

At that Matthew sprang up and in a twinkling was half out of the garden window. Then, apparently changing his mind, he stopped.

“No, Doctor,” said he, coming back into the room, “I ain’t goin’ to skedaddle and leave you to face the music. I bin in jail before. I’ll tell ’em I done it.”

“Look here, Matthew,” said John Dolittle firmly: “I want you to do one thing only throughout the rest of this business, and that is keep your mouth closed tight – unless I ask you to talk. Stubbins, will you please let them in?”

I went and opened the door. I knew all three men by sight. One was Sidney Throgmorton; the other his lodge keeper; and the third our local police sergeant. The Sergeant’s manner was distinctly apologetic. He knew John Dolittle and this duty was distasteful to him. Throgmorton’s behaviour, on the other hand, was offensive from the start. He brushed by me before I had invited him to come in and walked straight to the Doctor’s study.

“Ah!” he cried. “We have the whole lot here, Sergeant – the same party exactly that came pretending to put the fire out when they wanted to learn their way around the house they meant later to rob. Put them all under arrest and bring them at once to the Manor.”

The Sergeant, while he was somewhat impressed by Throgmorton’s position in the community, knew what his duties were without being told. He addressed himself to John Dolittle.

“This gentleman has brought a charge, Doctor,” he said. “A valuable diamond was stolen from his house last night and your hat was found on the premises this morning. I shall have to ask you to come up to the Manor, please.”

We were all glad that the early hour gave us practically empty streets to walk through. For certainly our party with the Sergeant for escort would have set gossip running all over Puddleby if there had been many abroad to see us.

Hardly a word was said the whole way by anyone except Throgmorton, to whose indignant fumings no one seemed to want to make any reply.

At the house the old man-servant let us in and we went straight upstairs to the master’s bedroom. Here Throgmorton at once plunged into a dramatic recital, for the sergeant’s benefit, of how he had arisen at his usual hour of six and had at once noticed that his stud box had been moved from the place where he had left it the night before. He opened it, he said, and found one stud missing. After the servants had been summoned and a search made of the house, the Doctor’s hat had been found in a room on the top floor. This, and the fact that we had all behaved in a suspicious manner the night of the fire, at once convicted us in his minds as the culprits.

“Just a minute,” said the Doctor. “Is the box now in the exact place where you found it when you got up?”

“Yes,” said Throgmorton.

“Well, would you show us, please, just how you went to the dressing-table and opened it?”

“Certainly,” said Throgmorton. “I walked from the bed, like this, and first threw back the curtains of the window, so. Then one glance at the dressing-table told me something was wrong. I stepped up to it – so – lifted the box and opened it. Like this…. What the—”

At that last exclamation of astonishment we all four breathed a secret sigh of relief. For it told us that the white mouse had done his work. I shall never forget Throgmorton’s face as he stood there, staring into the box he had taken up to demonstrate with. In it there were not three studs as he had expected, but the complete set of four.

The Sergeant looked over his shoulder.

“There’s been some mistake, Sir, hasn’t there?” said he quietly.

“There’s b-b-b-been some trickery,” cried Throgmorton, spluttering. Indeed his discomfited indignation was understandable enough in the circumstances. He would much sooner have got John Dolittle into jail than have recovered his stud. And this small quiet man seemed to have a knack for making a fool of him at the most dramatic moments.

“If you didn’t do it,” he snarled, swinging round on the Doctor and pointing a fat accusing finger at him, “how did your hat come to be in my house?”

“I think,” said the Doctor, “it would be best if I gave you an answer to that question in private.”

“No,” snapped Throgmorton. “If it’s the truth there’s no harm in the police sergeant hearing it.”

“As you wish,” said the Doctor. “But I thought you would prefer it that way. It has to do with a will whose existence we discovered by accident.”

Astonishment, fear, hatred flitted across Throgmorton’s face in quick succession during the short moment that passed before he answered.

“All right,” he said sullenly at last. “We will go down to the library.”

In a silent, very thoughtful procession we returned down the several flights of stairs. At the tail of it came Matthew and myself.

“Thank goodness for the white mouse, Tommy!” he whispered in my ear. “But I don’t like trusting that fellow alone with the Doctor.”

“Don’t worry,” I answered. “We’ll be outside the door. He’ll hardly dare to start any violence with the Sergeant here as a witness. His game’s up.”

I heard the big grandfather clock in the hall strike as the Doctor and Throgmorton went into the library and closed the door behind them. And it was exactly three quarters of an hour before they came out.

Throgmorton was very white, but quite quiet. He immediately addressed himself to the policeman.

“The charge is withdrawn, Sergeant,” he said. “A mistake – for which I tender my apologies to – er – all concerned. I’m sorry I got you up here so early when there was no need.”

Again in silence we trailed across the wide carpeted hall and out into the gravel court.

At the gate we bade farewell to the Sergeant, whose direction was a different one from ours. I noticed that the Doctor made no comment upon the matter to him.

When he was well out of earshot Matthew asked eagerly:

“But, Doctor, how did you explain your hat’s being there?”

“I didn’t,” said John Dolittle. “But I told him that all four of us were convinced he lit that fire himself. And after that he was much more anxious that I should keep my mouth shut than that I should do any explaining. He has got sort of scared of me now, I imagine. And he probably thinks that I can prove he lit the fire. Which I can’t. But it is just as well that he should think so, because I feel sure he did. He is going back to Australia now.”

“To Australia!” cried Matthew. “Why?”

“Well, he has to earn a living, you see,” said the Doctor. “The will left not only the hundred thousand pounds to the prevention of cruelty to animals, but when I came to read it through I found it left the rest to other charities.”

When the outcome of the Moorsden Manor mystery became generally known in the Dolittle Zoo, jubilation and rejoicing broke forth and lasted two whole days. Accustomed as it was to celebration, Animal Town admitted it had never seen the like before. The white mouse’s genius for parade organization surpassed itself; and he was elected to a second term of office as mayor on the strength of it.

He felt since animals in general had by the Doctor’s victory come into such a considerable fortune, that this occasion should be made a larger and more important one than any in the history of the zoo. So for the second day’s celebrations he got the Doctor’s permission to send out an invitation to all the creatures of the neighbourhood who wished to come. An enormous amount of preparation was made in expectation of a large attendance. The whole zoo was most gaily decorated, with ribbons and bunting by day and with lanterns and fireworks by night. Great quantities of all sorts of things to eat and drink were bought and set out at several buffets in the enclosure.

But the crowd that actually did come was even much, much vaster than had been anticipated. All the regular members of the Rat and Mouse Club, the Rabbits’ Apartment House, the Home for Cross-bred Dogs, the Badgers’ Tavern, the Squirrels’ Hotel and the Foxes’ Meeting House had to set to and do duty as hosts. So did Gub-Gub, the pushmi-pullyu, Chee-Chee, Too-Too, Dab-Dab and Polynesia. And even with this extra help it was only by working like bees that they managed to feed and entertain that enormous crowd of visitors.

As for the Doctor, Matthew, Bumpo and me, we were kept busy running between the house and the town for more, and still more, refreshments, as the ever-increasing attendance did away with what we had already. Too-Too the accountant told me afterwards that according to his books we had bought more than a wagon-load of lettuce, three hundred-weights of corn and bird seed, close to a ton of bones and meat, four large cheeses and two dozen loaves – besides a great lot of delicacies in smaller quantity.

Within the old bowling-green it was almost impossible to move along the lawns, so thronged were they with hedgehogs, moles, squirrels, stoats, rats, badgers, mice, voles, otters, hares and what not. At frequent intervals cheers for the Doctor, old Mr. Throgmorton or his association for the prevention of cruelty to animals would break out in some corner and be rapidly taken up all over the vast assembly. Every tree and shrub in the zoo enclosure – and throughout the whole of the Doctor’s garden too – was just packed and laden with perching birds of all kinds and sizes, from wrens to herons. The din of their chatter was constant and terrific.

Before the day was over the grass of the bowling-green was all worn away by the continuous passing of those millions of feet. And after the guests had departed it took the members of the Dolittle Zoo another whole day to clear away the scraps and put the place in order.

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s Garden

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PART ONE

1 … The Dog Museum
2 … Quetch
3 … The Dick Whittington Dog
4 … The Children’s Hospitality
5 … Gipsy Life
6 … The Acrobat
7 … The Monastery
8 … The Shepherd in Distress
9 … City Life
10 … The Hermit Dog
11 … The Top-knot Terriers
12 … Dogs’ Jobs

PART TWO

1 … Insect Languages
2 … Foreign Insects
3 … Tangerine
4 … Domestic Insects
5 … The Water Beetle
6 … The End of the Journey
7 … The Colony of Exiles
8 … A Lifetime of Twenty-four Hours
9 … Dab-Dab’s Views on Insect Life
10 … The Giant Moths
11 … Otho the Prehistoric Artist
12 … “The Days Before there Was a Moon”
13 … Memories of Long Arrow
14 … Blind Travel Again
15 … Gub-Gub Halts the Game

PART THREE

1 … Bumpo and Magic
2 … The Tapping on the Window
3 … The Giant Race
4 … The Awakening of the Giant
5 … Keeping a Secret
6 … The Butterflies’ Paradise
7 … The Home of the Giant Moth
8 … Flowers of Mystery
9 … Smoke on the Moon
10 … Too-Too’s Warning
11 … Our Midnight Visitors

PART FOUR

1 … Bumpo Clears the Garden
2 … The Mounted Police
3 … The Errand
4 … The Stowaway
5 … The Doctor’s Reception
6 … Crossing “The Dead Belt”
7 … The Two Sides of the Moon
8 … The Tree

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

The Dog Museum

I suppose there is no part of my life with the Doctor that I, Thomas Stubbins, look back on with more pleasure than that period when I was Assistant Manager of the Zoo.

We had come, as I have told you elsewhere, to call that part of the Doctor’s garden “Animal Town.” One of my greatest difficulties was in keeping down the membership in the various clubs and institutions. Because of course a limit had to be put on them. The hardest one to keep in check was the Home for Crossbred Dogs. Jip was always trying to sneak in some waif or stray after dark; and I had to be quite stern and hard-hearted if I did not want the mongrels’ club disorganized by over-crowding.

But while the Doctor and I were agreed that we must keep a fixed limit on all memberships, we encouraged development, expansion and new ideas of every kind on the part of the animals themselves that would help to make Animal Town a more interesting and more comfortable place to live in. Many of these were extremely interesting. Among them was the Dog Museum.

For many years the Doctor had had a museum of his own. This was a large room next to the study where bones, mineral specimens and other natural-history things were kept. There is an old saying: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. A natural interest in bones often led the dogs to contemplate this display and finally to start a museum of their own.

This was helped to some extent by a peculiar dog who had some months before become a member of the club. The peculiarity of his character was that he had an inborn passion for collecting. Prune-stones, umbrella-handles, door-knobs – there was no end to the variety of his collections. He always maintained that his prune-stone collection was the largest and finest in the country.

This dog’s name was Quetch. He was a great friend of Toby, who had first introduced him and put him up for membership at the club. He was a good second to Toby in upholding the rights of the small dogs at the club-house and seeing that they didn’t get bullied out of any of their privileges. In fact Blackie and Grab always said that the small dogs, with Toby and Quetch to champion them, bossed the club a good deal more than they had any business to. Well, Quetch it was (he was a cross between a West Highland terrier and an Aberdeen) who first suggested the idea that the Mongrels’ Club should have a museum of its own. With his passion for collecting, he was probably counting on getting the job of museum curator for himself – which he eventually did. The House Committee met in solemn council to discuss the pros and cons and ways and means. The idea was finally adopted by a large majority vote and a section of the gymnasium was screened off to form the first headquarters of the museum.

Quetch (he was always called “Professor” by the other members of the club) – Professor Quetch, besides being a keen scientist, had a genius for organization almost as good as the white mouse’s. And even he could not find fault with the general enthusiasm with which the Dog Museum was supported, and contributed to, by the members of the club. There was hardly a dog in the Home who didn’t turn to collecting and bringing in material. And Quetch the curator had his paws more than full receiving and arranging the continuous flow of specimens of every kind that poured in.

The Museum was not confined to natural history. It was also an archaeological or historical museum. The bones department was perhaps the largest. Personally, I don’t think that any student of comparative anatomy would have found it scientifically very helpful. For the bones were mostly beef, mutton and ham bones.

But not all. There were fish bones. In fact there was one whole fish, which Professor Quetch proudly ordered me to label, “The Oldest Fish in the World” I could well believe it was. Blackie the retriever had dug it up – from the place where someone had carefully buried it a long time ago. Its odour was so far-reaching that the members of the Badgers’ Tavern (which was at least a hundred yards away from the Home for Crossbred Dogs) sent in a request that something be done about it. They said that while they were not usually over-sensitive to smells, this one kept them awake at night. Professor Quetch was very much annoyed and sent a message back to the badgers that they were a lot of low-brow, meddlesome busybodies who didn’t appreciate science. But some of the Doctor’s neighbours across the street also complained; and the “oldest fish in the world” had to go – back to the garbage heap.

The archaeological side of the Dog Museum was even more varied and extensive than the natural history departments. Here could be found Quetch’s own priceless collection of prune-stones, umbrella handles and door-knobs. But these formed only a small part of the whole. The habit of digging – generally for rats – natural to all dogs, now led to the unearthing of treasures of every variety. Saucepan-lids, bent spoons, top hats, horse-shoes, tin cans, pieces of iron pipe, broken tea-pots, there was hardly anything in the way of hardware and domestic furnishings that wasn’t represented. A sock which had been worn full of holes by the great Doctor himself was one of the most sacred and important exhibits.

For the first few days there was a general frenzy of digging. Jip and Kling had heard the Doctor say that the Romans had once had a military camp on the site now occupied by the town of Puddleby. They were determined that they’d find Roman jewellry if they only dug patiently enough. Among other places they tried was Colonel Bellowes’ tulip bed. They had just dug up a bulb when they were seen by the Colonel and chased.

But they got away – and home with the bulb. And that was how the Botanical Department of the museum began. The bulb in question had a label set under it reading:

“This Orchid was donated by the famous naturalist and explorer, Jip. The intrepid collector was disturbed at his work and chased for miles by savage natives. He eluded his pursuers however and succeeded in bringing back this priceless specimen to the Dog Museum.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Quetch

The Dog Museum continued for much longer than I had thought it would. My private opinion had been that the dogs were only captivated by the novelty of the idea and would drop it altogether when its newness had worn off. Some weeks after its beginning the collections had grown so fast that they filled the whole gymnasium. During the semi-final bout of a wrestling contest a Great Dane threw Blackie the retriever through the dividing screen and landed him in the middle of the Botanical Department. It was clear that the gymnasium was getting crowded out by the museum.

So a second meeting of the House Committee was called. And it was decided that since athletics were equally important as science, most of the junk should be thrown out, and only those things kept that were really genuine and of special application to dogs and Dog History.

Jip’s famous golden collar (which he only wore on holidays and occasions of importance) was made one of the star exhibits. There were also a few bones which Professor Quetch insisted had been chewed by the great dogs of history. There was, also, a small keg which he said had been carried round the necks of the St. Bernard dogs who went to the aid of lost travellers in the snow-swept passes of the Alps. How he knew the record of these relics no one could tell. On the other hand, no one could deny it when he put up a label under a veal bone saying that this object had been the earliest plaything of the Empress Josephine’s pet poodle.

At all events, the enormous array of hardware and rubbish which had formed the first displays gave place to one or two glass cases where a small collection of objects of great virtue was set forth. And for many years these remained a permanent part of the institution, and all visitors, whether dogs or people, were shown them. Professor Quetch never allowed visitors into the museum, however, without personally conducting them, to see that they didn’t lean on the cases – if they were people – or, if they were dogs, that they didn’t take away the historic bones.

The third story in the Tales of the Home for Crossbred Dogs was Jip’s own tale of how he had posed for the great George Morland and helped the Lame Man’s Dog earn money for his crippled master. For the fourth story Professor Quetch himself was called upon. Both Toby and Kling had often told me that they knew that he had led rather an interesting life, and I could well believe it, for he was certainly a dog of individuality and character. He was not easy to persuade however. In spite of his being, like Toby, a self-important, plucky, little animal, he wasn’t boastful or given to talking about himself. He had always, when asked to tell the story of his life, made the excuse that he was too busy with his duties as curator of the museum.

However, now that the museum had been considerably reduced in size, he did not have to give so much attention to it. And one day Jip came to me highly delighted with the news that Quetch had promised tomorrow night to give us an account of his life which was to be entitled “The Story of the Dog Who Set Out to Seek His Fortune.”

Feeling it would probably be a good yarn well told, I asked the Doctor if he would come and listen. In former times he had frequently attended the dogs’ after-supper story-tellings. But of late he had seldom had the time to spare. However, he said he would make this a special occasion and be there without fail.

When the following night came, the Dogs’ Dining Room was jammed. For not only was every single member present, eagerly waiting to hear the yarn, but it turned out that this was Guest Night, the second Friday in the month, when members were allowed to bring friends to dinner as guests of the Club.

“I was born,” Professor Quetch began, “of poor but honest parents. My father was a hard-working Aberdeen terrier and my mother was a West Highland of excellent pedigree. Our owners were small farmers in Scotland. My father helped regularly with the sheep. In spite of his size, he was a mighty good sheep dog and could round up a flock or cut out a single ewe from the herd with great skill. When we children were puppies we got fed well enough, because we were easy to feed, not requiring much more than milk. But as soon as we began to grow up into regular dogs it was another story. We saw then that the farmer that owned us had hardly enough food most of the time to feed his own family and the hands who worked for him, let alone a large litter of hungry terriers.

“We lived in a stable behind the farm-house where we had an old disused horse-stall to ourselves. It was well lined with dry straw, snug and warm. One night I happened to lie awake late and I overheard my mother and father talking. Their names were Jock and Jenny.

“‘You know, Jock,’ said my mother, ‘very soon that farmer is going to get rid of these puppies of ours. I heard him talking about it only the other day.’

“‘Well,’ said my father, ‘I suppose that was to be expected. They’ll keep one or two, I imagine. I hope they leave Quetch here. He seems a bright youngster and is already quite a help to me with those silly sheep. For the rest, I think they’re rather stupid.’

“‘Stupid indeed!’ snapped my mother with great indignation. ‘They’re every bit as clever as their father, that’s certain.’

“‘All right, have it your own way, Jenny,’ said my father, snuggling his nose down into the straw to go to sleep – he never cared for arguments anyway – ‘have it your own way. But you can hardly expect McPherson to keep the whole litter when he can barely support his own family.’

“With that my father fell asleep and I fell to thinking. First of all, it seemed to me very wrong that dogs should be disposed of in this haphazard, hit-and-miss fashion. If we were given away, to whom would we be given? Had dogs no rights at all? My father was a worker on the farm, doing his daily job as faithfully and as well as any of the clodhoppers who drove the plough or cut the corn. And here he was calmly talking about his own children being given away as though they were apples or turnips! It made me quite angry. I lay awake far into the night wondering why dogs were not allowed to lead their own lives and shape their own careers. It was an outrage. I got myself quite worked up over it. And before I fell asleep I made up my mind that no one was going to give me away as though I were no more than an old pair of shoes. I was an individual, the same as the farmer himself. And I was going to make the world acknowledge that fact or know the reason why.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Dick Whittington Dog

“Perhaps the only notable thing about this yarn of mine is that it is the story of a dog trying to lead his own life. I know of course that there are many of you present who have struggled to do the same. That was one reason why I wasn’t keen to tell a story: I didn’t feel that my life had anything particularly thrilling about it. But at all events what small adventures I ran into may have been different from your own, and the way I attacked the problem of winning liberty and independence for myself may interest you.

“A few days after I had overheard my parents’ conversation I began to see that my mother’s fears were right. Almost every day McPherson the farmer would bring friends of his in to see us, hoping they’d be willing to adopt one or other of us. As luck would have it, I was selected the very first. A stupid fat man – I think he was a farmer too – chose me out of the whole litter. I wouldn’t have chosen him from among a million. He had no wits at all and no – er – refinement, none whatever. He turned me over and prodded me and examined me as though I were a pig for the fatting market instead of a dog. I determined right away that whatever happened I wouldn’t become his property. Luckily he couldn’t take me immediately and he asked McPherson to keep me for him a couple of days, at the end of which he would come and fetch me.

“I had heard of boys setting out to seek their fortunes. Never of a dog. And yet why not? The more I thought of the idea, the more it appealed to me. I had to go somewhere if I didn’t want to be taken away by that stupid man. I had seen nothing of the world so far. Very well then: I would set out to seek my fortune – yes, tomorrow!

“The next morning I was up before any of the farm was stirring. I had collected several old bones, and with these as all my earthly possessions tied up in a red handkerchief, I set out to carve a career for myself. I remember the morning so well. It was late in the Fall and the daylight would not appear for an hour yet. But an old rooster was already crowing in a hoarse voice through the misty chill air as I gained the road and looked back at the farm buildings huddled in the gloom of the hollow. With a light heart I waved my tail at him and trotted off down the road.

“Dear me, how inexperienced I was! I realize that now. Literally I knew nothing – not even the geography of the immediate neighbourhood around the farm. I didn’t know where the road I was travelling along led to. But at that time such a thing only added to the thrill of the adventure. I would stick to this road, I told myself, and see what fortune it brought me to.

“After I had jogged along for about an hour I began to feel very much like breakfast. I therefore retired off the road into a hedge and opened my bundle of bones. I selected a ham bone which had not been quite so thoroughly chewed as the rest and set to work on it. My teeth were young and good and I soon managed to gnaw off the half of it.

“After that I felt much better, though still somewhat hungry. I re-packed my baggage, but just as I was about to set off I thought I heard a noise the other side of the hedge. Very quietly I crept through, thinking I might surprise a rabbit and get a better breakfast.

“But I found it was only an old tramp waking up in the meadow where, I suppose, he had spent the night. I had a fellow feeling for him. He was homeless too, and, like me, a gentleman of the road. Within the thicket I lay and watched him a moment. There was a herd of cows in the field. Presently the tramp went and began milking one of them into a tin which he carried. When he had the tin filled he brought it back to the corner of the field where he had slept and set it down. Then he went away – I suppose to get something else. But while he was gone I crept out of the hedge and drank up all the milk.

“Considerably refreshed, I set off along the road. But I hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when I thought I’d go back and make the tramp’s acquaintance. Maybe I felt sort of guilty about the milk. But anyway a fellow feeling for this adventurer whom I had robbed made me turn back.

“When I regained the corner of the meadow I saw him in the distance milking the cow again. I waited till he returned. Then I came out and showed myself.

“‘Ah, young feller me lad!’ says he. ‘So it was you who pinched my milk. Well, no matter. I got some more now. Come here. What’s your name?’

“Well, he seemed a decent sort of man and I kind of palled onto him. I was glad of his company. On both sides it seemed to be taken for granted that we would travel together along the road. He was much better at foraging food than I was – in some ways; and I was better than he was in others. At the farmhouses he used to beg meals which he always shared with me. And I caught rabbits and pheasants for him which he cooked over a fire by the roadside. Together we managed very well.

“We went through several towns on our way and saw many interesting things. He allowed me complete liberty. That I will always remember to his credit. Often at nights we nearly froze. But he was a good hand at finding sleeping-places, burrowing into the sides of haystacks, opening up old barns and such like. And he always spread part of his coat over me when he lay down to sleep.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Children’s Hospitality

“But the day soon came when my new friend played me false. He wanted money. I fancy it was to get coach-fare to go to some other part of the country. I don’t know. Anyway one afternoon he knocked at a farm-house door. I thought that as usual he was going to ask for food. Imagine my horror when he said to the woman who answered the door, ‘Do you want to buy a dog, Ma’am?’

“I just ran. I left him standing at the door there and never looked back. It was such a shock to my faith in human nature that for the present I did nothing but feel blue. Puzzled, I went on down the road, still seeking my fortune, alone. It was only later that I began to feel angry and indignant. The cheek of the man, trying to sell me when he hadn’t even bought me! – Me, the free companion of the road who had been in partnership with him! Why, I had caught dozens of rabbits and pheasants for that ungrateful tramp. And that was how he repaid me!

“After jogging miserably along for a few miles, I came upon some children playing with a ball. They seemed nice youngsters. I was always fond of ball games and I just joined in this one, chased the ball whenever it rolled away and got it for them. I could see they were delighted to have me and for quite a while we had a very good time together.

“Then the children found it was time to go home to supper. I had no idea where my own supper was coming from so I decided I’d go along with them. Maybe they would let me join them at their meal too, I thought. They appeared more pleased than ever when I started to follow them.

“But when they met their mother at the gate and told her that I had played with them and followed them home she promptly chased me off with a broom. Stray dogs, she said, always had diseases. Goodness only knows where she got that from! Stray dogs too, if you please. To her every animal who wasn’t tagged onto some stupid human must be a stray, something to be pitied, something disgraceful. Well anyway, to go on: that night it did seem to me as though mankind were divided into two classes: those that enslaved dogs when they wanted to be free; and those that chased them away when they wanted to be friendly.

“One of the children, a little girl, began to cry when her mother drove me off, saying she was sure I was hungry. – Which I was. She had more sense than her mother, had that child. However I thought I’d use a little strategy. So I just pretended to go off; but I didn’t go far. When the lights were lit in the dining-room I waited till I saw the mother’s shadow on a blind in another part of the house. I knew then that the children would be alone at their supper. I slipped up to the window, hopped onto the sill and tapped gently on the pane with my paw. At first the children were a bit scared, I imagine. But presently one of them came over, raised the corner of the blind and saw me squatting on the sill outside.

“Well, to make a long story short, the youngsters not only took me in, but they stowed me away in a closet so their mother wouldn’t see me and gave me a fine square meal into the bargain. And after they were supposed to be fast asleep one of them crept downstairs and took me up to their nursery where I slept under a bed on a grand soft pillow which they spread for me. That was what I call hospitality. Never was a tramp dog treated better.

“In the morning I managed to slip out unseen by Mama and once more I hit the trail. Not only was one child crying this time, but the whole four of them were sniffling at the garden gate as I said goodbye. I often look back on those children’s hospitality as one of the happiest episodes in my entire career. They certainly knew how to treat dogs – and such people, as we all know, are scarce. I hated to leave them. And I don’t believe I would have done if it hadn’t been for their mama and her insulting remark about all stray dogs having diseases. That was too much. So, with a good plate of oatmeal porridge and gravy inside me – which the children had secretly given me for breakfast – I faced the future with a stout heart and wondered as I trotted along the highway what Fortune would bring forward next.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Gipsy Life

“About three miles further on I overtook a Gipsy caravan creeping along the road through the morning mist. At the rear of the procession a dog was scouting around in the ditches for rats. I had never met a Gipsy dog, so, rather curious, I went up to him and offered to help him hunt for rats. He seemed a sort of a grouchy silent fellow but I liked him for all that. He made no objection to my joining him and together we gave several rats a good run for their money.

“Little by little I drew the Gipsy dog out and questioned him as to what sort of a life it was to travel with the caravans. These people too were folk of the road like me, and I had serious thoughts of throwing in my lot with them for a while. From what he told me I gathered that a dog led quite a free life with the Gipsies and was interfered with very little.

“‘The grub is kind of irregular,’ said my friend, who had got over his grouchiness somewhat and seemed inclined to take to me. ‘But then the whole of the Gipsy business is irregular, one might say. If you can stand that you’ll probably rather like the life. It’s interesting, travelling around all the time. We do see the world, after all. If we have hardships, at least it’s better than being treated like a lap dog, trotted out on a leash and living on the same street all the time. Why don’t you try it for a while? Just tag along with me. No one will mind. Likely as not the Gipsies themselves will never even notice that you’ve joined the caravan – at least not for a few days anyhow.’

“I did not need very much persuasion and it turned out eventually that I did join the Gipsies and on the whole had quite a good time with them. My friend had certainly been right about the food. To say it was irregular was putting it mildly. There were many days and nights when there simply wasn’t any. But the Gipsy dog, through long experience in this kind of life, knew all sorts of dodges for getting provender under difficult conditions. I strongly suspect that my friend was one of the cleverest larder burglars that ever lived. Often I didn’t even know where he got the supplies from and no amount of questioning would make him tell. Many a night when we were both starving, around supper time, with the prospect of going to bed hungry beneath the caravans, Mudge would say to me – that was his name, Mudge –

“‘Oh, golly! I’m not going to bed hungry. Listen, Quetch: I think I know where I may be able to raise some fodder. You wait here for me.’

“‘Shall I come too?’ I’d say.

“‘Er – no. Better not, I think,’ he’d mutter. ‘Hunting is sometimes easier single-handed.’

“Then off he would go. And in half an hour he’d be back again with the most extraordinary things. One night he would bring a steak-and-kidney pudding, tied up in the muslin it was boiled in – complete, mind you, and steaming hot. Another time it would be a roast chicken, stuffed with sage and onions, with sausages skewered to its sides.

“Of course it didn’t take much detective work to tell, on occasions of this kind, that Mudge had just bagged someone else’s dinner. I’m afraid I was usually far too hungry to waste time moralizing over where the things came from. Still, I strongly suspect that some good housewives called down many curses on Mudge’s head during the course of his career. But the marvellous thing to me was how he did it without ever being caught.

“Yet the life was certainly pleasant for the most part. We visited all the fairs and saw the towns in holiday mood. It was in these days that I met Toby, who was, as you know, then a Punch-and-Judy dog. Yes, I liked the Gipsy life – chiefly because we were nearly always in the country, where a dog’s life has most fun in it. Along the lanes there were always rats to dig for; across the meadows there were always hares to chase; and in the roadside woods and copses there were always pheasants and partridges to catch.

“That chapter of my life lasted about three months and it ended, as did the one before it, suddenly. We had been visiting a fair in a town of considerable size. Part of our own show was a fortune-telling booth. Here an old Gipsy woman, the mother of our boss, used to tell people’s fortunes with cards. A party of quite well-to-do folk stopped at the booth one day to have their fortunes told. Mudge and I were hanging around outside the tent.

“‘Let’s get away from here,’ he whispered to me. ‘I don’t like the looks of this mob. I lost a friend like that once before.’

“‘Like what?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, Joe,’ said Mudge. – Joe was the name of our boss – ‘Joe never notices any stray dogs who join the caravan till somebody else notices them. Then he tries to sell them…. This friend of mine was a whippet. One of the visitors to the booth took a fancy to him and Joe just sold him then and there. I’d never get sold because I’m not nifty-looking. But you, you’re smart enough to catch anyone’s eye – specially the women. Take my advice; fade away till this mob’s gone.’

“Mudge was already moving off, but I called him back. I was interested in this fortune-telling business. I hoped to get my own fortune told by the old woman. She read people’s palms. I had been looking at the lines in my paw-pads and they seemed to me quite unusual. The future interested me. I was keen to know what sort of a career I had before me. I felt it ought to be a great one.

“‘Just a minute, Mudge,’ I said. ‘Why get worried? How can Joe sell me when I don’t belong to him?’

“‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Mudge. ‘Joe would sell anything, the Houses of Parliament or the coat off the Prime Minister’s back – if he could. A word to the wise. Fade away.’

“Mudge’s advice was sound, but for me it came a bit late. I noticed as I turned to follow him that one of the women was already pointing at me and that Joe, to whom she was talking, was very interested in the interest she was showing. For about half an hour after that I saw nothing more of Mudge. I had moved round to another part of the fair grounds till the visitors should have departed from the fortune-telling booth.

“While I was looking at a strong man lifting weights, the Gipsy dog suddenly came up to me from behind and whispered:

“‘It’s all up, Quetch. You’ll have to clear out. That woman liked you so much that she said she’d buy you when Joe offered you to her. He is hunting for you everywhere now.’

“‘But why,’ I asked, ‘can’t I just keep out of the way till the woman has gone?’

“‘It is no use,’ said Mudge. ‘Joe won’t rest till he has sold you, now that he knows you’re the kind of dog the ladies take a fancy to. What’s more, if he misses this sale he will likely keep you on a chain right along, so as to make sure of you next time someone wants to buy you.’

“‘Good gracious, Mudge!’ I cried. ‘Would he really do that? But tell me: Why do you yourself live with such a man? Come with me and we will go off together.’

“Mudge grinned and shook his head.

“‘Joe is all right to me,’ he said. ‘He may not be what you’d call exactly a gentleman. But he’s all right to me. You’re a stranger, you see. He looks on me as one of the tribe, the Romany folk, you understand. Their hand is against every man, but not against one another. Even if I were good enough looking to bring him a ten-pound note I doubt if Joe would sell me. He is a queer one, is Joe. But he’s always been square to me…. No, Quetch, I’ll stay with the caravan, with the Romany folk. Once a vagabond, always a vagabond, they say. I’ll miss you. But, well … Good luck to you, Quetch … Better be going now. If Joe once lays hands on you you’ll never get away till he sells you, you can be sure of that.’

“So, very sad at heart – for I had grown very fond of the strange Mudge, the Gipsy mongrel, the dog of few words – I left the fair and struck out along the road again, the Road of Fortune, alone.

“Dear me, what an unsatisfactory world it was! When one did find a nice kind of life something or somebody always seemed to shove you out of it just as you were beginning to enjoy it.

“Still, I had much of the world to see yet. And after all, my experiences so far had not brought to me that ideal independent sort of life that I was looking for. I was sorry I had not been able to have my fortune told. I looked at my paw again. I was sure it must be a good one. It was a nice sunny day. I soon threw aside my gloomy thoughts and trotted forward, eager to see what every new turn in the road might bring.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Acrobat

“That day I had very bad luck in the matter of food. I hardly got anything to eat all day. By the evening I was positively ravenous. I came to a town. Hoping to pick up bones or scraps that other dogs had left, I searched several back yards. But all I got was two or three fights with wretched inhospitable curs who objected to my coming into their premises.

“Then, famished and very bored with life, I wandered through the streets. At a corner I came upon an acrobat performing. He was standing on his hands and doing somersaults and things like that. He was all alone. There was a hat laid on the curb-stone in front of him, and from time to time people threw coppers into it.

“This set me thinking. The man was evidently making his living this way. In my life with the Gipsies I had often seen dog-acts in the circus ring. Some of the tricks I had practised myself when I had had a notion to go in for a circus career, and I had become skilled in quite a few of them. I could stand on my front paws, beg with a lump of sugar on my nose, throw a back somersault and so forth. Very well then, I said to myself, why shouldn’t I give a one-dog show on the streets of this town the same as the man was doing? But I needed a hat for the people to throw money into – only in my case I hoped they would throw cutlets and sausages instead. Yes, the first thing to do was to get a hat.

“I knew that hats were to be found in shops and on garbage-heaps. I set off and hunted round the backs of houses. The garbage-heaps of this town had everything on them but hats. Most annoying. Where could I find one? I must have a hat. I passed a hat shop. The shop-keeper was busy writing in a book. There were lots of hats on the counter and many more, in boxes, on the floor. I was desperate. He could easily spare me one – he had so many. I dashed in and tried my luck. Bother it! I couldn’t get the hat out of the box quick enough. The shop-keeper threw his book at me and chased me out.

“I went on down the street.

“‘Never mind,’ I said to myself. ‘I’ll get a hat, somehow, yet.’

“As I turned the corner into another street I saw an old gentleman crossing the road. He was all muffled up and full of dignity. And on his head he had an elegant high hat – just the kind of hat I wanted for my performance.

“‘Ah!’ I said to myself. ‘If I can only trip that old gentleman up, his hat will roll off and I can take it to another part of the town and begin my show.’

“No sooner said than done. I leapt out into the road and ran between his feet. He stumbled and came down with a grunt on his stomach. His hat rolled into the gutter. I grabbed it and shot off down the street. Before the old gentleman had time to pick himself up I was round the corner and out of sight.

“I didn’t stop running till I got to an entirely different part of the town, quite a distance away. Here I felt I was safe from pursuit. I found myself at a busy street corner.

“‘Now,’ I thought, ‘the next thing is to collect a crowd.’

“I set the top hat on the curb-stone, got inside it and started barking for all I was worth. Very soon passers-by began to stop and wonder what it was all about. I went on yelping – I was sorry I hadn’t a drum, that’s what I should have had. Then I got out of the high hat, bowed to the audience and began my show. I begged, stood on my front paws, threw somersaults, etc. It was quite as good a show as the acrobat had given – better in fact.

“The audience didn’t know quite what to make of it. They gaped and gaped. Then they began asking one another, ‘Where’s his master? … Who’s he with?’

“The silly people couldn’t believe I was my own master, giving my own show. After a little they came to the conclusion it was some new trick, that my master had hidden himself somewhere near and was just proving how wonderfully I had been trained by not appearing on the scene himself till after the performance was over. Then pennies began dropping into the hat. That was all very well, but I couldn’t eat pennies.

“However the crowd finally did realize that I was entirely on my own. And some old ladies in the audience, instead of giving me coins, took their money into a butcher’s shop near by and bought some meat to give me. This I gobbled up with great relish and they went and got some more. The crowd grew bigger and bigger meanwhile. And pretty soon, eating between somersaults, I was as full as an egg and I couldn’t have done another trick if you had given me a kingdom.

“Well, my act earned me a very square meal, but it also nearly cost me my liberty. Why is it that people just can’t seem to understand that a dog may be satisfied to be his own boss? Before my show had gone very far many well-meaning people among the audience decided they ought to adopt me.

“‘Such a clever little dog!’ cried one old lady. ‘I think I’ll take him home with me – that is, if no one really owns him. Did you see the way he ate those sausages I gave him? He must be starving. He ought to have a good home, such a clever dog.’

“At that I made up my mind to close my act in a hurry. But it wasn’t at all easy to get away, I found. By this time I had attracted such a crowd at the corner that the traffic was held up. People were jammed in around me like a solid wall. Several persons in the audience began to argue as to which of them should adopt me. I should have been flattered, no doubt, but I wasn’t. I looked around frantically for a means of escape.

“Then suddenly the old gentleman whose hat I had stolen came up on the outskirts of the throng and recognized his topper, filled with pieces of meat and calves’ liver, sitting on the curb-stone. Furious with rage he began milling his way in through the mob. While he was picking up his hat and emptying the meat out of it – I hadn’t been able to eat more than half of the crowd’s contributions – I scuttled out through the lane he had made coming in. The people’s attention was suddenly turned to his lamentations and the story of how I had stolen his hat. And while they were listening I got through into more open country in the middle of the street.

“But the crowd was not long in missing me.

“‘Stop him! Grab him! He’s getting away!’someone called.

“And then as I bolted round the corner I realized that I had the whole town chasing me.

“I had eaten so many sausages and veal kidneys and pork chops that running at all was no easy matter. However I saw plainly that if I was going to keep my treasured liberty I had got to put my best foot forward.

“Luckily it was quite dark now. And as soon as I got off the main thoroughfares, away from the shops and into the dimly lit back streets I soon gave the crowd the slip.

“Ten minutes later, when I slowed down on the open road again outside the town, I said to myself:

“‘Well, I earned my own living tonight all right. But next time I do it I’ll try some other way.’”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Monastery

Quetch’s story had now been going on for some hours. And the attention of the audience had not slackened in the least. For my part, while my fingers felt a bit stiff from writer’s cramp (for you must remember I was taking down all these stories in short-hand, to be put into the book, Tales of the Home for Crossbred Dogs), I was still too deeply absorbed in the history of this strange little terrier to bother about the time. Neither had it occurred to the Doctor to look at his watch. And it is quite likely that we would all have sat on there listening till the cocks crowed if Dab-Dab had not suddenly appeared and told us that it was long after midnight and high time that the Doctor was abed.

So the rest of the Story of the Dog Who Set Out to Seek His Fortune was put off till the following night.

But when the next evening came I could see by the eager way the crowd got ready to listen that the delay had only made them that much keener to hear the remainder of it.

“The next chapter in my story,” Quetch continued, “was rather odd – peaceful but odd. The colder weather was coming on – for it was late in the year. When I felt that I was well beyond the reach of pursuit of the angry old gentleman and the townsfolk, I began to keep an eye open for a decent place to sleep. The best I could find was a haystack, into which I burrowed a sort of hole and curled myself up inside. I was just about to drop off when a biting cold wind sprang up in the East and began blowing right into my little den. I soon realized that I had got to make a move. I tried the other side of the stack but it wasn’t much better. So I decided to go on down the road and find another place.

“I hadn’t gone very far when I heard a bell tolling. I peered into the darkness off to the side of the road and saw a large stone building. At one end there was a sort of chapel with stained glass windows, dimly lighted. It was the only habitation in the neighbourhood, standing in the midst of its own grounds apparently. I went up closer and saw that there were men dressed in robes solemnly gathering in the little chapel. It was evidently a monastery. I knew, because there had been one near our home farm. These monks would be going in to vespers, the evening service.

“Well, I was never what you would call a religious dog. On the other hand, no one could call me bigoted or intolerant. Among my friends upon the Scotch farm I had had Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist dogs. One of my closest chums had been an Airedale who belonged to a Jewish rabbi. The little chapel looked warm and inviting compared to the cold night outside. The doors would soon close. I joined the procession and went in to vespers.

“Well, it seemed that some of the monks were not as broad-minded about matters of religion as I myself. They objected to my coming in. I suppose they thought I wasn’t a Roman Catholic dog and hadn’t any business there. Anyway, I had no sooner found an empty pew, free from draughts and curled myself up to listen to the service in comfort, than I was grabbed by one of the lay brothers, carried to the door and put out.

“I was greatly shocked by this. I had always understood that monasteries were famous for their hospitality. What sort was this, when a gentleman of the road, taking shelter from a windy night within their walls, was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and shoved out into the cold? While I was wondering what I would do next the organ started playing and the monks began singing psalms. Such voices, my gracious! I could do better myself. I would show them. I leant against the chapel door and joined in the chorus. Of course I couldn’t sing the words. But I had no difficulty in following the general lines of the tune quite as musically as they were doing.

“To my surprise, my joining the choir seemed to stop the organ. Next I heard whisperings behind the closed door of the chapel.

“‘Perhaps it is the Devil, Brother Francis,’ I heard one monk say, ‘trying to disturb us at our devotions. Do not open the door on any account.’

“This wasn’t very flattering, nor in the least helpful. But presently the Abbot, that is the head of the monks, came down to the door of the chapel to see what all the disturbance was about. The Abbot was a very fine man. He became, afterwards, a great friend of mine. Devil or no devil, the Abbot believed in facing the problems of life. He ordered the door to be opened at once. He smiled when he saw me sitting on the step outside.

“‘Come in, stranger,’ said he, ‘and take shelter from the wind and cold.’

“I didn’t wait for any second invitation but trotted in at once and made myself comfortable in one of the pews. Several of the monks looked kind of shocked and scandalized. But as it was their own abbot who had let me in there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Then they went on with the service.

“After it was over they all started to troop out again. They were very solemn and serious. I joined the procession, sticking close to the Abbot, who was, I realized, a good person to keep in with. From the door of the chapel, two by two, with our eyes on the ground, we traipsed along a stone-paved cloister and entered another door. Beyond this, I was delighted to discover, lay the dining-room, or refectory, as it is always called in monasteries. Good cooking smells greeted our nostrils. With the cold nippy wind I already had a great appetite again.

“Well, I followed the monastic life for several months. It wasn’t half bad. The monks were a very nice lot of men when you got to know them. And as soon as I was accepted into the order I was allowed to go everywhere and do pretty much as I pleased. In that respect it was one of the freest, most agreeable chapters in my whole career. The old Abbot was lots of fun. Naturally of a very cheerful disposition, he often had, I could see, very hard work keeping up the solemn dignity which seemed to be expected of his position as head of the monastery. I am sure that he found in his friendship for me a chance to let off steam and be natural. Many was the jolly run we had together, down in a hollow of the monastery meadows where no one could see us, in pursuit of an otter or a hare.

“Of course it was quiet, there’s no denying that. Prayers, digging in the garden, farm and housework, were all we did; and day followed day in peaceful sameness. But for my part I managed to get a good deal of fun out of it. In return for my board and lodging I kept the monastery and the farm-buildings free from rats. That gave me plenty to do. And it was about this time that I first became a collector. The Abbot was a geologist and he used to collect stones and pieces of rock. I helped him in digging for them.

“Yes, I had a very peaceful life while I was a Monk Dog. I would probably have stayed with it much longer if it had not been for my desire to see more of the world. This finally led me to bid farewell to the monastery and its nice abbot and set forth once more upon my wanderings.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Shepherd in Distress

“The Winter was now in full swing and it was not a good season to be homeless. For a week or two I spent about the hardest time that I have ever gone through. Icy blizzards were blowing most of the time. When I wasn’t nearly frozen I was almost starved to death. I could well understand then, I assure you, why it was that we dogs, as a race, had remained dependent upon Man. Many a time I was tempted to get adopted by any master or mistress, no matter how stupid or severe, so long as I got one square meal a day and a warm bed in return for my bondage.

“One day when I was down to a very low level of misery and want, trudging along the road wondering where my next meal was coming from, I saw a shepherd having a hard time rounding up his flock. He had a sheep dog with him, but the animal was a fool and no good at the business.

“I was awfully weak for want of food, but I saw here a chance of something worth while. The shepherd was in despair. The wind was blowing like a crazy hurricane, now this way, now that. Darkness was coming on. The sheep were scattered in all directions, scared by the gale. The man’s dog was more a nuisance than a help. He tried hard enough; but he just didn’t know the business of sheep-herding, and that was all there was about it. Having helped my father on the home farm – he was one of the best sheep dogs that ever barked, even if he was only a terrier – I did know something about it.

“After a little the poor shepherd saw that his dog was worse than useless and he whistled and called him off the job. That was my chance. In less time than it takes to tell, I shot round that flock and herded it up through the gate that I saw the shepherd was trying to pass it through. Once I had the sheep in the fenced enclosure the job was done and the shepherd was happy. I came up to him wagging my tail. He fell on my neck and almost wept. If that flock had been lost in the night storm I suppose he would have got into serious trouble.

“That was how I started two friendships which lasted a long while – one with the shepherd, the other with his dog. I went home with the two of them that night and was rewarded with a good hearty meal of stew and a warm bed. While supper was being prepared I heard the shepherd telling his wife how, when it looked as though the flock would be surely lost, I had appeared on the scene and saved the day.

“But the curious thing about this incident was that the shepherd, by no means an educated person, never tried to take advantage of me, restrict my liberty or capture me as his property. I suppose, being a sheep-herder himself, he recognized in me an expert in his own trade who was entitled to respect. In other words, I had, for perhaps the first time in Dog History, hired myself out as an independent specialist and could leave or stay with the job as I pleased.

“Poor though he was, the man gave me splendid meals, in every way as good as his own. I took his dog in hand – he was a collie, a decent fellow even if he was a bit stupid – and taught him over several weeks how sheep-herding should be done under varying conditions of weather.

“You know, that game is not quite as easy as it looks to the man who passes by. Sheep are a herd animal – very much a herd animal. If the weather is fine they behave one way; if it is rough they behave another; if it is hot they do this; if it rains they do that and so forth. Now if you’re a sheep dog – a good sheep dog – you’ve got to know these things and act accordingly.

“Well anyway, I put the shepherd’s dog through a regular course. I enjoyed it myself – as one always does when teaching the other fellow. By the end of a fortnight, poor Raggles, as he was called, was a really good sheep dog and could be trusted to take care of a flock even if a blizzard sprang up at twilight, which is perhaps the hardest thing that a sheep dog is ever called upon to do.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

City Life

“But my yearning to see the world led me to drop that too, just as it had the peace of the monastic life. And the day came when I said goodbye to the shepherd and his dog and set out once more. It had been kind of lonely on the sheep farm and I thought I would like to try city life for a while. I journeyed on till I came to a big town. You see, being still pretty inexperienced, I thought it would be quite a simple matter for a dog to go to a city and take up his residence there like a person. But I discovered it wasn’t.

“Firstly, finding a place to live was hard. I solved that problem eventually by taking up my quarters in an old packing-case which I found in an empty lot. It was one of those places where people dump rubbish. The packing-case, as a kennel, left a good deal to be desired, but it might have been worse. The wind and the rain blew in through the holes of it. But it was much better after I had stuffed it and lined it with some straw and rags which I found near by among the rubbish.

“Another problem was the food. This was always sort of hard. But I had supposed it would be easier in a city where so many had to be fed and such a lot of food was on sale. But, on the contrary, I never met with such extraordinary difficulty in getting enough to eat.

“However the worst thing of all was the dog-catchers. In cities, I discovered, homeless dogs are not allowed. By homeless they mean ownerless. An office called The Department of Public Health is responsible for this. It is not supposed to be healthy for a town to have ownerless dogs knocking around its streets.

“Of all the inhospitable unfriendly institutions, that of Town Dog-catchers is, I think, the worst. The idea is this: a man with a wagon goes round the streets. And any dogs he finds who haven’t collars on, or who appear to be without masters, or lost, get grabbed by the dog-catcher and put into his wagon. Then they are taken to a place and kept there to see if anyone wishes to claim them or adopt them. After a certain number of days, if no one has come forward to give them a home, they are destroyed.

“Dear me, what a time I had keeping out of the clutches of those dog-catchers! I seemed to be always getting chased. Life just wasn’t worth living. Although I managed to get away I finally decided that a town was no place for me and that I didn’t care for city life at all.

“And then just as I was preparing to leave one evening I did get caught. Goodness, how scared I was! As the wretched old wagon rumbled along over the cobbled streets I cowered inside, thinking that the end of my career had surely come. At the home or whatever it was called where we were taken, we were treated quite kindly, as a matter of fact – fed well and given decent beds. Well, there I waited in the greatest anxiety wondering whether I was going to get adopted or not.

“On the third day, which I believe was the last day of grace allowed, an old lady called at the home. It seemed it was a habit of hers, calling to see if she could rescue any stray dogs from destruction. Her keen old eyes picked me out right away.

“‘Oh,’ said she, ‘he looks a nice dog, that Aberdeen over there. I think I can find a home for him.’

“Then she asked the man in charge to keep me till the next day, when she hoped to be able to bring someone along who would adopt me.

“This she did. He was a funny sort of man, harmless enough. He took me away with a piece of string tied around my neck. And I assure you I was glad enough to go with him.

“After I got to his home I decided that he wasn’t very anxious to have me, really, after all. I felt that most likely he had only taken me to oblige the old lady. He was one of those fussy bachelors, worse than any old maid – had to have everything in his house in apple-pie order and nearly had a fit if I got onto the chairs or left hairs on the hearth-rug.

“After staying with him a week I made up my mind that he would probably be greatly relieved if I ran away and freed him of my company. Which I did, choosing the night-time for my departure so that I could get out of the town without running into those wretched dog-catchers again.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Hermit Dog

“This time I determined to remove myself from the haunts of Man completely and entirely. I must confess I felt considerably disappointed in Humankind – disappointed and a good deal annoyed. It seemed to me that Man took far more than his share of the good things of this world and that he bossed the rest of creation much more than he had any business to. So I was now going to live independently of him. I think part of the idea was proving to myself, as well as to Mankind, that a dog could be really self-supporting.

“To find a piece of country that was wild enough for my purpose was not easy. I made inquiries of dogs whom I met along the roads. They told me of certain big forests and heaths where they reckoned that a dog could live, hidden away in peace, if he wanted to. These districts were all quite a distance off. I chose one that sounded the best and started out to get there.

“It took me three days of steady travel. On the way the countryside grew less and less peopled; and when at last I came to the part I was making for it certainly was lonesome and desolate enough for anything. Some of it was mountainous. For the rest, wide expanses of forest and brambly rolling heath sheltered only the timid native creatures of the wild. One couldn’t find a better place for a dog to lead a hermit’s life.

“I began by making a thorough exploration of the whole section till I knew every dell and thicket in it. Then I found a fine old hollow tree, like a bear’s den, which made the snuggest home you ever saw. No winds or storms could reach me there, and it was as dry as any house or kennel. It was situated in one of the remotest and thickest parts of the forest where no stray traveller would be likely to find me – even supposing that any stray travellers ever passed that way. Quite near there was a splendid little mountain brook where I could always get a drink. Rabbits seemed plentiful, partridges and woodcock too; and there were a few squirrels and small game. Even in the winter season the woods were full of wonderful smells and looked very attractive.

“‘So,’ I said to myself the first evening when I brought home a rabbit to my lair and prepared to turn in for the night – ‘so! What do I care now for Man and his silly civilization? Here I will settle down, a wild dog, independent and self-reliant, living on the wilderness as did my forefathers before me. This is the life! Let Man go hang!’

“Well, I stuck to my experiment long enough to prove it could be done. Entirely self-supporting and independent, I lived in the woods through the rest of the winter. Hardships I had in plenty; but I did it. Of course my diet was almost always raw meat, occasionally fish when I managed to catch the big trout drowsing in the rocky pools of the mountain brook. But that wasn’t often. They were clever customers and were seldom off their guard. But I did get one or two a week – after I had secretly watched how the otters managed it, lying on the banks among the bracken, motionless for hours, and then, when the chance came, plunging right into the icy waters like a fish myself and battling with them in their own element. I learned a lot of hunting dodges from the otters – and from the weasels too.

“In many ways it was indeed a great life. But suddenly after a while I found I wasn’t really contented. True I had all I wanted, liberty and independence included. But, there was no denying it, I wanted something else besides. I found myself wandering off to the few lonely little farms whose pastures bordered the heathlands beyond the edge of the forest. I didn’t know why I did this at first. But soon I realized that I wanted to see and talk with other dogs. One farm dog I persuaded to leave his home and come and live with me. Together we had a very good time and he enjoyed it no end when I showed him how the independent wild life could be lived and taught him a lot of the hunting lore I had learned from the otters and foxes. And then too, hunting with a partner was of course much easier than hunting alone.

“But after a few weeks we both got sort of mopy. It perplexed us a good deal till finally we talked it over together and came to the conclusion that perhaps we wanted to be among people again. At first we would neither of us accept that idea at all. Still, we had to admit it in the end. Human company could give us something we couldn’t get here. We both started remembering what good times we had had with this farmer, or that shepherd, or those children, going for walks, playing games, ratting together and so forth. One evening my friend said to me:

“‘You know, Quetch, the trouble is we can live alone the same as the wild animals. But I don’t believe we want to – not for long anyway. Our ancestors have lived for so many generations as part of the Human Household that now we miss the things that Mankind’s company has provided us with. There was a small boy back on that farm I left – as funny a little tow-haired scrub as ever you laid eyes on. I never thought I’d miss him, never. He used to take me with him when he went to look for mushrooms in the Fall – or for birds’ nests or water-lilies in the Spring. And now – it’s funny – I find myself longing to see him again…. Would you mind very much, Quetch, if I left you, and went back?’

“Well, what could I answer? When he asked me that question I realized at once that the end of the experiment had come for me as well as for him. Life in the wild alone, after I had shared it with him, would have been quite unbearable for me.

“‘All right,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’m more independently inclined than most dogs. But there is a great deal in what you say. Nevertheless if I go back to Man and his civilization I will only do it on certain conditions. I must be allowed to be my own boss. I will not be chained up and made to keep a whole lot of rules.’

“‘In that case, why don’t you go and try to get into the Doctor’s club?’ said he.

“‘Doctor? – Club?’ I asked. ‘I don’t follow you. What doctor? – What club?’

“‘Well,’ said my friend, ‘I don’t just know where he lives but almost any dog you meet seems to have heard of him. Dolittle is his name – lives somewhere down in the West Country, as far as I can make out. Must be a very remarkable person, from all reports. Has a club for dogs which is run by the dogs themselves. Certain rules of course, but only those that the members realize are necessary and lay down. Why don’t you try and find him?’

“So that was how I first heard of Doctor Dolittle and his Home for Crossbred Dogs. Right away I realized it was the kind of place I had been looking for all my life up to this – where dogs were allowed to be themselves, and yet where they could enjoy human company, on a proper footing, as well.

“When my friend set out I went with him. I had no regrets over leaving my woodland home, in spite of its being such a wonderful spot. At his farm we parted and I went on. As yet of course the neighbourhood was very wild and lonely; and there were not many dogs to ask directions from. But soon I came to villages and towns. All the dogs I questioned seemed to have heard of John Dolittle all right, but none of them could give me very definite instructions as to how to reach his home. Some said he might be abroad because he travelled a great deal.

I avoided the larger towns, as I was still afraid of the dog-catchers. Most of the information given me spoke of the Doctor as living in the West Country; and I kept travelling in that direction all the time.

“In my wanderings I eventually came to a town which was neither very large nor very small. In the Market Square I saw a Punch-and-Judy show going on. This form of entertainment had always amused me and I stopped to watch it. Presently another dog came up to me from behind and called me by name. Turning, I was delighted to find my old friend Toby. He had been watching the performance with a professional interest.

“We got chatting and I asked him if he had ever heard of this John Dolittle. You can imagine how glad I was to learn that not only was Toby living with the great man himself, but that this town which I had come to was none other than Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, where the Doctor had his home. Toby volunteered to take me round there to see if he could get me into the celebrated club.

“And so there came an end to my wanderings. I had been a tramp dog, a performing dog, a gipsy dog, a monk dog, a professional sheep herder and a hermit wild dog. Not a very exciting career perhaps, but at least it had plenty of variety in it. I can assure you I was very glad to settle down in these pleasant surroundings” (Quetch waved an expressive paw towards the wide dining-room and the gymnasium that lay beyond the double doors) “which are certainly my idea of a comfortable independent life I hope the Club continues to flourish for many years and I thank you for the attention with which you have listened to my story.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Top-knot Terriers

Professor Quetch was given quite as much applause as any story-teller who had gone before him. When it had subsided, Jip, as President of the Club, got up to thank him formally on behalf of the audience.

This over, Jip went on to say that since no story had yet been slated to follow Quetch’s, he would like to know if any members had suggestions to make about filling out the remainder of the evening’s entertainment.

Then one dog got up (he was a cross between a St. Bernard and a mastiff) and said that he thought a story about the Doctor would be a good idea. These stories that they had heard were very good of their kind, but he felt that the members would like to hear one about John Dolittle himself.

Jip agreed that this was a good idea. Then he started to count off the dogs, besides himself, who had lived a considerable time with the Doctor. There was Swizzle the clown dog; Toby the Punch-and-Judy dog; Kling the detective dog; Blackie the retriever and Grab the bulldog. Each of these in turn was asked if he could think of any incident in his life with the Doctor which would make a good story.

But none of them seemed to be able to remember on the spur of the moment anything that could be considered complete enough. Then the Sea Dog (who had already told us a thrilling yarn out of his own adventures on the deep) got up and said:

“I think that Jip himself, who has after all known John Dolittle longer than any of us, ought to tell us a story about the Doctor.”

At this there were many “Hear, hears!” from the members. And Jip felt that he had to get up and make some reply.

“All right,” said he, “in that case I think I’ll tell you the story of how John Dolittle invented the Top-knot Terrier. You know, of course, that the Doctor has never cared very much whether a dog was what is known as a thoroughbred. Whether a dog had a nice personality, or was intelligent, was far more important to him. Well, some years ago there was a certain rich and high-born lady, known as the Dowager Countess of Battlebridge, who realized that the Doctor was a great man. This was curious; because people as a class usually think him something of a crank. That, as many of you know, has always had the effect of making him keep very much to himself and the animal world. But the Dowager Countess of Battlebridge was an exception – an exceptional woman all round, in fact. She was extremely interested in, and fond of, animals and she had a great admiration for the Doctor’s knowledge of animal medicine. She did not, any more than the rest of the world, believe that he could talk animal languages. But she saw that he certainly had a great gift for communicating ideas to them and getting them to understand what he wanted. She had a whole lot of dogs of her own and was a great authority on breeds, attending all the shows, where she was very often one of the judges.

“Whenever any of her animals were sick she always got the Doctor to attend to them, maintaining that he was the only veterinary surgeon in the country worthy of the title. Among her dogs she had one very jolly little poodle called Juanita – frightfully thoroughbred, prize-winner and all that.

“One day Juanita was missing. The Dowager Countess was in despair. She put advertisements in all the papers, hired detectives to hunt for the dog, and everything. All to no purpose. Juanita the prize poodle had disappeared as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed her up.

“One evening when I and the Doctor were in the study we heard a tapping at the window. I knew that tap. I had heard it before. It was Cheapside the Cockney sparrow knocking on the glass with his bill.

“‘Well, Doctor,’ says he as soon as he was let in, ‘where do you think Juanita the prize poodle is hiding? In your stable.’

“‘In my stable!’ cried the Doctor. ‘What a place to choose when she had the most luxurious home in the country to live in!’

“‘Yes, but listen, Doctor,’ says Cheapside, coming closer and lowering his voice. ‘That isn’t all. She’s got puppies – five of ’em, the queerest little things you ever saw. They’ve got top-knots on their heads like Fiji Islanders. Look like a cross between a weasel and a pin-cushion. I reckon she’s ashamed of ’em, is Juanita – being they’re so queer-looking – and that’s why she has kept in hiding.’

“‘Oh, well,’ said the Doctor, ‘let’s go down and take a look at them right away.’

“Thereupon we all proceeded to the stable with a lantern. And under an old manger, among some straw and autumn leaves, we found Juanita and her family. I am bound to say that Cheapside’s description had not been in the least exaggerated. They were queer. At first I could scarcely believe they were dogs at all. It was only by the smell of them that I was sure.

“‘My goodness, Juanita,’ said the Doctor, ‘why didn’t you let me know you were here all the time?’

“‘Well,’ said she, ‘for one thing I didn’t want to put you in an embarrassing position with regard to the Countess. And for another I – er – I – er—’

“She looked at the queer puppies and paused. She seemed dreadfully awkward and ill at ease.

“‘They’re hardly thoroughbred, you see, Doctor,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t know what my mistress would say or do about them. Frankly, I was scared. The Countess, as you know, only has dogs of the highest pedigree in her kennels.’

“‘Well,’ said the Doctor,’I think they are a very jolly-looking lot. These top-knots are quite unique – and very smart in my opinion. Are they intelligent?’

“‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ said Juanita brightening up and showing no end of motherly pride. ‘They’re the cleverest lot of puppies I ever had.’

“That, as you can imagine, got the Doctor more interested than anything she could have said. And finally he became tremendously keen on these queer puppies – so keen that he took them across from the stable to his house, where they made themselves a great nuisance to Dab-Dab the housekeeper. They ran all over the place and you stumbled on them everywhere you went.

“Nevertheless there was no denying that they were, as the Doctor had said, distinctly unusual. Clever wasn’t the word for them: they were positively uncanny. I have never seen anything like it. Usually it takes a dog years to learn anything about human speech and what it means – if indeed he ever does. But these little beggars seemed to catch on to all that was happening or being said in any language right away. Dab-Dab continued to storm and insisted that they be put back in the stable; but the Doctor said:

“‘No, Dab-Dab. These pups are an extraordinary case of animal intelligence. They must stay. I want to study them. Why, they have real brains, Dab-Dab – real brains!’

“‘They’re mongrels,’ she snapped – ‘homely mongrels at that.’

“‘I don’t care,’ said the Doctor. ‘They represent a distinct advance in animal intelligence.’

“Juanita, who had up to this been scared and ashamed about how they would be received, now began to put on no end of airs as the mother of the most intelligent puppies on record. The Doctor gave them all sorts of tests to demonstrate how clever they were. I do believe that he had hopes of someday getting them to take up mathematics and science – if not to run for Parliament. He was quite excited and worked up over it.

“Not a great while after Juanita’s presence in the stable had been announced by Cheapside, the Doctor felt that he ought to notify the Dowager Countess of Battlebridge; for she was still very disturbed over her prize poodle’s disappearance. The good lady was overjoyed at the news and immediately asked that Juanita be restored to her home. But the poor puppies, since they were not thoroughbred, she was not in the least interested in. Then the Doctor took two whole hours trying to explain to her that she was wrong.

“‘Don’t you see,’ said he, ‘how much more important it is that Juanita has brought an unusually intelligent kind of a dog into the world than that her children should carry on some set type of breed?’

“Well, the Doctor, after talking very enthusiastically for quite a while about the brilliant intellects of these puppies got the Countess herself interested too. She asked to see them. And the Doctor took her over to the house at once to show them to her.

“And it didn’t take those pups long to win the Countess’s heart. But after she had raved over them a while she seemed a bit ashamed of herself.

“‘Oh, but just look at them, Doctor!’ she cried – ‘with these delightfully absurd, woolly mops on their heads. They’re darlings; but they’re mongrels. I’d be ashamed to have them in the house.’

“‘Yes, I know. But after all,’ said the Doctor, ‘breed in dogs is a very artificial thing. Hardly any of the races which are popular today are pure native dogs. The Bull Terrier, the Pomeranian, the Black-and-tan: they have all been produced by crossbreeding in the first instance. The only true original breeds are the Esquimaux sleigh dog, the Dingo of Australia and one or two more. Now what I was going to suggest is this: you are a famous authority on dogs with society and the Kennel Club. It is within your power to popularize this new breed which Juanita has given to the world and make it the vogue of the day. Why, only last month Sir Barnaby Scrogley produced a new race which he called the Bob-tailed Bolivian Beagle. It has since become quite fashionable. His breed hasn’t the wits of a cockroach – I know, because I’ve talked with them. Whereas these puppies of Juanita’s surpass anything in dog intelligence I ever met.’

“This set the Countess thinking. As a matter of fact she was quite jealous of Lady Scrogley, Sir Barnaby’s wife, who was another well-known woman authority on dogs and frequently acted as judge at the Kennel Club shows. The idea of producing a new breed which should outshine, as the fad of the moment, the Scrogleys’ Bolivian Beagles appealed to the Dowager Countess immensely.

“‘Humph!’ she said at last. ‘And what, Doctor, would you call this breed? It doesn’t look like anything that has ever been registered so far on the Kennel Club’s books.’

“‘We’d call it The Top-knot Terrier,’ said John Dolittle – ‘a smart name for a very smart dog. I’m sure they would be popular.’

“‘Humph!’ said the Countess again. ‘Perhaps you’re right. They certainly are awfully attractive mites…. Well – er – you must give me a little time to think it over.’

“The next day the Countess called on the Doctor and told him that she had decided to follow his suggestion. The puppies were all brushed and combed and their top-knots were trimmed (by a French barber) into a very smart shape. They were then taken over to the Countess’ mansion and adopted into the household with all due ceremony and honour.

“The result of this was exactly as the Doctor had predicted. They became the rage in a week. The Dowager Countess took one or two with her everywhere she went. And since she was such a very important figure in sporting society, these unusual dogs were remarked upon, talked about and written up in the papers. Everyone wanted to know what the breed was. He was told: The Top-knot Terrier. It was repeated everywhere. But the Countess went the Doctor one better. Seeing that the Scrogleys had produced a race of beagles from Bolivia, she wove a wonderful story about the Top-knots coming from some remote island in the South Seas. And they finally became known as the “Fijian Top-knots.’ And if you claimed to be in the fashion, not to have a Fijian Top-knot just put you outside the pale instantly. The Countess was besieged with letters inquiring about the breed – where could they be obtained? what were they fed on? etc., etc.

“She was delighted – because not only did her new breed entirely outshine the Scrogleys’ Bolivian Beagles, but it earned its popularity by real brains and natural charm. The Fijian Top-knots were known to be able to do anything short of book-keeping and astronomy. Also, for the present anyhow, they were nearly priceless – because there were only five of them and all the fashionable ladies in the land were falling over one another to buy them.

“The Shah of Persia, who happened to be visiting London just then, simply insisted that he wouldn’t be happy unless he could take one back to Teheran with him. The Dowager Countess refused outright, saying she didn’t know what sort of treatment they would receive in Persia. But a special request arrived from the Prime Minister that this whim of the foreign monarch should be gratified. And one of Juanita’s children sailed away in the Shah’s suite. We learned afterwards that the pup was treated very well – but got dreadfully fat eating too many sweetmeats in the Shah’s harem.

“The Doctor was very pleased, for, in its way, this was a great triumph.

“‘That just shows you, Jip,’ said he to me one evening, as he was reading his newspaper in front of the fire, ‘how utterly absurd is this idea of thoroughbredness in dogs being so much more desirable than cross-breeding. Here we have made a regular mongrel into the last word of up-to-dateness. And all because we called in the aid of a few society people. The whole thing is just a question of fashion, Jip. Just fashion – nothing more.’”

• • • • •

•   12   •

Dogs’ Jobs

A few nights after Jip had ended his story about the Top-knot Terriers, the Doctor happened to be present again at one of the after-dinner story-telling sessions at the Home for Crossbred Dogs. And, as usual, he was asked to tell a tale himself.

He rose and said he was sorry he could not think of any at the moment but he had been greatly interested in what Quetch had said about the business of sheep-herding.

“This,” he went on, “is an example of something that dogs can do better than anyone else. Now there are other things that dogs can do – I mean in a professional way. Their experiences, even if they did not form very long stories, would be, I think, well worth hearing – and instructive. Will all those dogs present who have ever worked professionally please stand up?”

At that, to our considerable surprise, a good dozen or more dogs rose among the audience and waved a paw or something to attract attention. There were some who had been watch dogs; one had worked in an Esquimau sleigh-team; another had done duty as a life-guard at a children’s swimming beach; one, a St. Bernard, said he had been employed at the famous monastery in the Alps and rescued lost travellers from mountain snow-storms; another got up and told us he had led a blind man through city streets and helped him earn a living; a funny old veteran of a blood-hound said he had been employed as a tracker by a prison to hunt down prisoners who ran away; two others said they had worked in Holland pulling vegetable barrows around like horses; another had been a collector for charity, going through the city with a tin box on his back into which people put pennies for the cause of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; several sporting dogs had spent years at the various jobs dogs do in retrieving, tracking and pointing with the guns. And there were many more.

“Well, now you see,” said the Doctor, “we have here a great many members who have worked for their living. If some of them would tell us of their experiences and a little about the job which they were employed in, I’m sure it would be most interesting.”

This was eventually done. Each dog gave us a short talk on the profession he had followed, sometimes about the job itself and sometimes part of his experiences while employed in it. These I took down and made into a separate chapter called “Dogs’ Jobs” in my book entitled Tales of the Home for Crossbred Dogs.

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

Insect Languages

There were to have been two volumes to that book, Tales of the Home for Crossbred Dogs. But it was around this time – when I was finishing the first of them – that I was asked by the Doctor to assist him in another department. This kept me writing so busily that everything else was laid aside for the time being.

It was the study of Insect Languages. For years and years the Doctor had been patiently working on it. He had, as I have told you, butterfly-breeding houses where the caterpillars of moths and butterflies were hatched out and liberated in a special enclosed garden, about the size of a room, full of flowers and everything needed for butterfly happiness.

Then hornets, wasps, bees and ants – we had other special apparatus and homes for them too. Everything was designed with one foremost idea in view: to keep the insects happy and in normal conditions while they were being studied.

And the water-born creatures, like the dragon flies, the stone flies, etc., for them he had hundreds of small aquarium tanks with plants and grasses growing in them. Beetles, the same way. In fact there was practically no branch or department of Insect Life which the Doctor had not at one time or another studied with a view to establishing language contact with it. He had built many delicate machines which he called “Listening Apparatus.”

About this time too, Morse’s experiments in electricity and telegraphy were attracting a good deal of public attention. And John Dolittle had been very hopeful that these sciences would aid him in some way. Bumpo and I had built him a shed especially for this and he had entirely filled it with electrical batteries and things which he felt confident would eventually solve some of his problems in connexion with insect languages.

But in spite of a tremendous amount of patient labour, trial and experiment, he had admitted to me only a week or so ago that he felt he had accomplished nothing. So you can imagine my surprise when, just as I was finishing the last chapter to the first volume for the mongrels’ club, he came rushing into the Dogs’ Dining Room, grabbed me by the arm and breathlessly asked me to come with him. Together we ran across to the insect houses. There, over the various listening apparatus, he attempted to explain to me how he had at last achieved results – results which, he was confidently sure, would lead to his dream being realized.

It was all highly scientific and frightfully complicated; and I am afraid that I did not understand a great deal of it. It seemed mostly about “vibrations per second,” “sound waves” and the like. As usual with him on such occasions, everything else was laid aside and forgotten in his enthusiasm.

“Stubbins,” said he, “I shall need your help for the secretarial work and the note-keeping – there’s a tremendous lot of recording to be done. I am overwhelmed by my results. It all came at once – so suddenly. In one swoop I established what I believe are the beginnings of language-contact with five different kinds of insects: a wasp, a caterpillar – or rather a maggot – a house-fly, a moth and a water-beetle. If I am right in my surmises this is the greatest moment in my whole career. Let us go to work.”

And then for many days – and most of the nights too – we laboured. Goodness, how we worked! Dab-Dab was in despair. We were late for all meals – for some of them we didn’t turn up at all. A large part of the time I was asleep, or half asleep, because the Doctor not only worked regularly far into the night, but he was up early in the mornings as well. It reminded me of the time when he had met his first success in shellfish languages on the ship going to Spidermonkey Island.

He brought insects into the house in pails, in biscuit-tins, in tea-cups, in everything. You never saw such a mess. His bedroom, the kitchen, the parlour, the study – everywhere you went you found pots of maggots, glasses full of wasps, bowls full of water-beetles. Not content with that, he kept going out and getting more. We would walk miles and miles across country, armed with collecting-boxes, in search of some specially large beetle or some new kind of wasp which he felt sure would be better for experimenting purposes than any he had used so far.

Poor Gub-Gub was continually getting stung by the wasps – indeed the house seemed full of them. As for Dab-Dab, her indignation every time a new lot of maggots was brought in was quite indescribable. She threw several lots out of the window when the Doctor wasn’t looking; but she was always brought to account for it. Because John Dolittle, no matter how many messy little cans he had placed around the house, knew immediately if a single one were missing.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Foreign Insects

For my part, I cannot truthfully say that I ever got into real, personal, conversational contact with the Insect World. But that John Dolittle did there can be no doubt whatever. This I have proof of from things that happened. You cannot make a wasp stand up on its front legs and wave its other four feet in the air unless you know enough wasp language to make him do so. And that – and a great deal more – I have seen the Doctor accomplish.

Of course it was never quite the free and easy exchange of ideas that his talking with the larger animals had come to be. But then insects’ ideas are different; and consequently their languages for conveying those ideas are different. With all but the very largest insects the “listening,” as it was called, was done with these quite complicated and very delicate instruments.

All draughts and vibrations had to be carefully shut off. Later on Bumpo and I made a second building specially for this, with a floor so solid that no footfall or shock, no matter how heavy, could jar the apparatus. It was also equipped with a very fine system for heating the atmosphere to exactly the right temperature. For the Doctor had found that most insects are inclined to go to sleep immediately the temperature falls below what is for them the normal climate of their active season. As a general rule, the hotter it was the more lively they were and the more they talked. But of course the air could not be allowed to get much warmer than full summer heat.

We called it listening for convenience. As a matter of fact, it more often consisted of recording vibrations, the pitch of a buzz, the velocity of the wing stroke and other slight noises and motions which insects make. With some of the very largest ones it was possible to hear the sounds given out with the naked ear. The clearest results that John Dolittle obtained were with imported insects, such as locusts and cicadas of different kinds.

How he procured these foreign specimens was rather interesting. He asked several birds to make special trips abroad for him and to bring back the grubs and eggs of grasshoppers, crickets, etc. For this of course he employed insect-eating birds who would know where to look for the specimens and could recognize them when they found them. Then in his incubating boxes at home he hatched out the eggs and grubs into the full-grown insects.

Most of the information that the Doctor gathered from this new study of insect languages was concerned with the natural history of the various species and genera. With this I filled over sixty thick notebooks for him. But we learned from certain cases, with which he was able to get into closer touch, many interesting personal stories of insect life and society. These, I think, might be more entertaining to the general reader than the purely scientific material which we gathered and stored away during the seven or eight months we spent on this work. We found that several kinds of butterflies had considerable imagination; and some of the yarns we were told I strongly suspect were made up out of whole cloth for our amusement. Others sounded as though they had the ring of truth to them. However I will shortly narrate one or two and then you can judge for yourselves.

All of the Dolittle household, with the exception of the harassed Dab-Dab, were greatly interested in this new departure of the Doctor’s. And as soon as I had got a new section written into my note-books we were at once besieged by Chee-Chee or Polynesia or Too-Too or Gub-Gub to read it out loud. And that is how most of the following anecdotes came to be told round the kitchen fire in the manner of the good old days when the Doctor had amused his family every night with a fireside yarn.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Tangerine

One of our most interesting insects was a wasp. The Doctor had of course experimented with a considerable number of wasps. But with this one he had achieved better results than with any. The tiny creature seemed highly intelligent, was much given to talking, so long as the room was kept warm; and, after he had got used to John Dolittle, would follow him around the house like a pet cat wherever he went. He allowed the Doctor to handle him without apparently ever dreaming of stinging him and seemed happiest when he was allowed to sit on the Doctor’s collar about an inch from his left ear. Gub-Gub it was who christened him with a name of his own Tangerine. This was because when the Doctor had been making inquiries of the wasp as to what foods he liked best he had said a certain yellow jam was his favourite. We tried apricot, peach, quince, Victoria plum. But we finally discovered that what he had meant was a marmalade made from Tangerine oranges.

He was then presented with his own private jar of marmalade – with which he seemed greatly delighted. But we saw almost right away that we would have to limit his allowance. He would eat such enormous quantities at one sitting. Then he’d fall asleep and wake up in the morning complaining of a dreadful headache. One evening he ate so much that he fell right into the pot and lay there on his back fast asleep, blissfully drowning in his favourite marmalade. We had to fish him out and give him a warm bath, because of course his wings and everything were all stuck together with the jam. In this the white mouse assisted us, as no one else’s hands were small enough to wash a wasp’s legs and face without doing damage.

This passion for marmalade was Tangerine’s only vice – otherwise he seemed to have a very nice disposition, not one that could be called waspish in the least. Gub-Gub having been stung by wasps before, was dreadfully scared of him. But for the rest of us he had no terrors, beyond a constant anxiety that we might sit on him – since he crawled over all the chairs and sofas and beds in the house as though he owned them.

Among the anecdotes and stories of the Insect World which Tangerine related to us, that of “How I Won the Battle of Bunkerloo” was one of the favourites. And this is how he told it:

“The battlefield of Bunkerloo was situated in a pleasant valley between rolling hills covered with vineyards and olive-groves. Many battles had been fought in this historic spot. Because, for one thing, it formed a naturally good place for battles; and, for another, it was at an important point where the territories of three countries touched upon one another. In the fields and the boles of the olive trees round about there were several wasps’ nests – as there naturally would be in a district of that size. They had always been there – though of course not the same wasps. Yet the traditions and folk-lore had been handed down from one generation to another. And the thing that we feared and hated most was battles. Dear me, how sick we were of war! For, mark you, even in my mother’s lifetime there had been two battles fought out on that same ground.

“Yes, indeed, war to us was like a red rag to a bull. It seemed such a stupid waste. From either end of our beautiful valley armies would come with cannons and horses and everything. For hours they would shoot off evil-smelling gunpowder, blowing some of the trees right out of the ground by the roots and destroying simply no end of wasps’ nests – some of them quite new ones which we had spent days and weeks in building. Then, after they had fought for hours, they would go away again, leaving hundreds of dead men and horses on the ground which smelt terribly after a few days – even worse than the gunpowder.

“And it never seemed to settle anything. Because in a year or two they’d be back again for another battle and ruin the landscape some more.

“Well, I had never seen any of these battles myself, being a young wasp. Nevertheless I had heard a whole lot about them from older relatives. But one evening, just as we were putting the finishing touches to a brand-new nest, one of my uncles came in and said:

“‘Listen: you can all save yourselves the trouble of any further work on that job. There’s going to be another battle.’

“‘How do you know?’ I asked.

“‘Because,’ says he, ‘I’ve seen them getting ready, up there at the mouth of the valley, digging in the big cannons on the hillside just the way they did last time. And that same general is there who was in charge last time too, General Blohardi, as they call him. His battles are always more messy than anybody else’s.’

“Well, when I heard this I was fired with a great ardour to do something. Our nest which we had just finished should be, I felt, defended. The next day I went out to look over the situation. I flew down to the south end of the valley, and there, sure enough, were men in red coats digging in enormous cannon and making no end of a mess. Behind them, as far as the eye could reach, were tents and tethered horses and ammunition-wagons and all the other paraphernalia of war.

“I went down to the other end of the valley and there was another army doing the same thing. When they were ready the two armies would come forward into the middle of the valley and fight out their silly battle.

“On the following day, early in the morning, we were awakened by a great blowing of bugles and beating of drums. Still hopeful that I might do something on behalf of my fellow-wasps – though I had no idea what it could be – I left the nest and started out again to reconnoitre.

“About the centre of the valley, up on the hills to one side, there was an especially high knoll. On this I saw the figures of horses and men. I flew over nearer to investigate.

“I found a group of very grandly dressed persons gathered about a man on horseback who seemed to be a highly important individual. He kept looking through field-glasses this way and that, up and down the valley. Messengers were arriving and departing all the time, bringing him news from every quarter.

“I decided that this must be the famous General Blohardi himself. Now about these names I am not very certain. They were names which we wasps gave and they may not be the right names at all. We called him General Blohardi because he was always blowing so hard through his long red moustache, which puffed out before him when he spoke like the whiskers on a walrus. The two armies were the Smithereenians and the Bombasteronians – but those also may not be the regular names. General Blohardi was the field marshal of the Bombasteronian army.

“It was clear that the general had come up to this high point so he could get a good view of the fight – also no doubt because he wanted to stay in a safe place himself. Evidently, from the way in which he kept blowing out his moustaches, he expected a very fine battle – one of his messiest. Before he would be done with our beautiful valley it would be just a howling wilderness full of broken trees, dead and wounded men and maimed horses.

“I felt so furious as I watched him there, snapping out his pompous orders, I was ready to do anything. Yet what could I do? I was such a tiny creature. A mere wasp!

“Presently a bugle blew far down the valley. It was followed almost immediately by the roar of cannon. All the horses moved restlessly and the general and his officers leaned forward in their saddles to see the show.

“The battle had begun!

“Now the whole object of the Battle of Bunkerloo was to gain what is called possession of this valley. What either army would do with the valley after they got it I don’t imagine either of them knew. But that was what the battle was for: to win the valley. To us it didn’t matter at all which side won it, because they would both make a nasty mess in getting it. What we wasps wanted was to stop the battle.

“As I noticed the horses move restlessly at the first roar of the cannon an idea came to me. It would be no use my going and stinging General Blohardi on the nose – though I would dearly have loved to do so. But if I stung his horse I might possibly accomplish something. The animal was a lovely steed, cream-coloured, groomed to perfection, high-spirited and as nervous as a witch.

“Well – no sooner thought than done. I hopped onto the horse behind the general and stung the poor fellow in the flank. It was a dirty trick to play on the horse and I wanted to apologize to him afterwards, but he was much too far away.

“The results were instantaneous and astounding. The horse gave one bound and shot off down the hill with me and the general, as fast as he could go. By this time the armies were on their way towards the centre of the valley. I had to cling for all I was worth not to be blown off by the rushing wind. I crawled along his flank and stung him in another place. Then he went faster still.

“When we reached the level in the bottom of the valley where the cavalry were already charging I feared he might turn and join the other horses. So I stung him a third time. At this he put on such speed that I was blown off and had to fly behind – where I had great difficulty keeping up with him. On and on and on he went, straight across the flat and up the other slope.

“Now, as I have said, Blohardi was the commander-in-chief of the Bombasteronians. And when the cavalry of that army saw their famous general in full flight leaving the battlefield at goodness knows how many miles an hour it completely disheartened and demoralized them. They too took to their heels. And that was the end of the battle.

“The general of the Smithereenians got no end of decorations and honours for the victory of Bunkerloo. But,” Tangerine ended modestly, “it was, as you see, really I who had won the battle…. Now I’d like a little more marmalade, please.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

Domestic Insects

I have never in my life seen poor Dab-Dab in such a state of fuss and annoyance as she was these days.

“It was bad enough,” she said to me one evening on the brink of tears, “when the Doctor used to fill the house with lame badgers and rheumatic field mice. But this is a thousand times worse. What’s the use of my trying to keep the house clean when he does nothing but ruin and smother it with bugs and insects. The latest is he is making friends with the spiders in the cellar. Their webs, he says, mustn’t be brushed away. For years I’ve been working to get the place free of cockroaches; and last night he was hunting everywhere with a lantern.

“‘Surely, Dab-Dab,’ says he, ‘we have some cockroaches?’

“‘Surely we have not,’ says I. ‘It took me a long time to get rid of them, but I succeeded at last. Not one roach will you find in my kitchen!’

“‘Dear, dear!’ he mutters. ‘I wanted one to talk to. I wonder if Matthew Mugg would have any in his house!’

“And off he goes to get that good-for-nothing Matthew to supply him with cockroaches. Of course once they get back in the house they’ll breed and be all over the place again in no time; and all because he wants to talk to them, mind you. And who cares, I’d like to know, what a cockroach might have to say – or a spider either? That’s the worst of the Doctor, he has no – er – sense in some things.”

“Well, Dab-Dab,” said I consolingly, “this present study may not last very long, you know. There are so many fresh branches of natural history continually claiming his attention, it’s quite possible that by next week he will be off on a new departure entirely and you will be able to get your house in order again.”

Dab-Dab shook her head sadly.

“I haven’t much hope,” said she. “There’s a whole lot of different bugs he has still to listen to, as he calls it. Why, do you know, Tommy, what I heard him saying the other day?”

The housekeeper dropped her voice and glanced guiltily over her shoulder.

“I heard him asking Jip if he thought fleas could talk!”

“And what did Jip say?” I asked. I confess I could not help smiling at the look of horror on her face.

“Well,” said she, “happily Jip gave him very little encouragement. ‘Fleas?’ he growled. – ‘All they can do is bite. Don’t have anything to do with ’em, Doctor. They’re a dirty lot!’”

At this moment John Dolittle came into the room bearing a small tray of maggots.

“Stubbins,” said he, “I want to do some experimental work with these. If you will come with me we will begin with listening machine number seventeen.”

“Ugh!” grunted Dab-Dab, glancing into the tray. “What gooey, messy-looking things!”

Without further delay the Doctor and I proceeded to our apparatus-sheds and set to work. We had quite good results. It seemed that several of the maggots – particularly one large and lively white one – had somehow got the drift of Dab-Dab’s remark and were considerably offended by it.

“She has no right whatever to call us gooey and messy,” said the Maggot. “Personally, to me ducks and people are much more gooey and messy than nice, clean, athletic maggots. And we would be glad if you would tell her so.”

“And you know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor after I had written this down into a note-book under the heading of Experiment No. 179, “I quite sympathize with their feelings in the matter. This idea of – er – revulsion and dislike on the part of one member of the animal kingdom for another is quite baseless and stupid. Myself, I’ve never felt that way towards any living thing. I won’t say that I’d choose a maggot or a snail to make a warm personal friend of. But certainly I would not regard them as being unclean or less entitled to respect than myself. I will certainly speak to Dab-Dab. Now we want to get some information from these maggots about their geographical distribution. I would like to know roughly over what parts of the world their species is to be found. This big fellow seems quite lively and intelligent. Just raise the temperature another five degrees, will you? – And turn on a trifle more humidity. Then we will question him.”

The subject of how various insects got scattered over the different countries and continents was one that greatly interested John Dolittle about this time and he was engaged in writing a pamphlet on it.

Well, the maggot told us a very entertaining story of travel and adventure, but he was not very helpful on the question of geographical distribution. He had not on the journey he described observed any of those things that would have been of scientific value to us.

“It’s too bad, Stubbins,” said the Doctor. “I fear we can’t get any further on this experiment for the present. However, I have a water beetle in one of my glass tanks who, I think, can give me a much more definite record of his travels – a record which may help us to show pretty exactly how his species comes to be found on the American side of the Atlantic and on this side also. If you will come to the study with me we will see what we can do.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Water Beetle

This next experiment which we made in insect language was entirely different from any we had conducted so far and turned out to be one of the most successful. It was much more like our research work in shellfish speech than anything we had done so far. By perfecting and extending the apparatus we had used for aquatic and marine creatures we managed to establish very good contact with the water beetle. His conversation was quite plain, and John Dolittle seemed to have very little difficulty in following what he was trying to say. This surprised me somewhat because he never seemed to stay still an instant, but was forever flying and shooting around this glass jar in which the Doctor kept him; now swimming freely in the clear water; now burrowing into the mud at the bottom; now perching on a water plant and polishing his nose with his front feet.

After the Doctor had conveyed to him what it was he wanted to know, he told us the following story:

“It is about our travelling you want to know, huh! – Well, of course being able to swim and walk and fly, we do a good deal of touring. But this, I fancy, is not what you would call travelling. It is all short-distance work, though much of it is very interesting. We water beetles are very fortunate, I suppose, since there are hardly any animals that care to fight with us. The big pickerel and pike are about our only dangerous enemies; they have to be quite hungry before they will consider us good eating. I have occasionally had to leave the water and take to my wings when being chased by these ferocious fish and have even had to leave one pond or stream altogether, when they had become too numerous, and seek other water homes. But those times were happily rare. The first occasion that I took a really big journey was on the foot of a duck.”

At this point the Doctor stopped the proceedings, fearing that he might not have heard aright.

“A journey on the foot of a duck?” he asked. “I don’t quite understand. Would you mind explaining that?”

“Certainly,” said the water beetle. “It is quite simple. You see, when we are not out swimming freely in the water in search of food we usually work our way down into the mud below, to the depth of, say, half an inch to two inches. This often enables us to hide away from the fish of prey who cannot dig for us. We are really very safe. Few water beetles ever fall victims to their enemies in their own element.

“But I and a friend of mine were once carried off from our native pond and transported an enormous distance – well, as I told you, on the foot of a duck. Our pond was away out in a lonely marshy stretch of country where few people ever came. Those who did, came in the Fall and Winter to shoot ducks. Of ducks there we had plenty, also every other kind of wild fowl – snipe, geese, plovers, redshanks, curlews, herons and what not. Even of these we water beetles were not afraid. We only had to burrow into the mud an inch or two and we were usually safe. But we didn’t like the ducks. They used to come in from the sea and descend upon our pond in thousands at night-time. And such a quacking and a stirring up of the water they made! They’d gobble up the weeds like gluttons and any small fish such as fresh water shrimps or other pond creatures they could lay hold of.

“One night I and a friend of mine were swimming around peacefully and suddenly he said:

“‘Look out! – Ducks! – I saw their shadow crossing the moon. Get down into the mud.’

“I took his advice right away. Together we burrowed into the mud without any further argument. The water over us was barely above three inches deep. In hundreds the ducks descended. Even below the surface of the mud we could hear their commotion and clatter. How they paddled and stirred around!

“Then suddenly – Bang! Bang!

“Some sportsmen near by who had laid in wait for them had opened fire. We had heard this happen before; and we were always glad because the sportsmen drove the ducks away and left our pond in peace.

“For part of what happened next I have to rely on another water beetle who chanced to return to our pond just at the moment when the sportsmen opened fire. Because of course, I and my friend, being below the mud, could neither see nor hear anything.

“Ducks were dropping in all directions, splashing into the water – some wounded, some killed outright. It was a terrible slaughter. Some of them who had been cruising in the water near where we were rose instantly on the first shot and were killed a few feet above the surface of the pond. But one it seems was sort of late in getting up and that very likely saved his life; for while the sportsmen were reloading their guns he got away. The water as I have told you was very shallow just there and he was actually standing on the muddy bottom, wading. As he gave a jump to take off, his broad webbed feet sank into the mud an inch or two. And he took to the air with a big cake of mud on each foot. I and my friend were in those cakes of mud.

“Now this species of duck, which was not an ordinary or common one, was apparently about to make its migration flight that night. The flight was in fact already in progress and the flock had stopped at our pond to feed on its way. With this alarm the remainder of the ducks at once headed out to sea.

“As for me, I had no idea for some moments of what had happened. And I could not communicate with my friend because he was on one of the duck’s feet and I was on the other. But with the rushing of the wind and the quick drying of the mud, I soon realized that something very unusual was taking place. Before the mud dried entirely hard I burrowed my way to the surface of the cake and took a peep outside.

“I saw then that I was thousands of feet up in the air. And from the shimmer of starlight on wide water far, far below, I gathered that I was being carried over the sea. I confess I was scared. For a moment I had a notion to scramble out and take to my own wings. But the duck’s enormous speed warned me that we were probably already many miles from land. Even supposing that I could tell which direction to go back in – I knew of course nothing of this big-scale navigation such as birds use in their long nights – I was afraid of the powerful winds that were rushing by us. In strength, my own wings were not made for doing battle with such conditions.

“No, it was clear that whether I liked it or no, I had got to stay where I was for the present. It was certainly a strange accident to happen to anyone, to be picked out of his native haunts and carried across the sea to foreign lands on the feet of a duck!

“My great fear now was that the mud might drop off in midnight and go splashing down into the sea with me inside it. As a precaution against this I kept near to the hole I had made to look out through, so that I would be able to take to my own wings if necessary. Through this I nearly froze to death. The rushing of the cold air was terrific. My goodness, what a speed that duck kept up! I drew back into the inner shelter of the mud cake. I knew that so long as I could hear that droning deafening whirl of the duck’s wings that I was still attached to my flying steed.

“Pretty soon now the mud got so hard that any further drilling through it was out of the question. But as I had already made myself a little chamber runway by turning round and round in it before it hardened completely, I was quite comfortable so far as that was concerned. I remember as I peeped out of my little window – nearly freezing my nose – I saw the dawn come up over the sea. It was a wonderful sight; at that great height the sun’s rays reached us long before they touched the sea. The ocean stretched, gloomy, black and limitless, beneath us while the many-coloured eastern sky glowed and reflected on the myriads of ducks who were flying along beside mine, necks outstretched, glowing golden and pink – all headed towards their new homeland.

“I was glad to see the day arrive for more reasons than one. It made the air warmer. And I could now see if any land were to come in sight.

“I was still very anxious about getting dropped into the sea. Once we got over land of any kind I would feel happier. The ducks started honking to one another as they saw the dawn. It almost seemed as though they were exchanging signals as conversation of some kind, because I suddenly saw that they somewhat changed direction following a leader, a single duck, who flew at the head of the V-shaped flock.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The End
of the Journey

“The change of direction caused me to wonder why the leader of the flock had made it. I crept to the edge of my hole in the mud-cake and craned my neck out as far as I dared so as to get a view ahead.

“And there a little to the left of where the sun was rising lay a low line of something sitting on the sea. The morning rays made it glow like molten silver at one end; and at the other, where the light had not yet reached, it was dark and black.

“Land! The flock was heading for it. Would they rest there, or just take their bearings and pass on? My bird at all events didn’t seen in need of a rest. After a whole night’s going he seemed as fresh as a fiddle and was whacking away with those great wings of his, as though he had only just started.

“It didn’t take the leader long to make up his mind. He came sailing over the low lying islands with his gallant band. He circled a couple of times while the others hung back, quacking. Then he shot off again, headed once more for the open sea where no land bounded the horizon.

“‘Goodness!’ I thought. ‘How long is this life going to last?’

“But now the sea was all lit up and bright with the risen sun. It seemed to put new heart into the fliers, for their quacking and honking broke out louder than ever as they swung off in the new direction after their leader. I began to wonder how many other small creatures like myself had thus shared the flight of migrating birds. It was certainly an extraordinary experience. Also I wondered how my friend was getting on in the mud on my duck’s other foot.

“I had a notion to crawl forth and go and see. But the moment I found my nose out of the hole in my mud-cake I realized that that would be madness. The rush of the air past the duck’s stomach was enough to blow your eyes out and besides, if the bird should feel me creeping up one leg and down the other it was quite likely he would scratch his feet together to knock me off. I decided I had better not try to get into communication with my friend till we were on solid ground. Indeed it was lucky that the duck kept his feet tucked well back against his feathers. It was that, I am sure, that kept the mud from falling off and sending me to a watery grave in the wide sea below.

“Well, at last we came to the land the ducks were making for. We sighted it on the evening of that second day. Great rocky headlands jutted out into the ocean, some high, some low. The chief of the flock led his followers over it and then swung to the left. I imagine it was southward. It looked as though he now meant to follow the shore line down till he came to the exact region he was seeking.

“Anyway I felt more at ease. If I got dropped now – the ducks still maintained a considerable height – I could crawl out of the mud-cake before it struck the earth and on my own wings land safely in some sort of territory where I’d stand a chance of surviving.

“Not only did the ducks keep up at a great height, but they also kept up their perfectly incredible speed. And very soon I noticed that the climate was changing considerably. It got warmer and warmer. I became quite lively. And now I could look out of the hole in the mud-cake and watch the changing landscape below without any fear of getting frost-bitten. And my gracious, how that landscape did change! One moment we were over flat marshy fen-land which stretched away as though it would never end; and the next it was mountains, range upon range, with here and there a glimpse of the sea, where great crested capes stretched out into the surf; and you could see the waves breaking against the feet of high cliffs.

“The greenery also changed – now sparse, nothing but scrub shrubbery which barely covered the big expanse of smooth rock. Then came park lands where I could spy deer grazing and still larger creatures. And finally we flew over dense deep jungles where the trees were so thick and close-packed you felt you would alight on a velvet carpet if you just sailed down and landed.

“At length some signal seemed to be sent back from the leader up ahead. Because all the flock stopped and started circling and eddying away in the wildest manner. We had arrived over a wide, wide bay on the shore line. The coast seemed low; and behind it were many ponds and lagoons. I could tell from the dizzy singing in my ears that my duck was descending – like the rest – in widening circles to the flat marshlands they had come so far to seek.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Colony of Exiles

“You can imagine how glad I was to reach real solid ground again. The duck’s plump body came to rest in the marshy ground without noise or fuss. It seemed almost as though he had merely flown from one pond to another, instead of crossing those leagues of wild ocean and thousands of miles of land. He just shook himself, grunted and began to look about for something to eat.

“Of course as soon as he moved the cakes of dry English earth that had clung to his feet all the way came off in the wet mud of this foreign land. And poor little me with them. Oh, such a relief! At once I crept out of the hole and swam forth into the cool oozy mud of the lagoon. I was hungry myself. I too bustled around to raise some food.

“But for me the territory was new. The ducks had been there before. It was their winter home. They knew all the grasses, all the shellfish, all the water life fit to eat. But I! I suddenly found myself swimming about in a tropical lagoon full of large strange enemies and small new creatures which might be food or might be poison.

“I swam for hours before I dared act. I was taking no chances after coming through that long journey of danger and adventure. At last I met an insect that looked familiar. I manoeuvred about him for a while. The water was kind of muddy, stirred up from the paddling and wading of the ducks. Then I recognized him. It was my friend who had made the journey on the other foot of the same duck. We almost fell on one another’s necks.

“Tell me,’ I said, ‘where can I find something to eat. These waters contain nothing but strange sights for me.’

“He laughed.

“‘Why,’ said he, ‘I’ve just had the grandest meal of my life – fish eggs in plenty. Come with me. I’ll show you.’

“‘But what about those dangerous-looking fellows?’ I said. ‘It seems to me we’re surrounded by nothing but enemies.’

“He glanced back at me and chuckled over his shoulder as he led the way.

“‘Don’t forget that we are just as strange to these fellows here as they are to us,’ said he. ‘They don’t know what to make of us – as yet anyway. They’re just as scared of us as you are of them.’

“Now pond life is, as you probably know, a very strenuous business. All kinds of creatures – fish, beetles, worms, salamanders – every species has its enemies. And if you want to live to a ripe old age you’ve got to look out. And so as I followed my friend, and everything from great pike to ferocious-looking turtles, came up and glowered at us through murky waters, you may be sure I felt far from comfortable.

“But in a little I realized that many of the larger species who, in our own waters, would not have hesitated to attack us, here were by no means so bold and seemed almost, as my friend had said, to be scared of us.

“After we had had something to eat we crept out of the lagoon onto the muddy bank to take a look around. The ducks were still feeding. All kinds of other water fowl, too, many of which I had never seen before. Some of them were quite curious and beautiful: long-legged fellows like great cranes with scarlet bills and wings; flat-headed smaller kinds like snipe, built for speed with tiny beaks and mincing gait; geese and wild swans of various sorts; and great big-mouthed pelicans that dived for fish with a mighty splash and gobbled up their prey by the bushel.

“It seemed a regular paradise for birds, no sign of human habitation in sight. On one side lagoon after lagoon led outward to the sea; on the other, flat marshland lay between us and the mountains.

“‘This,’ I said to my friend, ‘seems like a very nice place we have come to.’

“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think we have done so badly. I wonder if any more of our kind ever came to these parts.’

“‘You never can tell,’ said I. ‘Let’s look around and find out.’

“So off we swam together down the lagoon to see if we could find any others of our own kin who had been exiled on these foreign shores.

“After about an hour’s search-the lagoon was several miles long and had many lesser lagoons running off it in every direction – we came upon one or two solitary specimens of our own kind. They were very glad to see us and at once asked for news of the home-land. We told them what we could. But the information they could give us was much more important. They had been here some time and had already got acclimatized. Familiar as they were with the dangers and the advantages of the waters, they told us what parts to avoid and where the best feeding was to be found. The temperature of the water was of course, generally speaking, very much higher than that of our native haunts. But they had discovered that by seeking certain very shallow places at night, when the wind regularly blew down from the mountains, cooler territory could always be found. While by day special spots where rocky creeks ran into the lagoon afforded some relief from the tropical heat.

“Well, with these few fellow beetles whom we discovered here (it seems they had probably been imported the same way that we had) we formed a regular little colony. That is, it was little to begin with. But very soon we had large families of young ones growing up and after a few months we felt that we formed quite an important species in the pond life of that region. That, I think, is about all I have to tell you of how I went abroad.”

“Oh, but listen,” said the Doctor, “you haven’t told us yet how you got back here.”

“That is quite simple,” said the beetle. “I came back by the same means as I went out: on the feet of some water-fowl. Only on the return journey I am not so sure what kind of bird it was that carried me. As soon as I realized I had been returned to England, it did not take me long to find my way back to my own particular pond. My case was, of course, peculiar. I know now that quite a few small water creatures get carried abroad – sometimes in egg-form only – in that same way. But it is exceptionally rare, I fancy, for one individual to get back to the waters that he started from. I was given quite a wonderful reception. The beetles in my native pond turned out to do me honour. And I felt like a great traveller who had done something wonderful.”

• • • • •

•   8   •

A Lifetime
of Twenty-four Hours

At the conclusion of the water beetle’s story the Doctor, as he had done with the other insects, put many questions to him by which he hoped to get some practical natural history out of his strange tale.

“Could you describe to me,” he asked, “the appearance of that duck that carried you abroad on his feet?”

Thereupon the beetle told us what he remembered of this species of wild fowl which regularly visited his native pond-a splash of pink on the cheeks; grey wing feathers, etc.

When he had done the Doctor muttered to me:

“It wasn’t a duck at all, Stubbins, I fancy. Sounds to me much more like one of the rarer geese. I had suspected that the feet of a duck could hardly accommodate a cake of mud big enough to carry him without discomfort. I think I know the bird he means. Only visits certain parts of England in the early Fall. Now we’ll see what we can find out about the geography of the trip.”

John Dolittle then asked him certain things about the winds on the voyage, the appearance of the islands the birds flew over, and of the coast line down which they travelled before they reached their final destination.

The beetle’s answer to these questions seemed to please the Doctor a great deal. For before they were ended, he suddenly grabbed me by the arm and said:

“It’s Northern Brazil, Stubbins. I’m sure of it. This is quite valuable information. I had often wondered how that species got out onto the American side. Everything points to it: the bird that carried him, the islands, the coast line – everything. This will complete a very important chapter in my pamphlet. My gracious, if I could only train some of those insects to note the things I wanted to know! The whole trouble is of course that they only observe those things that are of value to themselves. But maybe – er – perhaps later on—”

He paused, silent.

“Why, Doctor,” I laughed, “are you going to make naturalists out of beetles now?”

“If I only could,” he replied quite seriously. “For mark you, Stubbins, there are many things in natural history that only a beetle gets the chance to observe.”

After he had thanked the water beetle for his kind services we carried him down to the old fish-pond at the bottom of the garden and let him go.

Our next experiments in insect language were extremely interesting. They were concerned with a family of flies which, John Dolittle told me, were called the Ephemera. These creatures lived their whole life circle within the space of one day.

“I am very anxious, Stubbins,” said he as we were beginning, “to learn what it feels like to be born, live a whole life and pass away, all in twenty-four hours. A dog lives from ten to twenty years; men from sixty to ninety; the mountains last many thousands before they crumble away. But these little fellows are content to pack all the joys and experiences of life into twenty-four hours. Some of their philosophy, their observations, should, I think, be very valuable to us.”

And so with a pale, gossamer-like, green fly on the platform of our most delicate listening-machine, we set to work. The poor little creature was already middle-aged, because he had been born early that morning and it was now two o’clock in the afternoon. He seemed very frail; and one could easily understand that so unrobust a constitution wasn’t made to last very long.

We worked on him for half an hour and our results were very meagre. He had things to say, we felt sure. But it was a language new to us. Clearly anyone who has to pack his whole life into one day must talk very fast. We soon got the impression that he was really pouring out hundreds of words a second. Only we weren’t catching them quick enough.

“Look here, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “we are being entirely heartless. We can’t let this poor fellow spend more than half an hour talking to us. Why, half an hour out of his life is a forty-eighth part of the whole. That would be nearly eighteen months for us. What must he think of us? Imagine anyone talking to you for a year and a half without stopping! Let him go at once. We must do this on a different system. We will catch several singly and only keep them in the apparatus for five minutes at a time, If we are swift enough with our note-taking, we shall perhaps be able to gather a little from what each one says and piece it all together afterwards and make something of it.”

And so by catching a number of ephemera and listening to each for a very short period we went on with our experiment.

This wasn’t easy. Because not only did the kind-hearted Doctor refuse to keep his captives in the listening apparatus for more than five minutes, but he would not on any account restrict their liberty, before or after the listening experiments, for a single moment. Consequently we were obliged to go out after each specimen singly, catch it and bring it back to our work sheds with all possible speed. Fortunately at that particularly season of the year, Spring, we were able to get those flies in abundance – for a week or so anyhow.

The results of our labours after ten or twelve days were really quite good – in the circumstances. By very exhaustive and continuous work, we learned to follow the extraordinary language of this species with fair ease. It was the most tiring task I think I ever did as the Doctor’s secretary. The speed of the flies’ statements was positively staggering. We had to invent a sort of extra-rapid short-hand of our own, in which a single sign sometimes stood for a whole sentence. After each specimen was released we went over the notes together and put them into such form as would be later understandable, while what had been said was still fresh in our memories.

This chapter in the book which John Dolittle later completed on insect language was perhaps the most interesting in the whole work. For not only had this species a tremendously swift and condensed way of speaking, but its powers of observation were correspondingly quick. In any life that lasts only twenty-four hours, your impressions of this world must of course be taken in at great speed. More than that, these impressions proved to be very original – quite different from those of any class of insects which we had so far studied. I think it is safe to say that the ephemera wasted less time in forming their opinions and making their decisions than any other class of animal life.

“You know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “it is really too bad that these creatures have not a hand in many of the affairs which we humans think we are so good at. Imagine a Cabinet Minister or the Postmaster-General making all the decisions of his whole career within twenty-four hours! I know lots of Cabinet Ministers and heads of government departments that ought to be made to try it. One thing must be said for the poor little frail ephemera: they certainly know how to make up their minds – and act – quickly.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

Dab-Dab’s Views
on Insect Life

A fortnight later we were all gathered round the kitchen fire after supper. I had been working pretty hard at my secretarial duties, and the Doctor had insisted that I take an evening off. But he of course, who never seemed to take, or need, a rest, was busy outside in his sheds, on some new phase of his studies in insect language.

“I wonder,” said Chee-Chee looking dreamily into the fire, “how much longer he is going to occupy himself with these miserable bugs. Seems to me a sort of a dull study. It should be getting near the time for him to take a voyage, don’t you think so, Tommy?”

“Well,” I said, “let us see: How long is it since he went on one?”

“Five months, one week, and three days,” said Chee-Chee.

“We got back on the twenty-third of October – in the afternoon,” Polynesia put in.

“Dear me! How precise you are!” said I. “I suppose you two old globe-trotters are hankering to be off again. Homesick for Africa?”

“Well, not necessarily Africa,” said Chee-Chee. “But I admit I would like to see him get started on something more exciting than listening to cockroaches.”

“The next voyage he goes on,” said Gub-Gub, “he must take me with him. I haven’t been abroad since he visited the Land of the Monkeys, and the Kingdom of the Jolliginki. It’s my turn to go. Besides I need it in my education. There must be a chapter in my Encyclopedia of Food, on African and Pagan Cooking.”

“Humph!” grunted Dab-Dab, who was clearing away the dishes from the table behind us. “I don’t know where the funds are coming from if he does go on another voyage. There is precious little left in the money box.”

“Thirteen pounds, nine shillings and twopence-halfpenny,” put in Too-Too the accountant – “and the baker’s bill for last month not paid yet.”

“If you think you are going to get the Doctor to drop bug language for a long while yet, you are sadly mistaken,” said Dab-Dab. “What do you think he was talking of last night?”

“I’ve no idea, Dab-Dab,” said I.

“Well,” continued the housekeeper in a weary voice, “he mentioned – just mentioned in passing, you know – that he thought it would be a good thing if he did something for – for” (she seemed to have great difficulty in bringing herself to pronounce the fatal word) – “for house-flies!”

“For house-flies!” I cried. “What on earth was he going to do for them?”

“The Lord only knows,” groaned Dab-Dab, her voice full of patient weariness. “That’s what I said to him: ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘what in the name of goodness can you do for house-flies, the greatest pest on earth – creatures which do nothing but carry disease and ruin good food?’

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘that’s just the point, Dab-Dab. The house-flies have no friends. Perhaps if some naturalist, and a really great naturalist, Dab-Dab – one who could look far, far ahead – were to take up their cause and see what could be done for them, they could be made into friends for the rest of creation instead of enemies. I would like, as an experiment, to start a Country House for House-Flies. I think it might lead to some very interesting results.’

“There,” Dab-Dab continued, “I flew right off the handle. I admit I don’t often lose my temper.” – She swept some cheese-crumbs savagely off a chair-seat with her right wing – “‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘that is the last straw. You’ve had a home for lost dogs; a rat and mouse club; a squirrels’ hotel; a rabbits’ apartment house and heaven only knows how many more crazy notions. But the idea, the very idea, of a Country House for House-Flies! – well, that to my way of thinking is about the end. Can’t you see,’ I said, ‘that this encouragement of other animal species – without more er – er – discrimination, I think you call it – will lead to the ruin and destruction of your own kind and mine? Some creatures just can’t be made friends of. Encourage the house-flies and Man disappears.’

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve been talking to them. And I must confess there is a good deal to be said on their side. After all, they have their rights.’

“‘Not with me, they haven’t,’ said I. ‘They are a nuisance and a pest and cannot be treated as anything else.’ – Such a man! What can one do with him?”

“Still,” put in Gub-Gub, “it is a wonderful idea – a Country House for House-Flies! I suppose they would have a boy-swat for swatting boys who came in and disturbed them – the same as people have a fly-swat to kill flies…. And maybe have papers full of sticky goo near the door, in which people would get tangled up and stuck if they invaded the premises. It’s quite an idea. I’d like to see it started.”

“You’d like to see it started would you?” screamed Dab-Dab rushing at poor Gub-Gub with outstretched neck as though she meant to skewer him against the wainscot. “You haven’t the wits of a cockroach yourself. You get started on your way to bed at once – or I’ll get out the frying-pan as a pig-swat.”

Gub-Gub retired into a corner.

“Just the same, it’s a good idea,” he muttered to Too-Too as he settled down where the irate housekeeper couldn’t see him.

I am glad to say that the Doctor did not, as a matter of fact, attempt this wild plan for the encouragement of house-flies. Heaven only knows what would have happened if he had. He mentioned it to me once or twice however.

“My idea was, Stubbins,” he said, “that flies with a house of their own to go to – or several – would not bother to enter people’s houses. This eternal war between the species – man against rats, rats against cats; cats against dogs, etc, etc. – there is no end to it – must lead finally to some sort of tyranny. Just now Man is on top as the tyrant. He dictates to the animal kingdom. But many of his lesser brothers suffer in that dictation. What I would like to see – and indeed it is my one ambition as a constructive naturalist – would be happy balance. I’ve never met any species, Stubbins, that did not do some good – general good – along with the harm. House-flies for example: I’ve no idea what good they do, but I’m sure it exists. By making them our friends we ought to be able to get together and improve conditions all round, instead of making war on one another. War gets us nowhere.”

“But there were other insect species which you thought of investigating, were there not?” I asked, hoping to side-track him away from the house-flies, which to me sounded like a rather hopeless direction.

“Oh, yes, yes – to be sure, to be sure,” said he hurriedly. “I’ve only just started. There are the moths and butterflies. From them I hope to learn a great deal. It is hardly the right season yet for the natural hatching out of butterflies and moths. But I have been working on my artificial incubators. We have a splendid supply of chrysales. I think I can turn out in the next few weeks about any kind of moth and butterfly I want – that is, of those varieties that are naturally found in these parts.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Giant Moths

The following evening Chee-Chee, before the Doctor returned to his sheds outside the house, broached the subject of a voyage. This, rather to our surprise, had the effect of keeping the Doctor in the fireside circle for several hours later than was his custom.

“Well, Chee-Chee,” said he, “I’d like to take a voyage – it’s quite a while since I went abroad – but you see, there is so much work yet to be done on insect language here at home. I never believe in leaving anything unfinished – if I can possibly avoid it.”

“Yes, but listen, Doctor,” said Polynesia. “You will learn a whole lot more about insects and their languages abroad. It never seemed to me that travelling ever interrupted your studies. On the contrary the further you were from home, and the more difficult the conditions that faced you, the more you got done – so far as I could see.”

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “That’s quite a compliment, Polynesia, I wonder if it’s true.”

“In any case, Doctor,” said I, “it’s a long while since you were on a voyage. And you know one does miss a lot if he does not go abroad every so often.”

“That’s so,” said he. – “That’s true enough. But then the trouble is: where to go? You know, Stubbins, I’m afraid that in my old age I’ve got very hard to please in the matter of travel. All the big and important exploration has been done. If there was a job like that which Columbus did, or Magellan, or Vasco da Gama, still left to be accomplished, that would be different.”

“What did Vasco da Gama do?” I asked.

“Oh,” said Bumpo proudly, “he was the man who sailed around the Cake of Good Soap.”

“The Cape of Good Hope, you mean,” said John Dolittle patiently. “But the point is, Stubbins, that most of the big, the important, exploration is already carried out. Why should I worry about mapping the details of the smaller geography when there is the languages of the insects, with all they may have to tell us, still misunderstood, still a secret to Mankind? Why, I heard from some moths whom I questioned this afternoon the most extraordinary things that no one would believe if you told them. This study of insect languages may seem very unimportant to you when mentioned alongside a voyage to foreign shores. But I assure you it isn’t. No one who hasn’t studied insect language can have any idea what it may contribute to – er – modern thought and philosophy.”

“Yes, but, Doctor,” I said, “abroad, as Polynesia suggests, you might accomplish still better results in your studies.”

“Abroad!” – John Dolittle’s voice sounded to my surprise almost contemptuous. He walked over to the window and threw back the curtains. The light of the full moon poured into the room.

“Stubbins,” he said suddenly in a strange, intense voice, “if I could get to the Moon! That would be worth while! Columbus discovered a new half of our own planet. All alone he did it, pitting his opinion against the rest of the world. It was a great feat. The days of big discovery, as I said, are gone by. But if I could reach the Moon then I could feel I was truly great – a greater explorer than Columbus. The Moon – how beautiful she looks!”

“Lord save us,” whispered Polynesia. “What’s come over the good man?”

“Humph!” muttered Bumpo. “It seems to me the Doctor is just talking happy-go-foolish, as it were. The Moon! How could he get there?”

“It is not such a wild notion, Stubbins,” said John Dolittle leaving the window and appealing to me with outstretched hands. “Someone will do it – someday. It stands to reason. What a step it would be! The naturalist who first reached the Moon! Ah! He will be the one to make strides in science – maybe to give all investigation a new start.”

“Listen, Doctor,” said Polynesia, evidently anxious to call him back to earth and practical matters, “we haven’t had a story from you in ever so long. How would it be if you told us one tonight?”

“Story – story?” mumbled the Doctor, in a faraway sort of voice. “My head is too full of problems. Get one of the family to tell one. Tell one yourself, Polynesia, you know plenty – or Chee-Chee, yours are always worth hearing.”

“It would be better, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee, “if you told us one. It isn’t often, lately, that you’ve been home evenings.”

“Not tonight, Chee-Chee, not tonight,” said John Dolittle, going back to the window and looking up again at the Moon. “I told you: my head is full of problems – and moths.”

“What do you mean, your head is full of moths, Doctor?” asked Dab-Dab in rather an alarmed voice.

“Oh,” said the Doctor, laughing, “I just meant the study of moth language – and its problems. I’ve been at it now for several days and nights and my head is full of it.”

“You should take a rest,” said Chee-Chee. “A voyage would be a fine change for you – and all of us.”

Now the Doctor had put in a good deal of time on the moths already, I knew, without my assistance. I was naturally keen to hear if he had made any special discoveries. I had become so much a part of his research work that I felt almost a bit jealous now if he went off on his own and left me out.

“Had you heard anything of unusual importance, Doctor,” I asked, “in your work recently with the moths?”

“Well, yes,” he said. “I hatched out one of the Hawks last night – a beautiful specimen. I put her – she was a lady moth – in a glass dome with a small light in it on the window sill. Great numbers of gentlemen Hawks came to call on her. How they gathered so suddenly when their species has never been seen within a hundred miles of here goodness only knows. I caught a few and experimented with them in the listening machines. And – er—”

He hesitated a moment with a puzzled look on his face.

“Well,” I asked, “what did they tell you?”

“It was most extraordinary,” he said at length. “They didn’t seem to want to let me know where they came from, nor how they had found their way here. Quite mysterious. So I gave up that line of inquiry and asked for general information about their history and traditions. And they told me the wildest story. Perhaps it has no truth in it whatever. But – er – well, you know most of the members of the Hawk family are large – that is for this part of the world. So I got onto the subject of size, and they told me of a race of moths as big – well, I know it sounds crazy – as big as a house. I said at once of course, ‘No. It can’t be. There’s some mistake’ – thinking that my scanty knowledge of the language had led me astray. But they insisted. There was a tradition in moth history that somewhere there were moths as big as a house who could lift a ton weight in the air just as though it were a feather. – Extraordinary – mysterious! The moths are a curious race.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Otho the Prehistoric Artist

“Oh, well, come along now, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee, “tell us a story, do.”

“Not tonight,” John Dolittle repeated. “You tell them one, Chee-Chee.”

“All right,” said Chee-Chee, “I will. But I am by no means sure this crowd will understand it. I’ll tell you one that my grandmother used to tell us – in the jungle – a tale of long, long, long ago.”

“Good!” grunted Gub-Gub, coming forward to the table. With the Doctor present he was no longer afraid of Dab-Dab the housekeeper.

“Thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago,” Chee-Chee began, “there lived a man. Otho Bludge was his name. He had a whole country to himself, in those far off days when there weren’t so many people in the world. He was an artist, was Otho. He lived to make pictures. Of course there wasn’t any paper then and he had to use such materials as he could get. Reindeer horn was what he used mostly. There were plenty of reindeer about. For a pencil he used a stone knife. And with this he would cut his pictures on the flat part of the horn. Sometimes he used rocks, cutting and chiselling into the stone the ideas which occurred to him as worth while.

“He had made pictures of deer, fish, butterflies, bison, elephants and all the creatures which abounded around him. His one great ambition was to make a picture of Man. But Man was scarce. Otho himself was the only specimen in that district. He looked at himself and tried to make a picture of arms and legs. But it wasn’t much good. Then he went down to a pool in the stream and tried to draw his own reflection. But he had to lean away over the water to see his image and that was hard too.

“‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to find another creature like myself and make him stand still. Then I’ll draw my best picture – a portrait of Man.’

“So he set out hunting. And for days and weeks he wandered over the wide country which he had all to himself, and went outside and beyond it in search of a fellow man. But not one could he find. Many interesting new animals he saw – many of whom fought him and chased him across the landscape. Trees too which he had never seen before gave him many fresh ideas for pictures.

“But Man he could not find. As a matter of fact he had only a very vague idea of ever having seen another human. That was his mother. How she had become separated from him he could not remember – nor how he had managed to survive when left alone.

“So, quite disconsolate and miserable, Otho returned to the place where he usually did his drawings and tried to make his picture of Man without anyone to draw from. But it didn’t go any better. He could get a leg or an arm or a head to look pretty right but the whole body didn’t seem to fit together at all.

“Then he said to himself aloud – he often talked to himself because he had no one else to talk to – ‘Oh, how I wish someone would spring out of the ground and stand on that rock over there so I could finish my portrait!’

“And then, what do you think? You could never guess. While he was looking at the rock there he saw a sort of pink fog gathering on top of it. Otho Bludge brushed the back of his hand across his face thinking that perhaps the glare of the sun was doing strange things with his eyesight. But the pink fog seemed real. Presently it began to clear away like the valley mists before the winds of dawn. And when at last it was gone he saw kneeling on the rock a beautiful little girl, just the way he wanted for the picture, a bow and arrow in her hands. She wore no clothes, because in those days the world was frightfully hot at all seasons, and of course skirts and bodices were nothing but a nuisance. About her right wrist, which was drawn back to hold the arrow on the bow-string, she wore a bracelet of blue stone beads.

“Otho was so delighted with his good luck that he didn’t dare speak a word. He took a fresh piece of reindeer horn and set to work at once. He carved and carved and carved. Never had he drawn so well in all his life. He knew he was cutting his master picture. The little girl kept perfectly still like a statue for two whole hours. Otho knew afterwards that it was two whole hours because of the shadows that the rocks threw. He used to measure his time by the length of the shadows – having no watch of course.

“Finally he finished his picture. It was good. He knew it was. He held it off to look at it. But when he glanced back at the rock he noticed that the pink fog was beginning to return.

“‘Good gracious!’ said he to himself. ‘Can it be that she is going to fade away again?’

“Yes, it seemed like it. The pink fog was growing and she was disappearing. Only a sort of shadow of her now remained. Otho was terribly upset.

“‘Listen,’ he called out, ‘why are you going away? I’ve got a whole country to myself here – and it’s much too big for just one. Why don’t you stay and play at housekeeper with me?’

“But she only blushed all over, shook her head and went on disappearing.

“‘At least you can tell me who you are before you go, can’t you?’ cried poor Otho, tears coming into his eyes.

“By this time she was nearly gone. Very little remained of her except her voice which said faintly but musically:

“‘I am Pippiteepa. I am sorry, but I have to go back into the Unseen World. I have a very busy life before me. For I am to be the mother of all the Fairies. Farewell!’

“Nothing was now to be seen but just a thin ribbon of the pink fog curling slowly upward. Poor Otho rushed to the rock and clutched it as though by sheer force to keep her in his world where he wanted her so much. But she was gone. And lying on the place where she had stood was the bracelet of blue beads. That was all that was left of her. It must have fallen off while she was doing the disappearance magic. Otho put it on his own wrist and wore it all his life.

“For a long time he was dreadfully miserable, wandering around the rock for hours and hours hoping she might change her mind and come back. But she never came. It’s a kind of sad story, but my grandmother swore it was true. Otho at last got into a fight with one of the big grazing beasts that lived in those times, a sort of cross between a giraffe and a giant lizard.

“This creature came up and wanted to crop the grass that grew around the now sacred rock and Otho tried to drive him off. He got nasty and put up a fight. This kept Otho so busy that it put Pippiteepa out of his mind for the rest of the day. And after a while he went back to making pictures of animals and trees. He carefully kept the portrait he had made of Pippiteepa but never again attempted to make a picture of Man. He went on hoping, always, that someday she would change her mind and come back.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

“The Days Before
there Was a Moon”

I don’t know that I have ever seen the Doctor more interested in anything than he seemed to be in this story of Otho Bludge and Pippiteepa.

“Tell me, Chee-Chee,” said he, “you say your grandmother told you this story, eh?”

“Yes,” Chee-Chee replied, “it was one of her favourite ones. I must have heard her tell it at least a dozen times.”

“Humph!” the Doctor grunted, “very curious – most peculiar. Did she ever say anything which might give you an idea of when – how long ago – this took place?”

“Well,” said Chee-Chee, “of course to me it only seemed like a – er – a legend, I think you call it – something that might have never happened but which was believed by almost everyone.”

“But the time?” the Doctor repeated. “You have no idea about when this was supposed to have happened – I mean anything else that was spoken of as belonging to the same period which might give us some clue?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Chee-Chee answered. – “And yet, wait, there was something. I remember she always began the story this way: ‘In the days before there was a Moon,’ I could never understand why. It didn’t seem to me very important.”

Doctor Dolittle almost leapt out of his chair.

“Did your grandmother ever speak of the Moon further, Chee-Chee – I mean anything more than just that?”

“Yes,” said Chee-Chee, evidently cudgelling his brain to remember things long past. “It seems that in monkey history, which was of course always a mouth to mouth business, there was a belief that the Moon was once a part of the Earth. And there came a great explosion or something and part of it was shot off into the skies and somehow got stuck there. But how it became round like a ball I could never understand nor find anyone who could explain it to me. Because they used to say that the piece of the earth that got shot off was the land where the Pacific Ocean now is and that isn’t round at all. But of course the whole thing is by no means certain. Myself, I’ve always had grave doubts about the truth of any part of the story.”

The household was quite delighted over Chee-Chee’s story, not only with the entertainment of the tale itself, but because the Doctor became so absorbed in the subject of the Moon and the legends of monkey history that he kept us all up till long after midnight.

“You know, Stubbins,” he said to me, “no matter how wild this story may sound, it is curiously borne out by several things. For instance, I remember that in my conversation with the Giant Sea Snail he told me of a belief which was firmly held by the older forms of sea life that some such shooting off of part of the Earth’s surface made the deep ocean and accounted for the Moon. Also my geological observations when we were travelling across the floor of the Atlantic certainly pointed to some such violent cleavage – only Chee-Chee says his grandmother spoke of the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic. You know it makes me almost want to go back to Africa and question some of the older monkeys there. I might get other versions and more details of this strange story of Otho Bludge and Pippiteepa.”

“Well, Doctor,” said I, scenting a chance to get him off on a voyage after all – for I felt he sorely needed one – “why not? Last time when you were in Africa, according to Polynesia anyway, you were so busy with hospital work and getting away from the Jolliginki army that there must have been a great deal of interesting work that had to go undone.”

“Oh, but,” said he, shaking his head impatiently, “I mustn’t be tempted. One would never get anything accomplished by just running off after every attractive idea that pulled one this way or that. I must stick to this insect language game till I feel I have really done something worth while with it. I want to follow up the story the moth told me about a giant species. It is funny, these legends in animal history – the monkeys and the Moon: the moths and the Giants. There is something in that I feel sure. The moths are a very mysterious race. I don’t believe that one tenth part of what they do in the general economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms is appreciated. And imagine what a moth the size of a house might do!”

“But surely,” said I, “if there were such enormous flies flopping about the world somewhere other people must have seen them. I confess I can hardly believe the story.”

“It sounds incredible enough, I know,” said he. “But I’m sure that if there were not something in it the story would not exist among the moths.”

• • • • •

•   13   •

Memories
of Long Arrow

For me one of the most interesting things in the Doctor’s study of insect language was the hatching out of the moths and butterflies from the caterpillar or chrysalis forms. Throughout the previous Autumn and part of the Winter I had assisted him in the collection of caterpillars and chrysales and we had a fine stock in the hatching houses. The care of these required considerable knowledge and experience – of which I had not a great deal, though I was always learning. They had to be kept at the right temperature and moisture, and each caterpillar had to be fed on a special kind of leaf till he had spun his web and retired into his chrysalis shell.

But the Doctor, who had studied butterflies ever since he was a boy of nine, had a positively prodigious knowledge of the subject. He never seemed to make a mistake and in his hands a moth or butterfly could be made to hatch out with just as much ease and comfort as it would in the wild state. In fact conditions in the Dolittle hatching houses were rather more fortunate for these insects than those of the open; for they were protected from their enemies, which very frequently in the wild would devour a butterfly or moth almost directly it was born into the world.

With some of the rarer and more beautiful flies it was quite a thrilling thing to watch for their hatching. The Doctor usually gave each specimen at least a day’s freedom in the little indoor flower-garden, which was prepared for his reception, before experimenting on him with the listening apparatus.

But one of the early discoveries we made was that the language, such as it was, had been apparently known to the insects before they were born into the fly state.

“I imagine, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, when we were discussing this curious fact one day, “that one of the reasons for this is that the insects already have some life experience in the caterpillar form. Then the methods of conveying their ideas, which we call a language, cannot be called after all actual talking, in which the tongue has to be trained to make sounds. And for the rest there is no doubt that this form of life inherits a lot more experience and training than we or the larger animals do. Their memories go further back, beyond the short term of their own life, and carry over impressions and ideas that really belong to the herd – to the species.”

This knowledge of things that lay outside their own experience in the moths and butterflies interested the Doctor a great deal. The case of the gentlemen visitors who mysteriously found their way to the Doctor’s house to call on the lady Hawk was not by any means the only example of the astonishing things these creatures could do.

When it came to trying to find out how they accomplished these mysterious feats we discovered we were against a hard problem. They themselves did not seem to know how they found their way about as soon as they were born; how they knew the way to the kind of leaves and food they wanted, etc.

They seemed to be born also with a quite unexplainable store of legends and history about their own species and a knowledge of the enemies which they must avoid if they wished to survive. All they could tell us when we came to question them on how they got this knowledge was that they knew it.

“You know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that is what is called intuitive knowledge, by the philosophers, knowledge you are born with. With humans it is pretty small. As babies we know enough to cry when we want a bottle and we know enough to suck the bottle when it is given to us. That’s about all. It isn’t much. But it is something. Chickens, on the other hand, are born with a knowledge of how to walk and peck and how to run to their mothers when she gives the call of alarm if danger is near. That’s better than we can do. But these fellows! Their intuitive knowledge is tremendous. Their mothers are nowhere near them when they come into the world. Yet they know how to fly, how to set about the whole business of life right away. But the part that fascinates me is their knowledge of legends and history belonging to their own race. That’s something quite new, as far as I know – and also the main thing that makes me so hopeful that we can learn a great deal of real scientific value from them. It is the intuitive knowledge which we humans are so short on – especially the so-called civilized humans.”

He paused a moment, thoughtful and silent.

“You see, the primitive people,” he presently went on, “are much better. You remember Long Arrow?”

“Yes, indeed,” I said. “Could I – could anyone – forget him?”

“Nearly all,” said the Doctor, “of that perfectly wonderful botany work which he did was accomplished by intuitive investigation. The same with his navigation and geography. I used to question him for hours trying to find out how he had done these things. He didn’t know. He just began along some line of instinct and followed it till he got results.-Long Arrow! My gracious, what a world he was! The greatest scientist of them all. And the big wigs up in London, the Royal Society, The Natural History Museum and the rest, they hardly know his name! When I tried to tell them about him they thought I was cracked, a sort of Münchhausen romancing about his voyages – Ah, well!”

This recalling of Long Arrow and our days on Spidermonkey Island put us both in a serious reminiscent mood. Chee-Chee, who had shared those days and adventures, had come into the study a moment or two before and was listening intently. I saw an expression on his face which told me he had the same thought in mind as I had. I turned back to the Doctor, who had moved over to the window and was once more gazing up at the full moon which flooded the garden outside with a ghostly light.

“Listen, Doctor,” I said, “supposing you sought out Long Arrow again: isn’t it quite possible, with his great knowledge of this intuitive kind of investigation, that he might be able to help you with your study of the moths – the language of insects? He has probably already done a great deal in the same direction himself.”

I saw from the quick manner in which the Doctor swung away from the window and faced me that my dodge to get him again interested in the idea of voyages had had effect. But almost at once he frowned as though a second thought had interfered.

“Oh, but, Stubbins,” said he, “goodness only knows where Long Arrow may be now. He never stayed many months, as you remember, in any place. It might take years to find him.”

“Anyhow,” said Chee-Chee, speaking up for the first time, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t go to Spidermonkey and take up the trail. You hadn’t any more idea of his whereabouts last time you set out to seek him. And yet you found him.”

Again the Doctor paused. I knew the wanderlust was on him – as it was on me, Chee-Chee and Polynesia. Yet he evidently felt that in following his impulse he was running away from a serious and important work.

“But, Chee-Chee,” he said, “last time I had something to go on. Miranda, the Purple Bird of Paradise, had told me he was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Northern Brazil or Spidermonkey Island. While now? – No one on earth could tell us where to begin looking for him.”

“Listen, Doctor,” I said. “You remember the way we decided last time? You had given up all hope of finding him, when Miranda came and told you he had disappeared.”

“Yes, I remember,” said John Dolittle.

“So we played Blind Travel, the Atlas game, you remember that?”

“Yes, I do,” said the Doctor.

Chee-Chee shuffled along the floor and drew a little nearer.

“Well,” said I, “why not play it again? You don’t know where he is. Last time we had good luck. Maybe we’ll have as good – or better – this time. What do you say?”

For some moments John Dolittle hesitated. He went back to the window, drew aside the curtains and again gazed up at the Moon.

“How beautiful she looks!” he muttered.

“Well?” I repeated. “What do you say? Shall we play Blind Travel?”

This appeal to the boy in him was evidently too strong. The frown disappeared from his face and suddenly he smiled.

“I think it might be quite a good idea, Stubbins. It is supper time, I fancy. Bring along the atlas and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

• • • • •

•   14   •

Blind Travel Again

Chee-Chee was overjoyed. As the Doctor left the study to go to the kitchen, I moved towards the book-case. But the agile monkey was there before me. Scaling up the shelves as though they were a ladder, he had the big volume down off the top in less time than it takes to tell it. Together we carried it to the table and laid it down.

“Oh, my, Tommy,” he whispered, “we’re in luck!”

He began opening the pages. The first – how well I remembered it! – title page: “ATLAS OF THE WORLD. Giving the Latest Discoveries in Africa, the Arctic and Antarctic Continents, etc. Published by Green and Sons, Edinburgh, in the year,” etc., etc. Then came the astronomic page – the signs of the Zodiac; phases of the Moon; precession of the Equinoxes, etc., etc.

“The Moon!” muttered Chee-Chee. “Poor old Doctor! He seems to have gone almost balmy about the Moon. My, but look at all the lands we might visit! Come on, Tommy, let’s get to the kitchen and make him begin before he changes his mind.”

Grabbing a sharp pencil off the Doctor’s desk, I took the heavy volume under my arm and followed Chee-Chee out of the room.

In the kitchen we found all the family seated about the table waiting for us: Bumpo, Gub-Gub, Too-Too, Jip and the white mouse.

“Ah,” said the Doctor, “you have the atlas, Stubbins – and a pencil? Good! Just hold back the dinner a moment, Dab-Dab, will you, while we see where we are to go?”

“Go? Go?-What does he mean?” asked Gub-Gub of Chee-Chee in an excited whisper.

“He has consented to play Blind Travel with us,” Chee-Chee whispered back.

“What on earth is that?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Oh, you open the atlas with your eyes shut and put a pencil down. And whatever point it hits, that’s the place you’ve got to go. Goodness, I’m all of a flutter! I do hope it’s somewhere in Asia. I want to see the East.”

Well, if Chee-Chee was in a flutter, as he called it, Gub-Gub was even more agitated over this momentous game we were about to play. He kept running around to a different place at the table, jumping up on someone else’s chair, being sat on, upsetting people, overturning furniture and generally getting the whole gathering frazzled and confused.

Not that any of us were what you could call calm. A very great deal depended on this strange game which the Doctor had invented when he was a young man. Then it only affected him. In those days he was a free unattached bachelor and this odd method of determining his destination meant very little difference so far as preparations were concerned. But now (I did not yet know how many of the household he meant to take with him) its outcome might mean much for several of us.

“Listen,” said the Doctor when he had the big book laid in the centre of the table: “Last time Stubbins held the pencil. How would it be if Bumpo did it this time? He is a lucky individual, I know.”

“All right,” said Bumpo. “But I hope I don’t send you all to the middle of the Specific Ocean.” (He was turning over the first few pages and had paused at one illustrating the proportions of the globe in land and water.)

“That’s all right,” said the Doctor. “One of the rules of the game is that if your pencil falls on water, you have a second try. And the same thing applies if you touch a town or a district where you have been before. You keep on trying till you strike land, land which you have never visited. Then you have to go there – have to – somehow.”

“Very good,” said Bumpo taking up the pencil and closing the book. “I hope this is one of my lucky nights.”

“I hope so too,” whispered Gub-Gub nosing up his snout onto the table between the Doctor’s elbow and mine. “I would like a warm country where there is plenty of sugar-cane. It’s years since I tasted sugar-cane. In the Canaries it was, when we were hiding away from those wretched pirates. You remember, Polynesia?”

• • • • •

•   15   •

Gub-Gub
Halts the Game

It was quite a picture, that group around the table – and it will never fade from my memory while life lasts. Bumpo was the only one standing. He held the pencil in his enormous right fist. His left hand grasped the atlas, closed, and resting on the back of its binding, ready to let it fall open at whatever page Fate should decide. The rest of us were seated round in a circle, tense with excitement, watching him. Four candles burned on the table in brass sticks. For a moment you could have heard a pin drop, so perfect was the silence.

“Are you quite ready, Bumpo?” asked the Doctor in a strangely steady voice. “Remember, you close your eyes, let the book fall open and then stab down with the pencil point.”

“Yes, Doctor,” said Bumpo screwing up his face with a most comical grimace. “I’m quite ready.”

“Splendid!” said the Doctor. “Go ahead.”

Bumpo let go his left hand. The heavy book fell open with a bang. His right fist, describing circles in the air with the pencil, slowly lowered the point…. Then – Crash!

Gub-Gub in his eagerness to learn where we were to go had rocked the table as he lurched forward, and all four candles toppled over. The room was in darkness.

At once a babel of voices broke out everywhere. Everyone shouted advice at once. But the Doctor’s was too emphatic to be drowned.

“Hold it, Bumpo!” he cried. “Don’t move your pencil. We will have a light here in a moment. Keep your pencil where it is.”

Of course, as is always the way, the matches were not handy. Dab-Dab, whacking poor Gub-Gub over the ears with her wing, started out to find them. She was quite a long time about it. But soon we began to see dimly anyhow. For the full moon that flooded the garden outside the windows made it possible to make out the general shape of everything in the room. One of the curtains had not been completely drawn across.

“It’s all right, Doctor,” said Bumpo. “I’m hanging on to it. Get a match and let’s see where we are to go.”

The excitement, as you can imagine, was tremendous. The moonlight in the room was enough to see one another by but not enough to read by.

“I’ll bet it’s Africa,” said Polynesia. “Well, I don’t know as I shall mind – much. It is a good country. I don’t care what anybody says.”

“It isn’t Africa,” said Too-Too. “I know it.”

“What is it then?” we all cried, remembering that Too-Too could see in the dark.

“I shan’t tell,” said Too-Too. “But you can take my word for it, it’s a surprise! – Yes, it’s certainly a surprise. We shall need all the money we can raise for this voyage.”

“Oh, do please hurry up with the matches, Dab-Dab!” cried Gub-Gub. “I shall burst if I don’t know soon where we’re going. And this moonlight is giving me the jim-jams.”

So intent was he on getting a light he left the table and groped his way out of the door to assist the housekeeper in her search. All he succeeded in doing however was to bump into her in the dark as she came in with her wings full of a fresh supply of candles and the much needed matches. Completely bowled over by her collision with the portly Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab dropped the matches, and in the scuffle they were kicked away into some corner where they couldn’t be found.

Among us who remained in the kitchen the general excitement was not lessened by the sounds of Gub-Gub getting spanked and pecked by the indignant duck. Squeaking he ran for the scullery, where from further noises that followed, he apparently tripped over a mat and fell into a pail.

At last the Doctor himself went to the rescue. He succeeded in reaching the larder without mishap, where he found another box of matches and came back to us with a light shaded in his hands.

As the first beam fell across the open atlas my heart gave a big thump. Bumpo rolled his eyes towards the ceiling in superstitious horror. Polynesia gave a loud squawk. While Chee-Chee hissed beneath his breath a long low hiss of consternation.

The book had fallen open at the astronomic page. Bumpo’s pencil had landed in a smaller illustration down in the left-hand corner. And its point still rested in the centre of the Moon!

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

Bumpo and Magic

The Doctor himself was, I think, the only one who made no remark at all. Silent and thoughtful, he stood gazing down at the atlas over which Bumpo’s huge black fist still hung, holding the pencil point into the heart of the Moon.

“Shiver my timbers!” growled Polynesia hitching herself along the table with her funniest sailor gait. “What a voyage, my lads, what a voyage! Yes, it’s the Moon all right. – Well, I suppose he might have hit the Sun. Its picture’s there and all the other blessed heavenly bodies. Could be worse.”

“I wonder,” said Gub-Gub, who had returned from the scullery and was now also leaning over the page, “what sort of vegetables they have in the Moon.”

“Tee-hee!” tittered the white mouse. “Such a joke I never heard!”

“I don’t see why there shouldn’t be rats,” said Jip. “The Moon always looks to me as though it was full of holes.”

“It should be a cheap place to live,” said Too-Too. “I don’t suppose they use money there at all.”

“Yes, but it would cost a pretty penny to get there, don’t forget!” muttered Dab-Dab.

Bumpo’s feelings about the strange outcome were quite curious. He seemed dreadfully frightened. I noticed his big hand was trembling as it still grasped the pencil in place. Yet Bumpo was no coward, that we all knew. It was the Unknown, the source of all human fear, that now shook his courage. Gently John Dolittle leaned over and took the pencil from his paralysed hand.

“I don’t like it, Doctor,” he said in a weak voice at last. “I don’t like it a bit. There is ju-ju business here. Witchcraft and magic. Why, only last night you were saying you wanted to go to the Moon. And now when we play this game, with eyes shut, I hit it right in the centre, the Moon itself!”

Beneath his dusky skin he looked quite pale. He drew away from the book and the table as though he feared the baleful influence of that mysterious force which had guided his hand.

“Oh, it’s just a coincidence, Bumpo,” said the Doctor. “It is odd. I admit – most odd. But – er – well, it’s a coincidence, that’s all.”

“All right,” said Dab-Dab finally breaking into the discussion with a more practical voice, “coincidence or not, in the meantime the supper is getting cold. If you’ll take that wretched book off the table, Tommy, we will bring in the soup.”

“But shouldn’t we play it over again, Doctor?” asked Jip. “That’s a place no one could get to, the Moon. We are entitled to another try, are we not? according to the rules of Blind Travel.”

“Maybe,” snapped Dab-Dab, “according to the rules of Blind Travel, but not according to the rules of this kitchen – not before supper anyway. The food’s been delayed half an hour as it is. Sit down, everyone, and let’s begin before it is ruined entirely.”

We all took our places at the board and the meal was begun in rather an odd general silence which was broken only by Gub-Gub’s noisy manner of drinking soup.

“Well, anyway, Doctor,” said Bumpo after a few moments, “you couldn’t get there, could you? – To the Moon, I mean.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Bumpo,” replied the Doctor. “On the contrary, I’m convinced someone will someday get there. But of course, for the present until science has provided us with new methods of aerial travel it is pretty much out of the question. As a matter of fact in a way, I’m glad the game turned out the fashion it did. I was already beginning to regret that I had promised Stubbins and Chee-Chee we would play it. I really should stick to my work here. I am awfully keen to get to the bottom of this story the moths told me about a giant race. The more I think of that, and the further I follow it up, the surer I become that it has a foundation of truth.”

“You mean you won’t take another try at Blind Travel, Doctor?” said Chee-Chee in a sadly disappointed voice.

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “I have fulfilled my promise, haven’t I? The pencil struck land which no one could reach – for the present anyhow. If you’ll show me some way I can get to the Moon, we’ll go. In the meantime – well, we have our work to do.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Tapping
on the Window

And so there followed on the general feeling of consternation one of acute disappointment. The whole household, with the possible exception of Dab-Dab (and I’m by no means sure she too would not have welcomed the idea of a voyage at this time) had been keyed up to the promise of departure for foreign shores. Now with the prospect of remaining home indefinitely, there was quite a let-down all round. Promptly remarks began to break forth.

“Well, but, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee, “how about Long Arrow? You agreed that he might be most helpful in this study of insect language and er – What did you call it? – intuitive investigation. Are you going to give up the idea of consulting him, just because Bumpo struck the astronomic page in the atlas?”

“Chee-Chee,” said the Doctor, “didn’t I tell you that I don’t know where he is and that I know of no way of finding out? I agree he might be most helpful – and perhaps the only scientist in the world who could aid me. But if I don’t know where he is, how can I get at him?”

This argument convinced me and, I must confess, saddened me quite a little. For I had really set my heart on a voyage with John Dolittle, which was an experience, I knew, like nothing else in life. But to my great joy another ally came to the aid of Chee-Chee and myself.

“Doctor,” said Polynesia suddenly and severely, “you know you are just trying to fool us. Do you mean to say that with your knowledge of the animal world you couldn’t find out where that man is – with all the birds and the beasts and the fishes of the seven seas more than anxious to assist you in anything you want? – Tut, tut!”

The Doctor for a moment looked almost guilty. And I suddenly realized that he had taken advantage of the outcome of our game of Blind Travel to put off any voyage for the present, deliberately, because he felt he ought to stick to his work at home.

“Oh, well, Polynesia,” he said finally in some little confusion, “you must admit I have fulfilled my promise. We have obeyed the rules of the game. The land we hit on was an impossible destination. I repeat: if you can show me a way to get to the Moon, I’ll take you there.”

The shrewd old parrot, who had after all given John Dolittle his first lessons in animal language, was not easily fooled. She put her head on one side, dropped the piece of toast she had been chewing and regarded him with a very knowing expression.

“You haven’t answered my question, Doctor,” said she. “Do you, or do you not, believe it is impossible for you to find out where Long Arrow now is?”

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “you remember what a dickens of a job we had in finding him last time we set out to hunt him?”

“Yes,” said Polynesia, “but that was because he had got trapped in the cave by the falling rocks. If he is free now, as he probably is, it would be no great matter – for you.”

For a moment the Doctor squirmed in his chair. Polynesia was the best arguer I have ever known.

“But don’t you see,” he said at last spreading out his hands in front of him, “I have such a tremendous lot of work here still unfinished. I told you this legend the moths spoke of, about a race of giant flies – moths as big as a house, who could lift a ton weight as though it were an ounce. That is something that must be looked into. Goodness only knows what it might lead to.”

“And goodness only knows what your going abroad might lead to either,” said Polynesia. “But the truth is, I suppose, you just don’t want to go. You’re tired of just ordinary exploration and voyaging. The Moon is the only thing that would satisfy you – like a baby.”

A little silence fell on the assembly. Dab-Dab had not yet begun to clear away. Everybody seemed to be thinking hard.

And then there came the most mysterious tapping on the window, an odd, heavy, muffled sort of tapping.

“Boo!” grunted Gub-Gub, “Spookish!” and he crawled under the table.

“I’m not going to pull back the curtains,” said Bumpo – “not for a fortune. You go, Tommy.”

I was after all the nearest to that window. I guessed it was Cheapside, as usual, asking to come in. But I should have known. No sparrow ever made a noise like that. I swung aside the curtains and gazed out into the moonlit garden. Then I clapped my hand to my mouth to stop the yell of surprise that rose to my lips.

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Giant Race

I shall never forget the feeling I had as my eyes made out the strange picture there on the lawn beneath the eerie light of the Moon. It wasn’t so much that I was frightened but that I was astonished, overwhelmed – so overwhelmed that for some moments after I had stifled my first impulse to yell, I could not speak at all. Presently I looked back at the Doctor and opened my mouth, but no words came.

“What is it, Stubbins?” said he, rising and joining me at the window.

Used as John Dolittle was to strange sights and unusual things, this vision outside the glass for a moment staggered even him. There was a face looking in at us. To begin with it took one quite a while to realize that it was a face. It was so large that you did not take it in or see the connexion, at first, between the various features. In fact the entire window, at least six feet high by three feet wide, only encompassed part of it. But there was no mistaking the eyes – strange and very beautiful eyes. Anyone but those who, like the Doctor and myself, were intimately familiar with the anatomy of insects, would quite possibly have taken them for something else. But to us, in spite of their positively gigantic size, they were unmistakably the eyes of a moth.

Set close together, bulging outward, shimmering like vast iridescent opals in the pale candlelight from the room, they made us feel as though we were gazing through a powerful magnifying-glass at an ordinary moth’s head.

“Heaven preserve us!” I heard the Doctor mutter at my elbow. “It must be the Giant Race. Snuff the candles out, Stubbins. Then we’ll be able to see the rest of him better.”

With trembling hands I did as I was told – then sped back to the window and the fascination of this astonishing apparition. And now, when the candlelight did not interfere with the Moon’s rays in the garden, it was possible to see more. The moth positively seemed to fill the whole garden.

His shoulders behind the head, which was pressed close against the panes, towered up to a height of at least two storeys. The enormous wings were folded close to the thick furry body, giving the appearance of the gable-end of a house – and quite as large. The enormous foot which had softly struck the window still rested on the sill. The great creature was quite motionless. And even before the Doctor spoke of it, I got the impression that he was injured in some way. Of course, the excitement among those in the room was terrific. Everyone, with the exception of Gub-Gub and Bumpo, rushed to the window and a general clatter broke forth which the Doctor at once hushed. Poor Bumpo seemed to feel that whatever strange sight it was that lay outside in the garden must surely have been conjured up by the same evil spirits that guided his hand over the atlas; and nothing would induce him to go and take a look at it. As for Gub-Gub, he preferred the safety of his retreat beneath the table to any moonlight encounters with the supernatural.

“Come, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “get some lanterns and we will go out. Chee-Chee, bring me my little black bag, will you, please?”

Followed by Jip, Polynesia and Too-Too, the Doctor hurried out into the back garden. You may be sure I was not far behind them with the lanterns – nor was Chee-Chee with the bag.

That whole night was one long procession of surprises. As soon as I got out into the garden I became conscious of something funny happening to my breathing. The air seemed unusual. As I paused, sniffing and half gasping, Chee-Chee overtook me. He too seemed to be affected.

“What is it, Tommy?” he asked. “Feels like sniffing a smelling-bottle – sort of takes your breath away.”

I could give him no explanation. But on reaching the Doctor we found that he also was suffering from some inconvenience in breathing.

“Give me one of those lanterns, Stubbins,” said he. “If this moth is injured I want to see what I can do to help him.”

It was a curious fantastic sight. The Doctor’s figure looked so absurdly small beside the gigantic form of his “patient.” Also it was very hard to see at such close quarters and by such a small light where the patient left off and where the garden began. One enormous thing, which I had at first thought to be a tree he had knocked down in landing, turned out to be his middle left leg. It was hairy and the hairs on it were as thick as twigs.

“What do you reckon is the matter with him, Doctor?” I asked.

“I can’t just tell yet,” said John Dolittle, bending, and peering around with his lantern. “His legs seem to be all right and I should judge that his wings are too. Of course I couldn’t get up to examine them without a good big ladder. But their position seems natural enough. It would almost appear as though exhaustion were the trouble. From the general collapsed condition of the whole moth he looks to me as though he were just dead beat from a long journey.”

“What is this business that keeps catching our throats, Doctor?” asked Chee-Chee.

“The air is surcharged with oxygen,” said the Doctor. “Though what the source of it is I haven’t yet discovered. Possibly the creature’s fur, or maybe his wing powder. It is quite harmless, I think, if a bit heady and exhilarating. Bring along that second lantern, Stubbins, and let’s take another look at his head. How on earth he managed to land down on a lawn this size without ripping himself on the trees I have no idea. He must be a very skilful flier in spite of his great size.”

With the aid of the two lights we carefully made our way towards the creature’s head, which was almost touching the side of the house. We had to pull bushes and shrubs aside to get up close.

Here we found the peculiar quality of the air on which we had already remarked more pronounced than ever. It was so strong that it occasionally made the head reel with momentary fits of dizziness but was not otherwise unpleasant. Lying on the ground beneath the moth’s nose were several enormous orange-coloured flowers. And the Doctor finally detected the oxygen, as he called it, as coming from these. We were both nearly bowled over as we stooped to examine them. The Doctor, bidding me also retire for a while, withdrew into the house, where from the surgery he produced cloths soaked in some chemical liquid to counteract the effect of the potent perfumed gas from the flowers. With these tied about our noses and mouths we returned to our investigations.

“I don’t think it’s pure oxygen,” said the Doctor as he examined one of the enormous blossoms. “If it were I don’t imagine we could stand it even as well as this. It is a powerful natural scent given out by the flowers which is heavily charged with oxygen. Did you ever see such gigantic blooms? Five of them. He must have brought them with him. But from where? – And why?”

Bending down, the Doctor placed one of the flowers under the moth’s nose.

“He couldn’t have brought them for nothing,” said he. “Let’s see what effect their perfume has on him.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Awakening
of the Giant

At first it appeared as though the Doctor’s experiment was going to have no result. The huge head of the moth rested on the ground almost as if dead. But knowing how long even our own kinds of moths could stay motionless, we did not yet have any fears on that score.

“It’s the position that’s curious,” muttered the Doctor, still holding the huge bell of the flower over the moth’s nose. “The head is thrust forward in quite an unnatural pose. That’s what makes me feel he may have actually lost consciousness from exhaustion – Oh, but see, wasn’t that a tremor in the antennae?”

I looked up at the feathery palm-like wands that reared upward from the head (they reminded you of some fantastic decorations in the turban of a rajah), and, yes – there was no doubt of it – the ends were trembling slightly.

“He’s coming to, Doctor,” I whispered. “Hadn’t you better stand further away in case he struggles to get up? To be stepped on by one of his feet would be no joke.”

The Doctor’s utter fearlessness in the presence of this unbelievable monster was quite typical. The animal kingdom had no terrors for him. And a moth the size of a large building disturbed him no more, so far as his personal safety was concerned, than a newborn lamb. And that strange trust was always shared by the animals themselves. I have never seen any creature that was afraid of the Doctor or disposed to fight him. It was this perhaps, above all things, that set him apart among mankind and made him the naturalist he was. Every living thing appeared to have confidence in him from the moment it set eyes on him.

And so it seemed to be with this great insect that looked as though it belonged to some other world than ours. You could not say it opened its eyes – because a moth’s eyes, having no lids, are always open. But presently when by various little signs, like the increased trembling of the antennae, small shiftings of the legs, a slight raising of the head, etc., it showed us that it was really alive and conscious, it seemed quite unalarmed. I noticed those enormous eyes, now glowing with newer, more conscious, light, turn and take in the figure of the Doctor busying himself with various little jobs for the comfort of his patient. The Giant Moth made no struggle to get up. On the contrary, he gave a sort of deep sigh which indicated he was almost pleased on waking to find the Doctor fussing round him. As I looked at them, John Dolittle and his gigantic patient, I began to wonder what would have taken place if this creature had fallen into another garden and into other hands. Fear, on account of his great size, superstition and ignorance, would most likely have brought about some violent attack upon him and his unnatural death. I thought of Bumpo and his dread of the Unknown, gentle enough though he usually was. I thought of Chee-Chee’s prehistoric artist, Otho Bludge. Would not his first impulse have been to destroy this enormous creature as soon as it appeared – to be the first in attack, lest it destroy him?

But with the Doctor, no. Size, foreign characteristics and qualities, did not incur fear or distrust. On the contrary, anything new attracted him, always, rather than scared him. And by being with him I, in a lesser measure, had grown to share something of this confidence – even if I had not yet learned to impress the same feeling of trust on creatures I met with.

I was sharply reminded of what the Doctor had said about intuitive knowledge also as I watched these two. The moth of course could not speak one word of the Doctor’s language nor the Doctor, so far, a syllable of the moth’s. And yet, without language, they seemed to be conveying certain things to one another with fair ease. For example, the Doctor evidently wished to climb up and examine the moth’s wing muscles, which he expected had been overstrained in the long flight. Somehow, goodness only knows by what means, he conveyed this idea to the patient. Anyway it suddenly contracted its chest and let its front pair of legs spread apart, so that the summit of its shoulders was lowered a good ten feet. Then very carefully, lest he hurt the moth’s skin, the Doctor clambered up in the deep fur that covered the middle trunk (I think he called it the thorax) until he stood where the enormous wings were joined to the body.

Up there where no rays from the lamp could reach him he was quite invisible to Chee-Chee and me. But presently he called down to me to open his little black bag and throw him up a bottle of liniment.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Keeping a Secret

Of course on an exciting occasion of this kind, the Doctor, who always seemed to be able to do without sleep if necessary, outstayed all of us in the garden. Polynesia was deeply interested also, but by three o’clock in the morning she retired to the house and took a nap on top of the grandfather clock on the stair-landing. Chee-Chee finally fell asleep under the bushes. I, by pinching myself at five-minute intervals, managed to carry on till dawn showed over the roof-ridge of the house. Too-Too of course could always apparently stay awake with more comfort during night hours than in daylight. He and the Doctor were, I think, the last left on deck. He told me next day that John Dolittle had not gone to bed before 6 a.m.

Staggering around the garden with one eye open and the other shut, I had managed to act the part of the Doctor’s assistant almost as long as that. When I woke up (about two o’clock the following afternoon) I found myself on the hall settee with the carpet drawn over me for bed-clothes. I learned, when I went to the kitchen and found Dab-Dab frying eggs, that John Dolittle had made the Giant Moth comfortable in the garden and was planning to see him early the following day.

Luckily the night had been mild. I took the cup of tea and piece of toast which Dab-Dab offered me and went out into the garden. Here of course I discovered the Doctor, who after a couple of hours’ nap somewhere between six and nine in the morning, was continuing his study of the strange visitor. He had evidently been trying out various foods, because great quantities of different edibles lay about the lawn. What strange instinct had guided the Doctor finally to honey I do not know, for certainly this giant specimen did not look like any of the honey-sucking moths with which we were familiar. But certainly John Dolittle had hit upon a food agreeable to the creature even if it was not his natural one. When I came up to them he was just setting to on a new comb while the empty frames of six others lay around him on the grass.

The Doctor had managed by this to get the moth to move back somewhat from the house. He now stood, or sat, comfortably, on the lawn; and while he occupied most of the turf, we could approach him from all sides and get a much better idea of what he looked like.

In colour he was a light brown in the body with very gorgeous wings of red and blue. His legs were green, the rest of him black. In shape he was of the type that keeps the wings closely folded to the body when at rest, though, to be sure, his general lines and appearance were only vaguely suggestive of any species we knew among earthly moths.

“I moved him over here,” said the Doctor, “so that there should be less chance of anyone seeing him from the front garden.”

“But how did you manage to make him understand you wished him to move?” I said. “Can you speak his language already?”

“Oh, no – not a word,” he said. “But – well – I suppose I really don’t know just how I did it. I moved over there and beckoned to him and put the food down. And – well – anyhow he seemed most well disposed towards me and anxious to coöperate in any way.”

I laughed.

“That, Doctor,” I said, “is the thing that has made you succeed in animal languages where so many naturalists have failed. I’m not so sure that Long Arrow was much better than you when it comes to doing things by instinct rather than by science. But why are you so afraid the people will see the moth?”

“Why, Stubbins,” said he – “most important. If the townsfolk get wind of this extraordinary creature being here we would be besieged, just besieged, by visitors. He doesn’t like strangers. Of that I’m sure -naturally timid, you know, in spite of his size. – No, whatever happens his presence here must be kept secret. And by the way, if Matthew should call – and you know he usually drops in almost every night after supper – don’t let him come into the back garden, whatever you do. We will have to bind Bumpo and the animals to secrecy in this. Because while Gub-Gub and Jip can’t talk with Matthew, they might easily give the moth’s presence away. And the one thing Matthew can’t do is to keep a secret.”

And so that afternoon we called the household together and swore them all into absolute secrecy. More than that, the Doctor was so afraid that someone might discover the moth’s presence and spread the news abroad, he instituted a system of sentries. Bumpo, Jip and I took it in turns to mount guard at the front gate to make sure that no one strayed in by accident. We did duty in three-hour shifts, night and day. To make extra sure, Too-Too and Polynesia, who were both good hands at keeping awake, watched alternately from the ridge of the roof where they could see anyone approach from any direction.

And it was a good thing that we did take those precautions. I had never realized before how many people ordinarily came to our quiet establishment in the course of a day. Tradesmen’s boys delivering groceries; animal patients calling at the surgery; people dropping in to ask the way; the man from the Water Company to look at the meter; pedlars who wished to sell things, etc., etc.

But with our system of sentries no one ever got a glimpse of the giant moth nor a suspicion that he was hidden in the Doctor’s garden.

“Have you any idea, Doctor,” I asked one evening, “where this creature has come from?”

“As yet I have not,” said he. “I have been trying to find that out, as you can easily imagine, ever since he arrived. I have examined his feet most carefully, hoping that that might give me a clue. But so far it has led to nothing. I even put some particles of dust I found under a microscope. But I am sure, from my examination, that they were picked up after his arrival here in the garden – while landing, no doubt. What I hope to do now is to get into communication with him through some form of vibration-record, just as we did with the ordinary moths and flies. But of course it isn’t going to be easy with a creature of this size. We will have to devise special apparatus to fit the job. I fear it may take a lot of work. But it doesn’t matter. I feel I am on the eve of discovering big things. I am quite content to spend a long time on this. It is worth it.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Butterflies’ Paradise

And thus we settled down, with our sentries to keep the world out, to try and get in touch with this strange creature who had visited us from parts unknown.

To begin with, of course, the Doctor, with his extraordinary knowledge of the moths and butterflies of almost every part of the civilized world, was able to eliminate a great deal of territory as an impossible source for the moth to come from. He had one theory which he followed for quite a time and that was that it had come from what is called the Subarctic Regions. Very little was known so far, he told me, about insect life in those parts.

Then he got another idea, very far removed from the first. He had noticed that the Giant Moth was very cold at night. John Dolittle was quite upset over this. He made all sorts of arrangements about warming the garden. He worried Dab-Dab to death by buying oil stoves by the dozen to set around the garden and supplemented these by hot-water bottles actually in hundreds. We had the most terrible time getting them in secretly, because of course the dealers insisted on delivering them by wagon. But we had to be just insistent and bring them up to the house ourselves. They of course wanted to know what on earth we were going to do with so many hot-water bottles. A small town is a difficult place to keep a secret in.

Then the Doctor, following up the idea that the moth might have come from the tropics, started to question Chee-Chee. He asked him if he had ever heard his grandmother speak of giant insects at any time.

Poor Chee-Chee thought very hard for quite a while. He could not seem to remember any occasion on which his grandmother had referred to such creatures. But presently he said:

“Oh, wait now – yes, I remember, there was something.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. “What was it?”

And all the animals, hoping for another of Chee-Chee’s stories of the Ancient World, gathered about him to listen with attention.

“Well,” said he, “there is no record that I know of, of any such insects belonging to the tropics – I mean especially to those parts – either in past times or nowadays. But I do remember my grandmother saying that in those days before there was a Moon the world had no end of perfectly enormous creatures running about it and that Man had a terribly hard time to survive. This was particularly so at certain times when various species like the dinosaurs and some of the more dangerous animals multiplied in such quantities that they crowded everything else out of certain sections. It wasn’t only by chasing Man and destroying him that they had made life hard for him. But for instance, when a swarm of these giant lizards descended on a farm where he had been growing corn and raising a few goats, they would eat up the whole crop, roots and all, in a few minutes, or clear off all the natural turf down to the bare ground so that there was nothing left for the goats to feed on.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “but the insects, Chee-Chee. Do you recall your grandmother speaking of any giant moths, beetles or butterflies?”

“Yes, I was coming to that,” said the monkey. “She used to tell us of one time – again in the days before there was a Moon – when a certain valley lay for a considerable time undisturbed by most creatures. You see, although there was occasional crowding in some areas, the world at that time had lots and lots of room in it. And, as I was saying, in this quiet forgotten valley a giant race of butterflies is said to have flourished. Of course my grandmother never saw them, they were millions of years before her time, and she only handed on the story to us as she had heard it. But she said it was still believed that these butterflies with their wings outspread were a hundred paces across from tip to tip.”

“Had your grandmother ever spoken of other giant insects, Chee-Chee,” asked the Doctor – “of moths, for example?”

“Oh, well,” said the monkey, “when I called them butterflies I was merely thinking of the general term in our language for all big flies of that sort. It is quite possible that the insects she spoke of were really moths. In fact I think it is more likely, since they appear to have been exceedingly strong; and moths would be stronger than butterflies, wouldn’t they?”

“Er – yes – generally speaking,” said the Doctor, “they would. But how do you know they were strong?”

“Well, it seems,” said Chee-Chee, “that when Man first came into the valley he found it full of extraordinary flowers and vegetation of all kinds. The soil seems to have been very, very rich there. It had been a lake up in the hills many years before, simply filled with fish. Then suddenly, through an earthquake or something, all the water drained away through a crack in the mountains and the fish of course died in the mud that was left. The smell of the rotting fish at first drove every living thing away. But it also seems to have fertilized the valley in a very extraordinary manner. After a while of course seeds from the ordinary wild flowers and weeds began blowing in across the mountains. They took root, sprouted, bloomed and died down. Then their seed was blown about and did the same thing. But the new seed was very much better than the old, for the plants from which it came had grown strong in the most fertile ground in the world. And so it went on, each spring bringing forth finer and larger plants until, they say, many little wild flowers that in other parts were no bigger than a button, had become here gigantic blossoms growing on bushes as high as an elm tree.

“And of course where there are flowers, butterflies and moths and bees and beetles will always come. And thus in time this deserted valley, once a dried-up sea of mud, stinking of rotten fish, grew into a butterflies’ paradise. It was set deep down in a canyon whose walls were sheer and unscalable. Neither man nor beast came to disturb this flower-filled playground where the butterflies and bees led a happy gorgeous life of sunshine, colour and peace.”

Chee-Chee’s story of the Butterflies’ Paradise – as did most of his yarns of the Ancient World – got us all deeply interested. From Gub-Gub to the Doctor, we were all listening intently as the little monkey, squatting tailor-fashion on the corner of the table, retold the legends of prehistoric times which his ancestors had handed down to him.

“Well,” he went on, “as it was with the flowers that fed and grew larger on the rich soil of the valley, so it was with the butterflies and bees who fed on the flowers. They became enormous. The honey they got from the blossoms made—”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor interrupted. – “Honey, did you say?”

“Yes,” said Chee-Chee, “that was the food they got from the flowers of course. So it was believed that it was the honey, peculiarly rich in that district, which made them so big.”

“Humph! – Yes, yes. Pardon me. Go on,” said the Doctor.

“But naturally sooner or later such an extraordinary valley, filled with such extraordinary creatures, would have to be discovered and disturbed by strangers. There was a tradition among the monkey people, my grandmother said, that a party of baboons was the first to enter it. They however, when they had finally scaled the rocky heights surrounding the canyon and looked down into the valley filled with gaudy-coloured flies as big as ships, were so scared that they bolted and never went back there again. But some men who had watched the baboons climbing up and made a note of how they reached the top, followed over the same trail. Among this party there was one very bold spirit who often led the others in attacks upon the large animals. While the others hung back in hesitation he descended the break-neck precipices, determined to investigate those lovely giants. He reached the bottom and there, from the ambush of an enormous leaf big enough to hide a regiment under, he suddenly sprang out onto one of the butterflies as he crawled over the ground in the sun. The big insect, thoroughly frightened, took to his wings at once; and with the wretched man clinging to his shoulders, he soared away over the mountain-tops. Neither of them was ever seen again.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Home
of the Giant Moth

A general chatter of comment and criticism broke out around the kitchen table as Chee-Chee brought his story to an end.

“It’s a good yarn, Chee-Chee,” said Gub-Gub – “quite good. But I don’t like it as well as the one about Otho Bludge.”

“Why, Gub-Gub?” the Doctor asked.

“Oh, well,” said the pig, “Otho’s story was more romantic. I have a natural preference for romantic stories. I liked that part about the bracelet of stone beads which Pippiteepa left on the rock behind her – which Otho took and wore on his own wrist the rest of his days. That’s a very romantic idea. It is dreadfully sad that he never met her any more. I wish Chee-Chee would tell us that one over again.”

“Some other night perhaps,” said the Doctor. “It is getting late now and we should be thinking of bed.”

The Doctor was almost as interested in the great orange-coloured flowers which the moth had brought with him as he was in the moth himself. To begin with, he had almost immediately on discovering them taken the greatest pains to preserve the great blooms. Huge quantities of ice (which was quite an expensive luxury in Puddleby) were procured from the fishmonger to keep the flowers fresh as long as possible. Meantime John Dolittle experimented with one specimen to find out what gases its perfumes contained, etc.

The work apparently proved very interesting for him. He was quite good at analytical chemistry, and he told me that the flowers presented problems which he felt had never been encountered by chemists before.

When he was done with this he turned his attention again to the moth himself, but took precautions in the meantime that the remaining flowers should be given the best of care and made to last as long as possible.

In his study of the moth, progress was slow. If it had not been for the fact that the giant insect itself was most kindly disposed towards his investigations and did his best to help the Doctor in every way, I doubt if he would have got anywhere. But one day I gathered from the fact that John Dolittle had stayed out on that particular subject for nearly twenty-four hours at a stretch, and had missed his night’s sleep altogether, that he was most likely achieving something important.

Well, the outcome of these long sessions of study on the Doctor’s part was that one very early morning he rushed into my room his eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Stubbins,” he said, “it’s too good to be true. I’m not certain of anything yet, but I think – I think, mind you – that I’ve discovered where this creature comes from.”

“Goodness!” I said. “That’s news worth a good deal. – Where?”

“I guessed,” he said, “that it couldn’t be Europe. The more remote corners of the world, like the sub-arctic and the tropics, didn’t quite – well, they didn’t exactly fit in either.”

“Anyway, you know now,” I said. “Tell me quick, I’m dying to hear.”

“I have every reason,” he said, looking sort of embarrassed lest I should disbelieve him, “to suppose that he comes from the Moon!”

“Heaven preserve us!” I gasped – “The Moon?”

“I have very little doubt,” he answered. “I managed to rig up some sort of apparatus – after a good many trials and a good many failures – which should convey his vibrations. If it had not been that he was just as anxious as I to get in contact I could never have done it. He came as a messenger, it seems. You remember Polynesia has told you, I know, of the time when the monkeys in Africa sent word to me by a swallow that they were suffering from an epidemic – that they had heard of me and wanted me to come to the rescue?”

“Yes,” I said, “Polynesia has told me many times.”

“Well,” said he, “this is something of the same kind. It seems unbelievable. And every once in a while I wake up, as it were, and pinch myself for fear I am trying to believe in some extraordinary and delightful dream – something that I have conjured up myself because I wanted it so to be true. And yet I think I have real reason to believe it. If so, this is by far the greatest moment of my career. To be called to Africa by the monkeys on the strength of my reputation, to cure them in the hour of their distress, that was a great compliment. To let loose Long Arrow, the Indian naturalist, from his prison in the cave, that was a moment well worth living for. But to be summoned to another world by creatures that human eyes have never seen before, that, Stubbins, is—”

He waved his hand without further words. His voice sounded strangely chokey. It was not often that I had seen John Dolittle overcome by emotion.

• • • • •

•   8   •

Flowers of Mystery

Anyone can very readily imagine into what a condition of extraordinary excitement this statement of the Doctor’s would be likely to put me. All sorts of visions and possibilities passed before my mind. But so anxious was he that no false alarm should be spread abroad till he was certain of his facts, that he strictly forbade me to whisper a word of the matter to anyone before he gave me permission. He said nothing annoyed him so much as the half-baked announcements of scientists promising all sorts of wonders that never come true. And it must be said for John Dolittle himself that he never published a word that he was not prepared to stand by and prove. But then he very seldom “talked for the newspapers,” as it is called, anyway.

Before many days had passed we decided that the flowers the moth had brought with him were almost as complicated a mystery as the great insect himself. The Doctor was, as I have said, in constant anxiety lest they should wither. It was not to be hoped of course that they would last more than a few days. His progress with the moth’s “language” continued to be tantalizingly slow; and every morning he would go to the little special greenhouse where he kept the blossoms, expecting to find his treasures had wilted and passed away. But morning after morning they seemed as fresh as ever; and he was greatly puzzled. The ice and spraying and other care we gave them could not account for such extraordinary endurance.

The Doctor was pretty good at botany, as he was in all branches of natural history. He found on careful examination that the flowers had certain bulbous knobs just where the stem joined the bell of the blossom itself. These he told me were something quite different from the anatomy of any flower known to the Earth’s vegetable kingdom. Of course he had long since supposed that if the moth came from the Moon, he brought the flowers also from that world. He was sure that these knobs or glands, as he called them, accounted for the flower being able to endure so long in a state of perfect freshness after it had been plucked from its plant. He wondered if all moon flowers had the same quality.

But what mystified us a great deal more was that the flower apparently had the power actually to move itself – not only to change its position from that in which it had been laid down, but also, we finally proved, to shift itself from place to place.

The way the Doctor discovered that peculiar quality of the Moon Bells, as we called the flowers, was this: he was in the habit of bringing one of the blossoms twice a day to the moth to smell. He had discovered that the insect derived great benefit from this daily tonic. He told me he was sure that the moon moth found our earthly atmosphere entirely too sluggish and lacking in oxygen. If we left him for more than about twelve hours without a sniff he got sleepier and sleepier and would finally almost collapse.

At night-time, after the moth had had his final sniff, the Doctor always took the blooms back to the special ice-cooled conservatory to be stored till the next day. Of the five blooms, he used each one conscientiously in turn – thinking thus to economize the precious perfume. But that, by the way, proved to be unnecessary. For the flowers were as good a tonic at the end of the week as they were when we first discovered them. This treatment, with vast quantities of honey for food (which we actually supplied to the insect in barrow-loads), was practically the only treatment which we gave our strange visitor.

Well, as I said, the Doctor would with the greatest care take the flowers back to the greenhouse and lay them down on a thick bed of asparagus fern. But the following morning, as regular as clockwork, he would find the flowers in different positions.

In the beginning, he had not laid any importance to this. But one evening he had put a bloom down almost touching the door of the conservatory because the others were occupying almost the entire space of the small house with their enormous bulk. When he came in the morning, expecting to find the flower he had used the night before close against the door, he was astonished to see that it and all the blossoms had rolled away toward the far end, and that last night’s one had swung right around so that the stem instead of the bell was facing the door.

At first he thought someone must have been in during the night and shifted the flowers. But the same thing occurred the following day. As usual he didn’t speak of it to me till he was sure of his facts. We sat up one night and watched with a lantern, and both of us distinctly saw the flower nearest the door roll over and change its position.

At first, for my part, I wasn’t satisfied.

“Why, Doctor,” I said, “that could have been an accident. The way the flower was laid on the uneven bed of fern could account for its rolling a short distance like that!”

“All right,” said he, “we will watch again tomorrow night. I am convinced – and I think I can prove to you – that the flowers do not like the draught from the door. They move away from it of their own accord, by rolling.”

So the next night we repeated our watch. And this time I was completely convinced. We put two flowers close against the door. After about an hour one of them deliberately began to roll away towards the other end of the conservatory, A little later the other followed, both crowding in on the remainder of the specimens, huddling like sheep that wished to escape a storm. I could hardly believe my eyes. There was no question of accident here.

On our way back to the house the Doctor said: “You know, Stubbins, I feel we are here presented with an almost entirely new problem. There are flowers in our own vegetable kingdom which catch flies and close up at night and things like that. But one that can move itself after it is cut off from its plant is something quite new. You know, Stubbins – er – of course—” (The Doctor hesitated a moment in one of his moods of half embarrassment which had been pretty common of late.) “Er – this whole thing is so new and perplexing – but, well, I’ve had a notion for some days now that those flowers can communicate with one another.”

“You mean that they can talk!” I cried.

“Just that,” said he. “The way that they arrange themselves when they crowd up together at the far end of the conservatory – and – and I have even thought I could detect some exchange of conversation. But of course, as I said, it is all so new. I may be wrong.”

“Goodness!” I said. “That’s a new idea, with a vengeance, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said he. “But in the Moon? – It may be the oldest idea there is – that flowers can talk. Certainly you and I have evidence already that they can think – and move.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

Smoke on the Moon

The night following that on which we had finally determined that the Moon Bells could move of their own accord, I came into the Doctor’s study about nine o’clock. At first I thought there was no one in the room and was about to go out to the kitchen. But presently I heard Polynesia whisper:

“Is that you, Tommy?”

And then I made out Chee-Chee’s form also squatting on the floor by the window.

I must confess that by this time I was getting sort of prepared for anything. I had even told my parents that I might leave any day on a voyage for parts unknown. The Doctor had become so – so secretive. Try as hard as I might to keep track of what was going on, I still had an uncomfortable feeling that John Dolittle was making discoveries and plans which he was telling to no one – at least not to me. That feeling had disturbed me a great deal.

“Yes, Polynesia,” said I. “This is Tommy. What’s going on here?”

“Oh,” said she, and I knew at once from the tone of her voice that she was on her guard, “the Doctor is just taking a few observations through his new telescope.”

I realized right away that the Doctor was doing nothing of that kind. He was looking through his new telescope, it was true – an instrument which it had cost him just mints of money to buy. He had even kept its purchase a secret from Dab-Dab who always scolded him whenever he laid out large sums on scientific instruments. But I saw at once that he wasn’t taking observations.

“What are you doing, Doctor?” I asked, coming up to where he handled the telescope in the dark.

“Oh, well, Stubbins,” said he, “I’m – er – I’m trying to see if they’re signalling.”

“What do you mean – they? – signalling?” I asked.

“Well, you see,” said he, “I thought that if they sent down this moth with some sort of a message to me – which I really believe they did – that maybe they, those folk in the Moon – I have no idea yet what sort of creatures they are of course – would possibly give out some sort of signal to get in touch with him and see how his expedition was getting on…. There! Did you see that? I’ll swear I saw a puff – a sort of puff of smoke coming out from the Moon’s left side. You look in, Stubbins. Maybe I’m dreaming again!”

I looked into the telescope. But I must confess I could see little beyond the ordinary map of the Moon. This I was already somewhat familiar with. The Doctor had several pamphlets issued by various astronomical observatories that gave details and maps of that side of the Moon which was the only one we earthly people had ever seen. He and I had during the last few days studied these with a good deal of interest and attention. The Doctor himself was very familiar, I knew, with everything that had been learned and published on Moon geography up to that time. He seemed disappointed when I told him I could see nothing unusual in the Moon’s appearance tonight.

“Strange – very strange!” he muttered. “I could have sworn I saw something – like a cloud, suddenly appearing and then fading away like smoke, on the left side. – But there! This is all new. So much of it is guesswork as yet. And I’m always afraid that I’m being carried away by my own ideas and hopes.”

I must confess that, for my part, I felt he had on this occasion been misled, until I happened to meet Too-Too later in the evening, coming off duty from his post on top of the roof. He and Polynesia still took it in turns religiously to watch for intruders visiting the Doctor’s premises who might hear of the moth’s presence in his garden and carry the news abroad before the Doctor wished it known.

The little owl whispered that he would like to see me alone a minute. I took him onto my shoulder and proceeded upstairs to my room. There, with his usual accurate behaviour in the complete darkness, he found the matches for me, carried them to the candle and rattled them till I found my way to him.

“Shut the door, Tommy,” said he mysteriously as soon as I had struck a light, “and take a look outside to make sure no one has followed us.”

This I did.

“Well,” said I, coming back to where he stood blinking beside the lighted candle, “what is it, Too-Too? Has anyone heard about the moth being here?”

“No,” said he. “So far, I think I can say with absolute certainty the moth’s presence here is a secret. Though I have serious fears about that gossip Gub-Gub. If he tells any other pigs, you can be sure we’ll have all the porkers in the neighbourhood nosing round to see what’s going on. But as yet I fancy he hasn’t had a chance. That’s not the point. What I wanted to see you about was this: Did you happen to look at the Moon at all this evening?”

“Yes,” I said, “I looked at it through the Doctor’s new telescope. Why?”

“Did you see anything – er – unusual?” he asked.

“No,” I said, “I did not. The Doctor asked me the same question. He was sure he had seen something out of the ordinary.”

“Ah!” grunted Too-Too. “There you are. I thought so.”

“Why, what happened?” I asked.

“Well, you know,” said he, “we owls are pretty familiar with the Moon. Her phases are, I suppose, more important to us than to almost any animal family. The light, you understand, for hunting and travelling by night is very important. Well, tonight happened to be the full moon – exactly full at ten o’clock. I was looking up at it thinking how bright it would be in the woods for hunting – too bright in fact – when suddenly I saw a small cloud puff out from the left side, like smoke it was. It didn’t last more than a couple of seconds and then it was gone. But – well, I’m sure it was done deliberately.”

“How do you mean?” said I. – “By someone in the Moon itself?”

“Well, of course,” replied the owl. “I know it most likely sounds crazy to you. But after all, there’s no use you and I pretending to one another that we haven’t guessed where this moth comes from, is there? We don’t have to let the world in on this secret. But – well, after all we know, don’t we? If he hasn’t come from the Moon, where else could he have come from? And what’s he doing here, hanging around in very uncomfortable circumstances? He has come for some purpose, hasn’t he?”

• • • • •

•   10   •

Too-Too’s Warning

The difference between Too-Too and Polynesia in this matter, as far as I was concerned, was very noticeable. Polynesia had seemed as though she wanted to keep things from me: Too-Too was for taking me into his confidence. I had had an uncomfortable feeling that the old parrot was looking towards some occasion where – as I mentioned before – the Doctor also might wish me to be left in ignorance regarding his plans. How far John Dolittle himself was in agreement with her in this, and how far she was acting on her own, I did not know. But it had caused me a good deal of anxiety.

To find that Too-Too was willing and anxious to be quite frank with me cheered me up considerably.

“You mean,” said I, “that this moth is staying here in the hopes that he may take the Doctor back with him to the Moon?”

“What else?” said Too-Too, spreading out his wings in a funny argumentative gesture. “After all, you know the great man’s reputation. There’s nothing very surprising in that it should have reached the Moon. No one can say yet what their civilization up there may have grown into. But naturalists like John Dolittle are not born every day – nor every century. They want him, I suppose, to solve some problem. And you may be sure that the Doctor will not be slow to answer their call for help. And what is more, he will certainly keep his going a secret till the last possible moment.”

“Humph!” I muttered. “You think then that he might hop off any minute?”

“I don’t know,” said Too-Too. “There is no telling. They certainly haven’t let me in on any secrets. But I’m sure that giant moth came with some orders about bringing the Doctor back with him. How long it may take the Doctor to learn enough of the insect’s language to know what they want, I cannot tell. But if you are interested I would advise you to keep a very close watch on John Dolittle’s movements for the next few days. A word to the wise, you know—”

I pondered a moment before answering.

“All right,” I said at last. – “Thank you, Too-Too, for warning me.”

“It was not only on your own account,” said the owl, “that I dropped this word of caution. If he goes, we animals would be much happier if he had some other human with him. Getting to the Moon is – well – a risky business, to say the least – and it is my guess that he will avoid taking any more company than he can possibly help on account of the risk.”

It was only very shortly after that conversation with Too-Too that I made it my business to question the Doctor about his plans.

“So it is true,” I said, “that you have hopes of getting to the Moon with the help of this moth?”

“Well,” said he, “it will depend of course on how things pan out. But, yes, I think I can certainly say that I have hopes in that direction. As I told you, it seems pretty certain now that this moth was sent down specially to fetch me.”

“It is a very thrilling idea,” said I. “But to be quite honest, I don’t see how you’re going to manage it. They say there is no air there, don’t they?”

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“There is animal life there anyway,” said he. “These moths can manage very well. It is probably a different kind of air, that is all. I am faced with the problem of finding out what sort of atmosphere it is they have there. Once I’ve done that I shall be in a very much better position to say whether or no the earthly human can subsist in the Moon. I am beginning to come to the conclusion that up there the vegetable kingdom is relatively much more active and important than the animal kingdom. Of course that’s only guess work so far. But everything points to it. I believe that the atmosphere, whatever air they have, is created or influenced very largely by the vegetable kingdom. That is why the moth brought along with him those flowers whose perfumes seem so important to him.”

“But,” said I, “scientists have said there is no water there, haven’t they? – That if there were there would be clouds?”

“Oh, well,” said the Doctor, shrugging his shoulders, “how do they know – without having been there? Perhaps the Moon water is of a different kind – one that does not volatilize and go off into clouds – the way it does with us. Perhaps the air, the heat, is of a different kind. Who shall say? The only way to know is to go there and see.”

“That’s all very well,” I replied. “But in the job of finding out you could, so far as I can tell, very easily give your life without anyone thanking you.”

The Doctor pondered seriously a moment.

“Yes,” he said at last, “I admit it may sound sort of crazy to most people. But I have a confidence in animals. The lunar animal kingdom wants me up there for something. As yet I haven’t been able to find out exactly what it is. But so far all my life, as you know, I have trusted the animal kingdom and I have never had that confidence imposed on. If the Moon animals want me, I’ll go. And I have no fear about their finding a way to get me there – and a way to get me back.”

“Humph!” I said. “But even if there should be air – of a sort – on the Moon itself, there is none in between, is there? My understanding of this situation is that when you get away from the Earth a certain distance you come to the end of the air envelope. How can anyone fly when there is no air for his wings to beat against?”

Once more John Dolittle shrugged his shoulders. “The moth managed it,” he said. “I imagine that so far as a medium for flying is concerned the gravity of the Earth, being stronger than the gravity of the Moon, he was pulled down here, without much effort on his own part, as soon as he got outside the Moon’s attraction. That would make it look as though it were easier to get here from the Moon than from here to the Moon. However the most important thing would seem to carry enough atmosphere with you to support life on the voyage.”

“Is it far,” I asked, “to the Moon?”

“Far enough,” said he. “But after all only about one fourteen-hundredth part of the distance to the Sun. As soon as I am convinced that they, that is the Moon’s animal kingdom, wants to have me come, then I’ll go. I’m not afraid. They will take care of me. If they can get one of their people down to me, I should be able to get up to them. It is merely a question of knowing conditions and making provisions for perfectly natural, if new, conditions.”

Of course when the Doctor put it in that way there was after all very little to be said. That sublime confidence of his in the animal kingdom, whether it was of the Moon or the Earth, overcame all difficulties in a manner that left you almost gasping. If the Moon creatures wanted him, he would go. That was the end of the matter.

For the rest, everything now depended on the development of conversation between himself and the giant moth. We had successfully kept the secret of its presence with us from the outside world – so far.

“You know, Stubbins,” said he to me one evening when we were talking this over, “I am not even telling the animals, my own household, I mean, about any plans I may have for a possible journey to the Moon. One cannot be too careful. If it ever leaked out that I was contemplating such a thing we would have a reporter from every paper in the country clamouring at our gates for an interview within twenty-four hours. The world may call me a crank. But anything sensational like this can start an avalanche of publicity which nothing will stop. Polynesia is about the only one I have taken into my confidence. I suspect of course that Too-Too, Chee-Chee and Jip have some idea of what is going on. But I haven’t discussed the matter with them and I know I can trust them to keep their suspicions to themselves.”

“Have you,” I asked, “decided yet, if you do go, whom you would take with you? I presume you hadn’t thought of going entirely alone?”

“Um – er—” the Doctor murmured, “that is a bit hard to settle yet. The – er – well, the risks, you know, Stubbins, are great. There is no sense in trying to hide that. It is something so entirely new. Sometimes I feel I should take no one with me at all – that I haven’t the right to. If I go alone and I fail to get back, well, I’ll have given my life in a cause worth while. As I said, for my own safety I haven’t much fear. But I’m not so sure that the same protection would necessarily be given to the rest of my party. I have made no final decisions yet. Polynesia I would like to take – and Chee-Chee. I feel they both might be very useful; but for the rest, much as I would like to have them with me, I think they are better off where they are – at home.”

And now of course the most important question for me was: would I, Tommy Stubbins, be of the Doctor’s party on the voyage to the Moon? I was almost afraid to ask the question of him direct. Never have I been so divided in my feelings about anything. One minute I was just crazy to go. The next I realized what a mad wild expedition it was and felt that the chances of anyone returning alive from such a voyage were too slight to be worth mentioning. Then followed the picture of how I would feel if I let him go alone and stayed behind myself. That finally decided me. Scared blue as I was of the whole scheme, I knew I just had to do my utmost to accompany him. I couldn’t let him go without me. The following evening I broached the subject.

“Doctor,” I said, “you are of course counting on taking me with you on this trip?” (I felt it best to begin by supposing that he was.) “You would find it hard to do without a secretary, wouldn’t you? There is bound to be an enormous lot of note-taking to be done, eh?”

I watched his face keenly as he pondered a moment before answering.

“Well – er – Stubbins,” he began at length, “you know how I feel about taking anyone with me – even those animal friends of mine, members of my household, who have no one to mourn over their loss if they should not come back. And – er – in your case, Stubbins, you must realize that it is – quite difficult. Please do not think that I don’t appreciate the fact that you want to share the dangers of this entirely new enterprise with me. I admit I would be more than glad of your company. I expect to be faced with situations when the companionship of another human might be a tremendous comfort and help. But – well, you know, Stubbins, as well as I do, how your parents would feel if I took you with me on such a trip. To the Moon! Compared with that our other voyages look like a twopenny coach ride to the outskirts of London. Then again, remember, Stubbins, I am flying in the face of all scientific authority. Whatever my own doubts may be, the fact remains that all astronomers, from Newton down, who have studied the Moon emphatically declare that no life can exist there – that the Moon is a dead world. I am gambling, like Columbus, on my own opinion pitted against the rest of mankind…. No – I’m sorry. But nothing would excuse me, in my own eyes – let alone the eyes of your mother and father – for taking you with me. You – you must stay behind. You will be needed here. I – I can’t take you, Stubbins.”

I felt crushed. It seemed as though there was nothing more to be said. And yet his final decision left me a little unsatisfied. When I had warned him of the dangers for himself in going to the Moon he had argued one way, making light of the risk; and when I had asked to be allowed to come along he had argued the other way, and laid stress upon the dangers of the enterprise.

Resolving to make just one more try, I pointed this out to him and ended by saying:

“If the flowers the moth brought, Doctor, grew on the Moon, there must be water there. Isn’t that so?”

To my surprise he did not seem embarrassed by my stroke of logic at all.

“Probably, Stubbins, that is true. But do not forget that we are facing the problems and natural history of a life wholly unknown to us. The chemistry of these plants is something utterly new to our own science. That I know by pretty thorough investigation of them. To us the idea of producing plants without water is something quite impossible. But in the Moon, again, who shall say? They may be air plants, parasites like our orchids, living on the moisture of the atmosphere. Or anything. No one can tell how they get their nourishment or carry on life till he has seen them growing in their native surroundings. Listen, Stubbins: if I had ever seen a tree growing on the Moon I would feel I could answer your question better. But I haven’t. And I have no idea whatever as yet from what source these flowers derive their life.”

He paused a moment, then rose and approaching my chair where I sat gloomily scowling at the table with my head in my hands, he clutched my shoulder in a kindly grasp.

“Good friend,” said he in a funny chokey sort of voice, “let’s not discuss it any more. You know, don’t you, how much I’d love to have you. But I can’t, Stubbins – I just can’t take you.”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Our Midnight Visitors

Often, when I look back on the past, I realize that the Doctor’s answer to my request to let me accompany him had the opposite effect to that which he hoped for – or expected. I made no answer whatever to his decision that night. I went to bed. But there I lay awake thinking.

What might happen if I let him go alone? I recalled what Too-Too had said: “We, the animal members of his household, would be much happier if he had some other human with him.” And then, I suppose, just the fact that my coming was forbidden made it seem all the more desirable and put me on my mettle.

Anyhow, after many hours of sleeplessness, I decided that I would say nothing, lie low, and remember Too-Too’s advice about keeping a very close watch on John Dolittle’s movements for the next few days.

And as it turned out, it was a good thing that I did so. It is without question the proudest thing that I can boast of in my whole record that this determination, which the Doctor’s refusal of my company bred in me, led to my eventually going with him.

From that night when I made up my mind I hardly let him out of my sight. No detective ever played a game of closer shadowing than I did. Whenever he sent me off on an errand I pretended to go, but sent Jip or Chee-Chee instead. From moment to moment I did not know when he might depart; but I knew where he was and exactly what he was doing. For I was quite determined that when he went he would not go without me.

In this Too-Too was the only one who helped me. There were hours of course when I could not be on the watch myself. I had to sleep. At such times the little owl did duty for me. I don’t think that the Doctor ever realized how closely shadowed he was.

The hour came at last. I was fast asleep. Too-Too woke me by gently pulling my hair. In a second I was wide awake.

“Tommy!” I heard. “Get up! – Tommy! Tommy!”

“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s happening?”

“Get your clothes on,” whispered the owl. “The Doctor has gone out into the garden. He has his little black bag with him – and his overcoat. I have a feeling that things may be happening. Come down into the garden – Don’t strike a light. Better be on the safe side. I can see. I’ll guide you. But hurry – for goodness’ sake!”

My bedroom was so small and I knew the exact position of everything in it so well, that it was no great feat for me to dress myself in the dark. I remember, as I felt for my clothes and finally drew them on, wondering what I had better take with me for this strange new voyage. What would one need most in the Moon? – Who could say? For who had been there? I had given this problem some thought already and decided that the freer we were of luggage the better. That had always been the Doctor’s principle; and considering how impossible it was to make a choice in these circumstances, it seemed here a particularly good rule to follow.

My new big pocket knife! Yes, I must take that. I got it out of the bureau-drawer. It, with a box of matches, was all the dunnage I took. Many a time afterwards I laughed at the solution. And yet of course I did not know for certain that night, as I hunched on my overcoat in the dark, whether or no I was leaving the house and the Earth for the great voyage. Still something told me that the little owl had probably guessed right. I could hear him fidgeting and muttering somewhere near the door, impatient for me to be going. He gave a grunt of relief when I finally felt my way towards him and whispered that I was ready.

Hopping down the pitch-black stairs ahead of me he led the way, by means of his funny little grunts for signals, to the kitchen. Here I very stealthily undid the bolts of the back door which led into the garden.

I had not the vaguest notion what time it was. I knew Too-Too could tell me roughly at all events, but I was afraid to call to him. The Moon was visible, but only by fits and starts; because the gentle wind was blowing clouds across the sky in a constant procession.

Too-Too waited a moment for me to get used to the dim light of the garden. He knew that my stumbling or stepping on a cracking twig might easily give us away. He whispered that he would go forward alone and reconnoitre. I saw him crouch for a spring as though he meant to take to his wings. Flying he could see more than walking and be less likely to be noticed himself.

But he did not leave the ground. Suddenly, sharply, he turned his head. Then he came back to me.

“Tommy!” he whispered. “There are strangers in the garden. Two men have just come in at the front gate.”

As I bent down to listen to him, he hopped onto my knee, and from there to my shoulder, a favourite travelling place of his when we went about together. From this lookout he could easily whisper into my ear.

“Who do you reckon they are, Too-Too?” I asked.

“Goodness only knows,” he replied. “We’ve got to keep a close watch on them anyway. Then we’ll soon know, I fancy. They’re behaving mighty queerly – evidently anxious not to be seen.”

“Do you think they might be burglars trying to get into the house?” I asked.

“Not the slightest chance of that,” said the owl promptly. “No one in his senses would pick out the Doctor’s establishment as a house to rob. Everybody knows he is almost always penniless. Everything in the house of real value John Dolittle has sold long ago. We must watch these birds and see what their game is. But it isn’t plunder.”

So, under whispered orders from the owl, I crept along in the shadow of bushes and hedges and tried to find out what our strange visitors had come for.

Very soon we saw it was a case of spying on spies. The two men, for the present at all events, wanted nothing more than an opportunity to find out what the Doctor was doing. There was no question now that the secret of the giant moth’s presence in our garden was out. His gigantic form, lit up by the Moon’s paling light, occupied the greater part of the back lawn. The black figure of the Doctor could be plainly seen scouting around it.

As a matter of fact I found myself playing a double part and watching both the Doctor and the men. I very soon saw from John Dolittle’s movements that Too-Too had guessed right and that tonight was the date that the Doctor had decided on for his departure. Several suspicious-looking packages lying about the lawn, besides the black bag, showed me that John Dolittle had made preparations of a more extensive kind than he usually did for his voyages. The question now that seemed most important was: would these men try to interfere with his departure before he got away?

Altogether it was for me a strange and crazy night of adventure. At no time could I make up my mind whether it was more important to watch the Doctor than to keep my eye on the men. The men, I felt, were a menace, a danger, which at any moment might interfere with John Dolittle and with plans that could very possibly mean a great, great deal to the advancement of science and knowledge for the human race. On the other hand, if I neglected to watch the Doctor himself, he might quite possibly take flight with the moon moth and leave me behind.

While Too-Too and I were trying to make up our minds which we should give our best attention to, the men, to our great astonishment, came out from their concealment in the shrubbery and boldly walked up to the Doctor on the lawn.

“Good evening, Doctor Dolittle,” we heard them say. “We represent the Slopshire Courier. We understand that you are interested in certain experiments and natural history research of a novel and sensational character. Would you be so good as to answer a few questions?”

“There you are, they’re reporters!” whispered Too-Too. “I had expected as much. I wonder how on earth they heard of the moth’s being here though.”

“Well – er—” the Doctor began, “this is a very unconventional hour for you to call on me. But perhaps, if you came back in a few hours – say at ten or eleven in the morning – I might find time to give you an interview. Just now I am very busy.”

The reporters who were clearly anxious to get the information they wanted right away (so as to be ahead of the other papers in their announcements) conversed together a moment before replying. Then they turned back to the Doctor. Neither Too-Too nor I heard exactly what they said. But whatever it was it seemed to be agreeable to the Doctor and in keeping with his wishes. For immediately after, the two men retired and the Doctor disappeared into another part of the garden.

It is quite certain that without Too-Too’s aid in this night’s work, things could never have turned out as successfully as they did. I have often thought since that if the little owl had ever wanted to enter the profession of animal detective the great Kling could have been easily surpassed.

For Too-Too certainly had a gift for seeing things without being seen. Directly the men parted from the Doctor, he parted from me.

“Listen,” said he before he left my shoulder: “I don’t trust those gentlemen. We have a double job tonight. The Doctor should be the easier of the two, because he will be less suspicious. You watch him. I’ll keep an eye on the newspaper fellows. It may be that they’ll clear out, as they said they would. And then again they may not. We can’t afford to risk it. You go ahead and watch John Dolittle and I’ll let you know if the Slopshire Courier’s men do anything out of the ordinary. Remember, whatever happens, the Doctor must not go on this voyage alone.”

“All right, Too-Too,” I said, “I’m ready for all emergencies. Go ahead.”

With a little flirt of his wings, the owl left my shoulder and soared away into the darkness of the night. Then very, very stealthily and cautiously I made my way along the garden, keeping always in the shadow of hedges and shrubs, towards the great figure of the moon moth squatting on the lawn.

It wasn’t easy work. For one thing I could not locate the Doctor himself for quite a while. And I was scared that any minute I might run into him and have to confess that I’d been spying. I didn’t feel at all guilty about that. If Too-Too, speaking for the animal household in general, felt it necessary that he should be watched, I was very willing to do it without any qualms of conscience at all. What might not depend on my vigilance and skill? He must not go alone.

What was that? – Yes, the Doctor’s figure coming out from behind the shadow of the moth. In his hands he held two packages. I wished that I had Too-Too’s trick of seeing clearly in the dark. Dare I move a little closer?

As a matter of fact I did not have a chance to, before I found Too-Too back on my shoulder. With a gentle fanning of wings he dropped down beside my right ear as gently as a butterfly landing on a leaf.

“They haven’t gone, Tommy,” he whispered. – “Never had any intention to, I imagine. They clattered down the front steps, making a great noise, but almost immediately came back again on tip-toe. They are now hanging around the front garden close to the wall.”

“What do you think we had better do?” I asked.

“Well, as far as I can see it’s a choice of two things,” said he. “Either we continue to watch them and see how much they find out; or we wake up Bumpo and get him to chuck them off the premises. Myself, I’m all for throwing them out. I think it can be done too without the Doctor’s realizing that you’ve been watching him. That’s important of course.”

“I think you are right,” said I. “Suppose you take a spell at watching the Doctor while I go and wake Bumpo. I don’t imagine they’ll hang about long after he has recommended an early departure to them.”

To this the owl agreed. And I wasted no time in getting to the business of rousing Bumpo – always a long job at best.

I found His Highness the Crown Prince of the Jolliginki snoring away in the deadest sleep a simple nature ever slept. By ten solid minutes of vigorous pummelling I managed finally to get a grunt out of him, and by keeping at the work without pity for another five I got him to sit up.

“Is it a conflagration, Tommy?” he asked sleepily rubbing his enormous fists into his still more enormous face. “It can’t be time to get up yet. It’s still dark.”

“Listen, Bumpo,” said I shaking him: “pull yourself together. It’s important, serious. I’m awfully sorry to disturb you but it just couldn’t be helped. Two men have come into the garden. They’re newspaper reporters, it seems, spying on the Doctor. The Doctor himself is still working with the giant moth. We didn’t want to disturb him. But these strangers must be got out, off the premises, you understand. You’re the only one who can make them go. Get up and dress – quick.”

• • • • •

Part Four

•   1   •

Bumpo Clears the Garden

After Bumpo had got really awake and I was able to make him fully understand what was wanted of him he was not slow in coming to the rescue.

“Why, I never heard of such cheek!” said he as he climbed into his clothes. “What do they think the Doctor’s home is, I’d like to know – a sort of general information bureau, open all night? Where was it you saw these miscreants last, Tommy?”

“Too-Too said he saw them down in the front garden hiding in the shadow of the wall. But listen, Bumpo: it is most terribly important that we don’t raise a row. If you can grab them quietly and make them understand that they’ve got to go, that’s what we want. We can’t have a rumpus, you understand?”

“Of course I understand,” said Bumpo jerking on his coat and reaching for a club which stood in a corner by his bed. “They’ll understand too. Such cheek! I never heard anything like it. This, after all our watching! Well, well! Come with me. We’ll soon make them shift along.”

In the game of moving in the dark, of seeing without being seen, Bumpo was almost as good as Too-Too himself. Jungle training had brought him a gift which all his college education had not dulled. Ahead of me he went down the stairs, feeling his way without a light, till he reached the ground floor. There without hesitation he made his way to the front door, opened it and passed out almost without sound. He signalled to me to hang back a few paces in the rear and then slipped across the gravel path to the wall.

In spite of his instructions I was not far behind him. I was pretty sure the Doctor could hardly hear us here unless we made a great lot of noise. Bumpo felt his way along the wall and presently from the jump he gave I knew he had met his quarry. Stealthily I moved a little nearer and in the dim light I could see he had the two men by the scruffs of their necks.

“Listen,” he whispered in a curious fierce hiss: “Get out of this garden as quick as possible and never come near it again. There’s the gate. Go!”

Beside the two shadows near the wall his great bulk towered up like a giant. Not waiting for an answer he conducted or shoved them towards the head of the steps that led down to the road.

Here at the gate I saw, for the first time, the faces of our visitors by the light of a street lamp. They certainly looked scared – for which they could hardly be blamed. To be grabbed unexpectedly from under a hedge by a negro of Bumpo’s size and appearance was enough to upset anyone.

They did not wait for any second orders to depart but bundled down the steps as fast as they could go, only too glad to escape with whole skins.

His job finished, the good Bumpo was immediately overcome with a desire to finish his night’s sleep. I thanked him for his assistance and he at once returned to his room. As I wished him a very late good night I noticed that the dawn was beginning to show, a faint grey behind the poplar trees to the eastward. This I felt must mean that John Dolittle would either hurry up his departure before real daylight appeared, or else give up the project till the following night. I wasted no further time in speculation but made my way, as quickly as I could without being heard or seen, round to the back lawn to find out what was happening.

I discovered the Doctor in a state of considerable excitement conversing with the moth. He appeared to have made great advances in means of communication with the giant insect since I had last seen him so engaged. The apparatus he was now using was little more than a tuning fork. Indeed, it almost seemed as though he had found a way of speaking with his guest direct. When I first got a glimpse of him he had his head down close to that of the moth’s and held his left hand on one of its antennae. Once in a while he would consult the tuning fork grasped in his right hand.

From the moth’s movements, little jerks of the head and tremors of the legs, it looked as though he was busily engaged in getting some message to the Doctor. I guessed the argument was over whether the start should be made tonight or postponed on account of the approaching daylight. I crept nearer to the back end of the giant creature to be ready in case the decision were made for departure right away.

Of course in describing that whole night it is very hard to give a proper idea of the difficulties that beset me. The hour before dawn is generally supposed to be the darkest. Be that as it may, the Moon certainly hung very low and the light was faint enough. I had no idea of how prepared the Doctor was. I knew from what I had seen, and from what Too-Too had told me, that he had moved certain baggage out into the back garden. But it was almost impossible to determine under the circumstances how far he had perfected his plans.

However after a few moments more of watching him, prepared at any moment to spring onto the moth’s deep fur if he should make a move to fly, I decided that they had both given up the project for tonight. For presently I saw the Doctor’s dim figure move away from the moth and conceal some packages beneath the shrubs. Also I got a vague impression that there was a hurried conversation between the Doctor and Polynesia who appeared to be perched somewhere in the direction of a lilac bush.

As you can imagine, I was weary with the long watch and the excitement and everything. As soon as I saw the Doctor start towards the house I felt I was relieved from further need of watchfulness for the present at all events. Bleary-eyed for want of sleep, I waited till I heard the Doctor enter the house and lock the door. Then I made my way to a window which I knew was not latched, slid up the sash and crawled in.

I knew my trusty lieutenant Too-Too was somewhere abroad still and that I could rely on him to let me know if any occasion should arise requiring my presence. My head had no sooner touched the pillow than I went off into a dead sleep.

My dreams however were soon disturbed by all manner of dreadful visions of myself and the Doctor flying through the air on the back of a dragon, landing on a moon made of green cheese and peopled by a giant race of beetles and other dreadful fantastic insects whose one ambition was to gobble us both up.

Again I was awakened by the good Too-Too.

“What is it now?” I asked. “Don’t tell me the Doctor’s gone!”

“No,” said he. “He’s asleep – for once in his life. Seeing how he has worked the last weeks, I wouldn’t wonder if he didn’t wake up for a fortnight. But we’re having visitors some more. I don’t know what to do about it. Those wretched newspaper men must have told the whole town. For all sorts of people are peering in at the garden gate. It is now about ten o’clock. And ever since daybreak children and nurse-maids and every kind of folk have been hanging round as though they expected a balloon to go up or something. Bumpo of course is still dead to the world – he would be. And no one else is stirring but Dab-Dab and Chee-Chee. I think you ought to get down and take a look at things. It seems to me as though we’d have the whole town around us before long. And some of them are so cheeky! You never saw anything like it, coming into the garden and picking the flowers as though the place belonged to them.”

“All right, Too-Too,” said I. “I’ll get up. You might go and see what you can do towards getting Bumpo under way, will you? It does take such an unconscionable time to get him round.”

Too-Too, promising he would do what he could in that direction, left my room: and only half rested as I was – for it had been little more than five hours since I had gone to bed – crawled out and started to dress.

Arriving downstairs I found that he had not exaggerated matters in the least. I peered through the study windows and saw that there was a large group of people gathered at the front gate. Most of them had not dared to come in. But there were a few bolder spirits who were already wandering about the front garden, peeping round the corners of the house and whispering together as though they expected some strange performance to begin any minute.

While I was cudgelling my brains for some means of dealing with the situation Bumpo happily arrived on the scene.

“Don’t let them think we’re hiding anything, Bumpo,” I said. “But they must be kept out of the back garden. The moth must not be disturbed or scared.”

I must admit that Bumpo did very well. He began by herding out those who had strayed inside the gate. A few who were more obstinate he assisted by taking them by the coat-collar or sleeve and showing them where the private premises left off and the public highway began. But for the most part he conducted the clearance with great tact and politeness.

It was quite evident however from the remarks of the people that the wretched newspaper men had blabbed their story in the town. Also, though they had not of course guessed the Doctor’s destination, they had, it seemed, announced that he was about to take a voyage on the moth’s back. This of course was natural since they had seen John Dolittle preparing and gathering his baggage in the garden.

“When is he going to start?” the crowd asked. “Where is he going?” … “Will he really fly on the big moth?” … “Can’t we see the creature?” … “Where are you keeping the animal?” etc., etc.

Bumpo in his best Oxford manner was very discreet and most courteous.

“Sh!” said he. “Doctor John Dolittle will make his own announcements to the press in due course. Meantime be good enough to leave the premises. He is sleeping after many hours of heavy work and study. He cannot be disturbed.”

A large fat man climbed over the wall beside the gate. Bumpo took two strides, pushed him gently but firmly in the face with his gigantic hand and the man fell heavily to the roadway.

“It is not polite,” said Bumpo, “to force your way into a gentleman’s garden without invitation.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Mounted Police

But our troubles by no means came to an end with clearing the garden of our inquisitive visitors. I have often thought since that some means of distracting their attention in other directions would have been a better way for us to deal with the problem than turning them off the premises.

Because they did not go away. They were surer than ever now that something extraordinary was going on which we did not wish known. And while we had the right to forbid their trespass on the Doctor’s premises we had no authority to prevent their gathering in the road. And they did gather, without any question. I suppose that when I came downstairs there must have been about fifty persons. But when these had hung around the gate talking for about an hour their number was multiplied by ten.

The bigger the crowd became the faster it seemed to grow. Every tradesman’s errand-boy, every carter going into town, every pedlar – in fact every passerby, stopped and inquired what was the matter. Heaven knows what tales they were told. The Doctor’s reputation was fantastic enough for anything already. It only needed a whisper that he was going to fly away on a moth to make any country yokel want to stop in expectation of a show.

John Dolittle himself had not yet woken up. I was in the deepest despair. The road was now jammed; and farm-carts, carriages and delivery wagons, utterly unable to pass, were lined up on either side of the crowd that thronged about the gate. Anyone coming down the Oxenthorpe Road now just had to stop whether he was interested or not, simply because he couldn’t get by.

“Tell me, Too-Too,” I said: “what on earth do you think we had better do? If this goes on we’ll have to get some assistance from outside. I never saw anything like it.”

“Look,” said he peering out of the window beside me: “Here come some police – mounted police too. They’ll soon clear the crowd away.”

“I hope so,” said I. “Two – no, three – four of them. It will keep them busy to get this mob scattered.”

Well, the arrival of the police did clear the roadway, it is true. But that is all it did. So far as the people’s interest was concerned however, it made the situation worse rather than better. It was a little added excitement and sensation. The crowd obeyed orders and gathered on the pavements, leaving the roadway clear for carts and carriages to pass. But still it stayed.

Presently I saw one of the policemen come up to the foot of our steps. He dismounted, tied his horse to the lamp-post and started to ascend.

“You’d better go and see what he wants, Tommy,” said Too-Too. “I suppose he’ll ask what has caused the disturbance.”

I went to the front door and opened it. The constable was very polite. He asked if I could tell him what had brought the crowd around and if there was anything I could do to make the throng go home.

For a moment I couldn’t think of a thing to suggest. Finally Too-Too, who was sitting on my shoulder, whispered, “You’ll have to wake the Doctor, Tommy. We’ve done all we can.”

I asked the constable to come in and went upstairs to John Dolittle’s room. I hated to wake him. He was sleeping like a log and I knew how much he needed his rest. Very gently I shook him by the shoulder.

“What is it, Stubbins?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“Doctor,” said I, “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. But we felt it just couldn’t be helped. It seems that the moth’s presence here has leaked out.”

“Yes, I know,” said he. “It can’t be helped. These wretched newspaper fellows – you can’t keep them out. Two of them came to see me in the garden last night.”

“But the truth is,” I said, “that they have blabbed their story to the whole of Puddleby, it seems. The road is just blocked by the crowd who have come to see you fly to the Moon. The police have finally arrived on the scene and they want to know if there is anything we can do to make the throng go home. They are quite polite. But we couldn’t think of anything to suggest. So I came to ask you what you thought should be done.”

The Doctor’s handling of the situation was, I decided afterward, extraordinarily good.

“Well,” he said, climbing out of bed with a yawn, “I suppose I must speak to the crowd. Just let me get my clothes on and I will see what I can do.”

I left him and returned to Too-Too downstairs.

“Keep an eye on him,” said the owl, when I had explained what had passed between us. “You see his hand has been forced, as it were. And – well – anything might happen now, you know, any moment.”

I didn’t quite understand what he meant. But I realized the need of keeping an eye on John Dolittle. I had no opportunity to ask the owl further what exactly he had in mind, because the Doctor at that moment came down fully dressed and interrupted our conversation.

After a few minutes’ talk with the policeman he went out into the garden and from the top of the steps addressed the crowd in the road below. He began by giving them a general chatty sort of lecture on natural history, touching on various branches of study with which he had lately been occupied. This had the excellent effect of getting the crowd into a good humour and dismissed from their minds a good deal of their suspicions that he was keeping things from them. Presently he went on to explain that unfortunately he could not invite them in to see the garden and his collections just now as he was particularly busy at the moment and things were not in order for public exhibition. They would realize, he said, that by blocking up the road and causing a disturbance they had – quite unintentionally, he felt sure – interrupted his work. If they would be so good as to retire peacefully they would confer a great favour on him and the police. And possibly at some future date, if they would call again, arrangements could be made to show them over his establishment in which they had shown so kind an interest.

To my great amazement the simple speech had precisely the right effect: The crowd actually seemed to realize for the first time that its behaviour had been discourteous; and in almost an apologetic mood it at once began to break up and disperse.

“There’s no doubt about it, Tommy,” sighed Too-Too, as together we watched the throng fade away down the road, “they may call him a crank – but he’s a great man.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Errand

So for the present we were relieved of that worry. But it was not very long after the crowd had gone that I almost wished it back again. The people, while they were a nuisance and one did not know what they might do if they continued to gather, were at all events a protection against something that both Too-Too and I greatly feared. And that was the Doctor’s escaping alone with the moon moth. We felt that there was little danger of his making an attempt with all that mob present.

But when, shortly after lunch time, John Dolittle came and asked me to go off on an errand for him to Oxenthorpe, which would keep me away from the house, I knew, till after nightfall, I got really alarmed. Stuttering and stammering, I made all the excuses I could possibly think of on the spur of the moment. I said I felt tired and asked could not Bumpo go in my place. But Bumpo, it seemed, had already been sent away on another errand. All my other efforts to get out of the trip failed likewise. There was nothing to do but accept the job. But as soon as I parted from the Doctor I went and sought out Too-Too.

“Tommy,” said he when I had explained matters, “you just can’t go. That’s all there is about it.”

“But what am I to do?” I said. “I’m his assistant after all. I can’t refuse to obey orders.”

“No,” said the owl, putting his head on one side and winking a large eye knowingly. “You don’t refuse – that would be most unwise – but you don’t go. It is very simple. You just keep out of sight.”

“But what can I say,” I asked, “tomorrow, if he is still here, and asks me about the errand?”

“Tomorrow’s tomorrow,” said Too-Too. “And it can take care of itself. Even if he hasn’t gone he’s not going to kill you for disobeying orders. We can think up some excuse. But don’t go off the premises. The fact that he is so urgent about this trip he is sending you on – and I don’t know of any really pressing business he has had in Oxenthorpe for years – makes me suspicious. Also Bumpo’s being already got rid of on some other job looks to me like clearing the decks for action. – No, don’t worry about tomorrow. By that time, if I guess correctly, John Dolittle will be on his way to the Moon.”

I finally decided the little owl was probably right. So with some excuse for re-entering the back garden, I bade the Doctor goodbye and with all appearances of dutifully obeying orders started off down the road, presumably bound for the little inn about half a mile from our house, where the coaches stopped on the way from Puddleby to Oxenthorpe. But as soon as I was well out of sight I loitered about till the coach went rattling by. Then I made my way round to a narrow lane which skirted the Doctor’s property at the back. There I scrambled up the wall and dropped down on the other side.

This part of John Dolittle’s grounds was nearly all dense shrubbery. Of recent years he had found it hard, with all the studies that claimed his attention, to keep the whole of his garden in good order; and on this side there was an acre or two of tangled orchard and overgrown bushes which had been allowed to struggle and survive as best they could. It was excellent cover. Through it I noiselessly made my way till I was within a few yards of the back lawn and the tail of the moon moth himself.

And then began several hours of waiting. I was well concealed, and from behind some high laurels could see all that took place on the lawn. For a long time nothing seemed to happen at all and I began to wonder if Too-Too had guessed wrong. Once in a while I’d see the Doctor’s head through the windows of the house as he passed from one room to another. But finally, somewhere about half-past six, when the sun had dropped well down to the horizon and a coolness in the air spoke of coming darkness, John Dolittle opened the back door and hurried out onto the lawn. With him were Chee-Chee, Polynesia and Jip. As he came up to the side of the moth he was talking in a quick businesslike way to Jip.

“I’m sorry,” he was saying. “I can’t take you, Jip. Please don’t ask me any more. It takes so long to explain and I’ve only a few minutes. Remember those letters I’ve left on the study table. There’s one for Stubbins, one for Bumpo and one for Matthew. Show Stubbins where they are when he gets back and ask him to explain to everyone how sorry I am to rush away in this sudden sort of manner without saying goodbye. But I’m so afraid of those townsfolk and newspaper people coming back and stopping me if I don’t get away now while I can. Stubbins will look after the Zoo and Bumpo and Matthew everything else. Get those packages out from under the lilacs, Chee-Chee. And, Jip, you’d better go off and keep Gub-Gub amused while we slip away. I sent him down into the kitchen garden to dig up some radishes.”

“Yes, Jip,” put in Polynesia, “for goodness’ sake keep that wretched pig occupied. If he knows the Doctor is leaving for the Moon he’ll bawl the whole town around us in five minutes. What about the flowers, Doctor?”

“I’ve got them,” I heard the Doctor whisper. “They’re hidden behind the privet hedge. I’ll get the packages up first, and then we’ll attend to them. Where did I put that ladder? I wish Chee-Chee would hurry up. Keep an eye open, Polynesia, and let me know if you hear any sound.”

The Doctor seemed much more upset about the possibility of being disturbed before he got away than he was over embarking on this perilous expedition. For me, my heart was thumping like a sledgehammer, for I realized that Too-Too had been right and there was every chance that the flight would be made immediately. With the greatest care, lest my movements be detected by the watchful Polynesia, I crept a foot or two nearer and measured with my eye how far I’d have to spring to get hold of the deep fur on the moth’s tail. Once I had got a grip I felt I could easily manage to haul myself up his spine to the wider spaces of his back. These were now covered by his folded wings; but I knew that as soon as he took flight, provided I hang on at the take-off, I could scramble up later.

Finding the ladder, the Doctor placed it against the great insect’s right side and climbed a few rungs. Then he waited till Chee-Chee emerged from the lilacs with the packages in his arms. These John Dolittle took from him and stowed away somewhere up on the shoulders – though what method he used to fasten them by I could not see.

When this was done he came down and with Chee-Chee’s help brought the big moon flowers out and stowed them away also. One, however, he laid down in front of the moth’s head. This was grasped by the insect and drawn in close by his two front legs.

At length the Doctor descended again and took a final look round.

“Is there anything we’ve forgotten, Polynesia?” he whispered.

“You’ve left a light burning in the cellar,” said the parrot.

“No matter,” said the Doctor. “Stubbins or Bumpo will find it. Good! If we’re all ready we’ll go aboard. You follow me up, Chee-Chee, and we’ll push the ladder down from the top.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Stowaway

John Dolittle wasted no time in sentimental farewells. It wasn’t his way on ordinary earthly voyages; and one might be sure that his manner would be equally free from theatrical gestures when he was leaving for the Moon. As soon as Chee-Chee had climbed up behind him he thrust the head of the ladder away with his hand and it fell gently into the shrubbery. That thrust was, as it were, the breaking of the last tie that bound him to the Earth, yet he made it as though he were merely brushing off a crumb from his coat.

As the moth’s wings began to lift I knew that the moment had come. The great creature was facing down the long sward of the lawn and he had some hundred yards to rise in before he would have to clear the willows at the south end. I was terribly anxious. I did not know this insect’s particular flying form, whether he rose steeply or slantingly, suddenly or slowly. Yet I was terribly afraid of jumping too soon; for if the Doctor or Polynesia should see me I would certainly get put off. I must not be discovered before we were well on our way to the Moon.

I finally ended by deciding that it was better to be too soon than too late. If I should be caught and turned off I might still stand a chance of persuading the Doctor to take me or of stowing away a second time. But if I jumped too late then there was nothing to be said or done.

Luckily, both Chee-Chee and Polynesia started talking at the exact moment I hit upon to spring. This covered up what noise I made in leaving the laurels. I was in great fear, as I took hold of huge handfuls of the moth’s deep fur, that the insect would make some complaint to the Doctor – with whom, as far as I could make out, he had now established pretty complete conversational communication without the use of instruments or apparatus of any kind.

But my fears were unnecessary. I imagine the moth took my invasion of his fur coat as merely some more packing on of bundles. The hair was so deep that I found myself almost buried, as I drew closer to his body. This was a good thing, because there was still a little twilight left; and had the Doctor or Polynesia come astern of their flying ship to make a final inspection, I need have no fear of being seen.

And so I clung, expecting every moment to feel my feet leave the ground.

I’m sure, on thinking over it afterwards, that not more than five seconds could have passed from the time that I grasped the moth’s furry coat to the moment he started. But it felt like an hour.

I could just see the outline of the trees and the house-roof against the darkening sky when those great wings beat the air for the first time. The draught was terrific, and, despite the covering of deep fur in which I was half buried, my cap was torn off my head and sent flying into the laurel bushes behind. The rest of what happened was for quite a while entirely confused in my mind. The sensation of going up and up; the need to cling on in a very perilous position; the rush of the air as the moth gained speed, altogether the experience, for one who had never known it before, was bewildering to say the least.

I remember vaguely hoping that the insect’s hair was strong enough to hold my weight, as I saw we were over the willow tops, with a hundred feet to spare and still mounting, mounting! It required all my courage not to scramble up right away to the more level ground of the moth’s back where I could find the comforting company of the Doctor and Chee-Chee. I admit I felt very lonely back there when I realized we had actually left the world behind and the lights of Puddleby began to twinkle so far – oh, so far! – below me.

Up and up, and up! My head reeled when I looked down. So I decided it was better not to look down. We were in for it now, as the school boy says, and the most sensible thing was to make the best we could of the situation.

I shut my eyes tight and just held on. How long I remained so I can’t say – probably about an hour. Then I began to feel cold. My hands were numb with clutching tense. Some part of my confused mind decided that this was the time for me to climb to the level of the moth’s back where I could lie down and rest. Glancing upwards I saw that the big wings were beating the air well away from the moth’s body. I need not fear that my ascent would interfere with the machinery of flight. I kicked my shoes off and let them fall thousands of feet – to the Earth we had left. Then, grasping as best I could the moth’s hairy body with hands and feet, I started. I must reach level lying soon or my strength would give out.

I suppose it was a good thing for me that I could not see the Earth swimming and disappearing below me as I made that crazy climb. It didn’t take so very long. But when later I did gaze down on the Earth a round ball with little lights stuck all over it – I realized that I might have been a great deal more scared than I had been.

I had not found either the Doctor or Chee-Chee yet. For the first few moments when I felt I didn’t have to cling I was quite satisfied to stretch myself out on this level part of the moth’s back and just rest. Indeed I was sorely in need of repose. My arms and hands were so stiff from clutching that the muscles were numb and sore.

I was still somewhat unhappy about speaking to the Doctor. After all I had deliberately disobeyed orders. Presently, when I rose and looked about me, I saw him. I made out first the shape of his high hat, surely the most absurd thing that mortal eyes ever met with in such circumstances. But I don’t remember ever having caught a glimpse of anything that was more comforting and reassuring. It was pressed well down on his head and next to it Chee-Chee’s skull, sharply ape-like, stood out against the blue-green moonlit sky.

Yes, I admit I was very much afraid. You see, I had never disobeyed the Doctor before. It is true he was no stern disciplinarian. To me, as to everyone, he had always been the most easy-going, indulgent of employers.

But this was something new and different. In everything he had been the leader whose orders were obeyed without question. Here for the first time I had acted on my own in a matter of serious moment and importance. What would happen when he knew?

Very slowly I crept still further forward through the moth’s deep fur. Then, gently, I touched the Doctor on the shoulder. At the moment he was looking earthward through his telescope. He started violently as though some supernatural hand had grasped him.

“What? – Who is it?” he asked, peering backward into the gloom behind.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Doctor’s Reception

“It is I, Doctor, – Stubbins,” I said. “I couldn’t let you go alone. I got on at the last minute.”

“Stubbins!” said he, lowering his telescope. “Stubbins! why, I thought you were in Oxenthorpe.”

“I didn’t go, Doctor,” I said shamefacedly. “I – well, I wanted to come for myself, and I did feel that you shouldn’t be allowed to make the trip all alone.”

For a moment there was silence broken only by the steady hum of the moth’s wings. I wondered what was coming, what he would say or do. Would he ask the moth to go back and land me on the Earth? I noticed Chee-Chee’s head turn and in the pale moonlight a sickly grin of pleasure spread over his scared face as he realized there was more company on this perilous trip.

“Well,” said John Dolittle at length, and my heart sank at the cold almost stern ring in his voice which he had never so far used to me, “I don’t quite see why you should begin now, Stubbins, to take it on yourself to worry about my safety and – er – disobey me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But—”

I stopped, silent. After all there wasn’t anything more to be said. For a minute or two I sat wondering gloomily if this was the end of our relationship. It was, I had to admit, an enormously cheeky thing that I had done. I suppose, as a matter of fact, I might not have embarked on it without Too-Too’s support.

But my anxious thoughts were agreeably interrupted. Suddenly in the gloom the Doctor’s strong big hand gripped my arm in a friendly comforting grasp.

“Just the same, Stubbins,” I heard him say (and in the dark, without being able to see it, I could imagine the typical smile that accompanied his words), “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you with me. At the very moment when you touched me I was thinking how nice it would be if you were here. Heaven send us luck, Stubbins! Did you tell your parents you were coming?”

“No,” said I. “I didn’t have a chance. There was no time. Besides, I was so afraid that if I left the premises, you’d slip away without me.”

“Oh, well,” said John Dolittle, “let’s not borrow trouble. No doubt we’ll worry through all right.”

“You usually do, Doctor,” said I. “I’m not afraid so long as you’re with me.”

He laughed.

“That’s a pretty good reputation to have,” said he. “I hope I deserve it. Look, you see that big patch of lights down there?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s London,” he said. “And the white streak running away from it to the eastward is the River Thames. This bunch of lights over to the northwest is Oxford, I imagine. Look, you can see the moonlight reflected on the river all the way up from London. And that big white area is the sea, the Channel.”

The map of the British Isles was indeed at this height almost completely revealed to us. It was a cloudless windless night. And the moth’s flight was steady, smooth and undisturbed as his great wings purred their way upward, putting goodness only knows how many miles between us and Puddleby every minute.

Suddenly I realized that from being scared to death with the newness of this situation I was, as usual with the Doctor’s comfortable company, accepting the adventure with a calm enjoyable interest. I found myself looking down on the world we had left behind and picking out geographical details as though I were merely gazing from a coach window.

He himself was like a child in his delight at the new experience. And he kept pointing to this and that and telling me what it was, as our great living flying machine lifted us further and further and made more and more of the globe visible.

But presently he panted and coughed.

“Air’s getting thin, Stubbins,” he said. “We are approaching the dead belt. Must be close on twenty thousand feet altitude up here. Let’s get those flowers out and fasten them on. We’ve got one for all of us, luckily – five. Hulloa there, Polynesia!-And Chee-Chee! The flowers! Remember what I told you. Keep your noses well into them. Come, Stubbins: we’ll get them unstrapped.”

As I moved in answer to the Doctor’s summons I became conscious myself of how thin the air was. The least effort made me breathe heavily.

Somewhere amidships on the moth’s body the flowers had been fastened down to a long belt that went about his middle. I joined the Doctor and Chee-Chee in their efforts to get the blossoms loose. The rush of wind made this difficult; and in the dim moonlight I realized that John Dolittle was asking the moth to slow his pace down till we had the work done. As far as I could make out, he did this by means of the creature’s antennae. Those long whisker-like arrangements were laid down flat along the back in flight and within easy reach.

It gave me a much greater feeling of security as I saw that the Doctor thus had his ship in control. It only took him a second to communicate his wishes to the insect. And then we hovered. The great wings still beat the air with giant strokes. But the ceasing of the rush of wind past one’s ears told me that he was merely holding his position and, as it were, treading air.

“All right, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, handing me one of the great blooms, “here’s yours. Chee-Chee, you take this one. And we’ll put this further up towards the shoulders for Polynesia. Now remember, everybody, life itself may depend on our keeping these within reach. If you have the least difficulty in breathing take a deep sniff of the perfume. Later we’ll probably have to keep our heads inside them altogether, when we reach the levels where there is no air at all. Is everybody ready? Get the flowers well down into the fur so they are not blown away when I give the order to go ahead.”

In a moment or two Captain Dolittle was satisfied that his crew were prepared for the rest of the journey. And reaching for the antennae communication-cord, he gave the order for full steam ahead.

Instantly the wings above us redoubled their speed and the whistle of rushing air recommenced.

I found it not so easy now to look over the side, because I was afraid to leave my moon flower lest it be blown away. I gave up studying the map of the disappearing world and fell to watching the Moon above and ahead of us.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Crossing
“The Dead Belt”

Throughout, I tried very hard to realize and remember every detail of that night’s voyage. For I knew that later on, if I survived, I would want to write it down. After all, it was the great chapter in John Dolittle’s astounding and eventful life. Also I knew the practical Doctor would never bother to remember those things that were not of scientific value to the world. Yet he and I were the only ones to see it who could write – though, as a matter of fact, both Chee-Chee and Polynesia remembered what they were able to see better than either of us.

Still I must confess for me it was not easy. The moon moth put on his greatest speed when the Doctor gave the order to go ahead the second time. The noise, the rush of air past our ears, was positively terrific. It actually seemed to numb the senses and make it almost impossible to take in impressions at all. Soon I found the air getting so thin that I had to keep my head almost constantly buried in the blossom; and communication with the Doctor became an impossibility.

But worse was to come. We finally reached those levels where there was no air at all. Then what happened is entirely confused in my mind and, for that matter, in the Doctor’s also. Moreover, no amount of questioning of the moth afterwards enlightened us on how he had performed the apparently impossible feat of crossing that “dead belt” from where the air of the Earth left off and the atmosphere of the Moon began. I came to the conclusion at last that the giant insect did not himself know how the deed was done. But of course it may very well have been that the moth’s lack of scientific knowledge and John Dolittle’s faulty acquaintance (good though it was in the circumstances) with the insect’s language, accounted between them for our never learning how an apparent impossibility had been overcome.

It is indeed no wonder that we, the passengers on this strange airship, saw and realized little enough of what was taking place during that phase. As we got further and further into the parts the Doctor had described as the dead belt, the moth’s pace slackened till he was hardly moving at all. He kept working, in fact his great wings beat harder and faster. But the trouble was, that there was nothing there for him to beat against. And soon the gravity of the Earth itself, which was what he relied upon to maintain his position, seemed to grow fainter.

The result of this was that our flying ship seemed entirely to lose his sense of balance; and we, the passengers, all got desperately seasick. For hours, as far as I could make out, the great creature turned over and over, apparently helpless to get himself into any kind of position at all, utterly unable to go up, down, forward or backward.

For our part, we were occupied with only one thing; and that was making sure we got enough oxygen into our lungs to go on breathing. We hardly dared now to bring our noses out of the flowers for more than a glimpse. There was very little to see anyway. The Moon appeared to have grown much larger; and the Earth was just a tiny round pebble away, away off in space.

One curious thing was that we now had to make very little effort to stick on. It didn’t seem to matter a great deal whether our heads or our heels were pointing to the Earth. The force of the gravity was so faint it seemed you could stay clinging to the moth’s fur as long as you did not actually push yourself off. And even if you did that, you felt you would merely move away a few yards into space and stay there.

We did not however, you may be sure, try any experiments of this kind. We just sat tight, breathed in the perfume of the flowers and hoped for the best. Never have I felt so ill and helpless in all my life. The sensation was something quite indescribable. It was as though gravity itself had been cut off and yet enough of it remaining to make you feel queer in your stomach every time you went round. Finally I just shut my eyes. My nose was bleeding like a running tap and there was a dreadful drumming in my ears.

How long we stayed wallowing there in space I have no idea. I felt as one sometimes does in bad weather at sea, as though the end of the world had come and that it didn’t really matter so long as it hurried up and got finished with the job. I wasn’t interested in anything. I just wanted to die – and the sooner the better.

At last, after what appeared like eternities of this helpless, aimless turning and tossing, our craft seemed to calm itself somewhat and I opened my eyes. Withdrawing my head a little from the depths of the moon flower, I took a peep outside. I could not look long because the lack of air made that impossible. It was almost as though someone were holding his hand over your mouth and nose – a very curious sensation in the open. But before I ducked my head into the flower again, I had from that short survey of my surroundings drawn great comfort. I had seen that the positions of the Earth and Moon were now reversed. The world we had left was over our heads, and the Moon, to which we were coming, was beneath us.

Of course this only meant that our moth had turned himself about and was headed towards the Moon, instead of away from the Earth. But, much more important than this, I realized that he now seemed steadied in his flight. And, while he still had only a poor atmosphere to work in, he was going forward and was no longer turning around helpless and out of control. As I popped my head back into the moon flower, I congratulated myself that the worst stage of the journey was probably over and that very soon we should for the first time in human experience be able to feel and breathe the atmosphere of the moon world.

Also with our ship once more in control and flying forward on a level keel, I suddenly found that I felt much better inside. I could open my eyes and think, without feeling that the end of all things was at hand. I wondered how the Doctor and Chee-Chee were getting on; but as yet of course I could not get into communication with them.

Little by little I felt the gravity of the Moon asserting itself. At no time did it become nearly as strong as the Earth’s, which we had left. But you cannot imagine what a sensation of comfort it was to be held by gravity at all. That feeling – happily past – that you were tied to nothing; that there was no “up” and no “down” and no “sideways”; that if you got up too suddenly you might never get seated again, which we experienced going through the dead belt was, beyond all question, the most terrible experience I have ever known.

My sense of time on this expedition was just as completely destroyed as my sense of direction and, indeed, of anything else. Later when communication became easier I asked the Doctor how long he thought we had taken over the trip. He told me that during the passage of the dead belt his watch had stopped. Gravity – or the lack of it again – we supposed accounted for it. And that later when we got within the Moon’s influence and were steadily, if feebly, pulled towards her surface, his watch had started itself again. But how many hours it had remained without working he could not say.

He told me that probably our best instrument for reckoning how long we had been on the voyage was our stomachs. Certainly we were both desperately hungry shortly after we had passed the dead belt. But since we had all been seasick for many hours, that is not to be wondered at; and it did not help us much in determining how long we had taken over the trip.

The Doctor also later went into long calculations about the light: when the Earth was illumined by sunlight; when it grew dark; when the Moon ceased to show sunlight and began to show earthlight, etc., etc. He covered pages and pages, calculating. But the fact remained that during the passage of that dreadful dead belt we had all been so ill and confused that no observations had been taken at all. The Moon might have set and the Sun risen and the Earth both risen and set a dozen times, without any of our party knowing the difference. All we were sure of was that the Doctor’s watch had stopped going as we passed beyond earthly gravity and recommenced when we came within lunar gravity.

Moreover, with the weaker strength of the lunar gravity, his watch probably went at an entirely new rate of speed after we left earthly influence. So, all in all, our calculations on the trip were not of much exact scientific value. Seasickness is a nasty thing.

From the time that I took that first glimpse out of my moon flower I began to keep a much more definite record of what was happening. As the moon air grew stronger I felt more and more myself. It wasn’t the same as earth air. There was no question about that. It was much more, what should one call it? – “heady.” This apparently was because it contained more oxygen than ours did.

I could see, as presently I grew bolder and took more frequent glimpses, that both John Dolittle and Chee-Chee were also picking up and generally taking notice. Polynesia, I found out afterwards, was the only one who had not been badly disturbed by the dead belt. Swirling in mid-air was to her, as it was to all the flying creatures, mere child’s play. If she had only been scientifically educated she could have told us how long we had taken over the trip. But the old parrot had always had a curious contempt for human science, maintaining that Man went to a whole lot of unnecessary trouble to calculate things that birds knew by common sense, just as soon as they were born.

After a little the Doctor and I began to exchange signals. We did not yet attempt to leave our places as we still felt a bit unsteady on our legs. But, like seasick passengers in ships’ deck-chairs, we smiled encouragingly at one another and endeavoured to show by gestures and signs that we thought the worst of the weather was over.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Two Sides
of the Moon

In one of these passages of deaf and dumb conversation between the Doctor and myself, I got the impression that he was making remarks about the quality of the moon air on which we were now being carried. There was no doubt that it was changing at enormous rate. Finding anything outside my flower that I could breathe in at all, I was becoming quite adventurous and independent. I even went so far as to leave the flower entirely and walk, or crawl, down to where the Doctor squatted. But a violent attack of coughing just as I was about to say something to him made me beat a hasty retreat.

“Still,” I said to myself as I dropped down with my head in my own blossom, “it is something to have got to him. Back there a little while ago I felt as though I could never see or get to anyone any more.”

Presently the Doctor paid me a flying visit. He too had to make it short. But we had the satisfaction of feeling that we were in contact. We had not been sure up to this that we could hear one another’s voices in moon air. The Doctor had often spoken in Puddleby, when the voyage had first been contemplated, of a danger from this source.

“The ether,” he had said, “is what carries sound with us here on the Earth. We can by no means be sure that up there there will be any ether at all. If there isn’t, ordinary speech will be impossible.”

And with this in mind he had perfected between himself and Chee-Chee a kind of deaf-and-dumb sign language. Too-Too had told me of this and I had secretly watched their practise and gained some knowledge of the system.

So you can imagine how glad we were to find that up here also there was ether which could carry our voices. We found presently however that it carried them much more easily than it did on the Earth. As we approached the Moon and its new atmosphere became more apparent, we found that we had to speak lower and lower. It was very peculiar. Finally, if we did not want to break one another’s ear drums we had to talk in the faintest whispers – which could be heard at quite a long distance.

Another very peculiar thing was the light. The Doctor and I had the longest arguments later on trying to settle whether we landed on the Moon by earth-light or by sun-light. It would at first seem of course that there could be no question whatever on such a point. One would suppose that on the Moon earth-light would be very little stronger than moonlight on the Earth; while sunlight would be a hundred times as brilliant. But not at all. Something about the lunar atmosphere seemed to soften the sunlight down so that up there it appeared very little stronger than the light thrown by the Earth This had a very peculiar and definite effect upon colours.

Presently as the moon gravity became stronger, the Doctor and I were able to get up from our lying positions. We still carried our flowers with us so that we could take a “whiff” every once in a while if we felt we needed it. But we could talk together in low tones and, in a fashion, make observations. It wasn’t long after we thus “came to life” that John Dolittle asked the moth through his antennae communication-cord to slow his pace down a little. We felt that it would be easier for us if we got used to this moon air slowly. It certainly had a very invigorating and exciting effect upon the human system.

Another point over which the Doctor and I argued a great deal afterwards was: on which side of the Moon did we land? The earth people have, as everyone knows, only seen one side of the Moon. Maps and careful examinations have been made of that. Now, in spite of bringing with us the latest moon-maps, it was not easy to decide on which side we were landing. Close to, the mountains looked very different from what they did through the telescope from the Earth. I always maintained – and do still – that the moth deliberately went round to the far side before he attempted to make a landing. The Doctor swears he didn’t.

How can I describe the last moments of that voyage? To say that I felt like Columbus first sighting a new world does not convey the idea at all. I must admit I was scared to death. And so, I know, was poor Chee-Chee. As for the Doctor and Polynesia, I can’t say. I don’t believe that hardened old adventurer of a parrot ever got a real scare in her life. With Polynesia one always had the feeling that she dictated to Life, instead of having Life dictate to her. But that may have been partly due to her look of complete independence.

The Doctor? – Well, I doubt if he was scared either. He had often told me that he had many times been mortally afraid in the course of his career. But I imagine it was never at moments such as this, when the lure of scientific discovery shut out every other feeling.

That he was thrilled it is certain. Even the tough worldly-wise Polynesia admitted afterwards that she had the thrill of her life when the droning wings of the giant moth suddenly shut off their mighty beating and stiffened out flat, as we began to sail downward towards the surface of this new world which no earthly creature had yet set foot upon before.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Tree

I must here speak again of this question of light. At no time, as I have said, was it very powerful. And one of its effects was to soften the colours in a very peculiar way. As we descended we found that the Moon had a whole range of colours of its own which we had never seen on the Earth. I cannot describe them because the human eye, being trained only to the colours of the Earth, would have nothing to compare them with and no way of imagining them. The best I can do is to say that the landscape, as we slowly descended upon it, looked like some evening landscape done in pastels – with a tremendous variety of soft new tones which became more and more visible the closer we got.

I think there can be no question that the Doctor and I were both more or less right in our argument about which side of the Moon we landed on. In other words, we landed between the two. I know that looking backward as we came down I saw that both the Earth and the Sun were visible. The Earth pale and dim in the heavens – as one sees the Moon often by daylight – and the Sun brighter but by no means as glaring as it appears when seen from the Earth.

We were still at a great height from the surface. But already the roundness was beginning to fade out of the eye’s grasp and details were taking on greater importance. The Doctor, after again asking the moth to make the descent as slowly as he could, so that we should have a chance to grow gradually accustomed to the new air, had his telescope out and was very busy pointing to this crater and that mountain and the other plateau as features which were already known to us from the astronomers’ moon maps.

From a certain height it was easy to see the night-and-day line, on our side of which the Moon’s surface was only dimly lit by the Earth’s pale light, and on the other more brilliantly illuminated by the rays of the Sun.

Of course I suppose anyone trying to land on the Moon by mechanical means could quite easily have lost his senses and life itself in the attempt. But with a living airship which could accommodate itself to one’s needs we had a tremendous advantage. For example, as we dropped lower and found the air more difficult to deal with, the Doctor again grasped the antennae communication-cord and asked the moth to hover a few hours while we got accustomed to it. The great insect immediately responded to this demand and hung motionless in mid-air while we prepared ourselves for the final descent.

Captain Dolittle then called the roll of his crew and found that we were all at least alive and kicking – also terribly hungry. Sandwiches and drinks had been put aboard before we left. But these were long since used up. I have never felt so hungry in my life.

Over that last lap of the descent we took a long time. With the communication-cord constantly in his hand, the Doctor approached the Moon at his own pace. The night-and-day line moved of course very rapidly. Moreover, how much of that was confused with our own movement (we did not descend in a straight line by any means) it is hard to say. This accounts largely for the difference of opinion between John Dolittle and myself as to which side of the surface we actually landed on. Close up, the details of all the moon maps no longer meant much, because those details which we had seen through telescopes as mere fractions of an inch were now become mountains and continents.

I suppose the greatest anxiety in the minds of all of us was water. Would we find it on the Moon? Moon creatures might exist without it: but we must perish if it was not there.

Lower and lower in circles slowly we sank. At first prospects looked very blue. The landscape, or moonscape, immediately beneath us was all, it seemed, volcanoes, old craters and new craters – mile upon mile.

But towards that night-and-day line which showed round the globe we turned hopeful eyes.

I have seen the Doctor enthusiastic many times – when for example he discovered something new in any of his unnumbered branches of natural history research. But I never remember his getting so excited as he did when watching that ever-moving day-and-night line on our slow descent, he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder. Forgetting for the moment how the moon atmosphere carried sound, he nearly deafened me with with:

“Stubbins, look! – A tree! You see that, way over there at the foot of the mountain? I’ll swear it’s a tree. And if it is, we’re all right. It means water, Stubbins, Water! And we can manage to exist here. – Water and Life!”

Doctor Dolittle
in the Moon

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

THE TALE:

1 … We Land upon a New World
2 … The Land of Colours and Perfumes
3 … Thirst!
4 … Chee-Chee the Hero
5 … On the Plateau
6 … The Moon Lake
7 … Tracks of a Giant
8 … The Singing Trees
9 … The Study of Plant Languages
10 … The Magellan of the Moon
11 … We Prepare to Circle the Moon
12 … The Vanity Lilies
13 … The Flower of Many Scents
14 … Mirrors for Flowers
15 … Making New Clothes
16 … Monkey Memories of the Moon
17 … We Hear of “The Council”
18 … The President
19 … The Moon Man
20 … The Doctor and the Giant
21 … How Otho Bludge Came to the Moon

22 … How the Moon Folk Heard of Doctor Dolittle

23 … The Man Who Made Himself a King

24 … Doctor Dolittle Opens His Surgery on the Moon

25 … Puddleby Once More

• • • • •

The Tale:

•   1   •

We Land
upon a New World

In writing the story of our adventures in the Moon, I, Thomas Stubbins, secretary to John Dolittle, M.D. (and son of Jacob Stubbins, the cobbler of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh), find myself greatly puzzled. It is not an easy task, remembering day by day and hour by hour those crowded and exciting weeks. It is true I made many notes for the Doctor, books full of them. But that information was nearly all of a highly scientific kind. And I feel that I should tell the story here not for the scientist so much as for the general reader. And it is in that I am perplexed.

For the story could be told in many ways. People are so different in what they want to know about a voyage. I had thought at one time that Jip could help me; and after reading him some chapters as I had first set them down I asked for his opinion. I discovered he was mostly interested in whether we had seen any rats in the Moon. I found I could not tell him. I didn’t remember seeing any; and yet I am sure there must have been some – or some sort of creature like a rat.

Then I asked Gub-Gub. And what he was chiefly concerned to hear was the kind of vegetables we had fed on. (Dab-Dab snorted at me for my pains and said I should have known better than to ask him.) I tried my mother. She wanted to know how we had managed when our underwear wore out – and a whole lot of other matters about our living conditions, hardly any of which I could answer. Next I went to Matthew Mugg. And the things he wanted to learn were worse than either my mother’s or Jip’s: Were there any shops in the Moon? What were the dogs and cats like? The good cats’-meat-man seemed to have imagined it a place not very different from Puddleby or the East End of London.

No, trying to get at what most people wanted to read concerning the Moon did not bring me much profit. I couldn’t seem to tell them any of the things they were most anxious to know. It reminded me of the first time I had come to the Doctor’s house, hoping to be hired as his assistant, and dear old Polynesia the parrot had questioned me. “Are you a good noticer?” she had asked. I had always thought I was – pretty good, anyhow. But now I felt I had been a very poor noticer. For it seemed I hadn’t noticed any of the things I should have done to make the story of our voyage interesting to the ordinary public.

The trouble was of course attention. Human attention is like butter: you can only spread it so thin and no thinner. If you try to spread it over too many things at once you just don’t remember them. And certainly during all our waking hours upon the Moon there was so much for our ears and eyes and minds to take in, it is a wonder, I often think, that any clear memories at all remain.

The one who could have been of most help to me in writing my impressions of the Moon was Jamaro Bumblelily, the giant moth who carried us there. But as he was nowhere near me when I set to work upon this book, I decided I had better not consider the particular wishes of Jip, Gub-Gub, my mother, Matthew, or anyone else, but set the story down in my own way. Clearly the tale must be in any case an imperfect, incomplete one. And the only thing to do is to go forward with it, step by step, to the best of my recollection, from where the great insect hovered, with our beating hearts pressed close against his broad back, over the near and glowing landscape of the Moon.

•   •   •

Anyone could tell that the moth knew every detail of the country we were landing in. Planing, circling and diving, he brought his wide-winged body very deliberately down towards a little valley fenced in with hills. The bottom of this, I saw as we drew nearer, was level, sandy and dry.

The hills struck one at once as unusual. In fact all the mountains as well (for much greater heights could presently be seen towering away in the dim greenish light behind the nearer, lower ranges) had one peculiarity. The tops seemed to be cut off and cup-like. The Doctor afterwards explained to me that they were extinct volcanoes. Nearly all these peaks had once belched fire and molten lava but were now cold and dead. Some had been fretted and worn by winds and weather and time into quite curious shapes; and yet others had been filled up or half buried by drifting sand so that they had nearly lost the appearance of volcanoes. I was reminded of “The Whispering Rocks” which we had seen in Spidermonkey Island. And though this scene was different in many things, no one who had ever looked upon a volcanic landscape before could have mistaken it for anything else.

The little valley, long and narrow, which we were apparently making for did not show many signs of life, vegetable or animal. But we were not disturbed by that. At least the Doctor wasn’t. He had seen a tree and he was satisfied that before long he would find water, vegetation and creatures.

At last when the moth had dropped within twenty feet of the ground he spread his wings motionless and like a great kite gently touched the sand, in hops at first, then ran a little, braced himself and came to a standstill.

We had landed on the Moon!

By this time we had had a chance to get a little more used to the new air. But before we made any attempt to “go ashore” the Doctor thought it best to ask our gallant steed to stay where he was a while, so that we could still further accustom ourselves to the new atmosphere and conditions.

This request was willingly granted. Indeed, the poor insect himself, I imagine, was glad enough to rest a while. From somewhere in his packages John Dolittle produced an emergency ration of chocolate which he had been saving up. All four of us munched in silence, too hungry and too awed by our new surroundings to say a word.

The light changed unceasingly. It reminded me of the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis. You would gaze at the mountains above you, then turn away a moment, and on looking back find everything that had been pink was now green, the shadows that had been violet were rose.

Breathing was still kind of difficult. We were compelled for the moment to keep the “moon-bells” handy. These were the great orange-coloured flowers that the moth had brought down for us. It was their perfume (or gas) that had enabled us to cross the airless belt that lay between the Moon and the Earth. A fit of coughing was always liable to come on if one left them too long. But already we felt that we could in time get used to this new air and soon do without the bells altogether.

The gravity too was very confusing. It required hardly any effort to rise from a sitting position to a standing one. Walking was no effort at all – for the muscles – but for the lungs it was another question. The most extraordinary sensation was jumping. The least little spring from the ankles sent you flying into the air in the most fantastic fashion. If it had not been for this problem of breathing properly (which the Doctor seemed to feel we should approach with great caution on account of its possible effect on the heart) we would all have given ourselves up to this most light-hearted feeling which took possession of us. I remember, myself, singing songs – the melody was somewhat indistinct on account of a large mouthful of chocolate – and I was most anxious to get down off the moth’s back and go bounding away across the hills and valleys to explore this new world.

But I realize now that John Dolittle was very wise in making us wait. He issued orders (in the low whispers which we found necessary in this new clear air) to each and all of us that for the present the flowers were not to be left behind for a single moment.

They were cumbersome things to carry but we obeyed orders. No ladder was needed now to descend by. The gentlest jump sent one flying off the insect’s back to the ground where you landed from a twenty-five-foot drop with ease and comfort. Zip! The spring was made. And we were wading in the sands of a new world.

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Land of Colours
and Perfumes

We were after all, when you come to think of it, a very odd party, this, which made the first landing on a new world. But in a great many ways it was a peculiarly good combination. First of all, Polynesia: she was the kind of bird which one always supposed would exist under any conditions, drought, floods, fire or frost. I’ve no doubt that at that time in my boyish way I exaggerated Polynesia’s adaptability and endurance. But even to this day I can never quite imagine any circumstances in which that remarkable bird would perish. If she could get a pinch of seed (of almost any kind) and a sip of water two or three times a week she would not only carry on quite cheerfully but would scarcely even remark upon the strange nature or scantiness of the rations. Then Chee-Chee: he was not so easily provided for in the matter of food. But he always seemed to be able to provide for himself anything that was lacking. I have never known a better forager than Chee-Chee. When everyone was hungry he could go off into an entirely new forest and just by smelling the wild fruits and nuts he could tell if they were safe to eat. How he did this even John Dolittle could never find out. Indeed Chee-Chee himself didn’t know.

Then myself: I had no scientific qualifications, but I had learned how to be a good secretary on natural history expeditions and I knew a good deal about the Doctor’s ways.

Finally there was the Doctor. No naturalist has ever gone afield to grasp at the secrets of a new land with the qualities John Dolittle possessed. He never claimed to know anything, beforehand, for certain. He came to new problems with a childlike innocence which made it easy for himself to learn and the others to teach.

Yes, it was a strange party we made up. Most scientists would have laughed at us no doubt. Yet we had many things to recommend us that no expedition ever carried before.

As usual the Doctor wasted no time in preliminaries. Most other explorers would have begun by planting a flag and singing national anthems. Not so with John Dolittle. As soon as he was sure that we were all ready he gave the order to march. And without a word Chee-Chee and I (with Polynesia who perched herself on my shoulder) fell in behind him and started off.

I have never known a time when it was harder to shake loose the feeling of living in a dream as those first few hours we spent on the Moon. The knowledge that we were treading a new world never before visited by Man, added to this extraordinary feeling caused by the gravity, of lightness, of walking on air, made you want every minute to have someone tell you that you were actually awake and in your right senses. For this reason I kept constantly speaking to the Doctor or Chee-Chee or Polynesia – even when I had nothing particular to say. But the uncanny booming of my own voice every time I opened my lips and spoke above the faintest whisper merely added to the dream-like effect of the whole experience.

However, little by little, we grew accustomed to it. And certainly there was no lack of new sights and impressions to occupy our minds. Those strange and ever-changing colours in the landscape were most bewildering, throwing out your course and sense of direction entirely. The Doctor had brought a small pocket compass with him. But on consulting it, we saw that it was even more confused than we were. The needle did nothing but whirl around in the craziest fashion and no amount of steadying would persuade it to stay still.

Giving that up, the Doctor determined to rely on his moon maps and his own eyesight and bump of locality. He was heading towards where he had seen that tree – which was at the end of one of the ranges. But all the ranges in this section seemed very much alike. The maps did not help us in this respect in the least. To our rear we could see certain peaks which we thought we could identify on the charts. But ahead nothing fitted in at all. This made us feel surer than ever that we were moving toward the Moon’s other side which earthly eyes had never seen.

“It is likely enough, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as we strode lightly forward over loose sand which would ordinarily have been very heavy going, “that it is only on the other side that water exists. Which may partly be the reason why astronomers never believed there was any here at all.”

For my part I was so on the look-out for extraordinary sights that it did not occur to me, till the Doctor spoke of it, that the temperature was extremely mild and agreeable. One of the things that John Dolittle had feared was that we should find a heat that was unbearable or a cold that was worse than Arctic. But except for the difficulty of the strange new quality of the air, no human could have asked for a nicer climate. A gentle steady wind was blowing and the temperature seemed to remain almost constantly the same.

We looked about everywhere for tracks. As yet we knew very little of what animal life to expect. But the loose sand told nothing, not even to Chee-Chee, who was a pretty experienced hand at picking up tracks of the most unusual kind.

Of odours and scents there were plenty – most of them very delightful flower perfumes which the wind brought to us from the other side of the mountain ranges ahead. Occasionally a very disagreeable one would come, mixed up with the pleasant scents. But none of them, except that of the moon bells the moth had brought with us, could we recognize.

On and on we went for miles, crossing ridge after ridge and still no glimpse did we get of the Doctor’s tree. Of course crossing the ranges was not nearly as hard travelling as it would have been on Earth. Jumping and bounding both upward and downward was extraordinarily easy.

Still, we had brought a good deal of baggage with us and all of us were pretty heavy-laden; and after two and a half hours of travel we began to feel a little discouraged. Polynesia then volunteered to fly ahead and reconnoitre, but this the Doctor was loath to have her do. For some reason he wanted us all to stick together for the present.

However, after another half-hour of going he consented to let her fly straight up so long as she remained in sight, to see if she could spy out the tree’s position from a greater height.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Thirst!

So we rested on our bundles a spell while Polynesia gave an imitation of a soaring vulture and straight above our heads climbed and climbed. At about a thousand feet she paused and circled. Then slowly came down again. The Doctor, watching her, grew impatient at her speed. I could not quite make out why he was so unwilling to have her away from his side, but I asked no questions.

Yes, she had seen the tree, she told us, but it still seemed a long way off. The Doctor wanted to know why she had taken so long in coming down and she said she had been making sure of her bearings so that she would be able to act as guide. Indeed, with the usual accuracy of birds, she had a very clear idea of the direction we should take. And we set off again, feeling more at ease and confident.

The truth of it was, of course, that seen from a great height, as the tree had first appeared to us, the distance had seemed much less than it actually was. Two more things helped to mislead us. One, that the moon air, as we now discovered, made everything look nearer than it actually was in spite of the soft dim light. And the other was that we had supposed the tree to be one of ordinary earthly size and had made an unconscious guess at its distance in keeping with a fair-sized oak or elm. Whereas when we did actually reach it we found it to be unimaginably huge.

I shall never forget that tree. It was our first experience of moon life, in the Moon. Darkness was coming on when we finally halted beneath it. When I say darkness I mean that strange kind of twilight which was the nearest thing to night which we ever saw in the Moon. The tree’s height, I should say, would be at least three hundred feet and the width of it across the trunk a good forty or fifty. Its appearance in general was most uncanny. The whole design of it was different from any tree I have ever seen. Yet there was no mistaking it for anything else. It seemed – how shall I describe it? – alive. Poor Chee-Chee was so scared of it his hair just stood up on the nape of his neck and it was a long time before the Doctor and I persuaded him to help us pitch camp beneath its boughs.

Indeed we were a very subdued party that prepared to spend its first night on the Moon. No one knew just what it was that oppressed us but we were all conscious of a definite feeling of disturbance. The wind still blew – in that gentle, steady way that the moon winds always blew. The light was clear enough to see outlines by, although most of the night the Earth was invisible, and there was no reflection whatever.

I remember how the Doctor, while we were unpacking and laying out the rest of our chocolate ration for supper, kept glancing uneasily up at those strange limbs of the tree overhead.

Of course it was the wind that was moving them – no doubt of that at all. Yet the wind was so deadly regular and even. And the movement of the boughs wasn’t regular at all. That was the weird part of it. It almost seemed as though the tree were doing some moving on its own, like an animal chained by its feet in the ground. And still you could never be sure – because, after all, the wind was blowing all the time.

And besides, it moaned. Well, we knew trees moaned in the wind at home. But this one did it differently – it didn’t seem in keeping with that regular even wind which we felt upon our faces.

I could see that even the worldly-wise practical Polynesia was perplexed and upset. And it took a great deal to disturb her. Yet a bird’s senses towards trees and winds are much keener than a man’s. I kept hoping she would venture into the branches of the tree; but she didn’t. And as for Chee-Chee, also a natural denizen of the forest, no power on earth, I felt sure, would persuade him to investigate the mysteries of this strange specimen of a Vegetable Kingdom we were as yet only distantly acquainted with.

After supper was despatched, the Doctor kept me busy for some hours taking down notes. There was much to be recorded of this first day in a new world. The temperature; the direction and force of the wind; the time of our arrival – as near as it could be guessed; the air pressure (he had brought along a small barometer among his instruments) and many other things which, while they were dry stuff for the ordinary mortal, were highly important for the scientist.

Often and often I have wished that I had one of those memories that seem to be able to recall all impressions no matter how small and unimportant. For instance, I have often wanted to remember exactly that first awakening on the Moon. We had all been weary enough with excitement and exercise, when we went to bed, to sleep soundly. All I can remember of my waking up is spending at least ten minutes working out where I was. And I doubt if I could have done it even then if I had not finally realized that John Dolittle was awake ahead of me and already pottering around among his instruments, taking readings.

The immediate business now on hand was food. There was literally nothing for breakfast. The Doctor began to regret his hasty departure from the moth. Indeed it was only now, many, many hours after we had left him in our unceremonious haste to find the tree and explore the new world, that we realized that we had not as yet seen any signs of animal life. Still it seemed a long way to go back and consult him; and it was by no means certain that he would still be there,

Just the same, we needed food, and food we were going to find. Hastily we bundled together what things we had unpacked for the night’s camping. Which way to go? Clearly if we had here reached one tree, there must be some direction in which others lay, where we could find that water which the Doctor was so sure must exist. But we could scan the horizon with staring eyes or telescope as much as we wished and not another leaf of a tree could we see.

This time, without waiting to be ordered, Polynesia soared into the air to do a little scouting.

“Well,” she said on her return, “I don’t see any actual trees at all. The beastly landscape is more like the Sahara Desert than any scenery I’ve ever run into. But over there behind that higher range – the one with the curious hat-shaped peak in the middle – you see the one I mean?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I see. Go on.”

“Well, behind that there is a dark horizon different from any other quarter. I won’t swear it is trees. But myself, I feel convinced that there is something else there besides sand. We had better get moving. It is no short walk.”

Indeed it was no short walk. It came to be a forced march or race between us and starvation. On starting out we had not foreseen anything of the kind. Going off without breakfast was nothing after all. Each one of us had done that before many a time. But as hour after hour went by and still the landscape remained a desert of rolling sand-dunes, hills and dead dry volcanoes, our spirits fell lower and lower.

This was one of the times when I think I saw John Dolittle really at his best. I know, although I had not questioned him, that he had already been beset with anxiety over several matters on the first steps of our march. Later he spoke of them to me: not at the time. And as conditions grew worse, as hunger gnawed at our vitals and the most terrible thirst parched our tongues – as strength and vitality began to give way and mere walking became the most terrible hardship, the Doctor grew cheerier and cheerier. He didn’t crack dry jokes in an irritating way either. But by some strange means he managed to keep the whole party in good mood. If he told a funny story it was always at the right time and set us all laughing at our troubles. In talking to him afterwards about this I learned that he had, when a young man, been employed on more than one exploration trip to keep the expedition in good humour. It was, he said, the only way he could persuade the chief to take him, since at that time he had no scientific training to recommend him.

Anyway, I sincerely doubt whether our party would have held out if it had not been for his sympathetic and cheering company. The agonies of thirst were something new to me. Every step I thought must be my last.

Finally at what seemed to be the end of our second day, I vaguely heard Polynesia saying something about “Forests ahead!” I imagine I must have been half delirious by then. I still staggered along, blindly following the others. I know we did reach water because before I fell and dozed away into a sort of half faint, I remember Chee-Chee trickling something marvellously cool between my lips out of a cup made from a folded leaf.

• • • • •

•   4   •

Chee-Chee the Hero

When I awoke I felt very much ashamed of myself. What an explorer! The Doctor was moving around already – and, of course, Chee-Chee and Polynesia. John Dolittle came to my side immediately he saw I was awake.

As though he knew the thoughts that were in my mind he at once started to reprimand me for feeling ashamed of my performance. He pointed out that after all Chee-Chee and Polynesia were accustomed to travelling in hot dry climates and that so, for that matter, was he himself.

“Taken all in all, Stubbins,” said he, “your own performance has been extremely good. You made the trip, the whole way, and only collapsed when relief was in sight. No one could ask for more than that. I have known many experienced explorers who couldn’t have done nearly as well. It was a hard lap – a devilish hard lap. You were magnificent. Sit up and have some breakfast. Thank goodness, we’ve reached food at last!”

Weak and frowzy, I sat up. Arranged immediately around me was a collection of what I later learned were fruits. The reliable Chee-Chee, scared though he might be of a moving tree or a whispering wind, had served the whole party with that wonderful sense of his for scenting out wild foodstuffs. Not one of the strange courses on the bill of fare had I or the Doctor seen before. But if Chee-Chee said they were safe we knew we need not fear.

Some of the fruits were as big as a large trunk; some as small as a walnut. But, starving as we were, we just dived in and ate and ate and ate. Water there was too, gathered in the shells of enormous nuts and odd vessels made from twisted leaves. Never has a breakfast tasted so marvellous as did that one of fruits which I could not name.

Chee-Chee! – Poor little timid Chee-Chee, who conquered your own fears and volunteered to go ahead of us alone, into the jungle to find food when our strength was giving out. To the world you were just an organ-grinder’s monkey. But to us whom you saved from starvation, when terror beset you at every step, you will forever be ranked high in the list of the great heroes of all time. Thank goodness we had you with us! Our bones might today be mouldering in the sands of the Moon if it had not been for your untaught science, your jungle skill – and, above all, your courage that overcame your fear!

Well, to return: as I ate these strange fruits and sipped the water that brought life back, I gazed upward and saw before me a sort of ridge. On its level top a vegetation, a kind of tangled forest, flourished; and trailing down from this ridge were little outposts of the Vegetable Kingdom, groups of bushes and single trees, that scattered and dribbled away in several directions from the main mass. Why and how that lone tree survived so far away we could never satisfactorily explain. The nearest John Dolittle could come to it was that some underground spring supplied it with enough water or moisture to carry on. Yet there can be no doubt that to have reached such enormous proportions it must have been there hundreds – perhaps thousands – of years. Anyway, it is a good thing for us it was there. If it had not been, as a pointer towards this habitable quarter of the Moon – it is most likely our whole expedition would have perished.

When the Doctor and I had finished our mysterious breakfast we started to question Chee-Chee about the forest from which he had produced the food we had eaten.

“I don’t know how I did it,” said Chee-Chee when we asked him. “I just shut my eyes most of the time – terribly afraid. I passed trees, plants, creepers, roots. I smelled – Goodness! I too was hungry, remember. I smelled hard as I could. And soon of course I spotted food, fruits.

“I climbed a tree – half the time with my eyes shut. Then I see some monster, golly! What a jungle – different from any monkey ever see before – Woolly, woolly! – Ooh, ooh! All the same, nuts smell good. Catch a few. Chase down the tree. Run some more. Smell again. Good! – Up another tree. Different fruit, good just the same. Catch a few. Down again. Run home. On the way smell good root. Same as ginger – only better. Dig a little. Keep eyes shut – don’t want to see monster. Catch a piece of root. Run all the way home. Here I am. Finish!”

Well, dear old Chee-Chee’s story was descriptive of his own heroic adventures but it did not give us much idea of the moon forest which we were to explore. Nevertheless, rested and fit, we now felt much more inclined to look into things ourselves.

Leaving what luggage we had brought with us from our original landing point, we proceeded towards the line of trees at the summit of the bluff, about four miles ahead of us. We now felt that we could find our way back without much difficulty to the two last camps we had established.

The going was about the same, loose sand – only that as we approached the bluff we found the sand firmer to the tread.

On the way up the last lap towards the vegetation line we were out of view of the top itself. Often the going was steep. All the way I had the feeling that we were about to make new and great discoveries – that for the first time we were to learn something important about the true nature of the mysterious Moon.

• • • • •

•   5   •

On the Plateau

Indeed our first close acquaintance with the forests of the Moon was made in quite a dramatic manner. If it had been on a stage it could not have been arranged better for effect. Suddenly as our heads topped the bluff, we saw a wall of jungle some mile or so ahead of us. It would take a very long time to describe those trees in detail. It wasn’t that there were so many kinds but each one was so utterly different from any tree we had seen on the Earth. And yet, curiously enough, they did remind you of vegetable forms you had seen, but not of trees.

For instance, there was one whole section, several square miles in extent apparently, that looked exactly like ferns. Another reminded me of a certain flowering plant (I can’t recall the name of it) which grows a vast number of small blossoms on a flat surface at the top. The stems are a curious whitish green. This moon tree was exactly the same, only nearly a thousand times as big. The denseness of the foliage (or flowering) at the top was so compact and solid that we later found no rain could penetrate it. And for this reason the Doctor and I gave it the name of the Umbrella Tree. But not one single tree was there which was the same as any tree we had seen before. And there were many, many more curious growths that dimly reminded you of something, though you could not always say exactly what.

One odd thing that disturbed us quite a little was a strange sound. Noises of any kind, no matter how faint, we already knew could travel long distances on the Moon. As soon as we had gained the plateau on top of the bluff we heard it. It was a musical sound. And yet not the sound of a single instrument. It seemed almost as though there was a small orchestra somewhere playing very, very softly. We were by this time becoming accustomed to strange things. But I must confess that this distant hidden music upset me quite a little, and so, I know, it did the Doctor.

At the top of the bluff we rested to get our wind before we covered the last mile up to the jungle itself. It was curious how clearly marked and separated were those sections of the Moon’s landscape. And yet doubtless the smaller scale of all the geographical features of this world, so much less in bulk than our own, could partly account for that. In front of us a plateau stretched out, composed of hard sand, level and smooth as a lake, bounded in front by the jungle and to the rear of us by the cliff we had just scaled. I wondered as I looked across at the forest what scenery began on the other side of the woods and if it broke off in as sharp a change as it did here.

As the most important thing to attend to first was the establishment of a water supply, Chee-Chee was asked to act as guide. The monkey set out ahead of us to follow his own tracks which he had made last night. This he had little difficulty in doing across the open plateau. But when we reached the edge of the forest it was not so easy. Much of his travelling here had been done by swinging through the trees. He always felt safer so, he said, while explaining to us how he had been guided to the water by the sense of smell. Again I realized how lucky we had been to have him with us. No one but a monkey could have found his way through that dense, dimly lit forest to water. He asked us to stay behind a moment on the edge of the woods while he went forward to make sure that he could retrace his steps. We sat down again and waited.

“Did you wake up at all during the night, Stubbins?” the Doctor asked after a little.

“No,” I said. “I was far too tired. Why?”

“Did you, Polynesia?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“Yes,” said she, “I was awake several times.”

“Did you hear or see anything – er – unusual?”

“Yes,” said she. “I can’t be absolutely certain. But I sort of felt there was something moving around the camp keeping a watch on us.

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “So did I.”

Then he relapsed into silence.

Another rather strange thing that struck me as I gazed over the landscape while we waited for Chee-Chee to return was the appearance of the horizon. The Moon’s width being so much smaller than the Earth’s, the distance one could see was a great deal shorter. This did not apply so much where the land was hilly or mountainous; but on the level, or the nearly level it made a very striking difference. The roundness of this world was much more easily felt and understood than was that of the world we had left. On this plateau, for example, you could only see seven or eight miles, it seemed, over the level before the curve cut off your vision. And it gave quite a new character even to the hills, where peaks showed behind other ranges, dropping downward in a way that misled you entirely as to their actual height.

Finally Chee-Chee came back to us and said he had successfully retraced his steps to the water he had found the night before. He was now prepared to lead us to it. He looked kind of scared and ill at ease. The Doctor asked him the reason for this, but he didn’t seem able to give any.

“Everything’s all right, Doctor,” said he – “at least I suppose it is. It was partly that – oh, I don’t know – I can’t quite make out what it is they have asked you here for. I haven’t actually laid eyes on any animal life since we left the moth who brought us. Yet I feel certain that there’s lots of it here. It doesn’t appear to want to be seen. That’s what puzzles me. On the Earth the animals were never slow in coming forward when they were in need of your services.”

“You bet they were not!” grunted Polynesia. “No one who ever saw them clamouring around the surgery door could doubt that.”

“Humph!” the Doctor muttered, “I’ve noticed it myself already. I don’t understand it quite – either. It almost looks as though there were something about our arrival which they didn’t like…. I wonder…. Well, anyway, I wish the animal life here would get in touch with us and let us know what it is all about. This state of things is, to say the least – er – upsetting.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Moon Lake

And so we went forward with Chee-Chee as guide to find the water. Our actual entrance into that jungle was quite an experience and very different from merely a distant view of it. The light outside was not bright; inside the woods it was dimmer still. My only other experience of jungle life had been in Spidermonkey Island. This was something like the Spidermonkey forest and yet it was strikingly different.

From the appearance and size of that first tree we had reached, the Doctor had guessed its age to be very, very great. Here the vegetable life in general seemed to bear out that idea beyond all question. The enormous trees with their gigantic trunks looked as though they had been there since the beginning of time. And there was surprisingly little decay – a few shed limbs and leaves. That was all. In unkept earthly forests one saw dead trees everywhere, fallen to the ground or caught half-way in the crotches of other trees, withered and dry. Not so here. Every tree looked as though it had stood so and grown in peace for centuries.

At length, after a good deal of arduous travel – the going for the most part was made slow by the heaviest kind of undergrowth, with vines and creepers as thick as your leg – we came to a sort of open place in which lay a broad calm lake with a pleasant waterfall at one end. The woods that surrounded it were most peculiar. They looked like enormous asparagus. For many, many square miles their tremendous masts rose, close together, in ranks. No creepers or vines had here been given a chance to flourish. The enormous stalks had taken up all the room and the nourishment of the crowded earth. The tapering tops, hundreds of feet above our heads, looked good enough to eat. Yet I’ve no doubt that if we had ever got up to them they would have been found as hard as oaks.

The Doctor walked down to the clean sandy shore of the lake and tried the water. Chee-Chee and I did the same. It was pure and clear and quenching to the thirst. The lake must have been at least five miles wide in the centre.

“I would like,” said John Dolittle, “to explore this by boat. Do you suppose, Chee-Chee, that we could find the makings of a canoe or a raft anywhere?”

“I should think so,” said the monkey. “Wait a minute and I will take a look around and see.”

So, with Chee-Chee in the lead, we proceeded along the shore in search of materials for a boat. On account of that scarcity of dead or dried wood which we had already noticed, our search did not at first appear a very promising one. Nearly all the standing trees were pretty heavy and full of sap. For our work of boat-building a light hatchet on the Doctor’s belt was the best tool we had. It looked sadly small compared with the great timber that reared up from the shores of the lake.

But after we had gone along about a mile I noticed Chee-Chee up ahead stop and peer into the jungle. Then, after he had motioned to us with his hand to hurry, he disappeared into the edge of the forest. On coming up with him we found him stripping the creepers and moss off some contrivance that lay just within the woods, not more than a hundred yards from the water’s edge.

We all fell to, helping him, without any idea of what it might be we were uncovering. There seemed almost no end to it. It was a long object, immeasurably long. To me it looked like a dead tree – the first dead, lying tree we had seen.

“What do you think it is, Chee-Chee?” asked the Doctor.

“It’s a boat,” said the monkey in a firm and matter-of-fact voice. “No doubt of it at all in my mind. It’s a dug-out canoe. They used to use them in Africa.”

“But, Chee-Chee,” cried John Dolittle, “look at the length! It’s a full-sized Asparagus Tree. We’ve uncovered a hundred feet of it already and still there’s more to come.”

“I can’t help that,” said Chee-Chee. “It’s a dug-out canoe just the same. Crawl down with me here underneath it, Doctor, and I’ll show you the marks of tools and fire. It has been turned upside down.”

With the monkey guiding him, the Doctor scrabbled down below the queer object; and when he came forth there was a puzzled look on his face.

“Well, they might be the marks of tools, Chee-Chee,” he was saying. “But then again they might not. The traces of fire are more clear. But that could be accidental. If the tree burned down it could very easily—”

“The natives in my part of Africa,” Chee-Chee interrupted, “always used fire to eat out the insides of their dug-out canoes. They built little fires all along the tree, to hollow out the trunk so that they could sit in it. The tools they used were very simple, just stone scoops to chop out the charred wood with. I am sure this is a canoe, Doctor. But it hasn’t been used in a long time. See how the bow has been shaped up into a point.”

“I know,” said the Doctor. “But the Asparagus Tree has a natural point at one end anyhow.”

“And, Chee-Chee,” put in Polynesia, “who in the name of goodness could ever handle such a craft? Why, look, the thing is as long as a battleship!”

Then followed a half-hour’s discussion, between the Doctor and Polynesia on the one side and Chee-Chee on the other, as to whether the find we had made was, or was not, a canoe. For me, I had no opinion. To my eyes the object looked like an immensely long log, hollowed somewhat on the one side, but whether by accident or design I could not tell.

In any case it was certainly too heavy and cumbersome for us to use. And presently I edged into the argument with the suggestion that we go on further and find materials for a raft or boat we could handle.

The Doctor seemed rather glad of this excuse to end a fruitless controversy, and soon we moved on in search of something which would enable us to explore the waters of the lake. A march of a mile further along the shore brought us to woods that were not so heavy. Here the immense asparagus forests gave way to a growth of smaller girth; and the Doctor’s hatchet soon felled enough poles for us to make a raft from. We laced them together with thongs of bark and found them sufficiently buoyant when launched to carry us and our small supply of baggage with ease. Where the water was shallow we used a long pole to punt with; and when we wished to explore greater depths we employed sweeps, or oars, which we fashioned roughly with the hatchet.

From the first moment we were afloat the Doctor kept me busy taking notes for him. In the equipment he had brought with him there was a fine-meshed landing net; and with it he searched along the shores for signs of life in this moon lake, the first of its kind we had met with.

“It is very important, Stubbins,” said he, “to find out what fish we have here. In evolution the fish life is a very important matter.”

“What is evolution?” asked Chee-Chee.

I started out to explain it to him but was soon called upon by the Doctor to make more notes – for which I was not sorry, as the task turned out to be a long and heavy one. Polynesia, however, took it up where I left off and made short work of it.

“Evolution, Chee-Chee,” said she, “is the story of how Tommy got rid of the tail you are carrying – because he didn’t need it any more – and the story of how you grew it and kept it because you did need it…. Evolution! Poof! – Professors’ talk. A long word for a simple matter.”

It turned out that our examination of the lake was neither exciting nor profitable. We brought up all sorts of water-flies, many larvae of perfectly tremendous size, but we found as yet no fishes. The plant life – water plant I mean – was abundant.

“I think,” said the Doctor, after we had poled ourselves around the lake for several hours, “that there can be no doubt now that the Vegetable Kingdom here is much more important than the Animal Kingdom. And what there is of the Animal Kingdom seems to be mostly insect. However, we will camp on the shore of this pleasant lake and perhaps we shall see more later.”

So we brought our raft to anchor at about the place from which we had started out and pitched camp on a stretch of clean yellow sand.

I shall never forget that night. It was uncanny. None of us slept well. All through the hours of darkness we heard things moving around us. Enormous things. Yet never did we see them or find out what they were. The four of us were nevertheless certain that all night we were being watched. Even Polynesia was disturbed. There seemed no doubt that there was plenty of animal life in the Moon, but that it did not as yet want to show itself to us. The newness of our surroundings alone was disturbing enough, without this very uncomfortable feeling that something had made the moon folks distrustful of us.

• • • • •

•   7   •

Tracks of a Giant

Another thing which added to our sleeplessness that night was the continuance of the mysterious music. But then so many strange things contributed to our general mystification and vague feeling of anxiety that it is hard to remember and distinguish them all.

The next morning after breakfasting on what remained of our fruits we packed up and started off for further exploration. While the last of the packing had been in progress, Chee-Chee and Polynesia had gone ahead to do a little advance scouting for us. They formed an admirable team for such work. Polynesia would fly above the forest and get long-distance impressions from the air of what lay ahead, while Chee-Chee would examine the more lowly levels of the route to be followed, from the trees and the ground.

The Doctor and I were just helping one another on with our packs when Chee-Chee came rushing back to us in great excitement. His teeth were chattering so he could hardly speak.

“What do you think, Doctor!” he stammered. “We’ve found tracks back there. Tracks of a man! But so enormous! You’ve no idea. Come quick and I’ll show you.”

The Doctor looked up sharply at the scared and excited monkey, pausing a moment as though about to question him. Then he seemed to change his mind and turned once more to the business of taking up the baggage. With loads hoisted we gave a last glance around the camping ground to see if anything had been forgotten or left.

Our route did not lie directly across the lake, which mostly sprawled away to the right of our line of march. But we had to make our way partly around the lower end of it. Wondering what new chapter lay ahead of us, we fell in behind Chee-Chee and in silence started off along the shore.

After about half an hour’s march we came to the mouth of a river which ran into the upper end of the lake. Along the margin of this we followed Chee-Chee for what seemed like another mile or so. Soon the shores of the stream widened out and the woods fell back quite a distance from the water’s edge. The nature of the ground was still clean firm sand. Presently we saw Polynesia’s tiny figure ahead, waiting for us.

When we drew up with her, we saw that she was standing by an enormous footprint. There was no doubt about its being a man’s, clear in every detail. It was the most gigantic thing I have ever seen, a barefoot track fully four yards in length. There wasn’t only one, either. Down the shore the trail went on for a considerable distance; and the span that the prints lay apart gave one some idea of the enormous stride of the giant who had left this trail behind him.

Questioning and alarmed, Chee-Chee and Polynesia gazed silently up at the Doctor for an explanation.

“Humph!” he muttered after a while. “So Man is here, too. My goodness, what a monster! Let us follow the trail.”

Chee-Chee was undoubtedly scared of such a plan. It was clearly both his and Polynesia’s idea that the further we got away from the maker of those tracks the better. I could see terror and fright in the eyes of both of them. But neither made any objection; and in silence we plodded along, following in the path of this strange human who must, it would seem, be something out of a fairy tale.

But alas! It was not more than a mile further on that the footprints turned into the woods where, on the mosses and leaves beneath the trees, no traces had been left at all. Then we turned about and followed the river quite a distance to see if the creature had come back out on the sands again. But never a sign could we see. Chee-Chee spent a good deal of time too at the Doctor’s request trying to find his path through the forest by any signs, such as broken limbs or marks in the earth which he might have left behind. But not another trace could we find. Deciding that he had merely come down to the stream to get a drink, we gave up the pursuit and turned back to the line of our original march.

Again I was thankful that I had company on that expedition. It was certainly a most curious and extraordinary experience. None of us spoke very much, but when we did it seemed that all of us had been thinking the same things.

The woods grew more and more mysterious, and more and more alive, as we went onward towards the other side of the Moon, the side that earthly Man had never seen before. For one thing, the strange music seemed to increase; and for another, there was more movement in the limbs of the trees. Great branches that looked like arms, bunches of small twigs that could have been hands, swung and moved and clawed the air in the most uncanny fashion. And always that steady wind went on blowing, even, regular and smooth.

All of the forest was not gloomy, however. Much of it was unbelievably beautiful. Acres of woods there were which presented nothing but a gigantic sea of many-coloured blossoms, colours that seemed like something out of a dream, indescribable, yet clear in one’s memory as a definite picture of something seen.

The Doctor, as we went forward, spoke very little; when he did it was almost always on the same subject: “the absence of decay,” as he put it.

“I am utterly puzzled, Stubbins,” said he, in one of his longer outbursts when we were resting. “Why, there is hardly any leaf-mould at all!”

“What difference would that make, Doctor?” I asked.

“Well, that’s what the trees live on, mostly, in our world,” said he. “The forest growth, I mean – the soil that is formed by dying trees and rotting leaves – that is the nourishment that brings forth the seedlings which finally grow into new trees. But here! Well, of course there is some soil – and some shedding of leaves. But I’ve hardly seen a dead tree since I’ve been in these woods. One would almost think that there were some – er – balance. Some arrangement of – er – well – I can’t explain it…. It beats me entirely.”

I did not, at the time, completely understand what he meant. And yet it did seem as though every one of these giant plants that rose about us led a life of peaceful growth, undisturbed by rot, by blight, or by disease.

Suddenly in our march we found ourselves at the end of the wooded section. Hills and mountains again spread before us. They were not the same as those we had first seen, however. These had vegetation, of a kind, on them. Low shrubs and heath plants clothed this rolling land with a dense growth – often very difficult to get through.

But still no sign of decay – little or no leaf-mould. The Doctor now decided that perhaps part of the reason for this was the seasons – or rather the lack of seasons. He said that we would probably find that here there was no regular winter or summer. It was an entirely new problem, so far as the struggle for existence was concerned, such as we knew in our world.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Singing Trees

Into this new heath and hill country we travelled for miles. And presently we arrived upon a rather curious thing. It was a sort of basin high up and enclosed by hills or knolls. The strange part of it was that here there were not only more tracks of the Giant Man, just as we had seen lower down, but there were also unmistakable signs of fire. In an enormous hollow, ashes lay among the sands. The Doctor was very interested in those ashes. He took some and added chemicals to them and tested them in many ways. He confessed himself at last entirely puzzled by their nature. But he said he nevertheless felt quite sure we had stumbled on the scene of the smoke signalling we had seen from Puddleby. Curiously long ago, it seemed, that time when Too-Too, the owl, had insisted he saw smoke burst from the side of the Moon. That was when the giant moth lay helpless in our garden. And yet – how long was it? Only a few days!

“It was from here, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that the signals we saw from the Earth were given out, I feel certain. This place, as you see, is miles and miles across. But what was used to make an explosion as large as the one we saw from my house I have no idea.”

“But it was smoke we saw,” said I, “not a flash.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “Some curious material must have been used that we have as yet no knowledge of. I thought that by testing the ashes I could discover what it was. But I can’t. However, we may yet find out.”

For two reasons the Doctor was anxious for the present not to get too far from the forest section. (We did not know then, you see, that there were other wooded areas beside this through which we had just come.) One reason was that we had to keep in touch with our food supply which consisted of the fruits and vegetables of the jungle. The other was that John Dolittle was absorbed now in the study of this Vegetable Kingdom which he felt sure had many surprises in store for the student naturalist.

After a while we began to get over the feeling of uncanny creepiness, which at the beginning had made us so uncomfortable. We decided that our fears were mostly caused by the fact that these woods and plants were so different from our own. There was no unfriendliness in these forests after all, we assured ourselves – except that we were being watched. That we knew – and that we were beginning to get used to.

As soon as the Doctor had decided that we would set up our new headquarters on the edge of the forest, and we had our camp properly established, we began making excursions in all directions through the jungle. And from then on I was again kept very busy taking notes of the Doctor’s experiments and studies.

One of the first discoveries we made in our study of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom was that there was practically no warfare going on between it and the Animal Kingdom. In the world we had left we had been accustomed to see the horses and other creatures eating up the grass in great quantities and many further examples of the struggle that continually goes on between the two. Here, on the other hand, the animals (or, more strictly speaking, the insects, for there seemed as yet hardly any traces of other animal species) and the vegetable life seemed for the most part to help one another rather than to fight and destroy. Indeed we found the whole system of Life on the Moon a singularly peaceful business. I will speak of this again later on.

We spent three whole days in the investigation of the strange music we had heard. You will remember that the Doctor, with his skill on the flute, was naturally fond of music; and this curious thing we had met with interested him a great deal. After several expeditions we found patches of the jungle where we were able to see and hear the tree music working at its best.

There was no doubt about it at all: The trees were making the sounds and they were doing it deliberately. In the way that an aeolian harp works when set in the wind at the right angle, the trees moved their branches to meet the wind so that certain notes would be given out. The evening that the Doctor made this discovery of what he called the Singing Trees he told me to mark down in the diary of the expedition as a Red Letter Date. I shall never forget it. We had been following the sound for hours, the Doctor carrying a tuning-fork in his hand, ringing it every once in a while to make sure of the notes we heard around us. Suddenly we came upon a little clearing about which great giants of the forest stood in a circle. It was for all the world like an orchestra. Spellbound, we stood and gazed up at them, as first one and then another would turn a branch to the steady blowing wind and a note would boom out upon the night, clear and sweet. Then a group, three or four trees around the glade, would swing a limb and a chord would strike the air, and go murmuring through the jungle. Fantastic and crazy as it sounds, no one could have any doubt who heard and watched that these trees were actually making sounds, which they wanted to make, with the aid of the wind.

Of course, as the Doctor remarked, unless the wind had always blown steadily and evenly such a thing would have been impossible. John Dolittle himself was most anxious to find out on what scale of music they were working. To me, I must confess, it sounded just mildly pleasant. There was a tune: I could hear that. And some whole phrases repeated once in a while, but not often. For the most part the melody was wild, sad and strange. But even to my uneducated ear it was beyond all question a quite clear effort at orchestration; there were certainly treble voices and bass voices and the combination was sweet and agreeable.

I was excited enough myself, but the Doctor was worked up to a pitch of interest such as I have seldom seen in him.

“Why, Stubbins,” said he, “do you realize what this means? – It’s terrific. If these trees can sing, a choir understands one another and all that, they must have a language. – They can talk! A language in the Vegetable Kingdom! We must get after it. Who knows? I may yet learn it myself. Stubbins, this is a great day!”

And so, as usual on such occasions, the good man’s enthusiasm just carried him away bodily. For days, often without food, often without sleep, he pursued this new study. And at his heels I trotted with my notebook always ready – though, to be sure, he put in far more work than I did, because frequently when we got home he would go on wrestling for hours over the notes or new apparatus he was building, by which he hoped to learn the language of the trees.

You will remember that even before we left the Earth John Dolittle had mentioned the possibility of the moon bells having some means of communicating with one another. That they could move, within the limits of their fixed position, had been fully established. To that we had grown so used and accustomed that we no longer thought anything of it. The Doctor had in fact wondered if this might possibly be a means of conversation in itself – the movement of limbs and twigs and leaves, something like a flag signal code. And for quite a long while he sat watching certain trees and shrubs to see if they used this method for talking between themselves.

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Study
of Plant Languages

About this time there was one person whom both the Doctor and I were continually reminded of, and continually wishing for, and that was Long Arrow, the Indian naturalist whom we had met in Spidermonkey Island. To be sure, he had never admitted to the Doctor that he had had speech with plant life. But his knowledge of botany and the natural history of the Vegetable Kingdom was of such a curious kind, we felt that here he would have been of great help to us. Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, never booked a scientific note in his life. How would he – when he was unable to write? Just the same he could tell you why a certain coloured bee visited a certain coloured flower; why that moth chose that shrub to lay its eggs in; why this particular grub attacked the roots of this kind of water plant.

Often of an evening the Doctor and I would speak of him, wondering where he was and what he was doing. When we sailed away from Spidermonkey Island he was left behind. But that would not mean he stayed there. A natural-born tramp who rejoiced in defying the elements and the so-called laws of Nature, he could be looked for anywhere in the two American continents.

And again, the Doctor would often refer to my parents. He evidently had a very guilty feeling about them – despite the fact that it was no fault of his that I had stowed away aboard the moth that brought us here. A million and one things filled his mind these days, of course; but whenever there was a let-down, a gap, in the stream of his scientific inquiry, he would come back to the subject.

“Stubbins,” he’d say, “you shouldn’t have come…. Yes, yes, I know, you did it for me. But Jacob, your father – and your mother too – they must be fretting themselves sick about your disappearance. And I am responsible…. Well, we can’t do anything about that now, I suppose. Let’s get on with the work.”

And then he’d plunge ahead into some new subject and the matter would be dropped – till it bothered him again.

Throughout all our investigations of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom we could not get away from the idea that the animal life was still, for some unknown reason, steering clear of us. By night, when we were settling down to sleep, we’d often get the impression that huge moths, butterflies or beetles were flying or crawling near us.

We made quite sure of this once or twice by jumping out of our beds and seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom. Yet never could we get near enough to distinguish what the creatures were before they escaped beyond the range of sight. But that they had come – whatever they were – to keep an eye on us seemed quite certain. Also that all of them were winged. The Doctor had a theory that the lighter gravity of the Moon had encouraged the development of wings to a much greater extent than it had on the Earth.

And again those tracks of the strange Giant Man. They were always turning up in the most unexpected places; I believe that if the Doctor had allowed Polynesia and Chee-Chee complete liberty to follow them that the enormous Human would have been run down in a very short time. But John Dolittle seemed still anxious to keep his family together. I imagine that with his curiously good instinctive judgment he feared an attempt to separate us. And in any case of course both Chee-Chee and Polynesia were quite invaluable in a tight place. They were neither of them heavy-weight fighters, it is true; but their usefulness as scouts and guides was enormous. I have often heard John Dolittle say that he would sooner have that monkey or the parrot Polynesia with him in savage countries than he would the escort of a dozen regiments.

With some of our experimental work, we wandered off long distances into the heath lands to see what we could do with the gorgeous flowering shrubs that thronged the rolling downs; and often we followed the streams many miles to study the gigantic lilies that swayed their stately heads over the sedgy banks.

And little by little our very arduous labours began to be repaid.

I was quite astonished when I came to realize how well the Doctor had prepared for this expedition. Shortly after he decided that he would set to work on the investigation of this supposed language of the plants he told me we would have to go back and fetch the remainder of our baggage which we had left at the point of our first arrival.

So the following morning, bright and early, he, Chee-Chee and I set out to retrace our steps. Polynesia was left behind. The Doctor told none of us why he did this, but we decided afterwards that, as usual, he knew what he was doing.

It was a long and hard trip. It took us a day and a half going there and two days coming back with the load of baggage. At our original landing-place we again found many tracks of the Giant Human, and other strange marks on the sands about our baggage-dump which told us that here too curious eyes had been trying to find out things without being seen.

A closer examination of the tracks made by the Giant Human in these parts where they were especially clear told the Doctor that his right leg stride was considerably longer than his left. The mysterious Moon Man evidently walked with a limp. But with such a stride he would clearly be a very formidable creature anyway.

When we got back and started unpacking the bundles and boxes which had been left behind, I saw, as I have already said, how well the Doctor had prepared for his voyage. He seemed to have brought everything that he could possibly need for the trip: hatchets, wire, nails, files, a hand-saw, all the things we couldn’t get on the Moon. It was so different from his ordinary preparations for a voyage – which hardly ever consisted of more than the little black bag and the clothes he stood in.

As usual he rested only long enough to get a few mouthfuls of food before he set to work. There seemed to be a dozen different apparatuses he wanted to set up at once, some for the testing of sound, others for vibrations, etc., etc. With the aid of a saw and an axe and a few other tools, half a dozen small huts had sprung up in an hour around our camp.

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Magellan
of the Moon

Laying aside for the present all worry on the score of why he had been summoned to the Moon – of why the Animal Kingdom continued to treat us with suspicion, of why the Giant Human so carefully kept out of our way, the Doctor now plunged into the study of plant languages heart and soul.

He was always happy so, working like a demon, snatching his meals and his sleep here and there when he thought of such earthly matters. It was a most exhausting time for the rest of us, keeping pace with this firebrand of energy when he got on an interesting scent. And yet it was well worth while too. In one and a half days he had established the fact that the trees did converse with one another by means of branch gestures. But that was only the first step. Copying and practising, he rigged himself up like a tree and talked in the glade – after a fashion – with these centuries-old denizens of the jungle.

From that he learned still more – that language, of a kind, was carried on by using other means – by scents given out, in a definite way – short or long perfumes, like a regular Morse Code; by the tones of wind-song when branches were set to the right angle to produce certain notes; and many other odd strange means.

Every night, by bed-time, I was nearly dead from the strain and effort of taking notes in those everlasting books, of which he seemed to have brought an utterly inexhaustible supply.

Chee-Chee looked after the feeding of us – Thank goodness! – or I fear we would easily have starved to death, if overwork itself hadn’t killed us. Every three hours the faithful little monkey would come to us wherever we were at the moment with his messes of strange vegetables and fruits and a supply of good clean drinking water.

As official recorder of the Expedition (a job of which I was very proud even if it was hard work) I had to book all the Doctor’s calculations as well as his natural history notes. I have already told you something of temperature, air pressure, time and what not. A further list of them would have included the calculation of distance travelled. This was quite difficult. The Doctor had brought with him a pedometer (that is a little instrument which when carried in the pocket tells you from the number of strides made the miles walked). But in the Moon, with the changed gravity, a pace was quite different from that usual on the Earth. And what is more, it never stayed the same. When the ground sloped downward it was natural to spring a step that quite possibly measured six or seven feet – this with no out-of-the-way effort at all. And even on the up grade one quite frequently used a stride that was far greater than in ordinary walking.

It was about this time that the Doctor first spoke of making a tour of the Moon. Magellan, you will remember, was the first to sail around our world. And it was a very great feat. The Earth contains more water area than land. The Moon, on the contrary, we soon saw, had more dry land than water. There were no big oceans. Lakes and chains of lakes were all the water area we saw. To complete a round trip of this world would therefore be harder, even though it was shorter, than the voyage that Magellan made.

It was on this account that the Doctor was so particular about my booking a strict record of the miles we travelled. As to direction, we had not as yet been so careful about maintaining a perfectly straight line. Because it was by no means easy, for one thing; and for another, the subjects we wished to study, such as tree-music, tracks, water supply, rock formation, etc., often led us off towards every quarter of the compass. When I say the compass I mean something a little different from the use of that word in earthly geography. As I have told you, the magnetic compass which John Dolittle had brought with him from Puddleby did not behave in a helpful manner at all. Something else must be found to take its place.

John Dolittle, as usual, went after that problem too with much energy. He was a very excellent mathematician, was the Doctor. And one afternoon he sat down with a notebook and the Nautical Almanac and worked out tables which should tell him from the stars where he was and in what direction he was going. It was curious, that strange sense of comfort we drew from the stars. They, the heavenly bodies which from the Earth seemed the remotest, most distant, unattainable and strangest of objects, here suddenly became friendly; because, I suppose, they were the only things that really stayed the same. The stars, as we saw them from the Moon, were precisely as the stars we had seen from the Earth. The fact that they were nearly all countless billions of miles away made no difference. For us they were something that we had seen before and knew.

It was while we were at work on devising some contrivance to take the place of the compass that we made the discovery of the explosive wood. The Doctor after trying many things by which he hoped to keep a definite direction had suddenly said one day:

“Why, Stubbins, I have it. – The wind! It always blows steady – and probably from precisely the same quarter – or at all events with a regular calculable change most likely. Let us test it and see.”

So right away we set to work to make various wind-testing devices. We rigged up weather-vanes from long streamers of light bark. And then John Dolittle hit upon the idea of smoke.

“That is something,” said he, “if we only place it properly, which will warn us by smell if the wind changes. And in the meantime we can carry on our studies of the Animal Kingdom and its languages.”

So without further ado we set to work to build fires – or rather large smoke smudges – which should tell us how reliable our wind would be if depended on for a source of direction.

• • • • •

•   11   •

We Prepare
to Circle the Moon

We went to a lot of trouble working out how we could best place these fires so that they should give us the most satisfactory results. First of all we decided with much care on the exact position where we would build them. Mostly they were on bare knolls or shoulders, where they couldn’t spread to the underbrush and start a bush-fire. Then came the question of fuel: – What would be the best wood to build them of?

There were practically no dead trees, as I have said. The only thing to do then was to cut some timber down and let it dry.

This we proceeded to do but did not get very far with it before the Doctor suddenly had qualms of conscience. Trees that could talk could, one would suppose, also feel. The thought was dreadful. We hadn’t even the courage to ask the trees about it – yet. So we fell back upon gathering fallen twigs and small branches. This made the work heavier still because, of course, we needed a great deal of fuel to have fires big enough to see and smell for any distance.

After a good deal of discussion we decided that this was a thing which couldn’t be hurried. A great deal depended on its success. It was a nuisance, truly, but we had just got to be patient. So we went back into the jungle-lands and set to work on getting out various samples of woods to try.

It took a longish time, for the Doctor and myself were the only ones who could do this work. Chee-Chee tried to help by gathering twigs; but the material we most needed was wood large enough to last a fair time.

Well, we harvested several different kinds. Some wouldn’t burn at all when we tried them. Others, we found, were pretty fair burners, but not smoky enough.

With about the fifth kind of wood, I think it was, that we tested out, we nearly had a serious accident. Fire seemed to be (outside of the traces we had found of the smoke signal apparatus) a thing quite unusual in the Moon. There were no traces of forest burnings anywhere, so far as we had explored. It was therefore with a good deal of fear and caution that we struck matches to test out our fuel.

About dusk one evening the Doctor set a match to a sort of fern wood (something like a bamboo) and he narrowly escaped a bad burning. The stuff flared up like gunpowder.

We took him off, Chee-Chee and I, and examined him. We found he had suffered no serious injuries, though he had had a very close shave. His hands were somewhat blistered and he told us what to get out of the little black bag to relieve the inflammation.

We had all noticed that as the wood flared up it sent off dense masses of white smoke. And for hours after the explosion clouds of heavy fumes were still rolling round the hills near us.

When we had the Doctor patched up he told us he was sure that we had stumbled by accident on the fuel that had been used for making the smoke signals we had seen from Puddleby.

“But my goodness, Doctor,” said I, “what an immense bonfire it must have been to be visible all that distance! – Thousands of tons of the stuff, surely, must have been piled together to make a smudge which could be seen that far.”

“And who could have made it?” put in Chee-Chee.

For a moment there was silence. Then Polynesia spoke the thought that was in my mind – and I imagine in the Doctor’s too.

“The man who made those torches,” said she quietly, “could move an awful lot of timber in one day, I’ll warrant.”

“You mean you think it was he who sent the signals?” asked Chee-Chee, his funny little eyes staring wide open with astonishment.

“Why not?” said Polynesia. Then she lapsed into silent contemplation and no further questioning from Chee-Chee could get a word out of her.

“Well,” said the monkey at last, “if he did send it, that would look as though he were responsible for the whole thing. It must have been he who sent the moth down to us – who needed the Doctor’s assistance and presence here.”

He looked towards John Dolittle for an answer to this suggestion. But the Doctor, like Polynesia, didn’t seem to have anything to say.

Well, in spite of our little mishap, our wood tests with smoke were extremely successful. We found that the wind as a direction-pointer could certainly be relied on for three or four days at a time.

“Of course, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “we will have to test again before we set off on our round trip. It may be that the breeze, while blowing in one prevailing direction now, may change after a week or so. Also we will have to watch it that the mountain ranges don’t deflect the wind’s course and so lead us astray. But from what we have seen so far, I feel pretty sure that we have here something to take the place of the compass.”

I made one or two attempts later, when Polynesia and Chee-Chee were out of earshot, to discover what John Dolittle thought about this idea that it had really been the Moon Man who had brought us here and not the Animal Kingdom. I felt that possibly he might talk more freely to me alone on the subject than he had been willing to with all of us listening. But he was strangely untalkative.

“I don’t know, Stubbins,” said he, frowning, “I really don’t know. To tell the truth, my mind is not occupied with that problem now – at all events, not as a matter for immediate decision. This field of the lunar Vegetable Kingdom is something that could take up the attention of a hundred naturalists for a year or two. I feel we have only scratched the surface. As we go forward into the unknown areas of the Moon’s further side we are liable to make discoveries of – well, er – who can tell? When the Moon Man and the Animal Kingdom make up their minds that they want to get in touch with us, I suppose we shall hear from them. In the meantime we have our work to do – more than we can do…. Gracious, I wish I had a whole staff with me! – Surveyors, cartographers, geologists and the rest. Think of it! Here we are, messing our way along across a new world – and we don’t even know where we are! I think I have a vague idea of the line we have followed. And I’ve tried to keep a sort of chart of our march. But I should be making maps, Stubbins, real maps, showing all the peaks, valleys, streams, lakes, plateaus and everything. – Dear, dear! Well, we must do the best we can.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Vanity Lilies

Of course on a globe larger than that of the Moon, we could never have done as well as we did. When you come to think of it, one man, a boy, a monkey and a parrot, as a staff for the exploration of a whole world, makes the expedition sound, to say the least, absurd.

We did not realize, any of us, when we started out from our first landing that we were going to make a circular trip of the Moon’s globe. It just worked out that way. To begin with, we were expecting every hour that some part of the Animal Kingdom would come forward into the open. But it didn’t. And still we went on. Then this language of the trees and flowers came up and got the Doctor going on one of his fever-heat investigations. That carried us still further. We always took great care when departing from one district for an excursion of any length to leave landmarks behind us, camps or dumps, so that we could find our way back to food and shelter if we should get caught in a tight place.

In this sort of feeling our way forward, Polynesia was most helpful. The Doctor used to let her off regularly now to fly ahead of us and bring back reports. That gave us some sort of idea of what we should prepare for. Then in addition to that, the Doctor had brought with him several small pocket surveying instruments with which he marked on his chart roughly the points at which we changed course to any considerable extent.

In the earlier stages of our trip we had felt we must keep in touch with the first fruit section we had met with, in order to have a supply of vegetables and fruits to rely on for food. But we soon discovered from Polynesia’s scouting reports, that other wooded sections lay ahead of us. To these we sent Chee-Chee, the expert, to investigate. And when he returned and told us that they contained even a better diet than those further back, we had no hesitation in leaving our old haunts and venturing still further into the mysteries of the Moon’s Further Side.

The Doctor’s progress with the language of the trees and plants seemed to improve with our penetration into the interior. Many times we stopped and pitched camp for four or five days, while he set up some new apparatus and struggled with fresh problems in plant language. It seemed to grow easier and easier for him all the time. Certainly the plant life became more elaborate and lively. By this we were all grown more accustomed to strange things in the Vegetable Kingdom. And even to my unscientific eyes it was quite evident that here the flowers and bushes were communicating with one another with great freedom and in many different ways.

I shall never forget our first meeting with the Vanity Lilies, as the Doctor later came to call them. Great gaudy blooms they were, on long slender stems that swayed and moved in groups like people whispering and gossiping at a party. When we came in sight of them for the first time, they were more or less motionless. But as we approached, the movement among them increased as though they were disturbed by, or interested in, our coming.

I think they were beyond all question the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. The wind, regular as ever, had not changed. But the heads of these great masses of plants got so agitated as we drew near, that the Doctor decided he would halt the expedition and investigate,

We pitched camp as we called it – a very simple business in the Moon, because we did not have to raise tents or build a fire. It was really only a matter of unpacking, getting out the food to eat and the bedding to sleep in.

We were pretty weary after a full day’s march. Beyond the lily beds (which lay in a sort of marsh) we could see a new jungle district with more strange trees and flowering creepers.

After a short and silent supper, we lay down and pulled the covers over us. The music of the forest grew louder as darkness increased. It seemed almost as though the whole vegetable world was remarking on these visitors who had invaded their home.

And then above the music of the woods we’d hear the drone of flying, while we dropped off to sleep. Some of the giant insects were hovering near, as usual, to keep an eye on these creatures from another world.

I think that of all our experiences with the plant life of the Moon, that with the Vanity Lilies was perhaps the most peculiar and the most thrilling. In about two days the Doctor had made extraordinary strides in his study of this language. That, he explained to me, was due more to the unusual intelligence of this species and its willingness to help than to his own efforts. But of course if he had not already done considerable work with the trees and bushes it is doubtful if the lilies could have got in touch with him as quickly as they did.

By the end of the third day Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I were all astonished to find that John Dolittle was actually able to carry on conversation with these flowers. And this with the aid of very little apparatus. He had now discovered that the Vanity Lilies spoke among themselves largely by the movement of their blossoms. They used different means of communication with species of plants and trees other than their own – and also (we heard later) in talking with birds and insects; but among themselves the swaying of the flower-heads was the common method of speech.

The lilies, when seen in great banks, presented a very gorgeous and wonderful appearance. The flowers would be, I should judge, about eighteen inches across, trumpet-shaped and brilliantly coloured. The background was a soft cream tone and on this great blotches of violet and orange were grouped around a jet-black tongue in the centre. The leaves were a deep olive green.

But it was that extraordinary look of alive intelligence that was the most uncanny thing about them. No one, no matter how little he knew of natural history in general or of the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom, could see those wonderful flowers without immediately being arrested by this peculiar character. You felt at once that you were in the presence of people rather than plants; and to talk with them, or to try to, seemed the most natural thing in the world.

I filled up two of those numerous notebooks of the Doctor’s on his conversations with the Vanity Lilies. Often he came back to these flowers later, when he wanted further information about the Moon’s Vegetable Kingdom. For as he explained to us, it was in this species that Plant Life – so far at all events as it was known on either the Moon or the Earth – had reached its highest point of development.

• • • • •

•   13   •

The Flower
of Many Scents

Another peculiar thing that baffled us completely, when we first came into the marshy regions of the Vanity Lily’s home, was the variety of scents which assailed our noses. For a mile or so around the locality there was no other flower visible; the whole of the marsh seemed to have been taken up by the lilies and nothing else intruded on their domain. Yet at least half a dozen perfumes were distinct and clear. At first we thought that perhaps the wind might be bringing us scents from other plants either in the jungle or the flowering heath lands. But the direction of the breeze was such that it could only come over the sandy desert areas and was not likely to bring perfumes as strong as this.

It was the Doctor who first hit upon the idea that possibly the lily could give off more than one scent at will. He set to work to find out right away. And it took no more than a couple of minutes to convince him that it could. He said he was sorry he had not got Jip with him. Jip’s expert sense of smell would have been very useful here. But for ordinary purposes it required nothing more delicate than an average human’s nose to tell that this flower, when John Dolittle had communicated the idea to it, was clearly able to give out at least half a dozen different smells as it wished.

The majority of these perfumes were extremely agreeable. But there were one or two that nearly knocked you down. It was only after the Doctor had asked the lilies about this gift of theirs that they sent forth obnoxious ones in demonstrating all the scents that they could give out. Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample. It was like some deadly gas. It got into your eyes and made them run. The Doctor and I only escaped suffocation by flight – carrying the body of the unconscious monkey along with us.

The Vanity Lilies, seeing what distress they had caused, immediately threw out the most soothing lovely scent I have ever smelled. Clearly they were anxious to please us and cultivate our acquaintance. Indeed it turned out later from their conversation with the Doctor (which I took down word for word) that in spite of being a stationary part of the Moon’s landscape, they had heard of John Dolittle, the great naturalist, and had been watching for his arrival many days. They were in fact the first creatures in our experience of the Moon that made us feel we were among friends.

I think I could not do better, in trying to give you an idea of the Doctor’s communication with the Vegetable Kingdom of the Moon, than to set down from my diary, word for word, some parts of the conversation between him and the Vanity Lilies as he translated them to me for dictation at the time. Even so, there are many I am sure who will doubt the truth of the whole idea: that a man could talk with the flowers. But with them I am not so concerned. Anyone who had followed John Dolittle through the various stages of animal, fish, and insect languages would not, I feel certain, find it very strange, when the great man did at last come in touch with plant life of unusual intelligence, that he should be able to converse with it.

On looking over my diary of those eventful days the scene of that occasion comes up visibly before my eyes. It was about an hour before dusk – that is the slight dimming of the pale daylight which proceeded a half darkness, the nearest thing to real night we ever saw on the Moon. The Doctor, as we left the camp, called back over his shoulder to me to bring an extra notebook along as he expected to make a good deal of progress tonight. I armed myself therefore with three extra books and followed him out.

Halting about twenty paces in front of the lily beds (we had camped back several hundred yards from them after they had nearly suffocated Chee-Chee) the Doctor squatted on the ground and began swaying his head from side to side. Immediately the lilies began moving their heads in answer, swinging, nodding, waving, and dipping.

“Are you ready, Stubbins?” asked John Dolittle.

“Yes, Doctor,” said I, making sure my pencil point would last a while.

“Good,” said he. “Put it down”:

The Doctor—“Do you like this stationary life – I mean, living in the same place all the time, unable to move?”

The Lilies—(Several of them seemed to answer in chorus) – “Why, yes – of course. Being stationary doesn’t bother us. We hear about all that is going on.”

The Doctor—“From whom, what, do you hear it?”

The Lilies—“Well, the other plants, the bees, the birds, bring us news of what is happening.”

The Doctor-“Oh, do you communicate with the bees and the birds?”

The Lilies-“Why, certainly, of course!”

The Doctor—“Yet the bees and the birds are races different from your own.”

The Lilies—“Quite true, but the bees come to us for honey. And the birds come to sit among our leaves – especially the warblers – and they sing and talk and tell us of what is happening in the world. What more would you want?”

The Doctor-“Oh, quite so, quite so. I didn’t mean you should be discontented. But don’t you ever want to move, to travel?”

The Lilies—“Good gracious, no! What’s the use of all this running about? After all, there’s no place like home – provided it’s a good one. It’s a pleasant life we lead – and very safe. The folks who rush around are always having accidents, breaking legs and so forth. Those troubles can’t happen to us. We sit still and watch the world go by. We chat sometimes among ourselves and then there is always the gossip of the birds and the bees to entertain us.”

The Doctor—“And you really understand the language of the birds and bees! – You astonish me.”

The Lilies—“Oh, perfectly – and of the beetles and moths too.”

It was at about this point in our first recorded conversation that we made the astonishing discovery that the Vanity Lilies could see. The light, as I have told you, was always somewhat dim on the Moon. The Doctor, while he was talking, suddenly decided he would like a smoke. He asked the lilies if they objected to the fumes of tobacco. They said they did not know because they had never had any experience of it. So the Doctor said he would light his pipe and if they did not like it he would stop.

So taking a box of matches from his pocket he struck a light. We had not fully realized before how soft and gentle was the light of the Moon until that match flared up. It is true that in testing our woods for smoke fuel, we had made much larger blazes. But then, I suppose we had been more intent on the results of our experiments than on anything else. Now, as we noticed the lilies suddenly draw back their heads and turn aside from the flare, we saw that the extra illumination of a mere match had made a big difference to the ordinary daylight they were accustomed to.

• • • • •

•   14   •

Mirrors for Flowers

When the Doctor noticed how the lilies shrank away from the glow of the matches he became greatly interested in this curious unexpected effect that the extra light had had on them.

“Why, Stubbins,” he whispered, “they could not have felt the heat. We were too far away. If it is the glare that made them draw back it must be that they have some organs so sensitive to light that quite possibly they can see! I must find out about this.”

Thereupon he began questioning the lilies again to discover how much they could tell him of their sense of vision. He shot his hand out and asked them if they knew what movement he had made. Every time (though they had no idea of what he was trying to find out) they told him precisely what he had done. Then going close to one large flower he passed his hand all round it; and the blossom turned its head and faced the moving hand all the way round the circle.

There was no doubt in our minds whatever, when we had finished our experiments, that the Vanity Lilies could, in their own way, see – though where the machinery called eyes was placed in their anatomy we could not as yet discover.

The Doctor spent hours and days trying to solve this problem. But, he told me, he met with very little success. For a while he was forced to the conclusion (since he could not find in the flowers any eyes such as we knew) that what he had taken for a sense of vision was only some other sense, highly developed, which produced the same results as seeing.

“After all, Stubbins,” said he, “just because we ourselves only have five senses, it doesn’t follow that other creatures can’t have more. It has long been supposed that certain birds had a sixth sense. Still, the way those flowers feel light, can tell colours, movement, and form, makes it look very much as though they had found a way of seeing – even if they haven’t got eyes…. Humph! Yes, one might quite possibly see with other things besides eyes.”

Going through his baggage that night after our day’s work was done, the Doctor discovered among his papers an illustrated catalogue which had somehow got packed by accident. John Dolittle, always a devoted gardener, had catalogues sent to him from nearly every seed merchant and nurseryman in England.

“Why, Stubbins!” he cried, turning over the pages of gorgeous annuals in high glee – “Here’s a chance; if those lilies can see we can test them with this. – Pictures of flowers in colour!”

The next day he interviewed the Vanity Lilies with the catalogue and his work was rewarded with very good results. Taking the brightly coloured pictures of petunias, chrysanthemums and hollyhocks, he held them in a good light before the faces of the lilies. Even Chee-Chee and I could see at once that this caused quite a sensation. The great trumpet-shaped blossoms swayed downwards and forwards on their slender stems to get a closer view of the pages. Then they turned to one another as though in critical conversation.

Later the Doctor interpreted to me the comments they had made and I booked them among the notes. They seemed most curious to know who these flowers were. They spoke of them (or rather of their species) in a peculiarly personal way. This was one of the first occasions when we got some idea or glimpses of lunar Vegetable Society, as the Doctor later came to call it. It almost seemed as though these beautiful creatures were surprised, like human ladies, at the portraits displayed and wanted to know all about these foreign beauties and the lives they led.

This interest in personal appearance on the part of the lilies was, as a matter of fact, what originally led the Doctor to call their species the Vanity Lily. In their own strange tongue they questioned him for hours and hours about these outlandish flowers whose pictures he had shown them. They seemed very disappointed when he told them the actual size of most earthly flowers. But they seemed a little pleased that their sisters of the other world could not at least compete with them in that. They were also much mystified when John Dolittle explained to them that with us no flowers or plants (so far as was known) had communicated with Man, birds, or any other members of the Animal Kingdom.

Questioning them further on this point of personal appearance, the Doctor was quite astonished to find to what an extent it occupied their attention. He found that they always tried to get nearer water so that they could see their own reflections in the surface. They got terribly upset if some bee or bird came along and disturbed the pollen powder on their gorgeous petals or set awry the angle of their pistils.

The Doctor talked to various groups and individuals; and in the course of his investigations he came across several plants who, while they had begun their peaceful lives close to a nice pool or stream which they could use as a mirror, had sadly watched while the water had dried up and left nothing but sun-baked clay for them to look into.

So then and there John Dolittle halted his questioning of the Vanity Lilies for a spell while he set to work to provide these unfortunates, whose natural mirrors had dried up, with something in which they could see themselves.

We had no regular looking-glasses of course, beyond the Doctor’s own shaving mirror, which he could not very well part with. But from the provisions we dug out various caps and bottoms of preserved fruits and sardine tins. These we polished with clay and rigged up on sticks so that the lilies could see themselves in them.

“It is a fact, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “that the natural tendency is always to grow the way you want to grow. These flowers have a definite conscious idea of what they consider beautiful and what they consider ugly. These contrivances we have given them, poor though they are, will therefore have a decided effect on their evolution.”

That is one of the pictures from our adventures in the Moon which always stands out in my memory: the Vanity Lilies, happy in the possession of their new mirrors, turning their heads this way and that to see how their pollen-covered petals glowed in the soft light, swaying with the wind, comparing, whispering and gossiping.

I truly believe that if other events had not interfered, the Doctor would have been occupied quite contentedly with his study of these very advanced plants for months. And there was certainly a great deal to be learned from them. They told him for instance of another species of lily that he later came to call the Poison Lily or Vampire Lily. This flower liked to have plenty of room and it obtained it by sending out deadly scents (much more serious in their effects than those unpleasant ones which the Vanities used) and nothing round about it could exist for long.

Following the directions given by the Vanity Lilies we finally ran some of these plants down and actually conversed with them – though we were in continual fear that they would be displeased with us and might any moment send out their poisonous gases to destroy us.

From still other plants which the Vanities directed us to the Doctor learned a great deal about what he called “methods of propagating.” Certain bushes, for example, could crowd out weeds and other shrubs by increasing the speed of their growth at will and by spreading their seed abroad several times a year.

In our wanderings, looking for these latter plants, we came across great fields of the “moon bells” flourishing and growing under natural conditions. And very gorgeous indeed they looked, acres and acres of brilliant orange. The air was full of their invigorating perfume. The Doctor wondered if we would see anything of our giant moth near these parts. But though we hung about for several hours we saw very few signs of insect life.

• • • • •

•   15   •

Making New Clothes

“I don’t understand it at all,” John Dolittle muttered. “What reason at least can the moth who brought us here have for keeping out of our way?”

“His reasons may not be his own,” murmured Polynesia.

“What do you mean?” asked the Doctor.

“Well,” said she, “others may be keeping him – and the rest, away from us.”

“You mean the Moon Man?” said John Dolittle.

But to this Polynesia made no reply and the subject was dropped.

“That isn’t the thing that’s bothering me so much,” said Chee-Chee.

There was a pause. And before he went on I know that all of us were quite sure what was in his mind.

“It’s our getting back home,” he said at last. “Getting here was done for us by these moon folks – for whatever reason they had. But we’d stand a mighty poor chance of ever reaching the Earth again if they’re going to stand off and leave us to ourselves to get back.”

Another short spell of silence – during which we all did a little serious and gloomy thinking.

“Oh, well,” said the Doctor, “come, come! Don’t let’s bother about the stiles till we reach them. After all we don’t know for certain that these – er – whoever it is – are definitely unfriendly to us. They may have reasons of their own for working slowly. You must remember that we are just as strange and outlandish to them as they and their whole world are to us. We mustn’t let any idea of that kind become a nightmare. We have only been here, let’s see, not much over two weeks. It is a pleasant land and there is lots to be learned. The Vegetable Kingdom is clearly well disposed towards us. And if we give them time I’m sure that the – er – others will be too, in the end.”

Another matter which came up about this time was the effect of moon food on ourselves. Polynesia was the first to remark upon it.

“Tommy,” said she one day, “you seem to be getting enormously tall – and fat, aren’t you?”

“Er – am I?” said I. “Well, I had noticed my belt seemed a bit tight. But I thought it was just ordinary growing.”

“And the Doctor too,” the parrot went on. “I’ll swear he’s bigger – unless my eyesight is getting queer.”

“Well, we can soon prove that,” said John Dolittle. “I know my height exactly – five feet two and a half. I have a two-foot rule in the baggage. I’ll measure myself against a tree right away.”

When the Doctor had accomplished this he was astonished to find that his height had increased some three inches since he had been on the Moon. Of what my own had been before I landed, I was not so sure; but measurement made it too a good deal more than I had thought it. And as to my waist line, there was no doubt that it had grown enormously. Even Chee-Chee, when we came to look at him, seemed larger and heavier. Polynesia was of course so small that it would need an enormous increase in her figure to make difference enough to see.

But there was no question at all that the rest of us had grown considerably since we had been here.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “I suppose it is reasonable enough. All the vegetable and insect world here is tremendously much larger than corresponding species in our own world. Whatever helped them to grow – climate, food, atmosphere, air-pressure, etc. – should make us do the same. There is a great deal in this for the investigation of biologists and physiologists. I suppose the long seasons – or almost no seasons at all, you might say – and the other things which contribute to the long life of the animal and vegetable species would lengthen our lives to hundreds of years, if we lived here continually. You know when I was talking to the Vampire Lilies the other day they told me that even cut flowers – which with them would mean of course only blossoms that were broken off by the wind or accident – live perfectly fresh for weeks and even months – provided they get a little moisture. That accounts for the moon bells which the moth brought down with him lasting so well in Puddleby. No, we’ve got to regard this climate as something entirely different from the Earth’s. There is no end to the surprises it may spring on us yet. Oh, well, I suppose we will shrink back to our ordinary size when we return home. Still I hope we don’t grow too gigantic. My waistcoat feels most uncomfortably tight already. It’s funny we didn’t notice it earlier. But, goodness knows, we have had enough to keep our attention occupied.”

It had been indeed this absorbing interest in all the new things that the Moon presented to our eyes that had prevented us from noticing our own changed condition. The following few days, however, our growth went forward at such an amazing pace that I began seriously to worry about it. My clothes were literally splitting and the Doctor’s also. Finally, taking counsel on the matter, we proceeded to look into what means this world offered of making new ones.

Luckily the Doctor, while he knew nothing about tailoring, did know something about the natural history of those plants and materials that supply clothes and textile fabrics for Man.

“Let me see,” said he one afternoon when we had decided that almost everything we wore had become too small to be kept any longer: “Cotton is out of the question. The spinning would take too long, even if we had any, to say nothing of the weaving. Linen? No, likewise. – I haven’t seen anything that looked like a flax plant. About all that remains is root fibre, though heaven help us if we have to wear that kind of material next our skins! Well, we must investigate and see what we can find.”

With the aid of Chee-Chee we searched the woods. It took us several days to discover anything suitable, but finally we did. It was an odd-looking swamp tree whose leaves were wide and soft. We found that when these were dried in the proper way they kept a certain pliability without becoming stiff or brittle. And yet they were tough enough to be sewn without tearing. Chee-Chee and Polynesia supplied us with the thread we needed. This they obtained from certain vine tendrils – very fine – which they shredded and twisted into yarn. Then one evening we set to work and cut out our new suits.

“Better make them large enough,” said the Doctor, waving a pair of scissors over our rock work-table, “Goodness only knows how soon we’ll outgrow them.”

We had a lot of fun at one another’s expense when at length the suits were completed and we tried them on.

“We look like a family of Robinson Crusoes,” said John Dolittle. “No matter: they will serve our purpose. Any port in a storm.”

For underwear we cut up all we had and made one garment out of two or three. We were afraid as yet to try our new tailoring next the skin. Luckily we only had to provide for a very mild climate.

“Now what about footwear?” said I when I had my coat and trousers on. “My shoes are all split across the top.”

“That part is easy,” said Chee-Chee. “I know a tree in the jungle which I found when hunting for fruits. The bark strips off easily and you can cut it into sandals that will last quite a while. The only hard part will be plaiting thongs strong enough to keep them in place on your feet.”

He guided us to the tree he had spoken of and we soon had outfitted ourselves with footgear which would last us at least a week.

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Now we need not worry about clothes for a while anyway, and can give our attention to more serious matters.”

• • • • •

•   16   •

Monkey Memories
of the Moon

It was when we were on our way to visit still another new kind of plant that the subject of the Moon’s early history came up again in conversation. The Doctor had heard of a “whispering vine” which used, as a method of conversation, the rattling or whispering of its leaves.

“Do you remember, Chee-Chee,” the Doctor asked, “if your grandmother ever spoke, in her stories of very ancient times, of any peculiar or extraordinary plants or trees?”

“I don’t think so, Doctor,” he replied. “My grandmother in her talks of the Time Before There Was a Moon kept pretty much to animals and people. She hardly ever mentioned the trees or vegetable world, except to say of this country or that, that it was heavily wooded, or bare and desert. Why?”

“Well, of course in my mind there is no doubt that the Moon was once a part of the Earth, as many scientists believe. And if so I am wondering why we do not see more plants and trees of our own home kinds here.”

“Well, but we have, Doctor,” said Polynesia. “How about the Asparagus Forests?”

“Quite so,” said the Doctor. “There have been many that reminded one of earthly species in their shapes, even if they have grown into giants here. But this speech among plants and trees – and other evidences of social advance and development in the Vegetable Kingdom – is something so established and accepted here I am all the time wondering if something like it had not started on the Earth long ago – say in the Days Before There Was a Moon. And it was merely because our naturalists were not quick enough to – er – catch on to it, that we supposed there was no means of communication among flowers and trees.”

“Let me think,” said Chee-Chee, and he held his forehead tightly with both hands.

“No,” he said after a while, “I don’t recall my grandmother’s speaking of things like that at all. I remember in her story of Otho Bludge, the prehistoric artist, that she told us about certain woods he used to make handles for his flint chisels and other tools and household implements. She described the wood, for instance, that he used to make bowls out of for carrying water in. But she never spoke of trees and plants that could talk.”

It was about midday and we had halted for lunch on our excursion in search of the Whispering Vines we had been told of. We were not more than two or three hours’ walk from our old base camp. But that, with the speed so easy in moon marching, means a much greater distance than it does on the Earth. From this camp where the Doctor had set up his apparatus for his special botanical studies, we had now for nearly a week been making daily expeditions in search of the various new species that the Vanity Lilies had described for us. But we always got back before nightfall.

Well, this noon the Doctor was leaning back, munching a large piece of yellow yam – a vegetable we got from the edges of the jungle and which we had found so nourishing we had made it almost our chief article of diet.

“Tell me, Chee-Chee,” said he: “what was the end of that story about Otho Bludge the prehistoric artist? It was a most fascinating tale.”

“Well, I think I have told you,” said Chee-Chee, “pretty nearly all there was to tell. In the Days Before There Was a Moon, as Grandmother always began, Otho Bludge was a man alone, a man apart. Making pictures on horn and bone with a stone knife, that was his hobby. His great ambition was to make a picture of Man. But there was no one to draw from, for Otho Bludge was a man alone. One day, when he wished aloud for someone to make a picture from, he saw this beautiful girl – Pippiteepa was her name – kneeling on a rock waiting for him to make a portrait of her. He made it – the best work he ever did, carved into the flat of a reindeer’s antler. About her right ankle she wore a string of blue stone beads. When the picture was finished she started to disappear again into the mountains’ evening mist, as mysteriously as she had come. Otho called to her to stay. She was the only human being he had ever seen besides his own image in the pools. He wanted her company, poor Otho Bludge, the carver of horn, the man apart. But even as she passed into the twilight forever she cried out to him that she could not stay – for she was of the Fairy Folk and not of his kin. He rushed to the rock where she had knelt; but all he found was the string of blue stone beads which she had worn about her ankle. Otho, broken-hearted, took them and bound them on his own wrist where he wore them night and day, hoping always that she would come back.

“There is nothing more. We youngsters used to pester my grandmother for a continuance of the tale. It seemed so sad, so unsatisfying, an ending. But the old lady insisted that that was the end. Not long after apparently Otho Bludge, the carver of horn and the man apart, just disappeared, completely, as though the Earth had swallowed him up.”

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor. “Have you any idea when?”

“No,” said the monkey. “You see, even my grandmother’s ideas of time and place in these stories she told us were very hazy. She had only had them handed down to her by her parents and grandparents, just as she passed them on to us. But I am pretty sure it was around the time of the Great Flood. Grandmother used to divide her stories into two periods: those belonging to the Days Before There Was a Moon and those that happened after. The name of Otho Bludge the artist only came into those before.”

“I see,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “But tell me: can you recall anything your grandmother said about the time of the change – I mean, when the one period left off and the other began?”

“Not a very great deal,” said Chee-Chee. “It was the same when we questioned her about the Flood. That that event had taken place, there was no doubt; but, except for a few details, very little seemed to have been handed down as to how it came about, or of what was going on on the Earth at the time, or immediately after it. I imagine they were both great catastrophes – perhaps both came together – and such confusion fell upon all creatures that they were far too busy to take notes, and too scattered afterwards to keep a very clear picture in their minds. But I do remember that my grandmother said the first night when the Moon appeared in the sky some of our monkey ancestors saw a group of men kneeling on a mountain-top worshipping it. They had always been sun-worshippers and were now offering up prayers to the Moon also, saying it must be the Sun’s Wife,”

“But,” asked the Doctor, “did not Man know that the Moon must have flown off from the Earth?”

“That is not very clear,” said Chee-Chee. “We often questioned my grandmother on this point. But there were certainly some awful big gaps in her information. It was like a history put together from odd bits that had been seen from different sides of the Earth and filled in by gossip and hearsay generations after.

“It seems that to begin with the confusion was terrible. Darkness covered the Earth, the noise of a terrible explosion followed and there was great loss of life. Then the sea rushed into the hole that had been made, causing more havoc and destruction still. Man and beast slunk into caves for shelter or ran wild across the mountains, or just lay down and covered their eyes to shut out the dreadful vision. From what Monkey History has to relate, none lived who had actually seen the thing take place. But that I have always doubted. And much later there was a regular war among mankind when human society had pulled itself together again sufficiently to get back to something like the old order.”

“What was the war about?” asked the Doctor.

“Well, by that time,” said Chee-Chee, “Man had multiplied considerably and there were big cities everywhere. The war was over the question: Was the Moon a goddess, or was she not? The old sun-worshippers said she was the wife or daughter of the Sun and was therefore entitled to adoration. Those who said the Moon had flown off from the flanks of the Earth had given up worshipping the Sun. They held that if the Earth had the power to shoot off another world like that, that it should be adored, as the Mother Earth from which we got everything, and not the Sun. They said it showed the Earth was the centre of all things, since the Sun had never shot off children. Then there were others who said that the Sun and the new Earth should be adored as gods – and yet others that wanted all three, Sun and Earth and Moon, to form a great triangle of Almighty Power. The war was a terrible one, men killing one another in thousands – greatly to the astonishment of the Monkey People. For to us it did not seem that any of the various parties really knew anything for certain about the whole business.”

“Dear, dear,” the Doctor muttered as Chee-Chee ended. “The first religious strife-the first of so many. What a pity! – Just as though it mattered to anyone what his neighbour believed so long as he himself led a sincere and useful life and was happy!”

• • • • •

•   17   •

We Hear of
“The Council”

This expedition on the trail of the Whispering Vines proved to be one of the most fruitful and satisfactory of all our excursions.

When we finally arrived at the home of this species, we found it a very beautiful place. It was a rocky gulch hard by the jungle, where a dense curtain of creepers hung down into a sort of pocket precipice with a spring-fed pool at the bottom. In such a place you could imagine fairies dancing in the dusk, wild beasts of the forest sheltering, or outlaws making their headquarters.

With a squawk Polynesia flew up and settled in the hanging tendrils that draped the rock wall. Instantly we saw a general wave of movement go through the vines and a whispering noise broke out which could be plainly heard by any ears. Evidently the vines were somewhat disturbed at this invasion by a bird they did not know. Polynesia, a little upset herself, flew back to us at once.

“Shiver my timbers!” said she in a disgruntled mutter. “This country would give a body the creeps. Those vines actually moved and squirmed like snakes when I took a hold of them.”

“They are not used to you, Polynesia,” laughed the Doctor. “You probably scared them to death. Let us see if we can get into conversation with them.”

Here the Doctor’s experience with the Singing Trees came in very helpfully. I noticed as I watched him go to work with what small apparatus he had brought with him that he now seemed much surer of how to begin. And it was indeed a surprisingly short time before he was actually in conversation with them, as though he had almost been talking with them all his life.

Presently he turned to me and spoke almost the thought that was in my mind.

“Stubbins,” he said, “the ease with which these plants answer me would almost make me think they have spoken with a man before! Look, I can actually make responses with the lips, like ordinary human speech.”

He dropped the little contrivance he held in his hands and hissing softly through his teeth he gave out a sort of whispered cadence. It was a curious combination between someone humming a tune and hissing a conversational sentence.

Usually it had taken John Dolittle some hours, occasionally some days, to establish a communication with these strange almost-human moon trees good enough to exchange ideas with them. But both Chee-Chee and I grunted with astonishment at the way they instantly responded to his whispered speech. Swinging their leafy tendrils around to meet the breeze at a certain angle, they instantly gave back a humming, hissing message that might have been a repetition of that made by the Doctor himself.

“They say they are glad to see us, Stubbins,” he jerked out over his shoulder.

“Why, Doctor,” I said, “this is marvellous! You got results right away. I never saw anything like it.”

“They have spoken with a man before,” he repeated. “Not a doubt of it. I can tell by the way they – Good gracious, what’s this?”

He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I have never seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered and jibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chattering teeth.

“Why, Chee-Chee!” said the Doctor. “What is it? – What’s wrong?”

“Look!” – was all he finally managed to gulp.

He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of the cliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vines for convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visible in the yellow sand of the pool’s beach two enormous footprints such as we had seen by the shores of the lake.

“The Moon Man!” the Doctor whispered. “Well, I was sure of it – that these vines had spoken with a man before. I wonder—”

“Sh!” Polynesia interrupted. “Don’t let them see you looking. But when you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of the gulch.”

Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with our business of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratching my ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There I saw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among the leaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.

As we turned back to our work an enormous shadow passed over us, shutting off the light of the sun. We looked up, fearing as anyone would, some attack or danger from the air. Slowly a giant moth of the same kind that had brought us to this mysterious world sailed across the heavens and disappeared.

A general silence fell over us all that must have lasted a good three minutes.

“Well,” said the Doctor at length, “if this means that the Animal Kingdom has decided finally to make our acquaintance, so much the better. Those are the first birds we have seen – and that was the first insect – since our moth left us. Curious, to find the bird life so much smaller than the insect. However, I suppose they will let us know more when they are ready. Meantime we have plenty to do here. Have you a notebook, Stubbins?”

“Yes, Doctor,” said I. “I’m quite prepared whenever you are.”

Thereupon the Doctor proceeded with his conversation with the Whispering Vines and fired off questions and answers so fast that I was kept more than busy booking what he said.

It was indeed, as I have told you, by far the most satisfactory inquiry we had made into the life of the Moon, animal or vegetable, up to that time. Because while these vines had not the almost human appearance of the Vanity Lilies, they did seem to be in far closer touch with the general life of the Moon. The Doctor asked them about this warfare which we had heard of from the last plants we had visited – the struggle that occurred when one species of plant wished for more room and had to push away its intruding neighbours. And it was then for the first time we heard about the Council.

“Oh,” said they, “you mustn’t get the idea that one species of plant is allowed to make war for its own benefit regardless of the lives or rights of others. Oh, dear, no! We folk of the Moon have long since got past that. There was a day when we had constant strife, species against species, plants against plants, birds against insects, and so on. But not any more.”

“Well, how do you manage?” asked the Doctor, “when two different species want the same thing?”

“It’s all arranged by the Council,” said the vines.

“Er – excuse me,” said the Doctor. “I don’t quite understand. What council?”

“Well, you see,” said the vines, “some hundreds of years ago – that is, of course, well within the memory of most of us, we—”

“Excuse me again,” the Doctor interrupted. “Do you mean that most of the plants and insects and birds here have been living several centuries already?”

“Why, certainly,” said the Whispering Vines. “Some, of course, are older than others. But here on the Moon we consider a plant or a bird or a moth quite young if he has seen no more than two hundred years. And there are several trees, and a few members of the Animal Kingdom too, whose memories go back to over a thousand years.”

“You don’t say!” murmured the Doctor. “I realized, of course, that your lives were much longer than ours on the Earth. But I had no idea you went as far back as that. Goodness me! – Well, please go on.”

“In the old days, then, before we instituted the Council,” the vines continued, “there was a terrible lot of waste and slaughter. They tell of one time when a species of big lizard overran the whole Moon. They grew so enormous that they ate up almost all the green stuff there was. No tree or bush or plant got a chance to bring itself to seeding-time because as soon as it put out a leaf it was gobbled up by those hungry brutes. Then the rest of us got together to see what we could do.”

“Er – pardon,” said the Doctor. “But how do you mean, got together? You plants could not move, could you?”

“Oh, no,” said the vines. “We couldn’t move, But we could communicate with the rest – take part in conferences, as it were, by means of messengers – birds and insects, you know.”

“How long ago was that?” asked the Doctor. “I mean, for how long has the animal and vegetable world here been able to communicate with one another?”

“Precisely,” said the vines, “we can’t tell you. Of course, some sort of communication goes back a perfectly enormous long way, some hundreds of thousands of years. But it was not always as good as it is now. It has been improving all the time. Nowadays it would be impossible for anything of any importance at all to happen in our corner of the Moon without its being passed along through plants and trees and insects and birds to every other corner of our globe within a few moments. For instance, we have known almost every movement you and your party have made since you landed in our world.”

“Dear me!” muttered the Doctor. “I had no idea. However, please proceed.”

“Of course,” they went on, “it was not always so. But after the institution of the Council communication and cooperation became much better and continued to grow until it reached its present stage.”

• • • • •

•   18   •

The President

The Whispering Vines then went on to tell the Doctor in greater detail of that institution which they had vaguely spoken of already, “The Council.” This was apparently a committee or general government made up of members from both the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. Its main purpose was to regulate life on the Moon in such a way that there should be no more warfare. For example, if a certain kind of shrub wanted more room for expansion, and the territory it wished to take over was already occupied by, we’ll say, bulrushes, it was not allowed to thrust out its neighbour without first submitting the case to the Council. Or if a certain kind of butterfly wished to feed upon the honey of some flower and was interfered with by a species of bee or beetle, again the argument had to be put to the vote of this all-powerful committee before any action could be taken.

This information explained a great deal which had heretofore puzzled us.

“You see, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “the great size of almost all life here, the development of intelligence in plant forms, and much more besides, could not possibly have come about if this regulation had not been in force. Our world could learn a lot from the Moon, Stubbins – the Moon, its own child whom it presumes to despise! We have no balancing or real protection of life. With us it is, and has always been, ‘dog eat dog.’”

The Doctor shook his head and gazed off into space to where the globe of our mother Earth glowed dimly. Just so had I often seen the Moon from Puddleby by daylight.

“Yes,” he repeated, his manner becoming of a sudden deeply serious, “our world that thinks itself so far advanced has not the wisdom, the foresight, Stubbins, which we have seen here. Fighting, fighting, fighting, always fighting! – So it goes on down there with us…. The ‘survival of the fittest’! … I’ve spent my whole life trying to help the animal, the so-called lower, forms of life. I don’t mean I am complaining. Far from it. I’ve had a very good time getting in touch with the beasts and winning their friendship. If I had my life over again I’d do just the same thing. But often, so often, I have felt that in the end it was bound to be a losing game. It is this thing here, this Council of Life – of life adjustment – that could have saved the day and brought happiness to all.”

“Yes, Doctor,” said I, “but listen: compared with our world, they have no animal life here at all, so far as we’ve seen. Only insets and birds. They’ve no lions or tigers who have to hunt for deer and wild goats to get a living, have they?”

“True, Stubbins – probably true,” said he. “But don’t forget that that same warfare of species against species goes on in the Insect Kingdom as well as among the larger carnivora. In another million years from now some scientist may show that the war going on between Man and the House Fly today is the most important thing in current history. – And besides, who shall say what kind of a creature the tiger was before he took to a diet of meat?”

John Dolittle then turned back to the vines and asked some further questions. These were mostly about the Council; how it worked; of what it was composed; how often it met, etc. And the answers that they gave filled out a picture which we had already half guessed and half seen of Life on the Moon.

When I come to describe it I find myself wishing that I were a great poet, or at all events a great writer. For this moon-world was indeed a land of wondrous rest. Trees that sang; flowers that could see; butterflies and bees that conversed with one another and with the plants on which they fed, watched over by a parent council that guarded the interests of great and small, strong and weak, alike – the whole community presented a world of peace, goodwill and happiness which no words of mine could convey a fair idea of.

“One thing I don’t quite understand,” said the Doctor to the vines, “is how you manage about seeding. Don’t some of the plants throw down too much seed and bring forth a larger crop than is desirable?”

“That,” said the Whispering Vines, “is taken care of by the birds. They have orders to eat up all the seed except a certain quantity for each species of plant.”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “I hope I have not upset things for the Council. I did a little experimental planting myself when I first arrived here. I had brought several kinds of seed with me from the Earth and I wanted to see how they would do in this climate. So far, however, the seeds have not come up at all.”

The vines swayed slightly with a rustling sound that might easily have been a titter of amusement.

“You have forgotten, Doctor,” said they, “that news travels fast in the Moon. Your gardening experiments were seen and immediately reported to the Council. And after you had gone back to your camp every single seed that you had planted was carefully dug up by long-billed birds and destroyed. The Council is awfully particular about seeds. It has to be. If we got overrun by any plant, weed or shrub, all of our peaceful balance would be upset and goodness knows what might happen. Why, the President—”

The particular vines which were doing the talking were three large ones that hung close by the Doctor’s shoulder. In a very sudden and curious manner they had broken off in the middle of what they were saying like a person who had let something slip out in conversation which had been better left unsaid. Instantly a tremendous excitement was visible throughout all the creepers that hung around the gulch. You never saw such swaying, writhing, twisting and agitation. With squawks of alarm a number of brightly coloured birds fluttered out of the curtain of leaves and flew away over the rocky shoulders above our heads.

“What’s the matter? – What has happened, Doctor?” I asked as still more birds left the concealment of the creepers and disappeared in the distance.

“I’ve no idea, Stubbins,” said he. “Someone has said a little too much, I fancy. Tell me,” he asked, turning to the vines again: “Who is the President?”

“The president of the Council,” they replied after a pause.

“Yes, that I understand,” said the Doctor. “But what, who, is he?”

For a little there was no answer, while the excitement and agitation broke out with renewed confusion among the long tendrils that draped the rocky alcove. Evidently some warnings and remarks were being exchanged which we were not to understand.

At last the original vines which had acted as spokesmen in the conversation addressed John Dolittle again.

“We are sorry,” they said, “but we have our orders. Certain things we have been forbidden to tell you.”

“Who forbade you?” asked the Doctor.

But from then on not a single word would they answer. The Doctor made several attempts to get them talking again but without success. Finally we were compelled to give it up and return to camp – which we reached very late.

“I think,” said Polynesia, as the Doctor, Chee-Chee and I set about preparing the vegetarian supper, “that we sort of upset Society in the Moon this afternoon. Gracious, I never saw such a land in my life! – And I’ve seen a few. I suppose that by now every bumblebee and weed on the whole globe is talking about the Whispering Vines and the slip they made in mentioning the President. President! Shiver my timbers! You’d think he were St. Peter himself! What are they making such a mystery about, I’d like to know?”

“We’ll probably learn pretty soon now,” said the Doctor, cutting into a huge melon-like fruit. “I have a feeling that they won’t think it worth while to hold aloof from us much longer – I hope not anyway.”

“Me too,” said Chee-Chee. “Frankly, this secrecy is beginning to get under my skin. I’d like to feel assured that we are going to be given a passage back to Puddleby. For a while, anyway, I’ve had enough of adventure.”

“Oh, well, don’t worry,” said the Doctor. “I still feel convinced that we’ll be taken care of. Whoever it was that got us up here, did so with some good intention. When I have done what it is that’s wanted of me, arrangements will be made for putting us back on the Earth, never fear.”

“Humph!” grunted Polynesia, who was cracking nuts on a limb above our heads. “I hope you’re right. I’m none too sure, myself – No, none too sure.”

• • • • •

•   19   •

The Moon Man

That night was, I think, the most disturbed one that we spent in the whole course of our stay on the Moon. Not one of us slept soundly or continuously. For one thing, our growth had proceeded at an alarming and prodigious rate; and what bedding we had (we slept in that mild climate with the blankets under us instead of over us) had become absurdly short and insufficient for our new figures. Knees and elbows spilled over the sides and got dreadfully sore on the hard earth. But besides that discomfort, we were again conscious throughout the whole night of mysterious noises and presences. Every one of us seemed to be uneasy in his mind. I remember waking up one time and hearing the Doctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia all talking in their sleep at the same time.

Hollow-eyed and unrested we finally, at daybreak, crawled out of our various roosts and turned silently to the business of getting breakfast. That veteran campaigner Polynesia was the first to pull herself together. She came back from examining the ground about the camp with a very serious look on her old face.

“Well,” said she, “if there’s anyone in the Moon who hasn’t been messing round our bunks while we slept I’d like to know who it is.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor. “Anything unusual?”

“Come and see,” said the parrot, and led the way out into the clearing that surrounded our bunks and baggage.

Well, we were accustomed to finding tracks around our home, but this which Polynesia showed us was certainly something quite out of the ordinary. For a belt of a hundred yards or more about our headquarters the earth and sand and mud was a mass of footprints. Strange insect tracks, the marks of enormous birds, and – most evident of all – numberless prints of that gigantic human foot which we had seen before.

“Tut, tut!” said the Doctor peevishly. “They don’t do us any harm anyway. What does it matter if they come and look at us in our sleep? I’m not greatly interested, Polynesia. Let us take breakfast. A few extra tracks don’t make much difference.”

We sat down and started the meal.

But John Dolittle’s prophecy that the Animal Kingdom would not delay much longer in getting in touch with us was surprisingly and suddenly fulfilled. I had a piece of yam smeared with honey half-way to my mouth when I became conscious of an enormous shadow soaring over me. I looked up and there was the giant moth who had brought us from Puddleby; I could hardly believe my eyes. With a graceful sweep of his gigantic wings he settled down beside me – a battleship beside a mouse – as though such exact and accurate landings were no more than a part of the ordinary day’s work.

We had no time to remark on the moth’s arrival before two or three more of the same kind suddenly swept up from nowhere, fanned the dust all over us with their giant wings and settled down beside their brother.

Next, various birds appeared. Some species among these we had already seen in the vines. But there were many we had not: enormous storks, geese, swans and several others. Half of them seemed little bigger than their own kind on the Earth. But others were unbelievably large and were coloured and shaped somewhat differently – though you could nearly always tell to what family they belonged.

Again more than one of us opened his mouth to say something and then closed it as some new and stranger arrival made its appearance and joined the gathering. The bees were the next. I remembered then seeing different kinds on the Earth, though I had never made a study of them. Here they all came trooping, magnified into great terrible-looking monsters out of a dream: the big black bumblebee, the little yellow bumblebee, the common honey bee, the bright green, fast-flying, slender bee. And with them came all their cousins and relatives, though there never seemed to be more than two or three specimens of each kind.

I could see that poor Chee-Chee was simply scared out of his wits. And little wonder! Insects of this size gathering silently about one were surely enough to appal the stoutest heart. Yet to me they were not entirely terrible. Perhaps I was merely taking my cue from the Doctor who was clearly more interested than alarmed. But besides that, the manner of the creatures did not appear unfriendly. Serious and orderly, they seemed to be gathering according to a set plan; and I felt sure that very soon something was going to happen which would explain it all.

And sure enough, a few moments later, when the ground about our camp was literally one solid mass of giant insects and birds, we heard a tread. Usually a footfall in the open air makes little or no sound at all – though it must not be forgotten that we had found that sound of any kind travelled much more readily on the Moon than on the Earth. But this was something quite peculiar. Actually it shook the ground under us in a way that might have meant an earthquake. Yet somehow one knew it was a tread.

Chee-Chee ran to the Doctor and hid under his coat. Polynesia never moved, just sat there on her tree-branch, looking rather peeved and impatient but evidently interested. I followed the direction of her gaze with my own eyes, for I knew that her instinct was always a good guide. I found that she was watching the woods that surrounded the clearing where we had established our camp. Her beady little eyes were fixed immovably on a V-shaped cleft in the horizon of trees away to my left.

It is curious how in those important moments I always seemed to keep an eye on old Polynesia. I don’t mean to say that I did not follow the Doctor and stand ready to take his orders. But whenever anything unusual or puzzling like this came up, especially a case where animals were concerned, it was my impulse to keep an eye on the old parrot to see how she was taking it.

Now I saw her cocking her head on one side – in a quite characteristic pose – looking upward towards the cleft in the forest wall. She was muttering something beneath her breath (probably in Swedish, her favourite swearing language), but I could not make out more than a low peevish murmur. Presently, watching with her, I thought I saw the trees sway. Then something large and round seemed to come in view above them in the cleft.

It was now growing dusk. It had taken, we suddenly realized, a whole day for the creatures to gather; and in our absorbed interest we had not missed our meals. One could not be certain of his vision, I noticed the Doctor suddenly half rise, spilling poor old Chee-Chee out upon the ground. The big round thing above the tree-tops grew bigger and higher; it swayed gently as it came forward and with it the forest swayed also, as grass moves when a cat stalks through it.

Any minute I was expecting the Doctor to say something. The creature approaching, whatever – whoever – it was, must clearly be so monstrous that everything we had met with on the Moon so far would dwindle into insignificance in comparison.

And still old Polynesia sat motionless on her limb muttering and spluttering like a fire-cracker on a damp night.

Very soon we could hear other sounds from the oncoming creature besides his earth-shaking footfall. Giant trees snapped and crackled beneath his tread like twigs under a mortal’s foot. I confess that an ominous terror clutched at my heart too now. I could sympathize with poor Chee-Chee’s timidity. Oddly enough though at this, the most terrifying moment in all our experience on the Moon, the monkey did not try to conceal himself. He was standing beside the Doctor fascinatedly watching the great shadow towering above the trees.

Onward, nearer, came the lumbering figure. Soon there was no mistaking its shape. It had cleared the woods now. The gathered insects and waiting birds were making way for it. Suddenly we realized that it was towering over us, quite near, its long arms hanging at its sides. It was human.

We had seen the Moon Man at last!

“Well, for pity’s sake!” squawked Polynesia, breaking the awed silence. “You may be a frightfully important person here. But my goodness! It has taken you an awfully long time to come and call on us!”

Serious as the occasion was in all conscience, Polynesia’s remarks, continued in an uninterrupted stream of annoyed criticism, finally gave me the giggles. And after I once got started I couldn’t have kept a straight face if I had been promised a fortune.

The dusk had now settled down over the strange assembly. Starlight glowed weirdly in the eyes of the moths and birds that stood about us, like a lamp’s flame reflected in the eyes of a cat. As I made another effort to stifle my silly titters I saw John Dolittle, the size of his figure looking perfectly absurd in comparison with the Moon Man’s, rise to meet the giant who had come to visit us.

“I am glad to meet you – at last,” said he in dignified well-bred English. A curious grunt of incomprehension was all that met his civility.

Then seeing that the Moon Man evidently did not follow his language, John Dolittle set to work to find some tongue that would be understandable to him. I suppose there never was, and probably never will be, anyone who had the command of languages that the Doctor had. One by one he ran through most of the earthly human tongues that are used today or have been preserved from the past. None of them had the slightest effect upon the Moon Man. Turning to animal languages however, the Doctor met with slightly better results. A word here and there seemed to be understood.

But it was when John Dolittle fell back on the languages of the Insect and Vegetable Kingdoms that the Moon Man at last began to wake up and show interest. With fixed gaze Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I watched the two figures as they wrestled with the problems of common speech. Minute after minute went by, hour after hour. Finally the Doctor made a signal to me behind his back and I knew that now he was really ready. I picked up my notebook and pencil from the ground.

As I laid back a page in preparation for dictation there came a strange cry from Chee-Chee.

“Look! – The right wrist! – Look!”

We peered through the twilight…. Yes, there was something around the giant’s wrist, but so tight that it was almost buried in the flesh. The Doctor touched it gently. But before he could say anything Chee-Chee’s voice broke out again, his words cutting the stillness in a curious, hoarse, sharp whisper.

“The blue stone beads! – Don’t you see them?… They don’t fit him any more since he’s grown a giant. But he’s Otho Bludge the artist. That’s the bracelet he got from Pippiteepa the grandmother of the Fairies!: – It is he, Doctor, Otho Bludge, who was blown off the Earth in the Days Before There Was a Moon!”

• • • • •

•   20   •

The Doctor
and the Giant

“All right, Chee-Chee, all right,” said the Doctor hurriedly. “Wait now. We’ll see what we can find out. Don’t get excited.”

In spite of the Doctor’s reassuring words, I could see that he himself was by this time quite a little agitated. And for that no one could blame him. After weeks in this weird world where naught but extraordinary things came up day after day we had been constantly wondering when we’d see the strange Human whose traces and influence were everywhere so evident. Now at last he had appeared.

I gazed up at the gigantic figure rearing away into the skies above our heads. With one of his feet he could easily have crushed the lot of us like so many cockroaches. Yet he, with the rest of the gathering, seemed not unfriendly to us, if a bit puzzled by our size. As for John Dolittle, he may have been a little upset by Chee-Chee’s announcement, but he certainly wasn’t scared. He at once set to work to get into touch with this strange creature who had called on us. And, as was usual with his experiments of this kind, the other side seemed more than willing to help.

The giant wore very little clothes. A garment somewhat similar to our own, made from the flexible bark and leaves we had discovered in the forest, covered his middle from the arm-pits down to the lower thighs. His hair was long and shaggy, falling almost to his shoulders. The Doctor measured up to a line somewhere near his ankle-bone. Apparently realizing that it was difficult for John Dolittle to talk with him at that range, the giant made a movement with his hand and at once the insects nearest to us rose and crawled away. In the space thus cleared the man-monster sat down to converse with his visitors from the Earth.

It was curious that after this I too no longer feared the enormous creature who looked like something from a fairy-tale or a nightmare. Stretching down a tremendous hand, he lifted the Doctor, as though he had been a doll, and set him upon his bare knee. From this height – at least thirty feet above my head – John Dolittle clambered still further up the giant’s frame till he stood upon his shoulder.

Here he apparently had much greater success in making himself understood than he had had lower down. By standing on tip-toe he could just reach the Moon Man’s ear. Presently descending to the knee again, he began calling to me.

“Stubbins – I say, Stubbins! Have you got a notebook handy?”

“Yes, Doctor. In my pocket. Do you want me to take dictation?”

“Please,” he shouted back – for all the world like a foreman yelling orders from a high building. “Get this down. I have hardly established communication yet, but I want you to book some preliminary notes. Are you ready?”

As a matter of fact, the Doctor in his enthusiasm had misjudged how easy he’d find it to converse with the Moon Man. For a good hour I stood waiting with my pencil poised and no words for dictation were handed down. Finally the Doctor called to me that he would have to delay matters a little till he got in close touch with our giant visitor.

“Humph!” grunted Polynesia. “I don’t see why he bothers. I never saw such an unattractive enormous brute. – Doesn’t look as though he had the wits of a caterpillar anyway. And to think that it was this great lump of unintelligent mutton that has kept the Doctor – John Dolittle, M.D. – and the rest of us, hanging about till it suited him to call on us! – After sending for us, mind you! That’s the part that rattles me!”

“Oh, but goodness!” muttered Chee-Chee, peering up at the towering figure in the dusk. “Think – think how old he is! That man was living when the Moon separated from the Earth – thousands, maybe millions, of years ago! Golly, what an age!”

“Yes: he’s old enough to know better,” snapped the parrot – “better manners anyway. Just because he’s fat and overgrown is no reason why he should treat his guests with such outrageous rudeness.”

“Oh, but come now, Polynesia,” I said, “we must not forget that this is a human being who has been separated from his own kind for centuries and centuries. And even such civilization as he knew on the Earth, way back in those Stone Age days, was not, I imagine, anything to boast of. Pretty crude, I’ll bet it was, the world then. The wonder is, to my way of thinking, that he has any mind at all – with no other humans to mingle with through all that countless time. I’m not surprised that John Dolittle finds it difficult to talk with him.”

“Oh, well now, Tommy Stubbins,” said she, “that may sound all very scientific and high-falutin’. But just the same there’s no denying that this overgrown booby was the one who got us up here. And the least he could have done was to see that we were properly received and cared for – instead of letting us fish for ourselves with no one to guide us or to put us on to the ropes. Very poor hospitality, I call it.”

“You seem to forget, Polynesia,” I said mildly, “that in spite of our small size, we may have seemed – as the Doctor said – quite as fearful to him and his world as he and his have been to us – even if he did arrange to get us here. Did you notice that he limped?”

“I did,” said she, tossing her head. “He dragged his left foot after him with an odd gait. Pshaw! I’ll bet that’s what he got the Doctor up here for – rheumatism or a splinter in his toe. Still, what I don’t understand is how he heard of John Dolittle, famous though he is, with no communication between his world and ours.”

It was very interesting to me to watch the Doctor trying to talk with the Moon Man. I could not make the wildest guess at what sort of language it could be that they would finally hit upon. After all that time of separation from his fellows, how much could this strange creature remember of a mother tongue?

As a matter of fact, I did not find out that evening at all. The Doctor kept at his experiments, in his usual way, entirely forgetful of time or anything else. After I had watched for a while Chee-Chee’s head nodding sleepily, I finally dozed off myself.

When I awoke it was daylight. The Doctor was still engaged with the giant in his struggles to understand and be understood. However, I could see at once that he was encouraged. I shouted up to him that it was breakfast-time. He heard, nodded back to me and then apparently asked the giant to join us at our meal. I was surprised and delighted to see with what ease he managed to convey this idea to our big friend. For the Moon Man at once sat him down upon the ground near our tarpaulin which served as a table-cloth and gazed critically over the foodstuffs laid out. We offered him some of our famous yellow yam. At this he shook his head vigorously. Then with signs and grunts he proceeded to explain something to John Dolittle.

“He tells me, Stubbins,” said the Doctor presently, “that the yellow yam is the principal cause of rapid growth. Everything in this world, it seems, tends towards size; but this particular food is the worst. He advises us to drop it – unless we want to grow as big as he is. He has been trying to get back to our size, apparently, for ever so long.”

“Try him with some of the melon, Doctor,” said Chee-Chee.

This, when offered to the Moon Man, was accepted gladly; and for a little we all munched in silence.

“How are you getting on with his language, Doctor?” I asked presently.

“Oh, so-so,” he grumbled. “It’s odd – awfully strange. At first I supposed it would be something like most human languages, a variation of vocal sounds. And I tried for hours to get in touch with him along those lines. But it was only a few vague far-off memories that I could bring out. I was, of course, particularly interested to link up a connection with some earthly language. Finally I went on to the languages of the insects and the plants and found that he spoke all dialects, in both, perfectly. On the whole I am awfully pleased with my experiments. Even if I cannot link him up with some of our own dead languages, at least his superior knowledge of the insect and vegetable tongues will be of great value to me.”

“Has he said anything so far about why he got you up here?” asked Polynesia.

“Not as yet,” said the Doctor. “But we’ve only just begun, you know. All in good time, Polynesia, all in good time.”

• • • • •

•   21   •

How Otho Bludge
Came to the Moon

The Doctor’s warning to the parrot that perhaps we were just as terrifying to the Moon Man (in spite of his size) as he and his world were to us, proved to be quite true. After breakfast was over and I got out the usual notebook for dictation, it soon appeared that this giant, the dread President of the Council, was the mildest creature living. He let us crawl all over him and seemed quite pleased that we took so much interest in him. This did not appear to surprise the Doctor, who from the start had regarded him as a friend. But to Chee-Chee and myself, who had thought that he might gobble us up at any moment, it was, to say the least, a great relief.

I will not set down here in detail that first talk between the Moon Man and the Doctor. It was very long and went into a great many matters of languages and natural history that might not be of great interest to the general reader. But here and there in my report of that conversation I may dictate it word for word, where such a course may seem necessary to give a clear picture of the ideas exchanged. For it was certainly an interview of great importance.

The Doctor began by questioning the giant on the history that Chee-Chee had told us as it had been handed down to him by his grandmother. Here the Moon Man’s memory seemed very vague; but when prompted with details from the Monkeys’ History, he occasionally responded and more than once agreed with the Doctor’s statements or corrected them with a good deal of certainty and firmness.

I think I ought perhaps to say something here about the Moon Man’s face. In the pale daylight of a lunar dawn it looked clever and intelligent enough, but not nearly so old as one would have expected. It is indeed hard to describe that face. It wasn’t brutish and yet it had in it something quite foreign to the average human countenance as seen on the Earth. I imagine that his being separated from human kind for so long may have accounted for this. Beyond question it was an animal-like countenance and yet it was entirely free from anything like ferocity. If one could imagine a kindly animal who had used all his faculties in the furtherance of helpful and charitable ends one would have the nearest possible idea of the face of the Moon Man, as I saw it clearly for the first time when he took breakfast with us that morning.

In the strange tongues of insects and plants John Dolittle fired off question after question at our giant guest. Yes, he admitted, he probably was Otho Bludge, the prehistoric artist. This bracelet? – Yes, he wore it because someone… And then his memory failed him…. What someone?… Well, anyway he remembered that it had first been worn by a woman before he had it. What matter, after all? It was long ago, terribly long. Was there anything else that we would like to know?

There was a question I myself wanted to ask. The night before, in my wanderings with Chee-Chee over the giant’s huge body, I had discovered a disc or plate hanging to his belt. In the dusk then I had not been able to make out what it was. But this morning I got a better view of it: the most exquisite picture of a girl kneeling with a bow and arrow in her hands, carved upon a plate of reindeer horn. I asked the Doctor did he not want to question the Moon Man about it. We all guessed, of course, from Chee-Chee’s story, what it was. But I thought it might prompt the giant’s memory to things out of the past that would be of value to the Doctor. I even whispered to John Dolittle that the giant might be persuaded to give it to us or barter it for something. Even I knew enough about museum relics to realize its tremendous value.

The Doctor indeed did speak of it to him. The giant raised it from his belt, where it hung by a slender thong of bark and gazed at it a while. A spark of recollection lit up his eyes for a moment Then, with a pathetic fumbling sort of gesture, he pressed it to his heart a moment while that odd fuddled look came over his countenance once more. The Doctor and I, I think, both felt we had been rather tactless and did not touch upon the subject again.

I have often been since – though I certainly was not at the time – amused at the way the Doctor took charge of the situation and raced all over this enormous creature as though he were some new kind of specimen to be labelled and docketed for a natural history museum. Yet he did it in such a way as not to give the slightest offence.

“Yes. Very good,” said he. “We have now established you as Otho Bludge, the Stone Age artist, who was blown off the Earth when the Moon set herself up in the sky. But how about this Council? I understand you are president of it and can control its workings. Is that so?”

The great giant swung his enormous head round and regarded for a moment the pigmy figure of the Doctor standing, just then, on his forearm.

“The Council?” said he dreamily. “Oh, ah, yes, to be sure, the Council…. Well, we had to establish that, you know. At one time it was nothing but war – war, war all the time. We saw that if we did not arrange a balance we would have an awful mess. Too many seeds. Plants spread like everything. Birds laid too many eggs. Bees swarmed too often. Terrible! – You’ve seen that down there on the Earth, I imagine, have you not?”

“Yes, yes, to be sure,” said the Doctor. “Go on, please.”

“Well, there isn’t much more to that. We just made sure, by means of the Council, that there should be no more warfare”

“Humph!” the Doctor grunted. “But tell me: how is it you yourself have lived so long? No one knows how many years ago it is that the Moon broke away from the Earth. And your age, compared with the life of Man in our world, must be something staggering.”

“Well, of course,” said the Moon Man, “just how I got here is something that I have never been able to explain completely, even to myself. But why bother? Here I am. What recollections I have of that time are awfully hazy. Let me see: when I came to myself I could hardly breathe. I remember that. The air – everything – was so different. But I was determined to survive. That, I think, is what must have saved me. I was determined to survive. This piece of land, I recollect, when it stopped swirling, was pretty barren. But it had the remnants of trees and plants which it had brought with it from the Earth.

“I lived on roots and all manner of stuff to begin with. Many a time I thought that I would have to perish. But I didn’t – because I was determined to survive. And in the end I did. After a while plants began to grow; insects, which had come with the plants, flourished. Birds the same way – they, like me, were determined to survive. A new world was formed. Years after, I realized that I was the one to steer and guide its destiny since I had – at that time anyway – more intelligence than the other forms of life. I saw what this fighting of kind against kind must lead to. So I formed the Council. Since then – oh, dear, how long ago! – vegetable and animal species have come to – Well, you see it here…. That’s all. It’s quite simple.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor hurriedly. “I quite understand that – the necessities that led you to establish the Council. – And an exceedingly fine thing it is, in my opinion. We will come back to that later. In the meantime I am greatly puzzled as to how you came to hear of me – with no communication between your world and ours. Your moth came to Puddleby and asked me to accompany him back here. It was you who sent him, I presume?”

“Well, it was I and the Council who sent him,” the Moon Man corrected. “As for the ways in which your reputation reached us, communication is, as you say, very rare between the two worlds. But it does occur once in a long while. Some disturbance takes place in your globe that throws particles so high that they get beyond the influence of earth gravity and come under the influence of our gravity. Then they are drawn to the Moon and stay here. I remember,’ many centuries ago, a great whirlwind or some other form of rumpus in your world occurred which tossed shrubs and stones to such a height that they lost touch with the Earth altogether and finally landed here. And a great nuisance they were too. The shrubs seeded and spread like wildfire before we realized they had arrived and we had a terrible time getting them under control.”

“That is most interesting,” said the Doctor, glancing in my direction, as he translated, to make sure I got the notes down in my book. “But please tell me of the occasion by which you first learned of me and decided you wanted me up here.”

“That,” said the Moon Man, “came about through something which was, I imagine, a volcanic eruption. From what I can make out, one of your big mountains down there suddenly blew its head off, after remaining quiet and peaceful for many years. It was an enormous and terribly powerful explosion and tons of earth and trees and stuff were fired off into space. Some of this material that started away in the direction of the Moon finally came within the influence of our attraction and was drawn to us. And, as you doubtless know, when earth or plants are shot away some animal life nearly always goes with it. In this case a bird, a kingfisher, in fact, who was building her nest in the banks of a mountain lake, was carried off. Several pieces of the earth landed on the Moon. Some, striking land, were smashed to dust and any animal life they carried – mostly insect of course – was destroyed. But the piece on which the kingfisher travelled fell into one of our lakes.”

It was an astounding story and yet I believe it true. For how else could the Doctor’s fame have reached the Moon? Of course any but a water bird would have been drowned because apparently the mass plunged down fifty feet below the surface, but the kingfisher at once came up and flew off for the shore. It was a marvel that she was alive. I imagine her trip through the dead belt had been made at such tremendous speed that she managed to escape suffocation without the artificial breathing devices which we had been compelled to use.

• • • • •

•   22   •

How the Moon Folk
Heard of Doctor Dolittle

The bird the Moon Man had spoken of (it seems he had since been elected to the Council) was presently brought forward and introduced to the Doctor. He gave us some valuable information about his trip to the Moon and how he had since adapted himself to new conditions.

He admitted it was he who had told the Moon Folk about John Dolittle and his wonderful skill in treating sicknesses, of his great reputation among the birds, beasts and fishes of the Earth.

It was through this introduction also that we learned that the gathering about us was nothing less than a full assembly of the Council itself – with the exception, of course, of the Vegetable Kingdom, who could not come. That community was, however, represented by different creatures from the Insect and Bird Worlds who were there to see to it that its interests were properly looked after.

This was evidently a big day for the Moon People. After our interview with the kingfisher we could see that arguments were going on between different groups and parties all over the place. At times it looked like a political meeting of the rowdiest kind. These discussions the Doctor finally put down quite firmly by demanding of the Moon Man in a loud voice the reason for his being summoned here.

“After all,” said he when some measure of quiet had been restored, “you must realize that I am a very busy man. I appreciate it as a great honour that I have been asked to come here. But I have duties and obligations to perform on the Earth which I have left. I presume that you asked me here for some special purpose. Won’t you please let me know what it is?”

A silent pause spread over the chattering assembly. I glanced round the queer audience of birds and bugs who squatted, listening. The Doctor, quite apart from his demand for attention, had evidently touched upon a ticklish subject. Even the Moon Man himself seemed somewhat ill at ease.

“Well,” he said at last, “the truth is we were sorely in need of a good physician. I myself have been plagued by a bad pain in the foot. And then many of the bigger insects – the grasshoppers especially – have been in very poor health now for some time. From what the kingfisher told me, I felt you were the only one who could help us – that you – er – perhaps wouldn’t mind if we got you up here where your skill was so sorely needed. Tell me now: you were not put out by the confidence we placed in you? We had no one in our own world who could help us. Therefore we agreed, in a special meeting of the Council, to send down and try to get you.”

The Doctor made no reply.

“You must realize,” the Moon Man went on, his voice dropping to a still more apologetic tone, “that this moth we sent took his life in his hand. We cast lots among the larger birds, moths, butterflies and other insects. It had to be one of our larger kinds. It was a long trip, requiring enormous staying power….”

The Moon Man spread out his giant hands in protest – a gesture very suggestive of the other world from which he originally came. The Doctor hastened to reassure him.

“Why, of course, of course,” said he. “I – we – were most glad to come. In spite of the fact that I am always terribly busy down there, this was something so new and promising in natural history I laid every interest aside in my eagerness to get here. With the moth you sent the difficulty of language did not permit me to make the preparations I would have liked. But pray do not think that I have regretted coming. I would not have missed this experience for worlds. It is true I could have wished that you had seen your way to getting in touch with us sooner. But there – I imagine you too have your difficulties. I suppose you must be kept pretty busy.”

“Busy?” said the Moon Man blankly. “Oh, no. I’m not busy. Life is very quiet and pleasant here. – Sometimes too quiet, we think. A session with the Council every now and then and a general inspection of the globe every so often: that is all I have to bother with. The reason I didn’t come and see you sooner, to be quite honest, was because I was a bit scared. It was something so new, having human folks visit you from another world. There was no telling what you might turn out to be – what you might do. For another thing, I expected you to be alone.

“For weeks past I have had the birds and insects – and the plants too – send me reports of your movements and character. You see, I had relied solely on the statements of a kingfisher. No matter how kind and helpful you had been to the creatures of your own world, it did not follow that you would be the same way inclined towards the Moon Folk. I am sorry if I did not appear properly hospitable. But you must make allowances. It – it was all so – so new.”

“Oh, quite, quite,” said the Doctor, again most anxious to make his host feel at ease. “Say no more, please, of that. I understand perfectly. There are a few points, however, on which I would like to have some light thrown. For one thing, we thought we saw smoke on the Moon, from Puddleby, shortly after your moth arrived. Can you tell us anything about that?”

“Why, of course,” said the Moon Man quickly. “I did that. We were quite worried about the moth. As I told you, we felt kind of guilty about the risky job we had given him. It was Jamaro who finally drew the marked card in the lottery.”

“Jamaro!” muttered the Doctor, slightly bewildered – “Lottery? – I – er—”

“The lottery to decide who should go,” the Moon Man explained. “I told you: we drew lots. Jamaro Bumblelily was the moth who drew the ticket which gave the task to him.”

“Oh, I see,” said the Doctor – “Jamaro. Yes, yes. You give your insects names in this land. Very natural and proper of course, where they are so large and take such an important part in the life and government of the community. You can no doubt tell all these insects one from another, even when they belong to the same species?”

“Certainly,” said the Moon Man. “We have, I suppose, several hundreds of thousands of bees in the Moon. But I know each one by his first name, as well as his swarm, or family, name. Anyhow, to continue: it was then Jamaro Bumblelily who drew the ticket that gave him the job of going to the Earth after you. He was very sportsmanlike and never grumbled a bit. But we were naturally anxious. It is true that creatures had come, at rare intervals, from the Earth to our world. But so far none had gone from us to the Earth. We had only the vaguest idea of what your world would be like – from the descriptions of the kingfisher. And even in getting those we had been greatly handicapped by language. It had only been after days and weeks of work that we had been able to understand one another in the roughest way. So we had arranged with Jamaro Bumblelily that as soon as he landed he was to try and find some way to signal us to let us know he was all right. And we were to signal back to him. It seems he made a bad landing and lay helpless in your garden for some days. For a long while we waited in great anxiety. We feared he must have perished in his heroic exploit. Then we thought that maybe if we signalled to him he would be encouraged and know that we were still expecting his return. So we set off the smoke smudge.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I saw it, even if Jamaro didn’t. But tell me: how did you manage to raise such an enormous smudge? It must have been as big as a mountain.”

“True,” said the Moon Man. “For twenty days before Jamaro’s departure I and most of the larger birds and insects had gathered the Jing-jing bark from the forest.”

“Gathered the what?” asked the Doctor.

“The Jing-jing bark,” the Moon Man repeated. “It is a highly explosive bark from a certain tree we have here.”

“But how did you light it?” asked the Doctor.

“By friction,” said the Moon Man – “drilling a hard-wood stick into a soft-wood log. We had tons and tons of the bark piled in a barren rocky valley where it would be safe from firing the bush or jungle. We are always terrified of bush-fires here – our world is not large, you know. I set the pile off with a live ember which I carried on a slate. Then I sprang back behind a rock bluff to defend my eyes. The explosion was terrific and the smoke kept us all coughing for days before it finally cleared away.”

• • • • •

•   23   •

The Man Who
Made Himself a King

We were frequently reminded during this long conversation (it lasted over a full day and a half) that the strange crowd about us was the great Council itself. Questions every now and then were hurled at the Moon Man from the dimness of the rear. He was continually turning his head as messages and inquiries were carried across to him from mouth to mouth. Sometimes without consulting the Doctor further he would answer them himself in queer sounds and signs. It was quite evident that the Council was determined to keep in touch with any negotiations that were going on.

As for John Dolittle, there was so much that he wanted to find out, it looked – in spite of his hurry to get back to the Earth – as though his queries would never end – which, in a first meeting between two worlds, is not after all to be wondered at.

“Can you remember,” he asked, “when you first felt the Moon steadying herself, how you got accustomed to the new conditions? We had on our arrival a perfectly terrible time, you know. Different air, different gravity, different hearing and the rest. Tell me: how did you manage?”

Frowning, the Moon Man passed his gigantic hand across his brow.

“Really – it’s so long ago,” he muttered. “As I told you, I nearly died, many times. Getting enough food to stay alive on kept me busy the first few months, Then when I was sure that that problem was solved, I began to watch. Soon I saw that the birds and insects were faced with the same difficulties as I was. I searched the Moon globe from end to end. There were no others of my own kind here. I was the only man. I needed company badly. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll study the Insect and Bird Kingdoms.’ The birds adapted themselves much quicker than I did to the new conditions. I soon found that they, being in the same boat as myself, were only too glad to cooperate with me in anything that would contribute to our common good. Of course I was careful to kill nothing. For one thing I had no desire to; and for another I realized that if, on such a little globe, I started to make enemies, I could not last long. From the beginning I had done my best to live and let live. With no other human to talk with I can’t tell you how terribly, desperately lonely I felt. Then I decided I’d try to learn the language of the birds. Clearly they had a language. No one could listen to their warblings and not see that. For years I worked at it – often terribly discouraged at my poor progress. Finally – don’t ask me when – I got to the point where I could whistle short conversations with them. Then came the insects – the birds helped me in that too. Then the plant languages. The bees started me. They knew all the dialects. And … well …”

“Go on,” said the Doctor. The tone of his voice was calm and quiet, but I could see that he was deeply, intensely interested.

“Oh, dear me,” sighed the Moon Man, almost petulantly, “my memory, you know, for dates as far back as that, is awfully poor. Today it seems as though I had talked Heron and Geranium all my life. But just when it was, actually, that I reached the point where I could converse freely with the insects and plants, I couldn’t give you the vaguest idea. I do know that it took me far, far longer to get in touch with the vegetable forms of life than it did with either the insects or the birds. I am afraid that our keeping count of time throughout has been pretty sketchy – certainly in our earlier history anyway. But then you must remember we were occupied with a great number of far more serious tasks. Recently – the last thousand years or so – we have been making an effort to keep a history and we can show you, I think, a pretty good record of most of the more important events within that time. The trouble is that nearly all of the dates you want are earlier than that.”

“Well, never mind,” said the Doctor. “We are getting on very well under the circumstances. I would like very much to see that record you speak of and will ask you to show it to me, if you will be so good, later.”

He then entered into a long examination of the Moon Man (carefully avoiding all dates, periods and references to time) on a whole host of subjects. The majority of them were concerned with insect and plant evolution and he kept a strict eye on me to see that all questions and replies were jotted down in the notebook. Gracious! What an unending list it seemed to my tired mind! How had the Moon Man first realized that the plants were anxious to talk and cooperate with him? What had led him to believe that the bees were in communication with the flowers they fed on? Which fruits and vegetables had he found were good for human food and how had he discovered their nutritious qualities without poisoning himself? etc., etc., etc. It went on for hours. I got most of it down, with very few mistakes, I think. But I know I was more than half asleep during the last hours of the interview.

The only trouble with most of it was this same old bugbear of time. After all these ages of living without human company the poor giant’s mind had got to the point where it simply didn’t use time. Even in this record of the last thousand years, which he had proudly told us was properly dated, we found, when he showed it to us, that an error of a century more or less meant very little.

This history had been carved in pictures and signs on the face of a wide flat rock. The workmanship of Otho the prehistoric artist showed up here to great advantage. While the carvings were not by any means to be compared with his masterpiece of the kneeling girl, they nevertheless had a dash and beauty of design that would arrest the attention of almost anyone.

Nevertheless, despite the errors of time, both in his recollections and his graven history, we got down the best booking that we could in the circumstances. And with all its slips and gaps it was a most thrilling and exciting document. It was the story of a new world’s evolution; of how a man, suddenly transported into space with nothing but what his two hands held at the moment of the catastrophe, had made himself the kindly monarch of a kingdom – a kingdom more wondrous than the wildest imaginings of the mortals he had left behind. For he was indeed a king, even if he called himself no more than the President of the Council. And what hardships and terrible difficulties he had overcome in doing it, only we could realize – we, who had come here with advantages and aids which he had never known.

Finally a lull did come in this long, long conversation between the Doctor and the Moon Man. And while I lay back and stretched my right hand, cramped from constant writing, Polynesia gave vent to a great deal which she had evidently had on her mind for some time.

“Well,” she grunted, lifting her eyebrows, “what did I tell you, Tommy? Rheumatism! That’s what the Doctor has come all this way for – rheumatism! I wouldn’t mind it so much in the case of the Moon Man himself. Because he certainly is a man in a hundred. But grasshoppers! Think of it! – Think of bringing John Dolittle, M.D., billions of miles” (Polynesia’s ideas on geographical measurement were a bit sketchy) “just to wait on a bunch of grasshoppers! I—”

But the remainder of her indignant speech got mixed up with some of her favourite Swedish swear words and the result was something that no one could make head or tail of.

Very soon this pause in the conversation between the Doctor and the Moon Man was filled up by a great deal of talking among the Council. Every member of that important parliament apparently wanted to know exactly what had been said and decided on and what new measures – if any – were to be put in force. We could see that the poor President was being kept very busy.

At length the Doctor turned once more to the giant and said:

“Well now, when would it be convenient for you and the insect patients to be examined? I shall be most happy to do everything possible for you all, but you must realize that I would like to get back to the Earth as soon as I conveniently can.”

Before answering the Moon Man proceeded to consult his Council behind him. And, to judge from the length of the discussions that followed, he was meeting with quite a little criticism in whatever plans he was proposing. But finally he managed to quiet them; and addressing John Dolittle once more, he said:

“Thank you. If it will not inconvenience you, we will come tomorrow and have you minister to us. You have been very kind to come at all. I hope we will not seem too large an undertaking for you. At least, since you have approved of our system and government here, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are assisting us in a time of great need.”

“Why, of course, of course,” said the Doctor at once. “I shall be only too glad. That is what I am for, after all. I am a doctor, you know, a physician – even if I have become a naturalist in my later years. At what hour will you be ready for me?”

“At dawn,” said the Moon Man. Even in these modern days ideas of time on the Moon seemed strangely simple. “We will wait on you at sunrise. Till then, pleasant dreams and good rest!”

• • • • •

•   24   •

Doctor Dolittle
Opens His Surgery
on the Moon

Even the garrulous Polynesia was too tired to talk much more that night. For all of us it had been a long and steady session, that interview, tense with excitement. The Moon Man and his Council had barely departed before every one of us was dozing off without a change of clothes or a bite to eat. I am sure that nothing on Earth – or Moon – could have disturbed our slumbers.

The daylight was just beginning to show when we were awakened. I am not certain who was the first to arouse himself (probably John Dolittle), but I do know that I was the first to get up.

What a strange sight! In the dim light hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gigantic insects, all invalids, stood about our camp staring at the tiny human physician who had come so far to cure their ailments. Some of these creatures we had not so far seen and never even suspected their presence on the Moon: caterpillars as long as a village street with gout in a dozen feet; immense beetles suffering from an affliction of the eyes; grasshoppers as tall as a three-storey house with crude bandages on their gawky joints; enormous birds with a wing held painfully in an odd position. The Doctor’s home had become once more a clinic; and all the halt and lame of Moon Society had gathered at his door.

The great man, when I finally roused him, swallowed two or three gulps of melon, washed them down with a draft of honey and water, took off his coat and set to work.

Of course the poor little black bag, which had done such yeoman service for many years in many lands, was not equal to a demand like this. The first thing to run out was the supply of bandages. Chee-Chee and I tore up blankets and shirts to make more. Then the embrocation became exhausted; next the iodine and the rest of the antiseptics. But in his botanical studies of the trees and plants of this world the Doctor had observed and experimented with several things which he had found helpful in rheumatic conditions and other medical uses. Chee-Chee and Polynesia were despatched at once to find the herbs and roots and leaves that he wanted.

For hours and hours he worked like a slave. It seemed as though the end of the line of patients would never be reached. But finally he did get the last of them fixed up and despatched. It was only then he realized that the Moon Man had let all the other sufferers come forward ahead of himself. Dusk was coming on. The Doctor peered round the great space about our camp. It was empty, save for a giant figure that squatted silent, motionless and alone, by the forest’s edge.

“My goodness!” muttered the Doctor. “I had entirely forgotten him. And he never uttered a word. Well, no one can say he is selfish. That, I fancy, is why he rules here. I must see what is the matter with him at once.”

John Dolittle hurried across the open space and questioned the giant. An enormous left leg was stretched out for his examination. Like a fly, the Doctor travelled rapidly up and down it, pinching and squeezing and testing here and there.

“More gout,” he said at last with definite decision. “A bad enough case too. Now listen, Otho Bludge.”

Then he lectured his big friend for a long time. Mostly it seemed about diet, but there was a great deal concerning anatomy, exercise, dropsy, and starch in it too.

At the end of it the Moon Man seemed quite a little impressed, much happier in his mind and a great deal more lively and hopeful. Finally, after thanking the Doctor at great length, he departed, while the ground shook again beneath his limping tread.

Once more we were all fagged out and desperately sleepy.

“Well,” said the Doctor as he arranged his one remaining blanket on his bed, “I think that’s about all we can do. Tomorrow – or maybe the next day – we will, if all goes well, start back for Puddleby.”

“Sh!” whispered Polynesia. “There’s someone listening. I’m sure – over there behind those trees.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said the Doctor. “No one could hear us at that range.”

“Don’t forget how sound travels on the Moon,” warned the parrot.

“But my goodness!” said the Doctor. “They know we’ve got to go sometime. We can’t stay here forever. Didn’t I tell the President himself I had jobs to attend to on the Earth? If I felt they needed me badly enough I wouldn’t mind staying quite a while yet. But there’s Stubbins here. He came away without even telling his parents where he was going or how long it might be before he returned. I don’t know what Jacob Stubbins may be thinking, or his good wife. Probably worried to death. I—”

“Sh! – Sh! – Will you be quiet?” whispered Polynesia again. “Didn’t you hear that? I tell you there’s someone listening – or I’m a Double Dutchman. Pipe down, for pity’s sake. There are ears all round us. Go to sleep!”

We all took the old parrot’s advice – only too willingly. And very soon every one of us was snoring.

This time we did not awaken early. We had no jobs to attend to and we took advantage of a chance to snooze away as long as we wished.

It was nearly midday again when we finally got stirring. We were in need of water for breakfast. Getting the water had always been Chee-Chee’s job. This morning, however, the Doctor wanted him to hunt up a further supply of medicinal plants for his surgical work. I volunteered therefore to act as water-carrier.

With several vessels which we had made from gourds I started out for the forests.

I had once or twice performed this same office of emergency water-carrier before. I was therefore able on reaching the edge of the jungle to make straight for the place where we usually got our supplies.

I hadn’t gone very far before Polynesia overtook me.

“Watch out, Tommy!” said she, in a mysterious whisper as she settled on my shoulder.

“Why?” I asked. “Is anything amiss?”

“I don’t quite know,” said she. “But I’m uneasy and I wanted to warn you. Listen: that whole crowd that came to be doctored yesterday, you know? Well, not one of them has shown up again since. Why?”

There was a pause.

“Well,” said I presently, “I don’t see any particular reason why they should. They got their medicine, their treatment. Why should they pester the Doctor further? It’s a jolly good thing that some patients leave him alone after they are treated, isn’t it?”

“True, true,” said she. “Just the same their all staying away the next day looks fishy to me. They didn’t all get treated. There’s something in it. I feel it in my bones. And besides, I can’t find the Moon Man himself. I’ve been hunting everywhere for him. He too has gone into hiding again, just the same as they all did when we first arrived here…. Well, look out! That’s all. I must go back now. But keep your eyes open, Tommy. Good luck!”

I couldn’t make head or tail of the parrot’s warning and, greatly puzzled, I proceeded on my way to the pool to fill my water-pots.

There I found the Moon Man. It was a strange and sudden meeting. I had no warning of his presence till I was actually standing in the water filling the gourds. Then a movement of one of his feet revealed his immense form squatting in the concealment of the dense jungle. He rose to his feet as soon as he saw that I perceived him.

His expression was not unfriendly – just as usual, a kindly, calm half-smile. Yet I felt at once uneasy and a little terrified. Lame as he was, his speed and size made escape by running out of the question. He did not understand my language, nor I his. It was a lonely spot, deep in the woods. No cry for help would be likely to reach the Doctor’s ears.

I was not left long in doubt as to his intentions. Stretching out his immense right hand, he lifted me out of the water as though I were a specimen of some flower he wanted for a collection. Then with enormous strides he carried me away through the forest. One step of his was half-an-hour’s journey for me. And yet it seemed as though he put his feet down very softly, presumably in order that his usual thunderous tread should not be heard – or felt – by others.

At length he stopped. He had reached a wide clearing. Jamaro Bumblelily, the same moth that had brought us from the Earth, was waiting. The Moon Man set me down upon the giant insect’s back. I heard the low rumble of his voice as he gave some final orders. I had been kidnapped.

• • • • •

•   25   •

Puddleby Once More

Never have I felt so utterly helpless in my life. While he spoke with the moth the giant held me down with his huge hand upon the insect’s back. A cry, I thought, might still be worth attempting. I opened my mouth and bawled as hard as I could. Instantly the Moon Man’s thumb came round and covered my face. He ceased speaking.

Soon I could feel from the stirring of the insect’s legs that he was getting ready to fly. The Doctor could not reach me now in time even if he had heard my cry. The giant removed his hand and left me free as the moth broke into a run. On either side of me the great wings spread out, acres-wide, to breast the air. In one last mad effort I raced over the left wing and took a flying leap. I landed at the giant’s waistline and clung for all I was worth, still yelling lustily for the Doctor. The Moon Man picked me off and set me back upon the moth. But as my hold at his waist was wrenched loose something ripped and came away in my hand. It was the masterpiece, the horn picture of Pippiteepa. In his anxiety to put me aboard Jamaro again, who was now racing over the ground at a terrible speed, he never noticed that I carried his treasure with me.

Nor indeed was I vastly concerned with it at the moment. My mind only contained one thought: I was being taken away from the Doctor. Apparently I was to be carried off alone and set back upon the Earth. As the moth’s speed increased still further I heard a fluttering near my right ear. I turned my head. And there, thank goodness, was Polynesia flying along like a swallow! In a torrent of words she poured out her message. For once in her life she was too pressed for time to swear.

“Tommy! – They know the Doctor is worried about your staying away from your parents. I told him to be careful last night. They heard. They’re afraid if you stay he’ll want to leave too, to get you back. And—”

The moth’s feet had left the ground and his nose was tilted upward to clear the tops of the trees that bordered the open space. The powerful rush of air, so familiar to me from my first voyage of this kind, was already beginning – and growing all the time. Flapping and beating, Polynesia put on her best speed and for a while longer managed to stay level with my giant airship.

“Don’t worry, Tommy,” she screeched. “I had an inkling of what the Moon Man had up his sleeve, though I couldn’t find out where he was hiding. And I warned the Doctor. He gave me this last message for you in case they should try to ship you out: Look after the old lame horse in the stable. Give an eyes to the fruit trees. And don’t worry! He’ll find a way down all right, he says. Watch out for the second smoke signal.” (Polynesia’s voice was growing faint and she was already dropping behind.) … “Goodbye and good luck!”

I tried to shout an answer; but the rushing air stopped my breath and made me gasp. “Goodbye and good luck!” – It was the last I heard from the Moon.

I lowered myself down among the deep fur to avoid the pressure of the tearing wind. My groping hands touched something strange. It was the moon bells. The giant in sending me down to the Earth had thought of the needs of the human. I grabbed one of the big flowers and held it handy to plunge my face in. Bad times were coming, I knew, when we must cross the Dead Belt. There was nothing more I could do for the present. I would lie still and take it easy till I reached Puddleby and the little house with the big garden.

Well, for the most part my journey back was not very different from out first voyage. If it was lonelier for me than had been the trip with the Doctor, I, at all events, had the comfort this time of knowing from experience that the journey could be performed by a human with safety.

But dear me, what a sad trip it was! In addition to my loneliness I had a terrible feeling of guilt. I was leaving the Doctor behind – the Doctor who had never abandoned me nor any friend in need. True, it was not my fault, as I assured myself over and over again. Yet I couldn’t quite get rid of the idea that if I had only been a little more resourceful or quicker-witted this would not have happened. And how, how was I going to face Dab-Dab, Jip and the rest of them with the news that John Dolittle had been left in the Moon?

The journey seemed endlessly long. Some fruit also had been provided, I found, by the Moon Man; but as soon as we approached the Dead Belt I felt too seasick to eat and remained so for the rest of the voyage.

At last the motion abated enough to let me sit up and take observations. We were quite close to the Earth. I could see it shining cheerfully in the sun and the sight of it warmed my heart. I had not realized till then how homesick I had been for weeks past.

The moth landed me on Salisbury Plain. While not familiar with the district, I knew the spire of Salisbury Cathedral from pictures. And the sight of it across this flat characteristic country told me where I was. Apparently it was very early morning, though I had no idea of the exact hour.

The heavier air and gravity of the Earth took a good deal of getting used to after the very different conditions of the Moon. Feeling like nothing so much as a ton-weight of misery, I clambered down from the moth’s back and took stock of my surroundings.

Morning mists were rolling and breaking over this flat piece of my native Earth. From higher up it had seemed so sunny and homelike and friendly. Down here on closer acquaintance it didn’t seem attractive at all.

Presently when the mists broke a little, I saw, not far off, a road. A man was walking along it. A farm labourer, no doubt, going to his work. How small he seemed! Perhaps he was a dwarf. With a sudden longing for human company, I decided to speak to him. I lunged heavily forward (the trial of the disturbing journey and the unfamiliar balance of earth gravity together made me reel like a drunken man) and when I had come within twenty paces I hailed him. The results were astonishing to say the least. He turned at the sound of my voice. His face went white as a sheet. Then he bolted like a rabbit and was gone into the mist.

I stood in the road down which he had disappeared. And suddenly it came over me what I was and how I must have looked. I had not measured myself recently on the Moon, but I did so soon after my return to the Earth. My height was nine feet nine inches and my waist measurement fifty-one inches and a half. I was dressed in a home-made suit of bark and leaves. My shoes and leggings were made of root-fibre, and my hair was long enough to touch my shoulders.

No wonder the poor farm hand suddenly confronted by such an apparition on the wilds of Salisbury Plain had bolted! Suddenly I thought of Jamaro Bumblelily again. I would try to give him a message for the Doctor. If the moth could not understand me, I’d write something for him to carry back. I set out in search. But I never saw him again. Whether the mists misled me in direction or whether he had already departed moonwards again I never found out.

So, here I was, a giant dressed like a scarecrow, no money in my pockets – no earthly possessions beyond a piece of reindeer horn, with a prehistoric picture carved on it. And then I realized, of course, that the farm labourer’s reception of me would be what I would meet with everywhere. It was a long way from Salisbury to Puddleby, that I knew. I must have coach-fare; I must have food.

I tramped along the road a while thinking. I came in sight of a farm-house. The appetizing smell of frying bacon reached me. I was terribly hungry. It was worth trying. I strode up to the door and knocked gently. A woman opened it. She gave one scream at sight of me and slammed the door in my face. A moment later a man threw open a window and levelled a shot-gun at me.

“Get off the place,” he snarled – “Quick! Or I’ll blow your ugly head off.”

More miserable than ever I wandered on down the road. What was to become of me? There was no one to whom I could tell the truth. For who would believe my story? But I must get to Puddleby. I admitted I was not particularly keen to do that – to face the Dolittle household with the news. And yet I must. Even without the Doctor’s last message about the old horse and the fruit trees, and the rest, it was my job – to do my best to take his place while he was away. And then my parents – poor folk! I fear I had forgotten them in my misery. And would even they recognize me now?

Then of a sudden I came upon a caravan of gipsies. They were camped in a thicket of gorse by the side of the road and I had not seen them as I approached.

They too were cooking breakfast and more savoury smells tantalized my empty stomach. It is rather strange that the gipsies were the only people I met who were not afraid of me. They all came out of the wagons and gathered about me gaping; but they were interested, not scared. Soon I was invited to sit down and eat. The head of the party, an old man, told me they were going on to a county fair and would be glad to have me come with them.

I agreed with thanks. Any sort of friendship which would save me from an outcast lot was something to be jumped at. I found out later that the old gipsy’s idea was to hire me off (at a commission) to a circus as a giant.

But as a matter of fact, that lot also I was glad to accept when the time came. I had to have money. I could not appear in Puddleby like a scarecrow. I needed clothes, I needed coach-fare, and I needed food to live on.

The circus proprietor – when I was introduced by my friend the gipsy – turned out to be quite a decent fellow. He wanted to book me up for a year’s engagement. But I, of course, refused. He suggested six months. Still I shook my head. My own idea was the shortest possible length of time which would earn me enough money to get back to Puddleby looking decent. I guessed from the circus man’s eagerness that he wanted me in his show at almost any cost and for almost any length of time. Finally after much argument we agreed upon a month.

Then came the question of clothes. At this point I was very cautious. He at first wanted me to keep my hair long and wear little more than a loin-cloth. I was to be a “Missing Link from Mars” or something of the sort. I told him I didn’t want to be anything of the kind (though his notion was much nearer to the truth than he knew). His next idea for me was “The Giant Cowboy from the Pampas.” For this I was to wear an enormous sun-hat, woolly trousers, pistols galore, and spurs with rowels like saucers. That didn’t appeal to me either very much as a Sunday suit to show to Puddleby.

Finally, as I realized more fully how keen the showman was to have me, I thought I would try to arrange my own terms.

“Look here, Sir,” I said: “I have no desire to appear something I am not. I am a scientist, an explorer, returned from foreign parts. My great growth is a result of the climates I have been through and the diet I have had to live on. I will not deceive the public by masquerading as a Missing Link or Western Cowboy. Give me a decent suit of black such as a man of learning would wear. And I will guarantee to tell your audiences tales of travel – true tales – such as they have never imagined in their wildest dreams. But I will not sign on for more than a month. That is my last word. Is it a bargain?”

Well, it was. He finally agreed to all my terms. My wages were to be three shillings a day. My clothes were to be my own property when I had concluded my engagement. I was to have a bed and a wagon to myself. My hours for public appearance were strictly laid down and the rest of my time was to be my own.

It was not hard work. I went on show from ten to twelve in the morning, from three to five in the afternoon, and from eight to ten at night. A tailor was produced who fitted my enormous frame with a decent-looking suit. A barber was summoned to cut my hair. During my show hours I signed my autograph to pictures of myself which the circus proprietor had printed in great numbers. They were sold at threepence apiece. Twice a day I told the gaping crowds of holiday folk the story of my travels. But I never spoke of the Moon. I called it just a “foreign land” – which indeed was true enough.

At last the day of my release came. My contract was ended, and with three pounds fifteen shillings in my pocket, and a good suit of clothes upon my back, I was free to go where I wished. I took the first coach in the direction of Puddleby. Of course many changes had to be made and I was compelled to stop the night at one point before I could make connections for my native town.

On the way, because of my great size, I was stared and gaped at by all who saw me. But I did not mind it so much now. I knew that at least I was not a terrifying sight.

On reaching Puddleby at last, I decided I would call on my parents first, before I went to the Doctor’s house. This may have been just a putting off of the evil hour. But anyway, I had the good excuse that I should put an end to my parents’ anxiety.

I found them just the same as they had always been – very glad to see me, eager for news of where I had gone and what I had done. I was astonished, however, that they had taken my unannounced departure so calmly – that is, I was astonished until it came out that, having heard that the Doctor also had mysteriously disappeared, they had not been nearly so worried as they might have been. Such was their faith in the great man, like the confidence that all placed in him. If he had gone and taken me with him, then everything was surely all right.

I was glad too that they recognized me despite my unnatural size. Indeed, I think they took a sort of pride in that I had, like Caesar, “grown so great.” We sat in front of the fire and I told them all of our adventures as well as I could remember them.

It seemed strange that they, simple people though they were, accepted my preposterous story of a journey to the Moon with no vestige of doubt or disbelief. I feared there were no other humans in the world – outside of Matthew Mugg, who would so receive my statement. They asked me when I expected the Doctor’s return. I told them what Polynesia had said of the second smoke signal by which John Dolittle planned to notify me of his departure from the Moon. But I had to admit I felt none too sure of his escape from a land where his services were so urgently demanded. Then when I almost broke down, accusing myself of abandoning the Doctor, they both comforted me with assurances that I could not have done more than I had.

Finally my mother insisted that I stay the night at their house and not attempt to notify the Dolittle household until the morrow. I was clearly overtired and worn out, she said. So, still willing to put off the evil hour, I persuaded myself that I was tired and turned in.

The next day I sought out Matthew Mugg, the cats’-meat-man. I merely wanted his support when I should present myself at “the little house with the big garden.” But it took me two hours to answer all the questions he fired at me about the Moon and our voyage.

At last I did get to the Doctor’s house. My hand had hardly touched the gate-latch before I was surrounded by them all. Too-Too the vigilant sentinel had probably been on duty ever since we left and one hoot from him brought the whole family into the front garden like a fire alarm. A thousand exclamations and remarks about my increased growth and changed appearance filled the air. But there never was a doubt in their minds as to who I was.

And then suddenly a strange silence fell over them all when they saw that I had returned alone. Surrounded by them I entered the house and went to the kitchen. And there by the fireside, where the great man himself has so often sat and told us tales, I related the whole story of our visit to the Moon.

At the end they were nearly all in tears, Gub-Gub howling out loud.

“We’ll never see him again!” he wailed. “They’ll never let him go. Oh, Tommy, how could you have left him?”

“Oh, be quiet!” snapped Jip. “He couldn’t help it. He was kidnapped. Didn’t he tell you? Don’t worry. We’ll watch for the smoke signal. John Dolittle will come back to us, never fear. Remember he has Polynesia with him.”

“Aye!” squeaked the white mouse. “She’ll find a way.”

“I am not worried,” sniffed Dab-Dab, brushing away her tears with one wing, and swatting some flies off the bread-board with the other. “But it’s sort of lonely here without him.”

“Tut-tut!” grunted Too-Too. “Of course he’ll come back!”

There was a tapping at the window.

“Cheapside,” said Dab-Dab. “Let him in, Tommy.”

I lifted the sash and the cockney sparrow fluttered in and took his place upon the kitchen table, where he fell to picking up what bread-crumbs had been left after the housekeeper’s careful “clearing away.” Too-Too told him the situation in a couple of sentences.

“Why, bless my heart!” said the sparrow. “Why all these long faces? John Dolittle stuck in the Moon! – Preposterous notion! – Pre-posterous, I tell you. You couldn’t get that man stuck nowhere. My word, Dab-Dab! When you clear away you don’t leave much fodder behind, do you? Any mice what live in your ’ouse shouldn’t ’ave no difficulty keepin’ their figures.”

Well, it was done. And I was glad to be back in the old house. I knew it was only a question of time before I would regain a normal size on a normal diet. Meanwhile, here I would not have to see anyone I did not want to.

And so I settled down to pruning the fruit-trees, caring for the comfort of the old horse in the stable and generally trying to take the Doctor’s place as best I could. And night after night as the year wore on Jip, Too-Too, and I would sit out, two at a time, while the Moon was visible, to watch for the smoke signal. Often when we returned to the house with the daylight, discouraged and unhappy, Jip would rub his head against my leg and say:

“Don’t worry, Tommy. He’ll come back. Remember he has Polynesia with him. Between them they will find a way.”

« »

Doctor Dolittle’s Return

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PART ONE

1 … Waiting!
2 … The Cats’-meat-Man’s Advice
3 … Cheapside Calls on Us
4 … The Eclipse of the Moon
5 … I Send for Help
6 … The Sound in the Sky
7 … The Great Locust
8 … The Doctor’s Voice
9 … The Moon Cat
10 … The Dolittle Household Revolution
11 … The Doctor’s Accident
12 … The Moon Museum

PART TWO

1 … Why John Dolittle Stayed so Long on the Moon

2 … The Naturalists’ Paradise
3 … Otho Bludge’s Prisoner
4 … The Gentleman in the Moon
5 … The Farewell
6 … Setting the Zoo to Rights
7 … Squib the Cocker Spaniel
8 … How to Get into Jail?
9 … Gilesborough
10 … Lady Matilda Beamish
11 … In Jail at Last
12 … Itty
13 … In the Doctor’s Cell
14 … The Little Villain
15 … A Grand Party

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

Waiting!

Doctor Dolittle had now been in the moon for a little over a year. During that time I, as his secretary, had been in charge of his household at Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. Of course a boy of my age could not take the great man’s place – nobody could, for that matter. But I did my best.

At the beginning, for a few weeks, it was not easy. We were all so anxious and worried about John Dolittle. We did not seem to be able to keep our minds on anything but that he was still in the moon and what might be happening to him. So it was in our talking too: no matter what we started to discuss or chat about, our conversation always ended on the same question.

Yet I do not know what I would have done if it had not been for the animals. Ah, those animals of John Dolittle’s! Dab-Dab the duck, the careful housekeeper who spent her life looking after others – even if she did it scolding them most of the time; Jip the dog, brave, generous, happy-go-lucky sportsman, always ready for a good scrap, a good story, a good country walk or a good sleep; Too-Too the owl, silent and mysterious, with ears that could hear a pin drop in the snow, a lightning calculator – you never knew what he was thinking about – but he seemed to guess things, to feel them, witch-like, before they happened; dear, old, clumsy Gub-Gub the pig, always in hot water, taking himself very seriously, forever treading on somebody’s toes but providing the world with lots of fun; Whitey the white mouse, a gossip, very well-behaved, very clean and neat, inquisitive, taking in life every moment and finding it full of interest. What a family! No one, unable to talk the language of birds and beasts, will ever understand how thoughtful and helpful they could be.

Of course, it must not be forgotten that they were very experienced. Never before, I suppose, has a group of animals been gathered under one roof that had seen so much, gone to so many places, and done so many things with human beings. This made it possible for them to understand the feelings of people, just as knowing their language made it possible for John Dolittle and myself to understand them and their troubles.

Although I tried hard not to show it, they all knew how miserable I felt about having left the Doctor in the moon, and they did their best to cheer me up. Dab-Dab formed a regular school programme for me for what she called an “advanced course in animal languages.” Each night, when there was no moon to be watched – or when it was cloudy – she told off one of the household to play the part of teacher for me. And in this way I was not only able to keep up my Piggish, Owlish, Duckish, Mouser languages and the rest, but I improved a great deal upon what I already knew. I came to understand and use a great many tricky little niceties of meaning which I had never known before.

Of this Gub-Gub the pig, Too-Too the owl, the white mouse and the others of the Doctor’s household were very proud. They said that if I kept on at that rate it would not be long before I could talk their different tongues as well as John Dolittle, the greatest naturalist of all time. Of course I could never quite believe that; but it encouraged me a lot just the same.

One who did a great deal to cheer us up in those long days and nights was Cheapside, the London sparrow. Born and brought up in the struggle and strife of a big city, he would not, could not, be beaten by any misfortune. It was not that he did not know and feel the danger the Doctor was in, as much as any of us. But it was part of his character always to look on the bright side of things. He was not with us all the time. He had to pop over (as he called it) to London every once in a while, to see his wife, Becky, and his hundreds of children, cousins and aunts who picked up a living around the cab-ranks near St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Exchange.

From these relations he would bring us back all the gossip of the big city, such as that the Queen had a cold in her head (one of Cheapside’s nieces had a nest behind a shutter in Buckingham Palace); there was a dog show on at the Agricultural Hall; the Prime Minister had tripped over his own gown, going up the steps at the opening of Parliament, and fallen on his nose; a ship had arrived at the East India Docks with three real live pirates on board, captured in the China Sea, etc. etc.

I could always tell when he had arrived at the Doctor’s house by the great commotion raised. Gub-Gub or Jip the dog could be heard yelling in the garden that the little Londoner had come. And no matter how low our spirits were, Cheapside would not be in the house two minutes, chattering and twittering and giggling over his own silly little Cockney jokes, before everybody would be roaring with laughter or listening with great attention to the news he had to tell. He always brought us also the latest comic songs from the city. Some of these that staid old housekeeper, Dab-Dab, said were very vulgar; but I noticed she often had much difficulty to keep from laughing with the rest of us, nevertheless.

And then that very extraordinary character, Matthew Mugg, the cat’s-meat-man, was a comfort to me too. I did not go off the Doctor’s place much and there were days when I was lonely for human company. At such times, now and then, Matthew would drop in for a cup of tea, and I was always glad to see him. We would sit and chat over old times, about the Doctor and our adventures, and make guesses as to what he might be doing there, now, up in the moon.

It was a good thing for me that I had plenty to keep me busy, I suppose. Looking after ordinary needs of the house, the garden, and the animals was not all I had to attend to. There were the Doctor’s instruments – microscopes and all sorts of delicate scientific apparatus which he used in his experiments; these I kept dusted and oiled and in apple-pie order.

Then there were his notes – shelves and shelves full of them. They were very valuable. John Dolittle himself had never been very orderly or careful about his notes, although he would not have had a single page of them lost for anything in the world. He had always said to me, “Stubbins, if ever the house catches fire, remember, save the animals and the notes first and take care of the house afterward.”

I therefore felt a great responsibility about those notes. Their safe-keeping was my first duty. And thinking about the possibility of fire, I decided to move them away from the house altogether.

So I built a sort of underground library outside. With the help of Jip and Gub-Gub I dug out a place at the end of the garden, tunnelling into the side of a small hill near the old Zoo.

It was a lovely spot. The wide lawn sloped gently up to a rise of about twenty feet, on the top of which a beautiful grove of weeping willows swept the grass with their graceful trailing branches. It was a part of the Doctor’s big garden of which I was particularly fond. After we had burrowed out a big hole, the size of a large room, we took stones and timbers and built them into the sides to keep the earth from falling in. We floored it with some more stones; and after we had roofed it over, we covered the roof with earth two feet deep. A door was set on hinges in the front. Then we sowed grass all over the top and the sides, so it looked like the rest of the lawn. Nothing could be seen but the entrance. It was entirely fireproof.

Into this chamber we carried down all the notes which I, as the Doctor’s secretary, had made of our travels and doings. From those notes I had written many books about John Dolittle; but there was much more, of course, that I had not put into books – purely scientific stuff which the ordinary readers would not be interested in.

Gub-Gub called it the Underground Dolittle Library, and he was very proud of having helped in the building of it. Not only that, but he was still more proud that his name was so often mentioned in those stacks and stacks of writing which we piled against the walls inside. On winter nights the animals often asked me to read aloud to them by the big kitchen fire, the same as the Doctor had done. And Gub-Gub always wanted me to read those parts from the books which spoke about him. He liked particularly to hear about himself and his great performances in the days of the Puddleby Pantomime. The other animals were not always pleased at this.

“Oh, gosh, Gub-Gub!” said Jip. “I should think you’d get tired of hearing about yourself all the time.”

“But why?” said Gub-Gub. “Am I not the most important pig in history?”

“Poof!” growled Jip in disgust – “Most important pig on the garbage heap, you mean!”

But the day came when, as general manager of the Doctor’s home, I found myself in difficulties. You cannot keep a family of animals and yourself on nothing at all. What money I had made shortly after my own return from the moon was all used up. True, a good deal of food could be raised on the place. Wild ducks (friends of Dab-Dab’s) brought us eggs. With the animals’ help I kept the garden in very good condition. I pruned the apple-trees as the Doctor had told me; and the kitchen garden was always well planted with vegetables.

Gub-Gub the pig was the one most interested in this. Although his habit of digging with his nose instead of a spade was somewhat untidy, he was a great help in keeping watch over everything as it grew. A pig was much better for this – in many ways – than a gardener. “Tommy,” he would say, “the cut-worms are getting at the celery roots.” Or, “Tommy, the caterpillars are spoiling the cabbages – and the new spinach needs watering.”

Some of the vegetables I exchanged with neighbours, who had farms, for milk; and after I had learned how to make cheese from milk I could supply the white mouse with his favourite food.

But money in cash I needed for a lot of other household things like candles, matches, and soap. And some of the animals, although they were not meat-eaters, could not be fed from the garden. For instance, there was the old lame horse in the stable whom the Doctor had told me especially to look after. The hay and the oats in his stable were all gone. What grass he could eat from the lawns was already cropped down to the roots. He must have oats to keep his strength up. No, there was nothing for it; I must make some money, earn some money. But how?

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Cats’-meat-Man’s Advice

I went into the garden to think. I always seemed to be able to think better in that great garden of the Doctor’s than anywhere else. I wandered down towards the new library and from there into the Zoo. This quiet spot, enclosed by high walls on which the peach-trees grew, had once been a very busy place. Here we had kept the Rat and Mouse Club, the Home for Cross-bred Dogs, and all the other institutions for animals’ comfort and happiness. They were all deserted now, with nothing but a few early swallows skimming over the grass which the old lame horse had nibbled short and neat and trim.

I felt very sad. Nothing seemed the same without the Doctor. I began pacing to and fro, thinking about my problem. I heard the latch in the garden door click. I turned. There stood Matthew Mugg, the cat’s-meat-man.

“Oh, hulloa, Matthew!” I cried. “I’m glad to see you.”

“My, Tommy!” said he. “You do look serious. Anything the matter?”

“Yes, Matthew,” I said. “I’ve got to get a job – must make some money. Need it for housekeeping.”

“Well, what kind of a job do you want?” he asked.

“Any kind, Matthew,” said I – “any kind that I can get.”

“’Ave you been to your father about it? Why can’t you ’elp ’im in ’is business and earn money that way?”

He started walking back and forth at my side.

“Yes, I’ve been to see my parents. But it wasn’t much use. Father’s business is too small for him to need an assistant – even if I were any good at shoemaking, which I’m not.”

“Humph!” said the cat’s-meat-man. “Let me think.”

“You see,” I said, “it can’t be a job which will take me away from here. There is too much that I must attend to – the garden and the rest. And besides, there’s the Doctor’s return. I wouldn’t be away from here at the moment he gets home for anything in the world. You haven’t told anyone about our trip to the moon, have you, Matthew?”

He tapped his pipe out against the heel of his boot.

“Not a word, Tommy, not a word.”

“That’s right, Matthew. It must be kept an absolute secret. We have no idea what he will be like to look at when he arrives. We don’t want newspapermen coming around and writing up reports.”

“No,” said Matthew. “That would bring the whole world clattering at the gates. Everybody would want to ’ave a look at the man from the moon.”

“Quite so, Matthew; that’s another reason why I have to have a job. I don’t know what the Doctor may need when he gets here. He may be sick; he may need special kinds of food. And I haven’t a penny in the house.”

“I know, I know,” said Matthew, shaking his head. “Money, money, money, what a curse it is! – as the good man said himself. Can’t seem to do nothing without it though. But look ’ere, Tommy, you shouldn’t ’ave no trouble findin’ a job. ’Cause you got eddication, see?”

“Well, I’ve some education, Matthew. But what good does it do me here in Puddleby? If I was able to get away and go to London, now, that would be different.”

“Oh, listen,” said the cat’s-meat-man. “You boys all think you ’ave to go to London to make yer fortunes – same as Dick Whittington. But young men what ’as eddication can make a good livin’ ’ere in Puddleby. You can read and write and do ’rithmetic. Why can’t you be a clerk in the Puddleby Bank, or a secketary, or somethin’ like that?’;

“But, Matthew,” I cried, “don’t you see? I’d have to stay at work in the town after it was dark – in the winter months anyhow. And as you know the Doctor told me to watch the moon for signals of his coming down. Of course it is true the animals take their turns too, watching for the smoke signals. But I would have to be there even if I’m sleeping, so that I could be called at once if – er – if—”

I don’t exactly know why I broke off without finishing what I had to say. But I suppose my voice must have sounded uncertain, puzzled and upset; because Matthew suddenly looked up from refilling his pipe and said:

“But, Tommy, you ain’t worried, are yer? – I mean, about the Doctor’s returnin’. You feel sure ’e is comin’ back from the moon?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I suppose so.”

“Suppose so!” cried Matthew. “Why, of course ’e will, Tommy! John Dolittle’s one of them men what never comes to ’arm. ’E’ll get back all right. Don’t you worry.”

“But supposing the Moon Man won’t let him come?” I said.

“It’ll take a good deal more than a bloomin’ Moon Man to stop John Dolittle from gettin’ away if ’e wants to.”

“Well, but – er – Matthew,” I said, “I sometimes wonder if he does want to come back.”

Matthew’s eyebrows went up higher than ever.

“Want to come back!” he gasped. “What d’yer mean?”

“Matthew Mugg,” I said, “you know the Doctor cannot be judged the same as other folk. I mean, you never can tell what he’ll do next. We found a very curious state of affairs in the moon. It is a year now since he has been gone. I haven’t said anything about it to the animals in the house here, but the last few weeks I’ve begun to wonder if John Dolittle has not perhaps decided to stay on the moon – for good.”

“Oh, what an idea, Tommy!” said he. “Why would ’e want to do that? From what you told me about the moon, it didn’t sound like a pleasant place at all.”

“It was not an unpleasant place, Matthew. It was very strange and creepy at first. But when you got used to it – no, you could not call it unpleasant. Dreadfully lonely, but the most peaceful place either the Doctor or I had ever seen.”

“Well, but, Tommy, you don’t mean to tell me that a busy man like John Dolittle would throw up all the things ’e’s interested in ’ere on the earth and settle down on the moon, just for the sake of peace and quiet?”

“He might, Matthew,” I answered sadly. “I’ve often remembered, since I left him, something he said when we first learned about the Moon Council, from the whispering vines up there. ‘Our world,’ he said, ‘down on the earth is dog eat dog. Fighting, fighting all the time. Here in the moon they manage things better. Life is arranged and balanced. Even the plants and trees are not allowed to crowd one another out. The birds, instead of eating up the bees and insects, eat up the extra seed of the plants and flowers so they will not spread too fast.’ You see, Matthew, the Great Council of Moon Life planned and watched over everything so that peace reigned – in an almost perfect world. You can understand how such a state of things would appeal to a man like John Dolittle. Don’t you see what I mean?”

“Er – yes, partly,” muttered Matthew. “Go on.”

“What I’m afraid of is this,” I said. “We had the same difficulty with him on Spidermonkey Island. When he found that he was doing a fine work there, getting the Indians to give up war and become civilized – in a very special way, without money and all that – he wanted to stay there. Said the island and the people couldn’t get on without him – that no work he had ever done in Puddleby or anywhere else could compare with what he was doing in Spidermonkey. All of us, Prince Bumpo, Long Arrow the Indian naturalist and myself, begged him to leave. And I’m sure he never would have left if it hadn’t been for me. He felt it was his duty to get me back to my parents. If I could have stayed on the moon with him he would have come back here for the same reason. But after I got kidnapped by the Moon Man and shipped out on the giant moth he won’t have to worry about me. And there is nothing to stop him from staying as long as he likes – if he thinks he’s doing more good up there than he can down here. Now do you see?”

“Yes, but what I don’t see is, ’ow ’e can be doing any good up there.”

“Why, by looking after the Moon Man, Matthew. The Doctor had often told me that Otho Bludge, the only man in the moon and the President of the Life Council, was the greatest human being that ever lived. He might be ignorant according to the ideas of a country bumpkin or a nine-year-old schoolboy down here – he could hardly be otherwise, born in the Stone Age as he was; but his was the brain that worked out the Moon Council and all that it did. And his was the hand that held it together and kept it working. His great trouble, as I’ve told you, was rheumatism. ‘Stubbins,’ the Doctor said to me, ‘if anything ever happens to Otho Bludge I fear it will be the end of the Council. And the end of the Council must mean that all this great work they have built up for happy peaceful living will fall apart and crumble away.’”

Matthew frowned.

“Well, but still I can’t imagine, Tommy,” said he, “that the Doctor would chuck up all ’is connections down ’ere just for the sake of plants and insects and birds on the moon. After all, this is the world what ’e was born in.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that he would forget us all down here, thoughtlessly, or anything like that. You know how utterly unselfish he is. That’s just the point. Any other man would think of himself and his home and his own comforts first; and would hurry down to the earth as quick as he could and spend the rest of his life boasting about his great adventures. But not so John Dolittle. If he thinks it is necessary to act as doctor for the Moon Man, he might stay on and on and on. He has for many years now been dreadfully disappointed in human beings and their stupid, unfair treatment of animals. And another thing: we discovered that life seemed to go on to tremendous lengths up there. Some of the talking plants told us that they were thousands of years old – the bees and birds too. And the age of the Moon Man himself is so great that not even the Doctor could calculate it.”

“Humph!” said Matthew thoughtfully. “Strange place, the moon.”

“I’ve sometimes wondered,” I added, “if the Doctor had some ideas about everlasting life.”

“What do you mean, Tommy? – Living forever?”

“Yes, for the Moon Man – and perhaps for himself, for John Dolittle, as well. That vegetable diet, you know. A world where nobody, nothing dies! Maybe that’s what he sees. If the Moon Man is wearing out a little now – but only after thousands of years – and the Doctor thinks it just requires the help of our science and medicine to keep him living indefinitely, I’m afraid, Matthew, terribly afraid, that he would be greatly tempted to stay.”

“Oh, come, come, Tommy,” said the cats’-meat-man. “Meself, I think it’s much more likely, if ’e ’as discovered the secret of everlastin’ life, that ’e’ll be wantin’ to bring it down to old Mother Earth to try it on the folks ’ere. You mark my words, one of these fine nights ’e’ll come tumblin’ in on top of you, all full of moony ideas what ’e wants to try out on the poor British public. You mark my words.”

“I hope you’re right, Matthew,” I said.

“O’ course I’m right, Tommy,” said he. “We ain’t seen the last of our old friend yet – not by a long chalk. And even if ’e ’asn’t got no other ’umans to persuade ’im to come back, don’t forget ’e ’as Polynesia, ’is parrot, and Chee-Chee the monkey with ’im. They’re somethin’ to be reckoned with. Why, that parrot, by ’erself, would talk down the whole House o’ Lords in any argument! ’E’ll come.”

“But it is a whole year, Matthew, that he’s been gone.”

“Well, maybe ’e wanted to see what the Spring and Summer was like up there.”

“Yes, he did say something once about wishing to see the difference in the seasons on the moon.”

“There you are!” Matthew spread out his hands in triumph. “’E’s been gone a twelve-month-seen the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter on the moon. You can expect ’im back any day now, you mark my words. Cheer up, young man. Don’t be down-’earted. Now let’s get back to this job you was a’ thinkin’ of.”

“Yes, Matthew. We have strayed away from what we started to talk of, haven’t we? You must forgive me if I sounded sort of blue and dumpy. But I have been dreadfully worried.”

“O’ course you ’ave, Tommy – with everything to look after and all. Very nacheral, very nacheral! Now you said you wanted some sort of a job what you could do at ’ome, didn’t yer – so as you could keep one eye on the moon like?”

“That’s it, Matthew.”

“Humph!” grunted the cat’s-meat-man. “Now let me see … Yes, I ’ave it! You remember that butcher what I buys my meat from to feed the cats and dogs with?”

“Oh, that round fat man with the little button of a nose?”

“Yes, that’s ’im. Old Simpson. Now listen: Simpson couldn’t never do figures, see? Always gettin’ ’is books mixed up, sendin’ wrong bills to people and ’avin’ no end of rows with ’is customers. ’E’s very sensitive about it. ’Is missus could do ’is figurin’ for ’im but ’e won’t let ’er, see? Doesn’t like to admit that ’e can’t add up straight. Now maybe I can persuade ’im to let me bring you ’is books twice a week; and you can put ’em right and make out ’is bills proper for ’im, see?”

“Oh, Matthew,” I cried, “that would be splendid if you could!”

“Well, Tommy,” said he, “I’ll see what can be done. I’ll go and ’ave a chat with old Simpson in the mornin’ and I’ll let you know. Now I got to be off. Don’t worry, Tommy, everything’s goin’ to be all right.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

Cheapside Calls on Us

The cat’s-meat-man was quite successful. Obadiah Simpson, the butcher, was only too glad to hear of someone who would do his bookkeeping for him without telling anybody about it. Matthew Mugg brought me two large brand-new ledgers, as they were called, heavy, red-bound, blank books with OBADIAH SIMPSON & SONS – BUTCHERS: PUDDLEBY-ON-THE-MARSH stamped in gold on their covers. With these, twice every week, he brought also an envelope full of greasy slips of paper on which were written the butcher’s sales of meat to his customers.

The writing was awful and very hard to make out. Most of the customers’ names were spelled wrong – often many different ways in one batch of bills. But after I had asked Matthew to get the proper spelling of the names for me I entered up each customer in the big elegant red books. I used a bold round handwriting, very elegant, I thought. It was in fact a boyish copy of Doctor Dolittle’s. But anyhow, alongside of poor Simpson’s dreadful-looking pothooks of letters and figures it did look very clear, grown-up and business-like.

The butcher was delighted with my work. I learned afterwards that he told his family that the bookkeeping and the bold round handwriting were his own and that he had taken a special course in mathematics from a professor!

He paid me three shillings and sixpence a week. It does not sound much, I know. But in those days money went a great deal further than it does now. By economizing I was able to buy the things I needed for the house and the animals and I even managed to save a little out of it for a rainy day. And it was a good thing, too, that I did, as I will explain later on.

Spring was now turning into Summer and the days were getting long again. One late afternoon we were sitting down to tea, and although daylight still lasted, a beautiful, pale full moon hung in the sky. The animals were gathered around the table in the kitchen.

“Who is on duty watching the moon tonight, Tommy?” asked Jip, looking up at the sky through the window.

“Too-Too,” I said. “He will be there till midnight, then I will go up, Jip.”

“Listen, Tommy,” said the dog, “I see some cloud banks over in the West there. What will happen if the clouds spread over the moon just at the moment when the Doctor wants to set off the smoke signals?”

“You can see the earth from the moon just as plainly as you can see the moon from here,” I said, “only the earth looks much larger. You remember I told you the earthlight on the moon was much stronger than the moonlight is on the earth. If the Doctor sees clouds around the side of the earth that is facing towards the moon he will put off signalling till they clear away.”

“Yes, but suppose,” said Jip, “that he is trying to get away secretly, without letting the Moon Man know; he might miss a chance that way which he would never get again.”

“I am afraid, Jip,” I answered, “that getting off the moon without Otho Bludge knowing it would be impossible for the Doctor – or anybody else.”

“It doesn’t seem to me,” squeaked the white mouse, “– from what Tommy has told us about that horrid old Moon Man – that John Dolittle will stand any chance at all of leaving without his permission and his help. Isn’t that so, Tommy?”

“Er – yes, I’m afraid it is, pretty much,” I answered. “You see, gathering together enough of that special wood I told you about is a big job. To make a smoke explosion big enough to be seen from here you need to have a regular mountain of the stuff.”

“Is there any other way for him to get down,” asked Jip, “except by using the giant moth who took you both up there?”

“Well, Jip,” I said, “that’s the only means that I know he could use. Still, you must remember, that I was only on the moon for a short time. And although we went part way into the further side of the moon – the side you never see from here – we had not explored it all when I left, by any means. The Doctor may have discovered new animals since – flying insects and birds, you know – which I never saw. He might get help from them.”

“But look here,” said Gub-Gub, “didn’t you say that all the creatures and plants on the moon obeyed the orders of Otho Bludge because he was President of the Council? Well, how could they help—”

“Oh, do be quiet!” snapped Dab-Dab. “Enough of your everlasting questions. The Doctor will get down in his own time and his own way.”

I was glad of the old housekeeper’s interruption. For months now I had had to answer a never-ending stream of inquiries about the Doctor and his chances of getting off the moon. With her clever motherly sense, Dab-Dab had seen that my heart was sinking lower and lower as the months went by, while I still tried to keep up a cheerful front. Yet no one was more uneasy about the Doctor’s safety – though she did not show it – than Dab-Dab herself. I had found her more than once of late secretly dusting his room, brushing his clothes and putting his shaving things in order with tears in her eyes. She confessed to me, years afterwards, that she had given up all hope of seeing her dear old friend again when the tenth month had passed.

“Yes, but what I don’t understand,” said the white mouse, “is how the—”

“There are a lot of things you don’t understand,” Dab-Dab put in. “Who wants a piece of hot toast?”

“I do,” said Gub-Gub.

I took a large plate full of toast from the hearth and set it on the table. And for a while we all munched away and drank tea in silence.

“What are you thinking about, Gub-Gub?” asked the white mouse presently.

“I was thinking of the kitchen garden of Eden – if you must know,” grunted Gub-Gub with his mouth full.

“The kitchen garden of Eden! Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse. “What an idea!”

“Well, they had apples in the garden of Eden, didn’t they?” said Gub-Gub. “And if they had orchards they must have had a kitchen garden. I do wish the Bible had said more about it. I could have used it very nicely in my Encyclopedia of Food.”

“What would you have called it?” tittered the white mouse. “‘Chapter on Biblical Eating’?”

“I don’t know,” said Gub-Gub seriously. “But listen: I did know a biblical family once.”

“You did!” cried the white mouse. “A biblical family!”

“Certainly,” said Gub-Gub. “Very biblical. They all wore bibs – the children, the parents, and even the grandfather. But I do wish I knew what Adam and Eve ate besides apples.”

“Oh, well, why bother?” sighed Jip. “Just make it up out of your fat head as you go along. Who will know the difference? Nobody was ever there.”

“Why not call it ‘Heavenly Vegetables’?” said the white mouse, carefully brushing the toast crumbs out of his silky whiskers.

“Yes, I was thinking of that,” said Gub-Gub. “After all, what would heaven be without vegetables?”

“Just heaven,” said Jip with a sigh.

“Sh!” said Dab-Dab. “What’s that noise?”

“Why, it’s Cheapside! Look!” cried the white mouse. “At the window.”

We all glanced up and there, sure enough, was the Cockney sparrow tapping on the glass with his stubby bill. I ran and pushed the window up. He hopped inside.

“What ho, me ’earties!” he chirped. “’Ere we are again! The old firm – what, ’avin’ tea? Good, I’m just in time. I always makes an ’abit of arrivin’ places just in time for tea.”

He flew on to the table and began helping me to eat my piece of toast.

“Well,” said he, “what’s new in Puddleby?”

“Nothing much, Cheapside,” I said. “I have a small job which brings in a little money – enough to keep us going. But we always expect you to bring the news, you know. How is Becky?”

“Oh, the wife,” said he. “She’s all right. Yer know the old sayin’, ‘naught can never come to ’arm.’ Ha, ha! We’re busy buildin’ the new spring nest now – Yes, same old place, St. Edmund’s left ear, south side of the Cathedral. But we got a new architect in charge of St. Paul’s now. And what d’yer think was the first thing ’e did? Why, ’e gave orders to ’ave all the saints washed! It’s a fact. Sacrilegious, I calls it. And ain’t we sparrows got no rights neither? Mussin’ up our nests with dirty water! Why, me and Becky ’ave built our nest in St. Edmund’s left ear for six years now. Thought we was goin’ to ’ave to move over to the Bank of England this Spring – straight, we did. But at last them bloomin’ masons got finished with their moppin’ and sloppin’ and we’re back at the old address for another year. Any word of the Doctor?”

A little silence fell over us all.

“No, Cheapside,” I said at last. “No signals as yet. But tell me, what is the news from London?”

“Well,” said Cheapside, “they’re all talkin’ about this ’ere eclipse of the moon.”

“What are clips of the moon?” asked Gub-Gub.

“An eclipse, Gub-Gub,” I said, “is when the earth gets between the sun and the moon – exactly in between. The earth’s shadow is then thrown upon the moon and its light is put out – for us. When is this eclipse, Cheapside?”

“It’s tonight, Tommy,” said the sparrow. “It’s the first full eclipse in I don’t know how many years. And everybody up in London is getting out their telescopes and opery-glasses so as to be ready to see it. That’s why I come ’ere tonight. ‘Becky,’ I says to the missus, ‘I believe I’ll take a run down to Puddleby this evenin’.’ ‘What d’yer want to do that for?’ she says. ‘What about the nest buildin’?’ she says. ‘Ain’t you interested in yer children no more?’ ‘Ho no!’ I says to ’er, I says. ‘It ain’t that, old girl. But when a feller’s ’ad as many families as I’ve ’ad, yer can’t expect – well, the newness of the idea gets worn off a bit, you know. There’s an eclipse tonight, Becky,’ I says, ‘and this ’ere city air is so foggy. I’d like to run down to the Doctor’s place and see it from the country. You can finish the nest by yerself. It’s nearly done already.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ she says. ‘You and your eclipses! It’s a fine father you are! Run along.’ And ’ere I am, the old firm. Let’s ’ave another piece of toast, Dab-Dab.”

“Do you know what time the eclipse is supposed to be, Cheapside?” I asked.

“A few minutes after eleven o’clock, Tommy,” said he. “I’m going to go up and watch it from the roof, I am.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Eclipse of the Moon

At Cheapside’s words a great chattering broke out among the animals. Every one of them decided he wanted to stay up and see the eclipse. Usually our household was a very free one, quite different in that way – as well as many others – from a household of people. Everybody went to bed at whatever hour he wished – though if we did not want a scolding from Dab-Dab we all had to be pretty much on time for meals. The last few months, however (even while we carefully took turns watching the moon for the smoke signals), we had been going to bed pretty early in order to save candles.

Gub-Gub was dreadfully afraid that he would miss the eclipse by falling asleep. This was something he did very easily at any hour at all. He made us promise to wake him if he should doze off before eleven o’clock. Cheapside’s coming had cheered us all up. We certainly needed it. I thought something should be done to celebrate.

And so, as it turned out, that particular eclipse of the moon was made a very special occasion and a sort of a party.

Immediately after tea I ran down to the town and spent a little of the money I had saved up on some things for a special supper. I got the right time, too, while I was shopping and corrected the grandfather’s clock in the hall when I got back to the house.

We had a very gay meal, everybody chattering and laughing over the sparrow’s ridiculous jokes and songs. As usual, I was asked no end of questions – this time about eclipses and what they were like. I found some of them very difficult to answer, because, though I had seen an eclipse of the sun once, I had never seen one of the moon.

All the animals wanted to make sure of a good place to watch from, where they could see the show properly. This was not easy. There were several high trees near the house; and at half-past ten the moon looked as though it might very soon be hidden by their top branches – that is, if one tried to watch the eclipse from the garden. So Gub-Gub said he wanted to see it from the roof, the same as Cheapside. I explained to him that it was easy for the birds, like Too-Too, Dab-Dab and the sparrow – and even for the white mouse, because they could cling to the ridge and keep their balance, but that it would be much more difficult for him and Jip and myself.

However, there was a trap-door in the roof which let you out from the attic on to the tiles, close to the big chimney. In the attic I managed to rig up two step-ladders with a sort of platform, made out of boards and packing-cases on the top. By standing on this we were able to stick our heads out of the trap-door.

It was a fine place for a view. I could see the town of Puddleby, three miles away, even the buildings and everything – the church tower, the town hall, the winding river, all bathed in the light of the moon.

On the platform Jip, Gub-Gub and I stationed ourselves to wait. The white mouse I had brought up in my pocket. I let him go on the tiles where, with squeals of joy, he ran along the ridge or capered up and down the steep slopes of the roof, absolutely fearless, just as though he were on solid ground.

“Can’t I get out on to the tiles too, Tommy?” asked Gub-Gub. “Whitey is going to get a much better view than we can here – with just our noses poking out of this hole.”

“No,” I said, “better not. You can see the moon quite well from where you are. Whitey can cling on to steep places where none of us could.”

However, while my back was turned, Gub-Gub did scramble out on to the roof – with sad consequences. I heard a terrible squawk and turning around I saw him lose his balance and go rolling down the slope of the roof like a ball.

“Great Heavens!” I said to Jip. “He’ll be killed – or badly hurt anyway.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jip. “He’s well padded. Most likely he’ll just bounce when he hits the ground. You can’t hurt that pig.”

With a dreadful shriek Gub-Gub disappeared into the darkness over the edge of the slope and for a second we listened in silence. But instead of the thud of his falling on the garden path, the sound of a big splash came up to us. The white mouse ran down the slope and looked over the edge of the rain-gutter.

“It’s all right, Tommy,” he called back to me. “He’s fallen into the rain-water butt.”

I jumped to the attic floor, ran down the stairs and out into the garden.

In those days all country houses had rain-water butts. They were big barrels set close to the walls to catch rain-water from the roof. Into one of these poor Gub-Gub had fallen – luckily for him. When I came up he was swimming and gasping in the water, quite unable to get out, but not hurt in the least. I fished him up to the top, carried him into the kitchen and rubbed him with a towel. He was a wetter but a wiser pig.

When I had got him dry I heard the hall clock strike eleven and we hurried back to the trapdoor.

As we started to get up on to the platform Jip called to me:

“Hurry, Tommy, hurry! It’s beginning!”

Then I heard Too-Too calling from the other end of the roof:

“Here it is. The shadow! Look! The shadow creeping over the moon.”

I sprang out of the trap-door and stood on the ridge, steadying myself with one hand on the chimney.

It was indeed a remarkable sight. There was not a cloud in the sky. A great round shadow, like a tea-tray, was creeping slowly across the face of the moon. The country about us had been all flooded with light, almost like day. But now the world slowly began to darken as the moon’s light went out, shut off by the giant shadow of the earth. Even Puddleby River, which had shone so clearly, was gone in the darkness. Little by little the shadow crept on until the moon was hidden altogether; only a faint, pale, glowing ring – like a will-o’-the-wisp – was left standing in the sky where it had been. It was the blackest night.

“My goodness, Tommy!” whispered Gub-Gub, “isn’t it exciting? Will it stay this way?”

“Not for long, Gub-Gub,” I said. “In a few seconds you will see the moon again, just the edge of it at first, when our shadow passes off it.”

“But I don’t see myself there,” said Gub-Gub. “We’re sitting up on top of the house, as plain as a pikestaff. There ought to be the shadow of a pig and a dog and a boy there.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse out of the darkness at my elbow.

“No, Gub-Gub,” I said. “Our bodies can throw a shadow on the ground, or a wall, both by sunlight and moonlight. But we are too small – as far away from it as this – to throw a shadow on the moon.”

“Humph! I’m very disappointed,” grunted Gub-Gub. “I would have liked to see my shadow on the moon.”

“You are a kind of a comical scientist, you are, Piggy,” chirped Cheapside from the chimney top above our heads. “An eclipse of the bacon, ha!”

“But, listen, Tommy,” said Jip. “You said the moon’s light is only the light of the sun reflected back to us here, the same as a mirror, didn’t you? Very well then: if the earth on which we stand is now in between the sun and the moon – throwing a shadow over it – then anyone in the moon at this moment will have the light of the sun cut off, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, Jip,” I said. “That’s quite right. The moon is now having an eclipse of the sun while we are having an eclipse of the moon…. There you are, Gub-Gub, the shadow is passing off now. You can just see a thin line of the moon beginning to show on the – My goodness, what was that?”

“Tommy! Tommy!” screamed Dab-Dab. “Did you see that? A puff of smoke – just at the end of the white line of the moon!”

“Yes, I saw it!” I shouted back. “Yes, look – there it goes again!”

“White smoke!” said Jip solemnly.

“The signal, the signal at last!” cried Too-Too. “It’s the Doctor!” said the white mouse. “Yes, it’s the Doctor, all right,” chirped Cheapside. “’E’s comin’ back to us. Gawd bless ’im!”

• • • • •

•   5   •

I Send for Help

The Doctor’s little house on the Oxenthorpe Road had in its time seen many days and nights of excitement and thrill. But I don’t believe that it ever saw anything quite as uproarious and crazy as it did now. All the animals asked me a question at once, and, without waiting for an answer, asked me another. When they were not asking questions they were chattering and cheering or giving advice, or just singing for sheer joy. And I must admit I was pretty well excited myself.

“Cheapside,” I said, “fly over to Matthew Mugg’s house, will you? He’ll be in bed, but tap on his window and wake him up. Point to the moon. He’ll understand. Get him to come here right away. Bring him in his nightshirt if necessary, but get him here. I may need his help.”

“Okay!” chirped the sparrow, and with a flirt of his wings he was under way.

“How long do you think it will be before the Doctor gets here?” asked Gub-Gub. “What will he do if a storm comes up? Will he be hungry? Yes, of course he will. I’ll go and dig up some of the spring onions at once.”

“Listen, Tommy,” said the white mouse. “What will he be wearing? Most likely his clothes will be all in rags after this long time, won’t they? I’ll go and thread some needles for him right away.”

Dab-Dab was a changed duck. Instead of carrying her usual look of seriousness, care, and responsibility, she was now weeping and smiling at the same time.

“Just to think of it!” she kept muttering. “The dear man! On his way back at last! Which room shall we put him in, Tommy – his old one? It’s the only large bedroom, facing East – and he always did like to wake up with the morning sun on the windows, you know. You’ve got it full of dried plants and specimens. But no matter, we’ll soon clear it. I’ll go and make his bed up.”

“There is no hurry about that, Dab-Dab,” I said. “He can’t get down to the earth for many hours yet.”

The eclipse was nearly over now. We waited a few minutes – just to make sure we did not miss any further signals. Then, after the shadow had cleared away entirely and the moon sailed the sky again in all her glory, we went down into the house.

“Listen, everybody,” I said when we were gathered in the kitchen: “you know we agreed to keep the Doctor’s visit to the moon a secret. And we have. That is one of the reasons why I have hardly left the house since I came back to you – I did not want to be asked questions by people I might meet. Now it is more important than ever that we say nothing – nothing to any living thing, you understand – of John Dolittle’s return. Do not speak of it even to your animal friends or we shall have a string of cows and dogs and horses a mile long waiting at the gate to greet him. That will attract the attention of people and the Doctor will get no peace day or night. He may be very much in need of rest and sleep when he arrives. So remember: not a word.”

“Tommy,” Jip whispered, “you’re not fearing he’ll be sick when he gets here, are you?”

“I’m not fearing anything, Jip,” I answered. “But on the other hand I don’t know what to expect. The journey down here is a very trying and hard one, as I told you. The changes of air and gravity and climate are awfully sudden and disturbing. John Dolittle has been more than a year on the moon. I was only up there a short time. It may be much more difficult for him to get used to the earth again than it was for me. I would feel happier if I had another doctor here in case he needs medical care. But Matthew will be along presently. I’ll be able to send him into the town if we need anything.”

“But everything will be all shut up now, Tommy,” said he. “It’s nearly midnight.”

“I doubt if we shall see the Doctor before tomorrow night, Jip,” I said. “Even at the tremendous speed that the giant moth travels, it takes a long time. Then again he may not leave immediately after signalling. He may wait a while. I have an idea he chose the time of the eclipse for some special reason. Too-Too, would you please see how much money I have?”

“Yes, Tommy,” said the owl, “right away.”

In those days we only had metal money, copper, silver and gold, except for large amounts. What I had saved I kept in the same old money-box the Doctor used. It stood in the same place, too – on the dresser shelf in the kitchen. Too-Too, who had always been a wizard at mathematics, now emptied the money-box into a flat dish and began to count up the coins.

“If he arrives in the daylight,” said Jip, “what shall we do then? – I mean about people seeing him land. How are we going to keep it a secret?”

“I imagine the Doctor will think of that himself,” I said. “Most likely he will time his departure from the moon so as to land here in the dark. I think, Jip, we had better arrange for someone to stay on watch at the trap-door till the moon sets. Will you go?”

“Certainly,” said Jip, and he made for the stairs.

“Tommy,” called Too-Too from the dresser, “you have here exactly seven shillings and four-pence ha’penny. Let’s see: you’ve had your job five weeks now. That means you’ve saved eighteenpence a week. Not bad, Tommy, not bad.”

“No,” I said; “I didn’t think I had so much. Well, we’ll need it – and maybe a good deal more.”

There came a familiar tap-tap at the window-pane.

“Cheapside!” said the white mouse.

I let him in.

“You didn’t take long,” I said. “Did you find Matthew?”

“Yes,” said the sparrow. “’E’s comin’ right along be’ind me. I can fly much quicker, see? So I come on ahead.”

It was not many minutes after Cheapside’s return that Gub-Gub came in from the kitchen garden. He had a beautiful bunch of spring onions which he had gathered.

“I do love digging up onions by moonlight,” said he. “There’s something so poetic about it. Listen, Tommy, I saw Matthew’s figure from the gate, way down the road, coming here on the run.”

At that moment Matthew burst into the room.

“Tommy!” he cried, all out of breath. “You don’t mean to say you got the signal!”

“That’s it, Matthew,” I said. “We all saw it – twice – two distinct puffs of smoke. Isn’t it grand?”

“Why, I should say it is!” said the cat’s-meat-man, sinking into a chair. “I run all the way ’ere. Ain’t done such a thing since I was a boy. I thought it was Cheapside, but then I couldn’t be sure, because all sparrers look alike to me. Me and Theodosia ’ad gone to bed; but that blinkin’ little bird woke us up – kept peckin’ at the glass and pointin’ to the moon. My, I wish I could talk these bird languages, the same as you can! But at last I tumbled to the idea and I jumps into me clothes like a fireman and ’ere I am. ’Ow soon do yer expect the Doctor?”

“I can’t tell, Matthew. My guess is some time tomorrow night. But I wanted to have you here right away to help me if necessary. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I’m deelighted, Tommy, deelighted! I wouldn’t miss being ’ere to welcome the Doctor, not for nothin’ in the world.”

All the animals were far too excited to go to bed that night. They kept skipping in and out of the house, peering at the moon. Matthew Mugg sat up with me in the kitchen, where we talked till the dawn showed in the east windows.

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Sound in the Sky

Even then, when daylight came, the cats’-meat-man and I only took short sleeps in our chairs, setting Too-Too on watch with orders to rouse us if anything happened.

About noon Dab-Dab woke us and said breakfast was ready. We were hungry and ate a hearty meal.

“We ought to get some things in from the town, Tommy,” said the housekeeper as she waited on us. “The larder is pretty low in provisions.”

“All right, Dab-Dab,” I said. “Tell me what you need.”

“I’m short of milk,” she said. “The Doctor always drank a lot of milk. And I’m low on sugar, too. And – let me see – yes, tapioca, macaroni and three loaves of bread. I think that’s all.”

I made out a list, gave it to Matthew with some money, and asked him to do the shopping for us. The cat’s-meat-man was very proud of being a friend of John Dolittle’s; so, fearing he might be tempted to talk, I reminded him once more as he set out for Puddleby to keep a closed mouth about the great event we were waiting for.

“Don’t you worry, Tommy,” he said. “I won’t talk. But listen, would you mind if I was to tell my wife Theodosia? She was at me last night to tell ’er why I was rushin’ off in such an ’urry. She always thinks I’m goin’ poachin’ when I stays out nights. But she knows ’ow to keep a secret. And, while Dab-Dab is a pretty good cook and housekeeper, we might be glad of ’er ’elp when the Doctor arrives. Theodosia would be right pleased to do anything she can for John Dolittle. And, yer know, women – though they ain’t much good at some things – they do know ’ow to make a place ome-like for a welcome. They ’ave ideas – and good ones too – sometimes. Surprisin’.”

“Why – er, yes, Matthew,” I said. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t tell Mrs. Mugg.”

Not long after the cat’s-meat-man had gone, the old lame horse came round to the kitchen door.

“Tommy,” said he, “I see the woodshed is nearly empty. Maybe the Doctor will need a fire when he gets down. The nights are still pretty cool. Don’t you think we ought to go and gather some wood?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think we should. But how is your hoof?”

“Oh,” said he, “not too bad. I have to limp a bit. But if you put those two wood baskets on my back I can manage them easy.”

So I got an axe and we went off into the small forest that bordered the Doctor’s garden at the bottom. Here I chopped enough wood for three or four good fires. I loaded it into the baskets and the old horse carried it up to the shed.

It was about half-past four in the afternoon when Matthew got back. Besides the stores I had sent him for, he brought Theodosia Mugg, his wife. I was glad to see her big motherly figure coming up the garden path. She was a very clever and capable woman, was Theodosia. This she had shown when she travelled with the Doctor in the circus, years ago, and had acted as wardrobe-woman in the famous Canary Opera which John Dolittle had put on in London.

Dab-Dab did not quite care for the idea of having anyone share her duties as housekeeper. But she had always liked Theodosia; and very soon she saw that the good woman could get a lot more done in one hour than a duck could in three.

A few minutes after she arrived Mrs. Mugg had all the carpets out on the lawn to be beaten; she had the lace curtains in the wash-tub to be cleaned; the kitchen floor was scrubbed; every dish in the house was spic and span. You never saw a house change so quickly.

“Oh, Master Tommy,” said she (I could never understand why I was just plain “Tommy” to Matthew, but always “Master Tommy” to his wife), “ain’t it wonderful to think of the Doctor’s comin’ back? It threw me all of a twitter – the news did, when Matthew told me – Oh, would yer mind chasin’ that pig out into the garden? ’E’s muddin’ up the clean floor.”

Gub-Gub, much to his disgust, was asked to leave.

“Yes,” she went on, “Matthew told me too what you said about keepin’ the Doctor’s comin’ a secret. Never fear, I don’t want to be laughed at. People wouldn’t believe you – not if you told ’em one quarter of what’s true about the Doctor. Why, when I was workin’ with ’im in the circus and ’e put on the Canary Opera, it was plain to everyone in London that ’e could talk the languages of all them birds – just as if ’e come of a canary family ’isself. But even then, with it right under their noses, would people believe it? No. ‘Talk canary language!’ says they. ‘Impossible! It’s just trainin’ tricks—’ No, you needn’t think I’d speak to anyone about the Doctor’s bein’ in the moon. I don’t want to be laughed at. That’s the way folks are: tell ‘em anything new and they think you’re cracked.”

Theodosia shook her head sadly and went on dusting the pantry cupboard.

“Yes,” I said. “And I fancy that is partly why John Dolittle has kept so much to himself of late years. For one thing, many of the scientific discoveries he has made in natural history are far too extraordinary for people to believe; and for another, he does not want to be bothered with people fussing at him and admiring him and hindering him from working. Why, Jip told me that while he was running the opera in London it took him an hour of each day to sign the autograph albums that were sent him for his signature.”

“It was worse than that, Master Tommy,” said Theodosia – “sometimes. Indeed, we ’ad to get the ’elp of the police to keep the crowds away when they discovered what ’ouse ’e was livin’ in in London – Well, now look ’ere! This won’t do, I mustn’t stand gossipin’. I want to get this ’ouse finished before ’e comes.”

It began to get dark about a quarter-past seven. By that time the animals had all had sleep of some sort, even if it was only a few minutes. They now began to fuss around again, chatting in the garden in twos and threes, determined not to be caught napping at the last moment. I noticed some blackbirds and robins watching this moonlight garden party from the trees. So I sent out Dab-Dab to call the animals in.

When the moon rose at a quarter-past eight, Matthew and I stationed ourselves at one of the bedroom windows. We left this window open.

“You feel sure ’e’ll come tonight, Tommy, don’t you?” asked the cat’s-meat-man.

“Pretty certain, Matthew,” I said. “I only hope he arrives in darkness. That’s the one thing I’m afraid about now.”

“Well, the Doctor don’t often go wrong on calculations,” said he.

“No,” I said, “that’s very true. But you see I’m by no means certain he’ll come on the moth. If he does, he could be sure of his timing, because on our way up his watch never stopped. After we’d landed it went all wrong, on account of the gravity and different climate. But he noted down the exact number of hours it took us to get up there. However, Jamaro Bumblelily was the only specimen of the giant moth we saw in the moon. It is possible she may not be able to bring the Doctor on this trip.”

“What will ’e do, then?”

“I’ve no idea, Matthew,” I said. “Perhaps he’ll come on some other insect – which may take a longer or may take a shorter time.”

At that moment there was a scratching on the door.

“Tommy, Tommy!” called Jip through the door. “Too-Too says he hears something – in the sky, a long way off. Listen and see if you can catch it!”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Great Locust

Both Matthew and I put our heads out of the window.

“Do you hear anything?” I asked.

“Not a thing, Tommy,” said the cat’s-meat-man.

“Humph!” I said. “Neither do I. But that’s not surprising. That owl Too-Too can hear things that no human ear can ever catch. Why, once when we were—”

“Sh! – Listen!” whispered Matthew. “Do you get that? A low humming noise.”

Then came another knocking on the door. This time it was Dab-Dab.

“Tommy,” she called. “Come out into the garden – the back garden – quick!”

Matthew and I dashed for the door and down the stairs.

Behind the house, on the big lawn, we found all the animals with Theodosia, gazing skywards. And now I heard it: a deep, soft, purring kind of noise, still a long, long way off.

“Well, if that’s a moth,” said Matthew, “it’s as big as a young town.”

“It isn’t the moth,” I said. “Jamaro Bumblelily made an entirely different sound. The Doctor’s coming down on something else. We must get the lawn clear. Let’s run that wheelbarrow into the shed, Matthew.”

“All right. I’ll do it,” said the cat’s-meat-man.

This fine sweep of turf had always been known as the Long Lawn. It was one part of that grand old garden of which the Doctor was very proud. Bordered by great elm-trees on one side and by a long tall yew-hedge on the other, it ran in one unbroken sweep of a hundred and fifty yards, from the house at one end toward the fish-pond and the Zoo at the other. At the bottom there was an old card house, a pavilion made like a small Greek temple out of gleaming white stone. On this lawn, the history of the place told us, a duel had been fought by gay gentlemen in brocade and lace ruffles, after they had quarrelled over their card game in the pavilion.

It was a romantic spot. And just to look at it by moonlight carried you back hundreds of years. I could not help wondering as I gazed upon it now whether, with all its memories of the past, it had ever seen anything as strange as it would see tonight.

It is curious that from the time when the hum in the sky could be first plainly heard, none of us spoke. We had all drawn away, close to the house, so as to leave the Long Lawn clear for the Doctor’s landing. Silent, Matthew presently joined us. And there we all stood, faces upturned toward the moon, too breathless with excitement to speak, while the booming drone of great wings grew louder and louder.

How long we waited I cannot tell. It may have been a minute; it may have been an hour. I know I had intended to note down the exact time the Doctor landed. He had so often reminded me of the importance, in keeping scientific or natural-history notes, of putting down the date and the time of day. For this reason I had brought out with me one of his old watches which I had carefully set by the grandfather’s clock in the hall. But I forgot to look at it. I forgot everything. All I thought of was that he was there – somewhere in the sky, with that tremendous growing sound – coming, coming back to us at last!

But though I lost all count of time that night, everything that actually happened I remember as sharply now as though it were drawn in pictures before my eyes at this moment. Somewhere in that space of time while we stood gazing, a great shadow swept suddenly between us and the moon. For a little while it stood, hovering and humming, high up above the lawn. I could not yet make out much as to its shape. Then, like some roaring machine turned off sharply, the noise ceased. The air rested in a big dead silence.

I guessed that whatever creature it might be, it was probably now sailing with outspread wings, looking for a place to land. Next the shadow passed from off the smooth grass. Was it circling – circling downwards? Yes, because once more its great body shut off the light like a cloud.

And at last – whish! – it came skimming over the tree-tops in plain view. The air whistled like a fierce gust of wind as it banked around in a graceful curve and dropped on the turf before us.

It filled the whole of the Long Lawn!

It was clear to me now that it was some member of the grasshopper family. (Later I learned that it was a locust.) But for the present I was not so concerned with the nature of the insect as I was with what it carried.

Alone, I moved out into the moonlight towards it. On tiptoe, trying to see the top of its back, I peered upward. But the highest part of it was hidden by the curve of the body. The great locust, apparently exhausted by the long journey, lay absolutely, still. Nothing moved anywhere.

A terrible fear came over me. Where was the Doctor? Had the hard journey proved too much for him? – Or could it be that he had not come at all? Perhaps this great thing from the moon’s animal kingdom had only brought a message to us – maybe a message to say that John Dolittle had decided to stay on that other world after all.

Frantic at the thought, I started to scramble up the locust’s wings, which were now folded at his sides. Beautiful, transparent wings they were, smooth and opal-coloured – with great hard veins running through them, standing out from the glassy surface like gnarled roots.

But suddenly I heard a voice, a harsh, grating, but well-remembered, well-loved voice. A parrot’s! – “Chee-Chee, Chee-Chee! Wake up! We’re here – in Puddleby. Shiver my timbers! You’re not as sick as you think you are. Wake up!”

And then for the first time the Earth spoke back to the people from the moon.

“Polynesia!” I shouted. “Is that you? Where is the Doctor? Is he with you?”

“Yes, he’s here all right,” called the parrot. “But he’s unconscious still. We’ve got to go easy with him. Had an awful time getting through the dead belt. Gosh, what a journey! I wonder if I can fly straight any more in this gravity? Look out! I’m coming down.”

I saw something shoot out off the top of the locust’s back. It looked like a bundle of rags, turning over and over in the air. Then it landed on the grass at my feet with a distinct thud. Polynesia, ruffled and disgruntled, broke out into a long string of Swedish swear-words.

“Ouch!” she ended. “Did you see that? – Landed right on my nose, like a pudding! I’ve got to learn to fly all over again – at my time of life! All unbalanced and fluffed up! Just because that stupid old moon doesn’t keep the right kind of air. You haven’t got a biscuit in your pocket, I suppose? I’m as hungry as a bear.”

I called to Dab-Dab to go and fetch me some from the pantry.

“But, Polynesia,” I said, “what about the Doctor? You say he’s unconscious?”

“Yes,” she said, “but he’s all right. Difficulty with his breathing, you know. Leave him to rest a little while. We’ll get him down presently. Poor old Chee-Chee’s seasick, or airsick, or whatever it is. The last few hours of the trip I was the only one on deck, the only one left to guide that blessed grasshopper to the garden here. That comes of my years of seafaring, Tommy. Hard as nails, hard as nails – So would you be if you had lived a hundred and eighty years on sunflower seeds and biscuit crumbs! Trouble with humans is they eat too many different kinds of foods. Parrots have more sense!”

She strutted a few paces with her funny, straddling, sailor-like gait. Then she fell down on her side.

“Drat it!” she muttered. “This air is heavy! Can’t even walk straight.”

“But listen,” I said. “The Doctor – can’t we—”

“Sh!” she whispered. “He’s woken up. Look!”

I glanced towards the locust’s back. An enormous foot was sliding down towards us. It was followed by a still more enormous leg. Finally the body came in sight. Polynesia and I moved back a little. Then, with a run, the whole mass of an unbelievably big human figure came slithering down the locust’s wings and slumped into a heap on the lawn.

I rushed forward and gazed into the motionless face. The eyes were closed. The skin was tanned to a deep brown colour by sun and wind. But, for me, there was no mistaking the mouth, the nose, the chin.

It was John Dolittle.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Doctor’s Voice

I ran into the house for the brandy flask which was always kept in the dispensary. But when I got back the Doctor was standing up. He was eighteen feet three and a half inches high. (This I am sure of, because I measured him the next day while he was lying asleep.)

It is difficult to describe his appearance. His sun hat was home-made out of materials he had evidently gathered in the moon and so were his clothes – all but his trousers. These were fashioned out of the blankets we had taken up with us.

“Doctor, Doctor!” I cried. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you back!”

To my surprise he did not answer at once.

I noticed that Chee-Chee the monkey had got over his sickness enough to come down into one of the willows nearby, where Polynesia had joined him. Dab-Dab also had come forward and was now gazing at the Doctor with an odd expression, a mixture of motherly affection, worry, great joy and a little fear. But no one uttered a word. We were all waiting in silence for this strange figure before us to speak.

Presently the Doctor stretched down his hand and took a couple of tottering, unsteady steps towards me. He seemed dreadfully weak and sort of dazed. Once he lifted up his left hand and brushed it across his eyes, as though his sight, as well as his legs, was uncertain. Then his enormous right hand grasped mine so that it disappeared entirely.

At last in a curious hesitating way he said:

“Why – why, it’s Stubbins! Good old … good old … S-s-s-stubbins. Er – er – how are you?”

The voice was the only part of him that had not changed. If his face had been blacked and he had grown horns in the moon no one, in any doubt before, could be uncertain now of who it was that spoke. That voice did something to his friends over by the house, who still waited with almost bated breath. For suddenly all of them, Jip, Gub-Gub, the white mouse, Cheapside, Too-Too, Matthew and Theodosia, broke out into resounding cheers and came flocking across the lawn on the run.

They formed a ring around him, all talking at once.

He smiled and tried to say something to each of them. But in a moment he stopped short, swaying.

“Stubbins,” he muttered. “I must sit down.”

He sank heavily to the grass and propped his back against a tree.

“Can I get you anything, Doctor,” I asked. “Brandy? – I have it here.”

“No, I’ll be – be all right soon, Stubbins. It’s my – er – er – breathing, you know. Funny how I’ve forgotten the language – partly. Haven’t talked it in so long. Have to – er – stop to remember words.”

“Well, don’t try to talk now, Doctor,” I said. “Just rest here.”

“The change of air-pressure … c-c-catches my breath,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “And the stronger gravity – with my weight. Never dreamed the change would be so great. Just take my pulse, will you?”

I took out the watch and held his wrist.

“It’s all right, Doctor,” I said after a while. “It’s a little fast, but strong and regular.”

I turned to Theodosia and asked her to get some mattresses and bedding from the house. She was not sure where to look for them, so I went with her.

“Mercy, Master Tommy!” she whispered when we were inside. “The Lord be praised ’e’s back! But did you ever see such a size?”

“It’s terrific, Theodosia,” I said. “I was over nine feet when I returned. But he’s twice that height.”

“But where are we going to put him?” she asked. “None of these bedrooms is big enough – even if ’e could get through the door.”

“Well,” I said, “we’ll think up some way to manage. Let’s get him comfortable where he is for the present.”

“Don’t you think you ought to ’ave a doctor look at ’im, Master Tommy? I ’ad a sister once who came down with dropsy. Like an elephant she swelled up. But a doctor gave ’er some pills and she got all right.”

“Yes, Theodosia,” I said. “I would feel happier if I had a doctor to keep an eye on him. And if I have to, I will. But so long as John Dolittle is conscious I know he would rather I didn’t.”

“Doctor Pinchbeck, over to Oxenthorpe, is very good, they tell me,” said she. “Now where are them blankets, Master Tommy?”

“In these three cupboards here,” I said. “Look, I’ll load you up and then you send Matthew back to help me get these mattresses out. We’re going to need three at least – maybe four.”

“All right,” she called, running down the stairs under a pile of bedclothes.

“And listen, Mrs. Mugg,” I called after her. “Don’t let those animals fuss the Doctor with questions. Let him rest.”

Well, we got the poor man comfortably settled after a while. By placing four double-bed mattresses end to end we made a bed big enough for him, on the lawn beneath the elms. Then we got all the bolsters in the house, made them into a pile at one end, and covered them with a sheet. That was his pillow. I got him to roll over a couple of turns from where he sat; and there he was, safe in bed.

“It’s pretty cool out here, Doctor,” I said. “How many bedclothes do you think you’ll need?”

He said he thought two thicknesses would be enough. So Theodosia got some carpet thread and by stitching four blankets into one piece, twice, she had two blankets big enough to spread over him.

“But listen, Tommy,” said Dab-Dab, “what if it should rain? There are clouds over there to the south-west.”

“You’re right,” I said. “So there are. Let me see, I wonder what—”

“How about the circus tent?” said Gub-Gub. “That’s big enough to keep the rain off him.”

“Splendid!” I cried. “Let’s go and get it.” And off we all went towards the stable.

The big tent, a perfectly tremendous affair, was all that the Doctor had kept from his circus days. He had thought it might come in handy some time for housing larger animals in the Zoo. It was stored in the hay-loft over the stable. It weighed I don’t know how much. But I do know that it took all of our strength to drag it down out of the loft. But once we got it down, the old horse told us to hitch him on to one end of it with a rope and collar. Then he trailed it across the grass to where the Doctor lay.

We found that some of the poles were missing. But after we had sent Chee-Chee aloft in the trees to tie the ridge-ends to branches, we finally managed to get it strung up and pegged down somehow so that it would serve as a shelter over the bed.

“This is splendid, Tommy,” said Dab-Dab when we had finished. “Because, you see, the tent is hidden here from the road by the house and trees. No one will suspect anything.”

“Yes,” I said, “the Doctor can make this his bedroom till he has grown small again – the same as I did – and can live in the house. We’ll have to get some furniture out for him later. But he won’t need it yet. Now comes the question of food, Dab-Dab. Have we plenty of milk?”

“About three quarts,” said the housekeeper.

I asked Matthew to get me some oil-lamps. And after we had them lighted we went inside the tent.

For the present the Doctor seemed very comfortable. His breathing sounded a little better already. He drank up the three quarts of milk as if it had been no more than a glassful. I guessed that, as usual, he had been too busy getting ready to travel to bother about eating and had probably gone without food for many hours. I rigged up a place for myself to sleep beside him and told the others they could go to bed.

Presently he began to doze off again. But just before he fell asleep he murmured:

“Stubbins, see that the locust has a good feed of lettuce. He will be leaving again before daylight.”

“All right, Doctor,” I said. “I’ll attend to it.”

“And don’t forget to unload all the baggage off him – some very important specimens, Stubbins, and a lot of notes – very important.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’ll get them unloaded and stored away safe.”

I took his pulse again, and while I was doing it he dropped off into a peaceful sleep.

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Moon Cat

Several times during what was left of that night I heard John Dolittle stir. By the light of the turned-down lamp I went and looked at him quietly. It was when the first grey of dawn was showing through the canvas of the tent that he called to me. And as I bent over him I heard the great locust outside whirr up off the lawn and start its return journey to the moon.

“Listen, Stubbins,” he said weakly. “In the baggage you’ll find a package done up in large orange-coloured leaves.”

“Yes, Doctor,” I said. “I saw it. I have it stored safely away with the other things.”

He beckoned me to come nearer. Then he whispered in my ear,

“There’s a cat inside it.”

I tried not to show my surprise. But I must say it was a shock. The Dolittle household had kept almost every kind of animal on earth in its time, but never a cat. The Doctor always feared that it wouldn’t get on happily with the birds and the others. But I only answered,

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I had to bring it, Stubbins,” he went on – “simply had to. I found it on the far side of the moon, in the twilight zone. There was a whole colony of them there. They were the one kind of animal that refused to join in the Council’s work for balancing life and stamping out the everlasting warfare of one species against another. You know they’re very independent, cats. Consequently they had had to live by themselves. But when I visited them they did not seem very happy just the same.”

“But how did cats come to be on the moon in the first place?” I asked.

“Oh, I imagine there must have been a pair of cats on that piece of the earth which shot away into the sky and became the moon, thousands of years ago. The same thing that happened to the Moon Man himself. I made a lot of other discoveries, too, in the animal kingdom up there after you left. I’ll tell you all about them when I’m feeling stronger.”

I was simply aching to ask him a thousand questions concerning these discoveries. But for his sake I held my patience.

“All right, Doctor,” I said; “there’s no hurry.”

“No, but listen,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper again. “Keep it quiet – about the cat. Don’t say anything to our own animals for the present. It would just upset them. I’ll speak to them myself later on. She’s a nice cat – quite a character. You know most people think cats are just stay-at-homes. They are not. They’re very adventurous. This one astonished me. Said that Otho Bludge, the only man up there, didn’t understand cats. And she wanted to travel – to see the world – the earth down here where her ancestors came from. Could she come with me? Well, what was I to do? She promised she would kill no birds, eat no mice and live on nothing but milk – if I’d only take her. You see, Stubbins, I just had to bring her. Polynesia made an awful row, but there was nothing else for it.”

“Very good, Doctor,” I said. “I’ll see she is fed regularly.”

But while I said the words I foresaw a revolution in the Dolittle household ahead of us.

“Now run and get breakfast,” said the Doctor. “Look, it’s daylight outside.”

Weary from the effort of talking, he sank back upon the pillow. It made me terribly unhappy to see him lying there so weak and weary. I had never known John Dolittle to have a single day’s sickness in his life. He had always been so up-and-doing, cheerful, strong and active.

“Tell me,” I said, “don’t you think it would be a good idea if I got a doctor in to see you?”

“Oh, no, Stubbins,” he smiled. “I’ll be all right. You just keep note of my pulse. We don’t want any medical men coming here. It might bring those newspaper fellows around.”

“Can I get you anything to eat?” I asked.

“Bring me a half-dozen eggs beaten up – with a little pepper and salt. But there’s no hurry. Get your own breakfast first, Stubbins. I’ll have another little sleep now. And don’t forget the cat, will you?”

“No, Doctor,” I said, “I won’t forget.”

“By the way,” he added as I pulled aside the tent-flap to leave, “you will find her difficult to talk to. Took me quite a while to get on to the language. Quite different from anything we’ve tried so far in animal languages. A curious tongue – very subtle, precise and exact. Sounds as though whoever invented it was more anxious to keep things to himself than to hand them over to others. Not chatty at all. There’s no word for gossip in it. Not much use for people who want to be chummy. Good language for lawyers, though.”

When I got indoors I found everyone sitting down to a good breakfast which Dab-Dab and Theodosia had prepared. I was glad to be able to tell them that the Doctor could breathe and speak better this morning, but that he still seemed very weak and easily tired.

“The first thing,” I said, “is to make him really strong and well. After that we’ll have to get his weight and size down to what it was. But that must be done gradually, without letting him lose strength. I’ll get him to lay out a diet for himself – then we’ll know just what things to give him and what not to give him.”

“Then you ain’t goin’ to get another doctor to see ’im, Master Tommy?” asked Theodosia.

“No,” I said, “not for the present anyhow.”

“What would he want with a doctor?” Gub-Gub asked, raising his eyebrows. “John Dolittle knows all there is to be known, himself, about doctoring, doesn’t he?”

“Well,” I explained, “you see, when doctors get ill they sometimes have to get other doctors to doctor them.”

“Humph!” grunted Gub-Gub. “How extraordinary! Seems a dreadful waste of money.”

“Now,” I said, “the main thing for the present – you must forgive me if I repeat it – is that all of you, you, Gub-Gub, Jip, Whitey, Too-Too, everybody, must leave him in peace. Don’t visit the tent unless you’re sent there specially. He has a lot to tell us and I am just as anxious to hear it as you are. But we have got to wait till he is well enough to tell us in his own way and in his own time. Is that clear?”

They all promised that they would do as I asked. And I must say that they were very good about it. Anyone who knew the way they loved the Doctor can imagine how hard it was for them to keep away from him at this time, when they had not seen or talked with him for so long.

Matthew and Theodosia I allowed into the tent – and, once in a while, Polynesia and Chee-Chee. But I never let any of them stay long. It is true that I was a very worried boy those first few days. And if the Doctor’s pulse had behaved in any way queerly I would have got another doctor in, no matter what my patient himself had to say.

But, very slowly, a little each day, he began getting better. Before Theodosia left to go back to look after her own home she decided she would like to make him a new suit. Matthew was sent to buy the cloth. But he found that to get enough woollen cloth for such a job would cost far more money than we had. So Mrs. Mugg took three old suits of the Doctor’s and by very clever needlework made them into one big one. Then she re-dyed it to make it all of one colour. Of course the Doctor could not wear it right away because he was not yet well enough to move about. But he was very glad to have it against the day when he could get up.

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Dolittle Household Revolution

I found that the Doctor had given me a hard job when he told me not to let the other animals know about the cat. That same night I sneaked off quietly by myself and opened up the crate to feed her. I suppose I had expected to find an ordinary cat. But there was nothing ordinary about her. She had a long, thin, snaky sort of body and long thin legs – something like the Indian cheetah. And she was the wildest creature I had ever seen.

Most likely she had thought it was the Doctor coming to see her when I started to undo the wrapping on her cage. But when she saw a strange human looking in at her she bounded away from me and cowered, snarling, in a corner. I saw it was no use trying to coax her in that state of fear. I would have to let her get used to me gradually. So I put the bowl of milk down inside and closed up her crate. Soon I heard her lapping up the food hungrily and I tiptoed quietly away.

I thought it best to consult with Polynesia. I took her aside where we could talk without being heard.

“Listen, Polynesia,” I said, “you know about this cat?”

She jumped as though I had stuck a pin in her.

“Young man,” she said severely, “if you wish to remain a friend of mine don’t ever speak of that animal by the usual word. Those creatures – well, just call it It!”

“Very well, Polynesia,” I said, “we’ll call her It – No, let’s call her Itty, shall we?”

“Itty?” muttered the parrot with a frown – “Itty? Kitty? – Pity would be better. Oh, well, have it your own way.”

And from that time on the cat was called Itty.

“You see, Polynesia,” I said, “this cat—”

“Don’t use that word!” she screamed. “It gets me all fluffed up.”

“Excuse me,” I went on. “But Itty has to be fed on the quiet for the present. The Doctor doesn’t want the other animals to know about her until he can tell them himself. But you can understand it isn’t going to be easy for me to get meals to her. Now what I was going to ask you to do is this: when I want to go and give – er – Itty food, I’ll make a sign to you. Then you lead the other animals off somewhere or keep them busy till I get back, see?”

The parrot agreed she would do this. And for a while the plan worked all right. Every day when I wanted to take milk to the cat Polynesia would suggest to the animals that they should all go with her to see how the lettuce was coming up in the kitchen garden, or something like that. And the coast would be left clear for me to attend to Itty.

The cat began gradually to get used to my visits, and when she saw that I meant to do her no more harm than to bring her milk she actually became friendly in a strange awkward way.

However, the household finally got suspicious. Maybe Polynesia’s excuses for getting them out of the way began to grow stale. Anyway, Gub-Gub asked me one evening what was the reason for my disappearing so mysteriously at the same hour every day. Then Too-Too, that bird with the keenest ears in the world, remarked that she had heard strange unearthly noises in the attic. (The attic was where I had stored the Doctor’s moon baggage.) And finally Jip – who had been decorated with a golden dog collar for his cleverness in smelling – said he had sniffed a new queer scent on the upper stairs.

I began to get uncomfortable. I glanced across at Polynesia to see if I would get any help from her. But the old rascal was gazing up at the ceiling, humming a Danish sea song to herself, pretending not to hear a word of the conversation. Chee-Chee, the only other one in the secret, was frightfully busy clearing up the hearth, in hopes, no doubt, that he wouldn’t be asked any questions. The white mouse was watching, silent, from the mantelpiece, his big pink eyes wide open with curiosity. I heard Dab-Dab through the open door to the pantry, drying dishes at the sink. I got more uncomfortable still.

“Tell me, Tommy,” said Jip, “what’s in all that baggage the Doctor brought down from the moon?”

“Oh – er – plants,” I said, “moon plants, and seeds – no end of seeds, Jip; things the Doctor wants to try out down here on the earth to see how they’ll do.”

“But this wasn’t any plant smell which I caught,” said Jip. “It was something quite different.”

“What was it like?” asked Too-Too.

“Seemed like an animal,” said the dog.

“What kind of an animal?” asked the white mouse.

“I couldn’t quite make out,” said Jip. “It was very queer. It set the hair on my back all tingling. And I couldn’t understand why. Is there nothing else but plants in that baggage, Tommy?”

For a long minute I remained silent while all the animals watched me, waiting for an answer. At last Polynesia said,

“Oh, you might as well tell them, Tommy. They’re bound to know sooner or later.”

“Very well, then,” I said. “The Doctor had asked me not to say anything for the present. But I see it can’t be helped. There’s a cat in the baggage.”

Polynesia squawked at the hated word. Jip jumped as though he’d been shot. Too-Too let out a long low whistle. Dab-Dab in the pantry dropped a plate on the floor where it broke with a loud crash – the first time she had ever done such a thing in her life. Gub-Gub grunted with disgust. As for the white mouse, he uttered one piercing squeal and fainted dead away on the mantelpiece. I jumped up and dashed a teaspoonful of water in his face. He came to immediately.

“Gracious!” he gasped. “Such a shock!”

“What,” I asked, “the water?”

“No,” said he, “the cat. Oh, how could he? How could the Doctor have done it?”

“The place will never be the same again,” groaned Too-Too.

“Oh, me, oh, my!” wailed Gub-Gub, shaking his head sadly. “How awful!”

Dab-Dab stood in the pantry doorway, shaking with sobs. “It can’t be true,” she kept saying; “it just can’t be true.”

“A cat!” muttered Jip. “I should have known! Nothing else could have made my spine tingle like that but the smell of a cat. Gosh! I’ll chase her off the place.”

Then they all broke out together in a general uproar. Some were for going away at once, leaving the beloved home they had enjoyed so long. Some begged to be allowed to see the Doctor and ask him to send the animal away. Others, like Jip, swore they would drive her out. Panic, pandemonium and bedlam broke loose in the kitchen.

“Stop it!” I cried at last. “Stop it! Now listen to me, all of you. You’re just making a lot of fuss without knowing what you’re talking about. You ought to know the Doctor well enough by now to be sure he would not bring anything here which will make any of you unhappy. I admit I’m not fond of cats in a general way myself – neither is Polynesia. But this cat is different. It’s a moon cat. It may have all sorts of new ideas on cat behaviour. It may have messages for us. The Doctor is fond of it. He wants to study it.”

“But, Tommy,” squeaked the white mouse, “our lives won’t be safe for a moment.”

“Please be quiet, Whitey,” I said sharply. “How many times have you heard John Dolittle say, ‘Man, as a race, is the most selfish of all creatures’?”

“There’s nothing as selfish as a cat,” put in Jip with a growl.

“How often,” I went on, “have you heard him railing against people who are forever spouting about glorious freedom while they deny it to animals? Are you going to be like that? You haven’t met this cat. You know nothing about her. And yet you all start squawking like a lot of day-old chicks as soon as I mention her.”

“She’ll have to wear a bell – she’ll have to!” cried Dab-Dab. “Cats when they come sneaking up in the dark just give me the heebee-jeebees. I couldn’t stand it. I’d have to leave home – after all these years!”

She began to weep again.

“Calm yourself, Dab-Dab,” I said, “please! At least I expected some sense from you.” I turned to the others. “This cat is a sportsman, everyone must give her that credit. She trusted the Doctor enough to ask to be brought down to the earth. Which of you would have the courage, if a strange man came, down from the moon, to ask to be taken away from this world and planted on another you had never seen? Answer me that.”

Rather to my surprise, my long high-sounding speech seemed to have quite an effect on them. When I ended there was a thoughtful silence. Presently Jip said quietly,

“Humph! You’re right, Tommy. That certainly was plucky. She took a big gamble.”

“Now I’m going to ask you all,” I said, “for the Doctor’s sake, to treat this cat with kindness and consideration. You haven’t got to like her if you can’t. But at least let us be polite and fair to her.”

“Well,” said Dab-Dab with a sigh, “I hope it will work out all right. But if she goes and has kittens in my linen cupboard I’ll fly south with the first flock of wild ducks that passes over the garden, as sure as shooting!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Leave her to the Doctor. He’ll know how to manage her. I can’t even talk her language yet. She is still very shy and wild. But she’ll fit in all right, once she gets used to us all.”

Little Chee-Chee the monkey, squatting by the hearth, spoke up for the first time.

“She’s smart,” he said, “a bit mysterious and queer – and independent as the dickens too – but mighty clever. Polynesia wouldn’t bother to learn her funny language. But I picked up a few words of it.”

“And another thing,” I said, “you need have no fears about her slaughtering other creatures. She has promised the Doctor not to kill birds and” – I glanced up at Whitey on the mantelpiece – “not to eat mice.”

“What’s her name?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Her name is Itty,” I said.

“Humph!” murmured the white mouse thoughtfully. “Itty, eh? Itty – Pretty!”

“Are you trying to make up poetry, Whitey?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Oh, no,” said the white mouse, airily twirling his whiskers. “That’s just called doggerel.”

“Whatterel?” barked Jip in disgust.

“Doggerel,” said the white mouse.

“Cat-and-doggerel, I’d call it,” grunted Gub-Gub.

And they all giggled and went off to bed in a much better mood than I had hoped for.

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Doctor’s Accident

By the end of the week the Doctor was showing a great improvement in health. So far he had lived almost entirely on milk, eggs and lettuce. These three foods seemed to strengthen him better than anything else. And it was a good thing that they did. Because we could not have afforded a more expensive diet. The lettuce, of course, cost practically nothing while we could grow it in the garden. (Gub-Gub and I planted several new beds of it.) Just the same, I was gladder than ever that I had my bookkeeping job. I saved every penny I could out of the three shillings and sixpence a week, in case anything unexpected should turn up which might require a special lot of money.

I still slept in the Doctor’s tent in case he should need anything during the night. One morning early he called me to him and said,

“Stubbins, I’m feeling pretty well. I think I’ll try to get up today.”

“But, Doctor,” I said, “are you sure you’ll be strong enough?”

“No, I’m not sure,” he said. “But the only way to find out is to try. Help me into that suit which Theodosia made for me, will you?”

I was very anxious. At the same time I was very glad. I helped him on with his clothes; but when it came to helping him to stand up and walk, I found I wasn’t much use. Though I measured then something over five feet and a quarter, he had to bend down to reach my shoulder. And he was terribly afraid he might fall on me.

However, after I had cut a long walking-stick for him out of the forest, he managed to hobble around the tent pretty well. Then he got more adventurous still and wanted to go out into the garden. I did my best to persuade him not to, but he tried it anyway. He actually got half-way across the lawn before he sank down from weariness.

The next day he did better still. It was strange to see his towering form walking about the turf, his head occasionally disappearing among the leaves of the high elm-trees. This time after a few rests he said he would like to go as far as the Zoo enclosure. And when he got to it he actually stepped over the ten-foot wall instead of bothering with the door.

After that he was impatient to get into the house. There was one door to the old building which was never used by us. Closed up for years now, its faded green paint and tarnished brass knocker faced towards the Long Lawn, the same as did the back door. But it was always known for some reason or other as the side door. The Doctor was sitting against one of the elms, staring at it while taking a rest.

“You know, Stubbins,” said he, “I believe I could get through that door.”

“Oh, Doctor,” I said, “why, it isn’t half your height!”

“I didn’t mean to try it standing up,” he said. “But by lying down and sort of worming my way in I think I might manage it. You see, it’s a double door. A very long time ago, before the days of my great-grandfather, they used to use that door for garden parties – in fact it was the main door. There was a drive running up to it too, close to the house, where the peony beds are now. Just open it and take a few measurements for me, will you? It is my hips that will be the difficulty. If they’ll go through the rest of me will.”

So I got the long garden tape and measured the width of the Doctor’s hips. Then after hunting with Dab-Dab through all the drawers in the house I found the key to the side door. Its hinges creaked with age and rust as we swung both halves of it open.

I went back to the Doctor.

“It looks to me as if it should be all right,” I said – “that is, as far as the width of the doorframe is concerned. But what are you going to do when you get inside?”

“Oh, the headroom of the hall there is extra high,” he said. “Let’s try it, Stubbins.”

Well, that was when we had our accident. By wriggling and squirming the Doctor got in – halfway. There he stuck. Dab-Dab was in a terrible state of mind. I pushed him to see if I could get him all the way in. Then I pulled at him to see if I could get him out. But I couldn’t budge him either way. I had made a mistake of six inches in my measurements.

“We had better get some carpenters and workmen in, Tommy,” said Dab-Dab. “We certainly can’t leave him like this.”

“No, don’t do that,” said the Doctor. “You’ll have the whole town here gaping at me. Get Matthew to come.”

So I sent off Too-Too to bring the cat’s-meat-man to the rescue.

Matthew scratched his head when he saw the Doctor’s legs sticking out into the garden and the other half of him inside the house.

“Well, now, wait a minute, Tommy,” said he. “Yer see that fan-light window over the door? If you give me a saw and a ladder I can maybe cut away the ’ead of the door-frame.”

“But won’t the bricks come tumbling down, then?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” said Matthew. “The frame of the window-arch will ’old the wall up. Give me a saw. D’yer mind if I stand on top of you, Doctor?”

“Not a bit,” said John Dolittle. “Only get me either in or out. Don’t leave me as I am.”

I got a saw; and Matthew – who was a very handy man with tools – climbed up on top of the Doctor and sawed away the door-head. This gave us, after we had got the glass out of the window, another foot and a half clearance. The Doctor squirmed and wriggled some more.

“Ah!” he said presently. “I think I can manage now. But I’ll have to go in, not out.”

We next drove a stake into the ground to give him something to push against with his feet. The rest of the animals stood around while, with much grunting and puffing, he finally forced the whole of his big body into the hall. He lay down with a sigh.

“Splendid,” he said, “splendid!”

“But you can’t sit up – where you are, Doctor, can you?” I asked.

“Half a mo’, Doctor,” said Matthew. “Wait till I cut a ’ole in the ceilin’. We can put the boards back afterwards so no one would know the difference. Wait while I run upstairs. I’ll ’ave you comfortable.”

The cat’s-meat-man ran round by the kitchen stairs and soon we heard him sawing away at the floor above. Bits of plaster began falling on the Doctor; but Chee-Chee and the white mouse cleared them off him as fast as they fell.

Before long, a hole appeared in the hall ceiling big enough even for the Doctor’s head to go through.

“Thank you, Matthew,” said John Dolittle. “What would I do without you?”

He hoisted himself into a sitting position, and his head disappeared from my sight into the opening.

“Ah!” I heard him say with a sigh. “Here I am, home at last! Upstairs and downstairs at the same time. Splendid!”

After he had taken a rest he managed to turn himself right around inside the hall. Then, facing the door once more, he tried to get out into the garden. It was a hard job. He got stuck again half-way.

“Listen, Doctor,” said the white mouse, “and I’ll tell you what we mice do when we want to get through a specially small hole.”

“I wish you would!” said the Doctor, puffing.

“First you breathe in, deep,” said Whitey. “Then you breathe out, long. Then you hold your breath. Then you shut your eyes and think that the hole is only half as big as it is. Of course if you’re a mouse you think that a cat is coming after you as well. But you needn’t bother about that. Try it. You’ll see. You’ll slide through like silk. Now, a deep breath – in, out – and don’t forget to shut your eyes. Do it by feeling. Just imagine you’re a mouse.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “I’ll try. It’s hard on the imagination, but it should be awfully good for my figure.”

Whether there was anything in Whitey’s advice or not, I don’t know. But, anyway, at the second attempt the Doctor got through all right and scrambled out on the lawn laughing like a schoolboy.

We were all very happy now that he could get both in and out of the house. Right away we brought in the mattresses from the tent under the trees and turned the big hall into a bedroom for him. He said he found it very comfortable, even if he did have to pull his knees up a bit when he wanted to sleep.

Before long, finding himself so much better, John Dolittle gave all his attention to bringing his size down to a natural one. First he tried exercise. We rigged up a heavy sweater for him made out of a couple of eiderdown quilts. And in this he ran up and down the Long Lawn before breakfast. His thundering tread shook the whole garden till the dishes rattled on the pantry shelves and the pictures began falling from the walls in the parlour.

But this did not thin him down fast enough to satisfy him. Someone suggested massage. So we laid him out on the lawn and Matthew, Chee-Chee and I pummelled and pounded him for hours. He said it reminded him of the time when the elephant fell sick in the circus and he and all the crew had climbed aboard the animal with ladders to rub the pains out of it, till everybody had to stop with stiff muscles.

Gub-Gub asked why we didn’t use the lawn-roller on him. But we decided this would be a little too drastic.

“Why don’t you try it on yourself, Gubby?” Jip said. “Your figure could do with a little taking down, too.”

“What’s the matter with my figure?” said Gub-Gub, gazing down at his ample curves. “Why, I wouldn’t change it for anything!”

It proved to be a slow business for the poor Doctor, this getting back to ordinary size. But he certainly kept at it with a will. And soon with the diet, the exercise and the massage (besides, of course, the change of climate and gravity) he began to look more like himself.

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Moon Museum

But all of us, including John Dolittle, saw that it was still probably a matter of some weeks before he would be able to carry on a usual life the same as other people. He could not yet pass through an ordinary door without going down on all fours; he could not sit in the biggest armchair without the arms breaking off; he could not grasp a common pencil or pen in his huge fingers and make it write properly.

This annoyed him greatly. He was so eager to get at his notes. He planned to write a new book, a book about the moon.

“It will be the greatest thing I have ever done, Stubbins,” he said – “that is, of course, if I make a good job of it. And even if I don’t, it will at least contain information of great value for future writers on natural history. The general public will probably begin by thinking I’m a great humbug or a splendid liar. But the day will come when they’ll believe me.”

I, too, of course was very keen for him to get at those notes. Being his secretary I should have to help him and so would get a glimpse of what studies and experiments he had made. But Dab-Dab was of quite another mind about it.

“Tommy,” she said, “there’s no hurry about that book he wants to write. I don’t mean to say it isn’t important – though, for my part, I can’t see much sense in mixing up the moon and the earth, as though life weren’t mixed up enough as it is for simple country folk. But the main thing is this: you know how he is – once he gets started on a new line of work he goes at it like a crazy man, night and day; doesn’t stop for meals; doesn’t stop for sleep; nothing but work. He isn’t strong enough yet for that sort of thing. For pity’s sake keep him away from those notes – at least till he is perfectly well.”

As a matter of fact, there was no urgent need at present for the housekeeper’s fears. The Doctor himself saw that there was not much sense in his attempting to write a long book until he could move round his study without upsetting things, or smashing delicate laboratory apparatus with clumsy experiments.

By daytime he contented himself with exercising and with some gardening. He had brought many different sorts of seeds with him from the moon, also roots of plants. He wanted to see if these could be grown in our world, and what differences they would show in new climate and conditions. Some were vegetables and fruits, good to eat. In these, of course, Gub-Gub was especially interested; and he immediately started to keep notes on his own account, planning to make a new volume for his famous Encyclopedia of Food. This volume was to be called Moon Meals.

With the pig’s assistance the Doctor and I planted rows and rows of new and strange-shaped seeds. All the rows were carefully marked with wooden labels giving the date of planting and the kind of soil. The temperature, the air-pressure, the amount of rainfall, etc., were noted down from day to day in a book we called the Garden Diary. With one kind of these seeds the Doctor told me to be particularly careful.

“This plant,” said he – “if it comes up, Stubbins – may prove exceedingly useful. From it I got the leaves I made my clothes out of – you know, the coat I was wearing when I arrived. Extraordinarily tough and pliable. I found a way of tanning them like leather. Every bit as good as real cloth.”

In that great bulk of baggage which he had brought down with him were also the eggs and grubs of insects: ants, bees, water-flies, moths and what-not. These had to have special hatching-boxes made for them, so they could be kept warm during cool nights; while others had to be planted in proper places in the garden, among grasses or trees, where they would be likely to find food and conditions to their liking.

Then again, he had brought sacks full of geological specimens; that is, rocks, pieces of marble, something that looked like coal and all manner of samples out of the hand-made mines he had dug in the mountains of the moon. Among them were pieces that had precious stones in them – or what looked like precious stones – pebbles and crystals that could have been opals, sapphires, amethysts and rubies. And fossils he had too – shells of curious snails, fishes, lizards and strange frogs that no longer lived either on earth or moon – all turned now to stone as hard as flint.

To take care of these we added another department to the Doctor’s many-sided establishment. We called it the Moon Museum. In a disused harness-room of the big stable I set up shelves round the walls and even showcases with glass tops. And here were placed all the fossils and geological specimens along with some very beautiful pressed flowers and leaves which had also come down in the baggage.

Jip suggested that I should put the cat there, in a glass case too – so that she wouldn’t get hurt.

I was very proud of my job when it was done. I must say it did look like a regular museum; and the Doctor was no end pleased with its workmanlike, scientific appearance.

“You have a real gift for order and neatness in these things, Stubbins,” he said. “That’s the trouble with me – never could be orderly or neat. My sister Sarah – she used to be housekeeper for me, you know – she was always at me about my untidiness. In fact that’s why she left me to go and get married. Poor dear Sarah, I wonder how she’s getting on. An excellent woman – in many ways. But this, Stubbins, this is splendid! And you’ve done it all yourself. What would I do without you?”

But though with one thing and another the Doctor managed to keep quite busy during the daylight hours, it was not so with the evenings and nights. Usually in times past he had filled this part of the day writing in his study, doing experiments in his laboratory and, once in a while, reading aloud in the kitchen when the animals of his household could persuade him to leave his work and amuse them.

It had never been his habit to take much sleep. In fact I would often, after I had left him late at night, find him again the next morning working away with his lamp still burning, apparently quite unaware that the morning sun was shining in his window.

But now it was very different. He retired to his bedroom in the big hall regularly after supper; and I, knowing that he would not sleep for hours, would sit up and read the newspapers to him or just chat with him of this and that.

As I have said, I had been careful not to ask him questions about the moon until he wished to speak of it himself. I am proud of my own patience in this; for anyone can imagine how keen I was to learn how he had at last got away from the Moon Man – and a thousand other things besides.

So far he had said little or nothing of his last months in that other world. But it was natural that in our talks after supper he would sooner or later get started. And at last one evening he did.

“By the way, Stubbins,” said he, “what became of Bumpo? He was here with you when I left. Where is he now?”

“He was gone before I got down from the moon, Doctor,” I said. “He left messages for us with Matthew. It seems he wanted to go back to Oxford to visit some of his old friends and perhaps to take up some new studies there too. He couldn’t tell just how long he would be gone. But he said he would certainly come and visit you again before he went back to Africa.”

“Well, I’m glad of that,” said the Doctor. “Fine fellow, Prince Bumpo, one of the best…. Yes, yes. There have been many times when I don’t know what I would have done without him. But tell me, Stubbins, do you remember how long it took the Giant Moth to bring you down?”

“Not exactly, Doctor,” I answered. “Passing through the dead belt, I got awfully sick, dazed and mixed up. And then my mind was so full of worry about having left you up there alone, I don’t know that I should have remembered anyway.”

“Humph!” said he thoughtfully. “It’s a pity you can’t remember. I wanted to make a little calculation between the speed of your moth and that of my locust – that is for the downward journey. But you have no cause to blame yourself for leaving me. You never had a chance to do anything else. You see, the Moon Man, Otho Bludge, wanted to get rid of you: but he wanted to keep me. I had quite a time with him when I wanted to get back here. That is after—”

I interrupted him. I knew something interesting was coming – that at last he was going to speak of how he got away. Many more ears besides mine wanted to hear that story.

“Pardon me, Doctor,” I said. “But would you mind if I got the animals in, so they can listen? I know they are all longing to hear what happened after I left you.”

“Why, yes, certainly,” he said. “Bring them in, by all means. As a matter of fact, I meant to have told you all, before this, about my last days up there. But I have been talking those moon languages for such a long time, I found I had grown sort of rusty and hesitating in speaking the languages of my own world. But they are coming back to me now and I think I can manage all right – that is, if you don’t mind my speaking slowly.”

“Of course, Doctor,” I said as I got up, “we understand that. But you will promise not to over-tire yourself, won’t you? Send us all away the first minute you feel weary.”

He said he would. And I ran out into the garden to go round to the kitchen. In the dusk on the lawn I bumped into Matthew Mugg, who had just arrived to pay John Dolittle a visit.

“The Doctor’s going to tell us how he got off the moon, Matthew,” I said. “Would you like to come and listen?”

“You bet I would, Tommy,” said he. “But of course if he talks in them animal lingos I won’t understand the same as what you will. Never mind, you can explain to me afterwards. But I wouldn’t miss it for anything. No, you bet I’ll come!”

Then I ran on and found the animals gathered round the big fireplace in the kitchen. Here I spied another visitor, Cheapside. The sparrow had “popped over” from London to hear the latest news of his old friend. They all let out a whoop of joy when I told them that at last they were going to hear the tale they had waited for so long.

And so, with two guests added to our own company, it was quite a circle that gathered round the Doctor that night. I had brought pencil and notebooks with me. For some months back I had been studying shorthand. And I was anxious to see if I could take down his words as fast as he spoke them. “Ah!” whispered the white mouse, tittering with eager excitement as he settled down to listen, “Tommy, this is like old times!”

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

Why John Dolittle Stayed so Long on the Moon

“Well,” the Doctor began, “before you came in I was telling Stubbins here that I had quite a difficult time getting away from Otho Bludge, the Moon Man. But since you all want to listen to the story I had better begin at the beginning – that is, from where Stubbins was carried off by the moth and taken away. You know of course why that was. The Moon Man, who had bird spies in every corner of that world up there, heard that I was uneasy about Stubbins – or rather about his mother and father. The young rascal hadn’t even told his parents he was going – just stowed away aboard the moth without even my knowing it. Of course I feared his parents would be terribly worried, when he no longer came to visit them.

“These bird spies overheard us talking about this one night in our camp and they told Otho Bludge. Now I had been treating him for rheumatism, and he didn’t want to lose me, it seemed. He thought if he got Stubbins back to the earth I would no longer worry about him and would be willing to stay. So he kidnapped the boy and shipped him off before I had a chance to say a word about it one way or the other.

“At first it was a great load off my mind. I knew the trip could be made in safety – although, to be sure, it was a hard and trying one. When the moth got back and reported that he had landed Stubbins on the earth I was very happy. I admit I was terribly sorry to lose him. And, no doubt, I would have felt awfully lonely up there if I had not been so busy.

“I have never known any one single year in my whole life when so many interesting things for study were presented to me at once. The days never seemed long enough. There were great portions of the moon which Stubbins and I had not yet even explored. I found new lakes with all sorts of strange life in the waters. High in the mountains, among the old craters of dead volcanoes, I found fossil remains of different animals which had thrived on the moon long, long ago and since died out – become extinct, as we call it. Then there were the rocks at lower levels. Comparing these with what I knew of our own rocks down here, I was able to calculate the exact age of the moon – that is, I could tell within a few thousand years, just when it was that the great explosion occurred – the explosion which shot the moon off from the earth and made it into a separate little world, revolving around us in the heavens.”

The Doctor paused a moment and turned to Chee-Chee.

“By the way, Chee-Chee,” said he, “now that we’re back, don’t forget to remind me to alter that chapter in my book on Monkey History.”

“You mean the part about the story my grandmother told when I was little?” asked the monkey.

“Oh, I remember that,” cried the white mouse. “It was called The Days Before There Was a Moon.”

“That’s right,” said the Doctor. “The legend of how a man, a prehistoric artist, was shot away from the earth the day before the moon appeared in the sky for the first time. I put it into my book, even if it was only a story. But it now appears that it was all practically true – the Legend of Pippiteepa, the beautiful girl with whom poor Otho Bludge was in love. And by examining the rocks up there we now know that the monkey race is much older than most naturalists had thought.”

“How sad,” said the white mouse thoughtfully, “that they should have been separated, one left on the earth and one stuck up in the moon. A very sad romance.”

“Yes, but just the same,” said the Doctor, “don’t forget that if Otho Bludge had not been shot away by the great explosion, life on the moon today could never have been what it is. It was he who saved the animal world up there from dying out. He told me it took him a long time to see what was going to happen. Some of the larger creatures – great prehistoric beasts that went off so suddenly with him – some in egg-form like dinosaurs and such – began eating up the plant life so fast that the entire vegetable kingdom could hardly keep up against the destruction. Of course all this, you understand, took thousands and thousands of years. But at last, when Otho had had enough time to get himself used to his new surroundings, he began to ponder over what should be done about it. He had then grown immensely big. And though he wasn’t much good at arithmetic and astronomy he saw the planets, the sun and the earth revolving around him in the heavens and he finally realized that he had already lived a terribly long while.”

“About how long?” asked Gub-Gub.

“It’s hard to say exactly,” said the Doctor. “But certainly dozens of times longer than he knew man usually lived on the earth. It must have been something in the vegetable diet, and of course the climate, lighter gravity and other things peculiar to that new world. It looked to him, he told me, as if life could go on up there pretty nearly forever provided it was properly taken care of.”

I whispered a word of explanation in Matthew’s ear at this point. He nodded and winked back at me understandingly.

“And so,” the Doctor went on, “Otho Bludge made up his mind that he would see to it that life was properly taken care of – life of both kinds, animal and plant. First he went round the whole of the moon, exploring it many times, so that there was hardly a square yard of it that he hadn’t examined. In a crude rough way he made a list of all the different forms of animals, insects, trees, shrubs and plants that he found. Knowing how long he had lived and how long he was likely still to live, he felt there was no need for hurry and he made a very complete job of it.”

“Humph! Must ’ave been quite a naturalist ’imself,” Cheapside put in.

“Yes, he most certainly was,” said the Doctor. “A very great naturalist, rather the way that Long Arrow was, the man that we found in Spidermonkey Island. He didn’t use science such as we use. But he gathered a tremendous lot of information and showed a remarkable common sense in what he did with it. Well, having listed all his animals and plants – or, I should say, all that were still living at the time – he began upon the work. He next found out just what each of them lived on and about how much food each required.”

“He told you all this himself, Doctor?” Too-Too asked.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “but you must remember that conversation between him and myself was not exactly the same thing as Matthew and I talking in English together. No, no. Not nearly so – er – exact. Whatever language Otho Bludge had used in talking with his fellow men on the earth of prehistoric days, he had, when I met him, almost entirely forgotten. After all, how could he have remembered it – not having another human to speak with for thousands of years?”

“Well, how did you manage to talk with him at all?” asked Jip.

“In animal languages, mostly,” said the Doctor. “For, you see, in his years and years of observing, counting, watching and examining the other forms of life up there, the Moon Man saw that the animals could communicate with one another. And presently he began, little by little, to catch on to the different ways in which they spoke – signs, noises, movements, and so forth. How long this took him, I couldn’t find out. That was one of the great difficulties I always had in questioning him – he was so vague, hazy, about lengths of time, quantities, numbers – in fact anything that had to do with figures. It was curious, because the cleverness of the man was in all other matters most astonishing.”

“Well, but, Doctor,” said Too-Too, “wouldn’t that be because he had lived so long?”

“Exactly,” said John Dolittle. “He had lived, many hundreds of our lifetimes. So, in some ways, his mind, his experience, was – well, he was like hundreds of men rolled into one, if you know what I mean. Then again, he had kept his attention on just a few subjects. Life in the moon is a very simple matter – as it would be anywhere else where there were no human beings to make it complicated – er – you know, fussy, hard and mixed up.”

“Were the animals’ languages on the moon anything like the animal languages down here?” asked Gub-Gub.

“They were and they weren’t,” said the Doctor. “Of course they had all sprung from the languages of the earth creatures. But after so long up there, the birds and the rest of them spoke quite differently. Of course my own knowledge of animal languages helped me greatly in talking with them. But I found it dreadfully difficult at first. The words and phrases had nearly all changed. Only the manner, the way, of speaking remained.

“But this will show you how hard Otho Bludge himself must have worked: he discovered, without any education in natural history at all, the great part which the insects, like bees, play in the life of the plants. He knew all about it. I found that his knowledge of insect languages, even down to the water-beetles, was tremendous – far and away better than my own. And from that he went on to learn the languages of the vegetable world.”

“The language of vegetables!” cried Gub-Gub.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “not exactly the languages of potatoes and carrots. We hadn’t any up there. The expression ‘vegetable world’ takes in anything that grows in the ground – trees, flowers, vines. Otho Bludge was the first naturalist to make any discoveries in this field of study. I had often wondered, years ago, if our plants down here had any way of talking to one another. I am still wondering.

“But up there, with a very much smaller animal kingdom, and entirely different conditions, certain kinds of trees and plants had worked out and developed languages of their own. You see, in this world, we are always mixing up breeds – crossing different sorts of dahlias to make new kinds, grafting fruit-trees, and even sticking rosebuds on to raspberry canes to make roses grow on a raspberry root. That’s called a hybrid. How could we expect such a mixture to know what language to talk. Poor thing doesn’t even know whether he’s a raspberry or a rose!”

“Yes, most confusin’, I should say,” Cheapside put in.

“But in the moon,” said the Doctor, “left to themselves for thousands of years, with no human hands to get them mixed up, the plants were much freer to work out things for themselves. Well, Otho Bludge thought out his plan and started off to try it. He did not want to interfere in the freedom of anything, but only to stop them all from interfering with the freedom of one another – to keep them from fighting and getting killed off. And that, when I got there, he had very thoroughly succeeded in doing. It must have been a terrifically hard thing – but then we must remember that he was not interfered with by any of his own kind either. I doubt very much if it could ever have happened in our world. But, remember again, his was a far smaller world – easier to manage. At the beginning when he explained his plan to the animals, the insects and the plants, he found that not all of them were pleased with the idea.”

“Why, did they go on fighting and eating one another up?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “But all parts of a world, no matter what its size or kind, have to work together. And those that would not help the safety of others very soon found themselves in a bad way – crowded out or starved out. Later Bludge told them he wanted to form what he called the Council. It was like a parliament or congress. Members of both the animal and the vegetable kingdoms came to it. They arranged everything that affected life on the moon. Anybody could get up and say his say in this council or give his advice or make his complaint. Otho Bludge, the Moon Man, was president. And after a while they practically all saw that Bludge was right. It was clear to them that he had brains, and they accepted him as the leader, as the guide, in forming a new and properly balanced world where everything could live happily – more happily – without fighting.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Naturalists’ Paradise

“And so you see,” the Doctor went on, “for quite a while after Stubbins left I was kept very busy learning more and more about this strange new state. It fascinated me. I had never seen anything like it before. I saw at once that, while the Moon Man had done so much, there was a lot left for me to do too. I assure you I had no conceit about that. Beside this other human, as old and experienced as the moon herself, I felt like a very humble little creature. But I had something of science which he had not; my mind was trained to make deductions, to reason – from my own experiences and those of others – as well as from history, human history, geological history, natural history.

“And besides wishing to help Otho Bludge – which I think I did do with scientific and medical advice – I began to wonder more and more how much of this new way of living could be brought about in my own home world, the earth. I will speak of that again later. But the first thing I gave my attention to in this connection was the foods of the moon.”

“Ah!” said Gub-Gub, sitting up.

“There were many members of the pumpkin family – melons, calabashes, squashes, luffas, marrows, cucumbers and whatnot. Most of them were good to eat. But anyone who picked a ripe fruit had to keep one of its seeds after he had eaten it. That was a law made by the Council.

“Well, again by questioning Otho and, later, by talking with the moon creatures directly, I learned that certain members of the moon pumpkin family were terribly fattening. Not only just flesh-making, but they made your whole figure – bones and all – taller, wider and deeper. You became a giant if you didn’t look out. It was quite clear that only a few living things on the moon had stayed the same size as they are on the earth. It was almost impossible to avoid growth to some extent up there. The poor Moon Man himself had become a giant, and he remained a giant. But he told me that at one time he was much bigger than he was when I met him. Some of the foods were much more fattening than others. Stubbins and I sprouted up like beanstalks the first few weeks we were there. Otho, however, was able to give me lists of certain foods which he had found the best for keeping your size down as much as possible.

“Next I turned my attention to the length of life on the moon. This was most interesting, but often I was very puzzled when it came to getting any definite information about ages. From weeks and weeks of study I came to the conclusion that nearly all kinds of life as I saw them up there had stayed the same for many thousands of years. Certain kinds, like the whispering vines and the singing trees, were much older than the rest.

“For quite a while after that I just had an awfully good time. I asked myself, ‘Why bother about returning to the earth? This is a naturalists’ paradise. Adding your scientific knowledge to what Otho Bludge has done here will keep you busy all your days. And what better work could you be employed in? Keep the Moon Man in good health; cure his rheumatism for him whenever he falls ill; and just go on this way. Why worry? Maybe you, John Dolittle, will yourself live forever – or anyhow as long as the moon lives, which will probably be many thousands of years yet.’ That’s what I said to myself.

“But after a while I began to wonder – to wonder and wonder, about something. And about this something I started to take notes. By the way, Stubbins, on the note-taking I missed you badly. You had done it for me so long, you know. But Polynesia here was my salvation.”

“But how? She can’t keep notes,” snorted Gub-Gub.

“No,” laughed the Doctor, “but she has a memory that is often better than any note-book. It’s almost like a letter-box you drop things into. You tell her to remember something when you’re experimenting and she will always be able to fish it up out of her old head when you ask for it again later. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

Polynesia cocked one eye at the ceiling, twisted her head a couple of times and tried hard not to look pleased by the Doctor’s flattery. Then she said, sighing,

“Ah, well, that’s the difference between people and parrots. Men when they get old say they can remember things in their childhood quite plainly – the things far off. But those that happened only yesterday, the things near to now, they can hardly remember at all. You talk about long life in the moon, Doctor: what about me? I’m a hundred and eighty years old – and how much more, I’m not telling. How much longer I’ll live, I don’t know. Maybe I’m only a child yet myself, and that’s why I’m as good as a note-book for remembering. Anyway, when I met King Charles hiding in the oak-tree in England, he was trying to remember how many soldiers he had seen chasing him – awful scared he was, talking to himself, you know. And I – Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I mustn’t interrupt you, Doctor. Go on with the story.”

“The thing for which I now started to keep notes,” said the Doctor, “was how much of this well-regulated, smoothly running world could be copied down here among us. The thought kept coming back to me, stronger and stronger each time. Always, even when I was an ordinary doctor and took care of people, natural history – animals, insects, plants, trees, fossils, rocks – had been my hobby. That hobby had become my life. And yet anyone who studies natural history must come to fear sooner or later that all life faces a losing game down here with us.”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” said the white mouse, “but I don’t quite understand what you mean.”

“Life keeps on killing life,” said the Doctor. “Don’t you see? The fly is swallowed by the fish; the fish is eaten by the duck; the duck is devoured by the fox; the fox is slaughtered by the wolf; the wolf is shot by the man. And then men – the only ones on top in our world – turn round and kill one another in war.”

There was a short silence. Dab-Dab had brought a pile of linen with her (the housekeeper always kept herself busy, even while listening to a story). She was turning over a stack of table napkins, looking for tears and holes.

“I told you that, Doctor,” she said quietly – “long ago, when you wanted to start your Country House for House-Flies.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, frowning thoughtfully. “My idea with that was that if I gave the house-flies a house for themselves – full of sugar, you know, and all that – maybe they would leave people’s houses alone. It didn’t work. They ate up all the sugar and came back to my house. But there you are, Whitey: that’s what I mean. It’s a losing game. Any naturalist who tries to save one kind of creature in our world finds out sooner or later that he is taking away the food from some other blessed creature – or making life impossible for himself. I had never had anything against the house-flies, except that they would tickle the back of my neck when I was trying to write. And, as a medical man, I knew that they carry germs of disease. But they don’t mean to. They’re merely going about their own business like the rest of us.”

“They’re a pest,” said Dab-Dab, laying aside a napkin that needed mending.

“Oh, quite, quite,” said the Doctor. “But I’m sure they have some good in them somewhere – though I confess it’s pretty hard to find. But you can all very well see, can’t you? that when I found a world which was run along sensible lines, where no kind of life trod on the toes of any other kind of life, I began to wonder if something of those ideas could not be brought home and started here. That accounts for the note-taking, those bundles and bundles of palm-leaf paper which made up such a large part of my baggage, Stubbins. It is out of those notes that I will write my book.”

“There’s plenty of time for that, Doctor,” sighed Dab-Dab. She spread out a woollen antimacassar eaten full of holes. “Moths!” she hissed in disgust, and threw it aside.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Otho Bludge’s Prisoner

“Now, all this time,” the Doctor continued, “the Moon Man was calling me in every so often to treat him for his rheumatism. I had fitted up a sort of makeshift laboratory for myself. Of course I had not many chemicals. All the medicines I had with me were what I had brought in the little black bag. But I had found a whole lot of useful drugs and things in the trees and rocks – such as quinine, zinc for making zinc ointment, and a whole lot more.

“Well, although my laboratory was a very rough and poor one, I was soon able to find out how to deal with his trouble. He was eating too much starch, for one thing. I changed his diet. I compounded some medicines for him. So long as he did what I told him, he got along very well. In fact, in the end I fancy I knew more about moon foods and what they did to the human body than he did.

“There was one special kind of melon he was very fond of. It was called goy-goy. This I had found was very bad for him. I had told him not to eat it. But, like a child – he was very childlike in many ways – he just wouldn’t leave it alone. Finally I got quite severe with him. I ordered him not to touch it. He promised he wouldn’t. But the next time he called me in about his rheumatism I saw, by the peelings that lay around him, that he had been eating goy-goy again.

“Well, this was when I was wondering if I could carry down to the earth some of those sensible ideas about diet, long life and peaceful living which had panned out so well in the moon. I saw no reason why they shouldn’t work with us – partly, at all events. I was a little homesick too, I imagine. Anyway I was anxious to get down here and start experimenting with those ideas.

“So when, for the sixth or seventh time, Otho sent for me to attend to him – and again I found that he had been eating the forbidden goy-goy – I began to wonder if my staying on the moon any longer would be of much use. I especially felt this way now, because I had nearly completed my observations of the moon’s seasons. The moon, you see, revolves in a small circle round the earth once a month; while the earth, carrying the moon with it, swings in a much bigger ring around the sun, once a year. The moon, hanging on to the earth, as it were, in this long journey would be bound to show effects and differences, not only with her own changing seasons, but with ours too. I particularly wanted to make some observations at the earth’s equinoxes – that is, in our Spring and Autumn. This of course meant staying up there a whole year. That year was now nearly over.

“Very well, then: this time Otho Bludge was a pretty sick Moon Man. And I realized that no matter how much medicine I gave him, sooner or later it would have no effect on him whatever – as long as he would go on eating goy-goy.

“So I got still more severe with him. I gave him a terrific lecturing. ‘I can do nothing with you,’ I said, ‘if you won’t obey my orders. And anyway, very soon now I must go back to the earth. I have promised my people that I will set off a smoke signal – the same as you did when you sent the moth for me – to let them know that I am coming. I shall expect you, when the time comes for me to leave, to help me in every way you can. After all, it was you who wanted me to come up to the moon. And this, I feel, is the least you can do.’

“He said nothing in answer. But I could see that he was not pleased with the idea at all. I left a small bottle of medicine with him and went away to go on with my studies and note-taking. Polynesia told me that the bird-spies were watching me again – though I can’t see why Otho Bludge bothered with that. There was no possible chance of my getting off the moon unless I had his permission and his help. However Polynesia – clever bird, I really don’t know what I would have done without her – Polynesia started spying on the spies. And with her help I was kept just as well informed about Otho’s doings as he was about what I was doing. However I was too busy with my observations on the moon seasons to bother about much else for the time being.

“At last the year was over and my notes were complete. I felt very glad. No one had ever seen the moon’s seasons, from the moon, before. I had stacks and stacks of notes on temperatures, sunlight and earthlight with their effects on the animal and vegetable kingdoms, air pressures, rainfall and goodness knows how much more. I was packing up the last of these when word came to me that the Moon Man was not feeling so well and would I come to see him.

“This time I decided I would be more than severe. The moment had come for me to put my foot down. I gave him some medicine. And I stayed with him several nights until I had him in good health again. Then I said, ‘Listen, Otho Bludge, I want to go back to the earth. I want to go now. I feel I have done all I can here. Will you please help me to set off the signal and return home?’ Again he did not answer at once – he often thought a long while before he spoke. At last he said, ‘No, John Dolittle, I will not let you go. I need you here!’

“I was dumbfounded. The thought had never occurred to me that he would refuse my request – yet I don’t know why it shouldn’t have done. First I tried to argue with him. I explained how unfair this was. I reminded him again that it was he who had brought me up there – for his own purposes. This made no effect on him. Then I got angry. But it was no use. He was determined to keep me. I left him and went away very puzzled.

“Then for some weeks I wandered and wandered around the moon, wondering what I should do. But the more I thought it over the more difficult the situation seemed. It looked now as though I was going to become a citizen of the moon for good, whether I liked it or not. But with all the plans I had in mind I must confess I was very much annoyed.

“Then Polynesia one day had an idea. She said it was quite possible of course for Otho Bludge to keep me – as well as herself and Chee-Chee – prisoners on the moon; but it was not possible for him to make me doctor him if I didn’t want to. This sounded like good sense. And the next time the Moon Man sent word to me that he was suffering from rheumatism I refused to go to him.

“Again he sent me a message. He was very ill, he said. And again I sent back word that I would not come to help him until he was willing to help me. But it seemed he could be just as stubborn as I. No further message came to me.

“Then, I confess, I began to get worried. What if Otho Bludge should die? It was not that I was afraid that that would ruin my chances of getting away. I had done a lot for many of the birds and insects up there, curing them of different illnesses from which they suffered occasionally. And Polynesia said she was sure that they would do anything they could for me, even flying me back to the earth, once the Moon Man was out of the way and they need no longer be afraid of disobeying his orders. But – well, once a doctor, always a doctor, I suppose. No physician, if he feels that his services may save a man’s life – and there is no one else there – can stand aside and refuse to help.

“Maybe if the Moon Man had sent more messages I should have acted differently. But he didn’t. That was the worst of it. Not another word came from him. We – Polynesia, Chee-Chee and I – had moved our camp over to the far side of the moon, the side you never see from the earth; and I was trying to study the music of the singing trees. This had presented some problems in harmony which I was anxious to get to the bottom of.

“But suddenly the trees refused to sing any more. I could understand their language by then and I asked them why. They would tell me nothing. They remained silent. The same with the whispering vines. The birds, who did most of the spying for Otho, had disappeared. I tried talking with the insects – bees and the like; they wouldn’t tell me anything either. I got more and more worried. It seemed as though the whole of the moon life was determined to be silent. It gave me a creepy sort of feeling. I began to wonder if they were all waiting for Otho Bludge to die – expecting it every minute.

“At last I couldn’t bear it any more. I knew that if Otho – the man who had done something no human has ever done before – if Otho were to die I would never forgive myself. I was lying in bed, tossing and turning, trying to sleep. I jumped up. ‘Polynesia,’ I said, ‘I am going to him. I’ve got to!’ She just swore in Swedish but did not try to stop me. I packed the black bag and left camp alone.

“I had a long way to go. I started off in darkness. But I knew that soon I would see the earth rise and would have light from it to travel by. I never hurried so in all my life. How many hours the journey took me I don’t know. My great fear was that I might be too late. When at last I began to get round on to the near side – the side of the moon you see from here – the going was easier and I broke into a run. Soon I saw Otho’s hut in the distance. I call it a hut, but it was really a very big house made of leaves. Gathered about it there was a great crowd of birds, insects and some animals, – all waiting in silence in the grey of the earthlight. I pushed my way in. Otho Bludge was lying on a bed with his eyes closed.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Gentleman in the Moon

I rushed to his bedside.

“‘Otho, Otho!’ I cried. He did not stir. He was unconscious. I felt his pulse. It was fast and jumpy. I got a thermometer out of the bag. His temperature was high – far too high. His rheumatism had run into complications – probably some form of rheumatic fever.

“I worked over him for hours. I knew if I did not bring the temperature down soon, this by itself could kill him. I got cold water and soaked big leaves in it. I plastered these all over his body and, by fanning him, I did manage to get the temperature lower by several degrees. I realized I had only got there just in time to save his life.

“It seems funny, when I look back on it now. There I was working like a slave to save the life of the man who meant to hold me a prisoner! Yet I did not think of it then. The only idea that filled my mind was that I, as a physician, must leave no stone unturned to keep him from dying.

“At last, after I had given him a heart stimulant with the hypodermic needle, he became conscious. Weakly he opened his eyes and looked at me. He said nothing. There came a curious, ashamed sort of expression into his face as he recognized who I was – that it was I who was working to save him. Presently he fell off into a peaceful sleep. I took his pulse again. While it was still fast, it was ever so much better and quite steady. I knew that the worst was over. I told one of the birds to call me as soon as he woke up. Then I curled up on the floor of his hut to get some sleep myself. As I dozed off I felt more at peace in my mind than I had done for many hours.

“I stayed with him I don’t know how long – maybe four or five days. During all that time he never spoke. At the end, when I was about to leave him, he was quite well again, but still weak. I gave him the usual instructions as to what he should do. It was hardly necessary, for he had heard them many times before. I fastened up my medicine-bag and turned towards the open door of his hut.

“The sun was shining on the beautiful moonscape. You know how it looked, Stubbins – sort of dreamlike and mysterious – rows and rows of mountains, dead volcanoes with that strange greenish light on them. I paused a moment to gaze on it before I stepped out of the hut. ‘So, John Dolittle,’ I said to myself, ‘I suppose you are a big fool. But you chose to be a doctor when you were a youngster and this is the price you pay. You are a prisoner on this world for life. This landscape is what you will see for the remainder of your days. Well, what else could you do? So be it.’

“I stepped over the door-sill into the open air. Then I heard a cry from within the hut. The Moon Man, for the first time for days, was speaking to me. I turned and went back to his bedside.

“He was trying to sit up. ‘There, there,’ I said, ‘settle down and rest. I will come again tomorrow to see how you are.’ He sank back looking awfully feeble and I wondered whether I really ought to leave him. I felt his pulse again. It was good. Then suddenly he broke forth, speaking in a mixture of all sorts of languages, so that I had hard work keeping up with what he was trying to say.

“‘My mind is sort of fuzzy,’ he whispered. ‘But I wanted to tell you that I know you have saved my life – without gaining anything for yourself…. While I was sleeping just now I seemed to remember something of the days before there was a moon. I have not dealt with men for so long…. But I remember – yes, I remember those times when I was on the earth, ages and ages ago. I remember how men acted toward one another…. You are what was called – er – a very true friend. Isn’t that it, John Dolittle?… So I just wanted to tell you that any time you wish to return to your world I will help you in any way I can…. You are free to go – whenever you wish.’”

The Doctor paused a moment.

“Well, you can imagine my astonishment. A moment before I had seen myself a prisoner on the moon for life – giving up all hope of ever seeing the earth, Puddleby, my friends, home, again. Now I was free. Suddenly all the unkind thoughts I had felt against this man fell away. I was bound to admit that he was greater, bigger, even than I had guessed. Something in his recollections of the earth had made up his mind to this determination. And my coming to his assistance, the very thing that should have ruined my chances of ever getting home, had acted for me just the other way. I was free!

“And then all at once I realized that, child as he was, the Moon Man had wanted my company as well as my help as a doctor. For some moments I did not answer him. I was thinking – thinking how much it meant to him to say those words, ‘You are free to go.’ He was giving up the only human friendship he had known in thousands of years. And that is why, for a little, I did not speak.

“At last I said, ‘No man can know how long you will live – probably for many thousands of years yet, if you do as I tell you. When I return to the earth I mean to write a book, a book about the moon – and it’s about you too, a great part of it. People on the earth, you know, have always spoken of the Man in the Moon, but I hope that when my book is written – and read – they will come to speak of the Gentleman in the Moon. Certainly I shall do my best to show them that what I found in you, Otho Bludge, was not only a great man but one of the truest gentlemen I have ever known.’

“Then I left him and went back to my camp.

“There is little more to tell. The next time I visited him he was able to get up and move about. He was as good as his word. He wasted no time in preparing the bonfire for my smoke signal. For this he got thousands and thousands of birds to help him. They all brought a stick or twig of that explosive wood which he had used for his own signal. It reminded me of the time when I got the birds in Africa to build the island in the lake out of stones. But, for these creatures in the moon to gather together a bonfire whose smoke would be large enough to be seen from the earth, was a tremendous undertaking.

“Just about the time it was finished I happened to discover – in some astronomical almanacs I had with me – that we were due to have an eclipse in about ten days from then. This interested me very much. For one thing I was most keen to see an eclipse from the moon and to find out what the other planets looked like when they came out in daylight hours. And, for another thing, I felt sure that my signals would show better when the moon was partly in shadow.

“So I asked Otho to put off firing the bonfire till the eclipse was under way. He became very interested in the matter himself. He wanted to know just how I had calculated that it would come at a certain hour on a certain date. He suggested that we should have two bonfires ready and set them off separately – to make surer that one at least of them would be seen. I found out, Stubbins, also that when he tried to get a signal down to us here, to tell us of the coming of the moth, he had set off several before we happened to be looking at the moon and saw one.

“Then came the question of what sort of creature I should have to fly me down. I had grown so big by then; and there was considerable weight too in the baggage which I wanted to bring with me. The Giant Moth when we tried out a practice flight could hardly rise from the ground under the load. So something else had to be found to make the trip.

“Birds were out of the question. Here we always think of birds as being larger than insects; but up there they were smaller – difference in diet again, I suppose. And then birds need more air – they have a different sort of breathing apparatus. The trip between the moon and the earth requires a tremendous amount of effort – very hard work. Getting through the dead belt, where there is practically no air at all, is easier for the insect fliers than any other. I doubt if a bird, no matter what his wing-spread, could manage it.

“Well, after a few experiments Otho and I decided to try the Mammoth Locust. You all saw what a tremendous creature he is. His way of flying is quite extraordinary – not at all the same as his cousins, the grasshopper, the cicada and the mantis. The locust flies both like a bird and an insect. The number of wing-beats per second is sort of betwixt and between. I have notes on that too.

“Anyway, we got the baggage and ourselves aboard this Mammoth Locust and made a trial flight. He could lift the load quite easily – that is, he could in that gravity. Whether he could have done the same with the earth’s gravity, I cannot say. But that didn’t matter so much. When he got near to this world he would be coming down; and going back he would have no load to carry, beyond the weight of his own body.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

The Farewell

“When the time was at hand for the eclipse to begin there was quite a gathering to see the show. I had calculated the exact point on the moon – pretty exact, anyhow – from which it could best be seen. As I gazed over the great crowd it seemed as though every creature in the moon had collected there. Of course this was not true. But it looked like it. I have never seen such a tremendous herd – not even when we called the animals together on the Island of No Man’s Land off the coast of Africa to set up the Post Office and the classes in animal writing.

“But the crowd had not only come to see the eclipse; they had come to see me off. Many – some of them grateful patients whom I had cured of sicknesses – brought presents. Foodstuffs and the like. They wanted to show their gratitude. It was very touching. I thanked them as best I could, bade them goodbye and wished them luck.

“The Moon Man himself had said he would set off the bonfire signals. It was a ticklish business, this lighting of so much explosive stuff; and he was the only one – with his big strides and speed of running – who could do it without getting hurt.

“Exactly at the time I had foretold, the big shadow began to creep across the earth and the light on the moon grew dim. The crowd watching was greatly impressed. I believe many of them thought I had had a hand in it myself and was deliberately darkening the earth to suit my own purposes.

“The bonfires were set off, a few minutes apart, and great enormous columns of smoke shot up into the air. The fumes of that explosive wood rolled all about us, making everyone splutter and cough. Finally it cleared away. I hoped that one at least of the signals had been sighted on the earth.

“It was a very impressive scene. We were standing in a wide plain between two ranges of mountains. The watching crowd of moon creatures had drawn away a little, leaving plenty of space for the Mammoth Locust to take off on his long journey. The baggage was on board, strapped down securely by ropes of vine-bark. Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I stood at the locust’s side ready to go.

“Suddenly one solitary figure separated itself from that ring of watchers and stalked out into the open towards me. It was a cat.”

Polynesia jumped as usual, and Jip snorted something between a growl and a grunt.

“I think Stubbins has told you,” the Doctor went on, “that I had already met with a colony of cats in my wanderings over the moon. I had great difficulty in learning their language. They were so reticent – didn’t seem inclined to talk, I mean – even when it looked as if they had something on their minds to say. Well, you know, without being told, that all animals of the same kind are not the same. Each one is different. And certainly this cat was different. Usually cats are fond of places rather than people. Well, this goes to show that this particular cat did not think more of places than she did of people. As it happened, I had cured her of a bad attack of bronchitis. She did not like the moon, but, apparently, she liked me.

“She came stalking across the wide open space all alone. When she got to me she said, ‘Doctor Dolittle, I want to go with you.’ That was all. I had never been fond of cats. And yet I know of no exact reason why I should feel less friendly towards her kind than I did towards any other sort of animal. On the other hand, I knew of course that if I took her into my household down here many of you would object.

“I argued with her. I told her cats had many enemies in the world where I was going. She said, ‘Don’t bother about my enemies, Doctor. I’ll take care of them.’ Then – still hoping to discourage her, I said, ‘But you understand that if I take you, there is to be no killing – birds, mice and so forth. We can’t have any of that, you know.’ All she answered was, ‘John Dolittle, I’m a moon cat. For thousands of years we have not killed birds – or any living creature. We have learned here to live on other things. We hunt no more. I want to see the earth, where my people came from. Take me with you.’

“Well – there you are – there was no answering her argument. She was running a big risk. And she knew it.

“‘Very well,’ I said at last. ‘Get aboard the locust.’ And without another word she climbed up on to the insect’s back. There Chee-Chee stowed her in a crate and made her fast for the big journey.

“But the worst part of the whole business for me was saying goodbye to Otho Bludge. It was not easy. As I told you, I had realized of a sudden how terribly lonely the poor fellow was going to be. Perhaps he would never have felt so if I had not come to the moon. It is true this was his own doing – yet, so far as his losing my company was concerned, it made no matter. He had said very little to me after he had told me I could go. But now when he came striding over towards us, as we stood by the locust’s side, I wondered what was going on inside his mind. He was about to say goodbye to the first human being he had talked with in thousands of years.

“He held out his hand. I remember asking myself how it was he had not forgptten that this was the fashion in which the people of the earth bade one another farewell. I did not know what to say. At last it was he who spoke.

“‘Goodbye,’ he said, in an awkward kind of way. ‘Do you think that – someday – you may come back?’”

“Oh,” quacked Dab-Dab, “I do hope you didn’t promise him you would, Doctor!”

“No,” said John Dolittle, “I didn’t promise anything. Although I must admit the moon was a most interesting place to visit. No – I just said, ‘Well, Otho, keep off the goy-goy and you’ll still live longer than any of us. I have left a dozen bottles of the medicine in your hut. But you won’t need them if you will only follow the diet I have told you to.’

“It was a terrible moment. I was anxious to get it over with. He turned and moved away. Evidently at the very last he would sooner not see our going. I climbed aboard the locust. My size, you must remember, was terrific. But even when I lay down flat on the creature’s back – over his thorax, his shoulders – there still seemed to be lots of room to spare. We had on board many of those oxygen lilies, Stubbins, which we used on the other trip. I pulled one up, handy to dip my nose in. The locust scrabbled his feet into the sand of the valley so he could make a good take-off. ‘Goodbye!’ yelled the crowd. ‘Goodbye!’ we called back. With a terrific kick of his hind legs the insect shot up into the air and spread his wings.

“The trip was terrible. I suppose having stayed on the moon so long my lungs had got sort of accustomed to the air up there and unaccustomed to the air of the earth – to say nothing of the dreadful dead belt. Anyway, when we did reach that terrible part of the journey I honestly thought it was all over with me. The locust had got instructions about the navigation from Jamaro Bumblelily, the Giant Moth, before he set off. But it was terrible anyhow. I grabbed one of the oxygen flowers and stuck my face in it. Nevertheless I became unconscious – and stayed so till after we landed. When I came to at last I heard you, Stubbins, talking with Polynesia. Everything was still. I looked up at the moon, steady in the sky. Last time I had seen it, it was swinging around the heavens like a crazy thing.

“Well, that’s all. Here I am, none the worse for the trip – the most interesting journey I have ever made in my life.”

Quite clearly the Doctor felt that his tale had rather saddened us towards the end. As a matter of fact all the animals were certainly very serious when he finished.

“Tell me, Doctor,” said Jip at last, “do you think the Moon Man will be able to manage by himself – now?”

“Of course he will,” Dab-Dab broke in. “How did he manage before the Doctor went there?”

“I wasn’t asking you, Dab-Dab,” said Jip quietly. “I was asking the Doctor.”

“Oh, I think he’ll be all right,” said John Dolittle after a pause.

“He’ll miss you, won’t he?” said Jip. “Mighty sporting of him to let you go, wasn’t it? – Humph! The ‘Gentleman in the Moon.’ Good luck to him!”

“Poor man!” said Whitey – always sentimental and romantic. – “Left all alone!”

“Hum! Hum!” said Gub-Gub. “It must be kind of hard to be the only one of your kind in a world.”

“But you won’t go back, Doctor, will you?” said Dab-Dab anxiously. “After all, you’ve seen the moon now – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. There’s no sense in your fooling with it any more, is there? You know what I mean?”

“Yes, I understand, Dab-Dab,” said the Doctor. “But” – his voice trailed off in a sleepy tone tone – “it was – er – well, it was a very interesting place.”

I saw that he was getting tired. I made a signal to the animals and Matthew. They understood.

“All right, Doctor,” I said. “Thank you. We will now leave you in peace to sleep. Good night!”

I folded up my notebooks. John Dolittle’s head was nodding on his chest. We all crept out on tiptoe and closed the door behind us.

• • • • •

•   6   •

Setting the Zoo to Rights

It was not until almost the end of the Summer that the Doctor got back to his ordinary size. He was now no longer afraid of being seen; and he moved about the house without upsetting things or smashing furniture; and he was very happy about it.

First of all he went over the whole garden from end to end. Though I had done the best I could to keep it up in good condition for him, there was much of course that his eye fell on which mine had overlooked. John Dolittle was a very good gardener himself and very particular. (Dab-Dab always used to say he never seemed to mind how untidy his house was, as long as the garden was spic and span – “Just like a man!” she would add.) Gub-Gub and I – and sometimes Matthew when he was about – helped him with the work; dividing up the iris roots; pegging down the raspberry canes; digging up and re-sowing some of the turf patches that had grown bare and brown.

“The coming of Autumn, Stubbins,” said he, “is always the most important season for a sensible gardener. That’s the time when we put the earth to bed, as it were. If you get the ground and your plants and trees in good condition for their long winter sleep, you will have something to show in the Spring.”

When we came to look over the big enclosure which we had called the Zoo the emptiness of it seemed to sadden him. He gazed over the long walled-in lawn some moments without speaking; but I knew what was in his mind. So did Jip.

“Humph!” muttered the Doctor after a while, “those dog-houses down at the bottom look pretty sad, don’t they? The roofs all full of holes and rotten. We must do something to clean up this mess, Stubbins. A year seems such a short time, and yet what a lot can happen in it!”

“Look here, Doctor,” said Jip, “why can’t we repair them and start the Home for Cross-bred Dogs over again? There’s a half-breed setter down in the town. His name is Flip. He has no home at all. He gets his meals from any old place – off rubbish heaps mostly. And there are a lot of other dogs too. Couldn’t we take them in, the same as we used to when you kept open house for stray dogs?”

“Well, Jip, I’d love to,” said the Doctor. “They surely were jolly times when we had the dogs’ home running full blast. You remember that little rascal, Quetch, the Scotty who used to run the dogs’ gymnasium for us – and bossed you all over the place when we had the jumping contests? And wasn’t that a wonderful yarn – when he told us the story of his life? My, what a character he was! But you see, Jip, I don’t know about the money side of it. A lot of dogs need a lot of food. It seems to me I’ve got to live on Stubbins’ salary here – of three shillings and sixpence a week – till I begin to make something from my new book.”

“Well, but, Doctor,” said Jip. “Why can’t we take in just Flip for the present – till you’re feeling richer? I’m afraid he’ll get shot one of these days for stealing people’s chickens or something. No one takes care of him. He’s just a tramp. He comes round to the front gate twice a week to see if I have any old bones to give him. Most of the time he’s practically starving.”

“Humph! – Starving, eh?” said the Doctor seriously. He looked at me. “Can we manage it, do you think, Stubbins?”

“Oh, surely, Doctor,” said I. “We’ll manage somehow. We always seem to have milk and vegetables, any way.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. “Milk and vegetables are much better for a dog than a lot of meat. All right, Jip, bring your friend in next time he calls and we’ll fix up one of the dog-houses for him here.”

The white mouse, always inquisitive, had been following us around on the inspection of the garden. He now piped up in his funny squeaky little voice.

“Oh, and Doctor, wouldn’t it be a good idea if we set up the Rat and Mouse Club again too? There’s a new family of mice up in the attic. And you know Dab-Dab would much sooner have them out of the house, down here instead. It won’t be any trouble. I can fix up our old Rat Town just as it was. I know how they like it, you see. And they’ll be no expense. A few crusts of bread and rinds of cheese. It would be lots of fun to have them here once more, don’t you think? Then we could have them telling us stories over the kitchen fire after supper-just like old times. Do let’s start the Rat and Mouse Club again!”

“Humph!” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “I don’t see why not. It would make the place more home-like. I certainly hate to see the Zoo enclosure all empty and deserted like this. Yes, let’s set up the Rat and Mouse Club. I’ll leave the matter in your hands, Whitey. At least we can afford that.”

And then the old lame horse who had been helping us weed the garden with a cultivator put in his say.

“Doctor,” he said, “how about the Retired Cab and Wagon Horses’ Association – you know, the farm you bought for them about two miles away?”

“Ah, yes,” said the Doctor, “to be sure, to be sure. I’d forgotten all about them. Tell me, how are they getting on?”

“Well,” said the old fellow, swishing the flies off with his tail, “I hear there have not been any new members joined of late. But the fences need repairing. Dogs getting in and yapping and snapping about the place – in spite of all the signs we put up, ‘Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted – Dogs Will Be Kicked,’ you remember?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the Doctor.

“And the scratching-post you set for them – it got pushed down. And they would like another.”

“Dear me, dear me,” said John Dolittle. “Yes, I remember how they used to like to scratch their necks – on the top of the hill there, where they could see the view as the sun went down. Well, I’ll certainly have to attend to that. I’ll go over with you in the morning and see about it.”

And so it was that before very long most of the old institutions which the Doctor had set up for the comfort and happiness of animals got put back into running order after his long stay on the moon. All of his own animal household were very happy about this – and, I was surprised to find, Dab-Dab in particular.

“Tommy,” she said to me one evening, “this is a good thing. It will keep John Dolittle out of mischief – I mean keep him away from his book for a while more anyhow. Why shouldn’t he have a good time giving the animals a good time? – so long as he doesn’t start any of those crazy charitable ideas for pests, like the Country House for Houseflies. Poof!” (She shrugged up her wings in disgust.) “Don’t let him start that again. He’ll have a Wardrobe for Clothes Moths or a Bedroom for Bed-bugs before you know where you are.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

Squib the Cocker Spaniel

But these departments of his big establishment were not the only things that began leading John Dolittle back into his old ways of living. In former days the most important concern in “the little house with the big garden” had been the dispensary, where animals and creatures of all sorts came to him for the treatment of their sickness and injuries. Of course anyone can understand that as soon as he began to move about and let himself be seen word would get abroad to the animals outside that the famous man was back in Puddleby once more.

And, sure enough, it was only a few weeks later that our patients began to call – first a pair of rabbits, very scared and timid. I found them on the doorstep at the crack of dawn one morning. Could they see the Doctor, please? I asked them what was the matter. They said they had a sick baby – didn’t know what was the trouble with it. I told them the Doctor was still in bed and I didn’t like to wake him because he was very tired. Where was the baby?

“Oh,” said the mother rabbit, almost bursting into tears, “it’s not far away. If you’ll come with us we’ll show you and maybe if you bring it back here the Doctor will be awake by then. But we must make haste. It’s very sick.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll come with you. Lead the way.”

Well, the mother rabbit was in a hurry. She and her mate shot out the garden gate and went bolting down the road like a streak of lightning. Time and again I had to call to them to wait and let me catch up. After they had gone about a mile toward Oxenthorpe they left the highway and started off across country. Over ditches, ploughed fields and swamps they led me – under hedges, through copses, over hill and dale. At last they came to a stop before a hole in a bank beside a wood.

“The baby’s down there,” said the mother. “Please hurry up and get it out. It’s terribly ill.”

Of course there was no earthly chance of my getting down a hole that size. But there was a farm nearby. I ran over to it. It was still very early in the morning and no one was about. I found a garden spade in a turnip field. I borrowed it and ran back to the rabbits. Then I got the father to show me about how far his hole ran into the bank. I dug down in that spot and got the young one out. He certainly looked pretty ill – breathing very hard. Some sort of asthma, I suspected. I picked him up, left the spade where the farmer would find it, and started off, on the run, back to the Doctor’s house with both the parents at my heels.

John Dolittle was up and shaving by the time we got there. He gave one look at the baby rabbit, dropped his razor, took the patient out of my hands and ran down the stairs with it to the dispensary. There he swabbed its throat out with some kind of disinfectant and laid it in a shoe-box on a bed of hay.

“You only just caught it in time, Stubbins,” he said. “I think it will get all right. But we’ll have to keep an eye on it for a few days. Put it up in my bedroom – under the bed. Tell the parents they can live there too for a few days. Give them some apples. Hah, it’s a fine youngster! We’ll fix it up all right.”

At breakfast I told Dab-Dab about it. She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling with a sigh.

“We’ll have to take the carpet up,” she said. “There will be apple-cores all over the room. Ah, well! We might have expected it. That’s the way it always begins – after he’s been away. Now we’ll have every kind of animal in the countryside calling on him with their toothaches and bruises and blisters!”

And, sure enough, she was right. From that time on the animal patients began to arrive thick and fast, at all hours of the day and night. Foxes, badgers, otters, squirrels, weasels, hedgehogs, moles, rats, mice and every kind of bird, formed a line outside the dispensary door – a line which seemed to grow forever longer and longer. The wild animals’ world had learned that the great doctor was back.

And so the little house suddenly became a very busy place. The Doctor was here, there and everywhere. Jip’s friend Flip came and was given a comfortable home in one of the dog-houses in the Zoo enclosure. In fact he found it so comfortable, and enjoyed being a guest of the Doctor’s so much, that next time he visited the town he told all his friends about it. And as soon as it got abroad in dog society that the famous Home for Cross-bred Dogs was open once more, we had all descriptions of waifs and strays and mongrels for miles around wagging their tails at the gates and asking to be taken in as members. The Doctor never could resist a hard-luck story from animals. And we soon had a wonderful collection down there in the Zoo enclosure. Never had I seen such mixtures – crosses between greyhounds and dachshunds, between Airedales and mastiffs, Irish terriers and foxhounds. But the more mixed they were the better the Doctor seemed to like them.

“They’re always more intelligent and interesting, these cross-breds, Stubbins,” he said, “than the pedigree dogs. This is splendid. I always like to have lots of dogs around.”

He did have them; there was no question about that. The real trouble came when not only the stray dogs of the neighbourhood – those who had no owners or places to go at night – but the regular dogs, many of them thoroughbreds, heard of the “Home” in the Doctor’s garden and just ran away and came to us.

This, as can be easily understood, caused a lot of trouble for John Dolittle. (It had done the same before, as a matter of fact.) Angry owners of pet poodles, dogs who had won prizes and blue ribbons in shows, came round to see the Doctor. Furiously they accused him of luring away their precious darlings from their proper homes. And the Doctor had hard work pacifying them. One case I remember that amused me very much. It was a Cocker spaniel. When she arrived at the house she told the Doctor she was annoyed with her owner because she would treat her as a lap-dog.

“And you know, Doctor,” she said very haughtily, “we Cockers are not lap-dogs, like the King Charles or Pekinese spaniels – those piffling flea-bags who do nothing but sit on cushions. We are not that kind. We are sporting dogs. I can’t stand my owner. I wish to live my own life. We’re descended from the water spaniels – a very old and respected breed.”

“Of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “I quite understand.”

“I don’t want to sit on sofas,” the dog went on. “I want to run in the woods – to smell the deer. I love going after deer. I’ve never caught one and I don’t suppose I’d know what to do with it if I did. But it’s the fun of the thing, don’t you see? My mistress says I mustn’t get myself wet, running through the long grass and all that. But I just hate the life of drawing-rooms and afternoon teas! I want to come and live with you and all those jolly mongrels down in your Zoo.”

“I see, I see,” said the Doctor. “And I understand your point of view. Quite, quite. But what am I to say to your owner when she traces you back here and comes to tell me I’ve stolen her dog?”

“Oh, let her go and buy herself a toy one,” said the spaniel – “one of those made out of rags. It would do just as well for her. She doesn’t know anything about real dogs.”

Well, that was the kind of thing the Doctor found himself faced with all the time. And it certainly kept him busy. This particular spaniel did actually stay with us. We called her Squib; but, as the Doctor had prophesied, her owner, a very elegant lady of one of the county’s best families, called and started a rumpus. However, Squib was so rude and unfriendly to her former mistress and made such a fuss about being taken away, that the lady, after the Doctor had explained things to her, finally went off and left her with us. And the spaniel to her great delight was allowed to join the Home for Crossbred Dogs.

Although she was frightfully well-bred, a champion in her class and all that, she never boasted about her pedigree to the other dogs. Squib’s one great ambition was to trail a deer and run him down in the woods. She never succeeded – with the short legs she had. But it didn’t matter anyway. In fact it was just as well she never did. Always she had still something to look forward to. As she had explained to the Doctor, the fun of the game was the thing that counted. She was a true sportswoman; and all the other dogs were mad about her.

• • • • •

•   8   •

How to Get into Jail?

Of course as time went on the Doctor became more and more anxious to get at his notes and the writing of his book about the moon. One evening, after all our work for the day had been attended to, we were sitting in the kitchen. Matthew Mugg, the cat’s-meat-man, was with us. It was nearly midnight and I had packed all the animals off to bed because both John Dolittle and myself were pretty tired.

The Doctor was filling his pipe from the big tobacco-jar; and when he got it lighted and going well he said to me,

“You know, Stubbins, I can’t see how I’ll ever get that book started, as things are going at present.”

“Yes, Doctor,” I said, “I know what you mean.”

“It isn’t that I begrudge the time I give to the animals here, you understand,” he went on. “It’s just that there are only twenty-four hours to the day. And no matter how I try to arrange it, I don’t – I simply don’t – seem to find any time for writing. You see, I always feel that these animals that call upon me with their troubles, well, that is a living, an immediate, thing. The book should be able to wait. Maybe nobody will take any notice of it, anyway, when it comes out. But I do want to get it written. I hope it’s going to be a very important work.”

“You ought to go away somewhere, Doctor,” said the cat’s-meat-man – “so you could ’ave peace and quiet. From what Tommy tells me, you ain’t likely to get none ’ere.”

“That’s an idea,” cried John Dolittle. “To go away – But where?”

“Take a seaside ’oliday, Doctor,” said Matthew. “Go down to Margate. – Lovely place! I got a cousin down there in the lobster-fishin’ business. Nobody would bother you in Margate. It’s far enough off from Puddleby so not even the animals ’ereabouts would know where you’d gone.”

The Doctor frowned slightly as he looked into the bowl of his pipe.

“Yes,” he said, “but you see, Matthew, there’s always that wretched question of money. Where can a man go without money?”

Matthew drummed a moment on the table with his fingers.

“Now, Doctor,” he said presently, “the main thing you’re lookin’ for is peace and quiet, ain’t it?”

“That’s it,” said John Dolittle. “A place where I can write my book undisturbed.”

“Well,” said Matthew. “There’s only one place I know where a man can get all the peace and quiet ’e wants and it don’t cost ’im nothin’.”

“Where’s that?” asked the Doctor.

“In jail,” said Matthew.

“Oh,” said the Doctor, a little surprised. “Ah, yes, I see. I hadn’t thought of that. Yet – er – after all, it is an idea. Quite an idea. But tell me – er – how does one go about getting into jail?”

“That’s a fine thing for you to be askin’ me, John Dolittle! My trouble wasn’t never ’ow to get into jail; it was always ’ow to stay out of it.”

Both the Doctor and I knew Matthew’s occasional troubles with the police. His great weakness was poaching, that is, snaring rabbits and pheasants on other people’s property. Nothing on earth could ever persuade him this was wrong. And whenever he was missing and suddenly turned up again after several weeks’ absence the Doctor never asked him where he had been. For he guessed he most likely had had one of his “little run-ins with the police” as he called them. But tonight neither of us could keep from laughing outright.

“Now listen,” said Matthew, leaning forward, “let’s go into committee on this. First thing we got to decide is which jail we got to get you into, see? There’s lots o’ difference in ’em. I wouldn’t recommend you Puddleby jail. No – too draughty. I got an awful nooralgy in me face last time I was there. Well, then, there’s Oxenthorpe jail. No – come to think of it – I wouldn’t pick that one neither. It’s a nice jail, you understand. But the old Justice of the Peace what sits on the bench up there is a snooty old bloke and ’e’s liable to give you ’ard.”

“Hard?” said the Doctor. “I don’t quite understand.”

“’Ard labour,” said Matthew. “You know, work. You ’ave to work all the time you’re in there – makin’ ropes and that kind o’ thing. You wouldn’t want that. You want peace and quiet so you can write a book. No, Oxenthorpe is out. But then there’s Gilesborough. Ah, now that’s the place you—”

“But excuse me,” the Doctor put in. “One has to do something to get into jail, doesn’t one? I mean, you must commit some sort of an offence, break the law. What?”

“Oh, that’s easy, Doctor,” said the cat’s-meat-man. “Listen, all you got to do is go up to a policeman and push ’im in the face. You’ll get into jail all right.”

“But, my dear Matthew,” cried the Doctor, “how can I possibly go up to a policeman, a perfect stranger, a man who never did me any harm, and – er – push him in the face?”

“Doctor,” said Matthew, “don’t let your conscience worry you none. It’s a worthy deed – a werry worthy deed – that’s what it is. All policemen had oughter be pushed in the face. Look, if you don’t think you can do it, I’ll come and ’elp yer!”

“Er – er – well, now wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “I’m not what’s called conventional, as you know, Matthew. In fact, I too have been in prison. I was thrown into a dungeon in Africa by Prince Bumpo’s father, the King of the Jolliginki. But I didn’t have to do anything for that. The King just didn’t like white men. And I can’t say that I blame him – seeing what his experience with them had been. But, to come back: I think that your idea sounds good in many ways. A prison, with high stone walls, should be a splendid place to write.”

“The grub’s rotten – that’s the only thing,” said Matthew, reaching for the tobacco-jar.

“Well, that won’t bother me,” said John Dolittle. “I’m eating as little as possible now, you know, on account of my weight. But the way to get into jail is the thing that may prove difficult. Listen, Matthew: don’t you think I could do something less violent? I mean, instead of pushing a policeman’s face, couldn’t I just – er – break a window or something?”

“Oh, positively,” said Matthew. “There’s lots of ways of getting into jail. But, you see, just for bustin’ a window you’d only get a sentence of a few days. ’Ow long was you thinkin’ you’d want to stay?”

“Er – I don’t just know, Matthew,” said the Doctor. “But certainly until I get most of my book finished.”

“Well,” said the cat’s-meat-man, “there’s no need to worry about that yet a while. If the judge only gives you fourteen days and you want to stay longer, all you got to do is tear up your bed or something like that. Or, if they puts you out, you can just break another window and come right back in again, see? That part’s easy. Now I got to be goin’. Theodosia always gets kind of fussy if I’m out late at night. But you think it over, Doctor. If you wants peace and quiet there’s no place like a prison cell. But when you starts your window-breakin’ you better let me come and ’elp you – No, don’t thank me, Doctor, it’ll be a pleasure, I assure you! ’Twould never do to ’ave no bunglin’. The job’s got to be done right. Yer might get into trouble! And choose Gilesborough. Trust me. It’s a nice jail. Good night!”

• • • • •

•   9   •

Gilesborough

After Matthew had left, the Doctor and I sat on chatting for a while longer. It was quite plain, as John Dolittle talked, that he was becoming more and more taken up with the idea of jail as his one best place to go for finishing his book. The work at his house interested him no end; but there was clearly no possible chance of his getting at his writing while he stayed at home. He felt that this book was a greater thing than he had done, or ever would do. At the same time he hated to leave his patients. He put these matters before me now for consideration; and I was very flattered that he wanted my opinion.

“Well, Doctor,” I said, “it seems to me that it is a question of which is the most important, the book or the patients.”

“Quite so, Stubbins,” said he. “That’s just it. And it’s hard for me to make up my mind. You see, as I told you, so many of these sick animals have come to rely on me – and me alone – to help them in their troubles.”

“Yes, but just the same,” I said, “how did they get along while you were away before? I can’t see why you feel you must take care of everybody and everything in the world, Doctor. That’s more than anyone could do. It won’t take you forever to write your book. Why can’t the patients manage without your help for that length of time, the same as they did while you were away in the moon?”

He shrugged his shoulders but did not answer.

The next day I talked the matter over with Dab-Dab.

“Tommy,” said she, “that man Matthew Mugg is a scallywag, but he’s got brains. Jail may not be the pleasantest place in the world. But don’t you see what’s going to happen if John Dolittle doesn’t go away somewhere?”

“What?” I asked.

“He’ll try and do both things,” said Dab-Dab. “He’ll try to look after all these blessed animals – many of them aren’t really sick, you know, they just want to get a look at the great man and then go back and brag about it to their friends – and he’ll try to write the book. Both at the same time. He’ll get ill from overwork. No, the more I think of it, the surer I feel. Matthew’s right. The place for John Dolittle is jail. He’ll be safe there.”

Well, it was towards the end of that week that the Doctor came to a decision. We had a very long line of patients calling on him – worse than usual. The cases were not serious ones, but they kept him on the go from the time he got out of bed till the time he went back to it – long after midnight. To make matters worse still, four new dogs arrived who wished to become members of the “Home.” And the same afternoon Whitey discovered two new families of wild mice who said they’d like to join the Rat and Mouse Club. When I went with the Doctor up to his bedroom that night he was all worn out.

“Stubbins,” he said, as he sank into a chair, “it’s no use my staying here any longer. I’ve just got to go away.”

“Yes, Doctor,” I said, “I think you’re right.”

“Tomorrow, Stubbins,” said he, “we’ll go over to Gilesborough. You get hold of Matthew for me. I am a little bit afraid of what he may do. But, on the other hand, I am not – er – as experienced as he is in these matters. So I think it would be a good idea if we had him with us, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, “I do.”

“Anyway,” he went on, “call me early, won’t you? We must get those notes arranged. I fancy one is not allowed to take much baggage when one goes to jail. We’ll have to copy the notes out on to ordinary paper, you know – much less bulky than those palm-leaf sheets I brought down from the moon.”

“Very good,” said I. “We can manage that all right. Now get some sleep, Doctor. It’s a quarter to one.”

I was down very early the next morning; and, thinking I was up ahead of everybody, I was tiptoeing through the house on my way out to visit Matthew when I found the whole family sitting at breakfast round the kitchen-table.

“Well, Dab-Dab,” I said, “he’s going!”

“Who’s going?” asked Gub-Gub.

“The Doctor,” I said.

“Where is he going?” asked the white mouse.

“To jail,” I answered.

“Why is he going?” asked Jip.

“Because he has to,” said I, as patiently as I could.

“When is he going?” asked Too-Too.

“As soon as he can,” I said.

It was the usual bombardment of questions that I got regularly whenever I broke any news of the Doctor.

“Now look here,” said Dab-Dab, addressing the rest of them. “Stop bothering Tommy with your chatter. The Doctor has decided to go to jail so he can be free.”

“Free – in jail!” cried the white mouse.

“Just that,” said Dab-Dab. “He needs quiet. And you must all understand that where he is going is to be kept a secret.”

“Dear me!” sighed the white mouse. “We always seem to be having to keep secrets round here.”

“Well, there’s to be no seeming about this,” snorted Dab-Dab. “No one is to know where John Dolittle is going. Is that clear to all of you? For a while the Doctor has just got to disappear from the world – the world of animals as well as of people. All of us must see to it that no one, absolutely no one, gets to hear of where he has gone.”

After a glass of milk I hurried away to see Matthew. The cat’s-meat-man agreed to meet us, the Doctor and myself, in Gilesborough that afternoon.

On my return I got the notes arranged as the Doctor wanted. We did not plan to take them all with us at once. We felt sure I could bring him more later, as he needed them. And so it was only with a satchel for baggage that we set out together to walk to Gilesborough – a distance of some seven miles from Puddleby.

I must confess that I had to smile to myself as we set off. John Dolittle, the great traveller who had undertaken such adventurous voyages, was starting off on the strangest journey of all: to go to jail! And for the first time in his life he was worried that he might not get there.

Gilesborough was quite a place – in many ways more important than Puddleby. It was a Saxon town, the centre of a “hundred,” as it was called in the old days. Its square-towered little church sat up among its surrounding oak-trees and could be seen from a long way off. What is more, it was a market-town. Every Friday, fine cattle were driven in – Jersey cows, sheep, and Berkshire pigs – by the farmers of the neighbourhood. And then once a year, just before Michaelmas, there was the Goose Fair. This was attended by visitors for many miles around and was a county-wide affair of great importance.

I had visited the town before; and I had enjoyed seeing those jolly farmers with their apple-cheeked wives gathering in the White Hart Inn or the Fitz-Hugh Arms Hotel to talk over the fine points of the sheep shown in the market pens, or neighbours’ calves sold at new high prices. They always had splendid horses for their gigs, these men, in which they drove to town – even if the gigs were in sad need of repairs, painting and washing. Taken all in all, Gilesborough was one of the spots of Old England anyone would love to visit.

The Doctor and I arrived there on a late Friday afternoon. The market was over and the farmers had retired to take their last mug of cider at the taverns before going home. We found the cats’-meat-man at our meeting-place, waiting for us.

“Now look here, Matthew,” said the Doctor, “about this window-breaking business: you understand I wouldn’t want to break the windows of any poor people – those who couldn’t afford it, you know.”

“A worthy thought,” said Matthew, “a werry worthy thought. I take it you’d like better to break the windows of the wealthy. So would I. Well, ’ow about the bank – the Gilesborough Investment Corporation? They’ve got lots of money and they’d be sure to prosecute, too, mind yer. That’s important. They just loves to prosecute people. Yes, Doctor, that’s the idea. Let’s bust the bank’s winders. They’re made of plate glass – lovely! They’ll be closed to customers now, but the clerks and cashiers will still be there. We’ll go and take a whack at the bank – helegant! Now, let me see – where are some good stones? Yes – ’ere we are! You take a couple in your pockets and I’ll take a few too. Wouldn’t never do to ’ave no bunglin’!”

Matthew picked up a handful of large pebbles from the roadway. He handed some to the Doctor and put some more in his own pockets.

“Now,” said he, “we just go and stroll down the street – saunterin’ like. Then when we gets in front of the bank we—”

“Just a minute,” said the Doctor. “Are you going to throw the stone to break the window, or am I?”

“It just depends, Doctor,” said Matthew, “on how much of a crowd we finds in front of the bank and the distribution of the population, as you might say, see?”

“No, I can’t say that I see – quite,” said the Doctor.

“Well,” said the cat’s-meat-man, “you got to use judgment in these things – tactics, yer know. You might find a whole lot of people in between you and the bank front, and you wouldn’t be able to let fly proper, while me – I might see a chance when you wouldn’t, see? It won’t do to ’ave no bunglin’! You take your cue from me, Doctor. I’ll get you into jail all right!”

Matthew went ahead of us a little. The Doctor, with me following behind, was clearly worried.

“I don’t quite like this, Stubbins,” he whispered. “But I suppose Matthew knows what he’s doing.”

“I hope so, Doctor,” I said.

We arrived in front of the bank. It was in a wide square known as the Bargate. Many people were on the pavements. The Doctor was craning his neck here and there, dodging about, trying to see over their heads. Suddenly there was a crash, followed by the noise of falling glass.

“It sounds to me,” said the Doctor, “as though Matthew has been helping us.”

Before I had time to answer him I heard cries from the people around us: “Stop him! Stop thief! – He tried to break into the bank – Stop him! Catch him!”

“Dear me!” said the Doctor. “Is it Matthew they’re after?”

We saw a scuffle going on ahead of us.

“Yes – yes!” cried the Doctor. “That’s he. Matthew’s broken the bank window. Follow me, Stubbins.”

We shouldered our way into the crowd that was now gathering thick and fast. In the centre of it, sure enough, we found Matthew struggling in the grasp of a policeman.

“Pardon me,” said the Doctor politely, touching the policeman on the shoulder, “but it was I who threw the stone – er – thereby breaking the window.”

“I might believe you, sir,” said the policeman – “being as how you looks an honest gent. But I seen him with my own eyes. Took a stone out of his pocket – with me right behind him, and threw it through the bank’s front window. Besides, I know this cove. He’s a poacher over from Puddleby way. A bad lot, he is. Come along o’ me, young feller. And it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say may be held agin you in court!”

And poor Matthew was marched away towards the jail.

“But, Constable,” said the Doctor to the policeman, “you must listen to me. I—”

“Never mind,” whispered Matthew. “Don’t you come to the court, Doctor. You don’t want to be known there – not yet. No cause to worry about me. I’ll be out of that jail almost afore they puts me in there. I know all the locks, see…. Yes, I’m a-comin’, old funny-face. Stop pullin’ – Gimme a chance to talk to me friend before I goes to the scaffold, can’t yer? I’m surprised at you!” (Matthew dropped his voice to a whisper again.) “I’ll be seem’ yer, Doctor. Just a little mistake, see? If at first yer don’t succeed, try, try – yer know the old sayin’. Better wait till I can ’elp yer. Wouldn’t do to ’ave no bunglin’, you know. I’ll get yer into jail all right, never fear!”

• • • • •

•   10   •

Lady Matilda Beamish

John Dolittle was all for following our unlucky friend, but I persuaded him not to. “I think he’ll be all right, Doctor,” I said. “And certainly, as he told you, you don’t want to get known at the Court House yet – for fear they think there is something funny about us.”

“They’ll think that in any case if we go on this way,” said the Doctor gloomily. “But, Stubbins, I can’t bear to feel I have got Matthew into jail. For years I’ve been trying to persuade him to keep out of it. I almost wish I hadn’t started out on this crazy idea.”

“Oh, Doctor,” said I. “As far as Matthew is concerned, I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. He’s so – well – he’s so experienced in these matters.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor thoughtfully, “that is true. But still if I’m to get into Gilesborough jail I don’t think I should wait for his assistance any further. I’d better leave the bank alone, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Doctor,” said I. “I think I would.”

We went on strolling down the main street till presently we came to the outskirts of the town, where there were no shops any more, just private houses.

“This looks like a prosperous place,” said the Doctor, stopping before a large house with a very elegant front. “I should think the folks here could easily afford a broken window, what? Well, here goes! Now listen, Stubbins, you better keep out of the way. We don’t want the wrong man arrested a second time.”

The Doctor drew a stone from his pocket and let fly at a big window on the ground floor. Another crash, and more sounds of falling glass. We waited, watching the front door for someone to come out. No one came. Presently an urchin stepped up behind us.

“Mister,” said he, “there ain’t no use in breaking the windows in that house.”

“Why?” asked the Doctor.

“The people’s gone away,” said the boy. “Yes, gone abroad for the winter. I broke all the windows in the back yesterday and no one even chased me off the place!”

“Good gracious!” murmured the Doctor. “Have I got to spoil every house in this town before I get stopped? Come, Stubbins, let us go on.”

Once more we sauntered, looking for points of attack.

“I don’t seem to be doing very well,” said the Doctor dismally. “I had no idea how difficult it was to get into jail.”

“Well, Doctor,” I said, “I suppose there’s a good deal in looking the part, as they say. Matthew didn’t seem to find it difficult to get into jail.”

“Look,” said the Doctor, pointing down the street. “There’s another big house – with lots of carriages driving up to the door. I wonder what’s going on there.”

“Most likely they’re giving a tea-party, or something of the kind,” I said. “See, there’s a policeman there regulating the traffic.”

“A policeman!” cried the Doctor. “Why, so there is! This is splendid, Stubbins. I can’t go wrong this time. Important people with plenty of money; a party going on; crowds of witnesses, and a policeman. He’ll just be bound to arrest me. – I’ll report him for neglect of duty if he doesn’t!”

When we came up to the house we saw there was quite a gathering of townspeople watching the guests driving up in their carriages. It certainly seemed to be quite a large and elegant affair which was going on. The Doctor told me to hang back; and he elbowed his way into the crowd till he was near enough to make sure of his aim. By standing on tiptoe, from where I was I could see him and his tall hat plainly. Again he took a stone from his pocket and scored a bull’s-eye on the largest of the ground-floor windows.

Another crash – and once more the clatter of falling glass. This noise was instantly followed by indignant cries from the crowd. Everybody drew away from the Doctor as though they feared he was dangerous. Suddenly, as it were, he was left all by himself in the centre of a small ring, blushing ridiculously but looking quite happy and triumphant. The policeman came through the crowd and looked at him. He was clearly very puzzled by the respectable appearance of the stone-thrower. His eye roamed over the Doctor’s satchel, his top hat, and his kind, genial face.

“Pardon me, sir,” said he, “but was it you who threw that stone?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “I threw the stone. My pockets are full of them, look!”

He pulled a handful out of his pocket and showed them.

“’E’s an anarchist,” I heard someone in the crowd whisper. “I’ll bet yer ’e makes bombs in ’is bathroom!”

“Maybe ’e’s crazy,” said a woman near me. “’E’s got an awful queer look in his eye – Come back there, Willie! You keep away from ’im! ’E might bite’ yer, or something!”

But the constable seemed more puzzled than ever.

“Did you throw it – er – on purpose, sir?” he asked in a disbelieving voice.

“Oh, yes, indeed!” said the Doctor brightly. “Let me show you.”

He took another stone from his pocket and drew back his arm.

“No, no,” said the policeman, hurriedly stopping him. “You needn’t break any more. You can explain to the magistrate. You must come with me. And it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say now may be used in evidence against you.”

“Well, just tell me what to say and I’ll say it,” said the Doctor eagerly as he moved away at the policeman’s side.

“Yes, ’e’s crazy all right,” murmured the woman near me. “Come along, Willie. Time to go home.”

“Maybe he was annoyed because he didn’t get asked to the party, Ma,” said Willie.

The commotion inside the house was now greater than that outside. Maids and footmen were flying around, pulling down blinds. The front door was shut and bolted. It looked as though they feared a bombardment of stones from the crowd.

As soon as the Doctor and the policeman had got to the outskirts of the mob I began following them, keeping a hundred yards or so behind. This was not difficult because the helmet of the tall constable could be easily seen at quite a distance. It was clearly the policeman’s intention to avoid people following; because he took back streets instead of main ones.

After a little I decided it was no longer necessary for me to keep back out of the way. The deed was done now and the Doctor need no longer fear that I would be accused of having a hand in it. So presently, when the pair were going through a quiet little alley, I overtook them.

The constable asked me who I was and what I wanted. I explained that I was a friend of the man he had arrested and I wished to go with them to the police-station. To this he made no objection and the three of us marched on together.

“Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “can’t you think of something I could say which will be used in evidence against me?”

“I don’t imagine there will be any need for that,” I said.

The constable just raised his eyebrows, looking more mystified than ever. He probably thought he ought to be taking us before a doctor instead of a magistrate.

Presently we arrived at the Court House and were taken inside. At a tall desk, like a pulpit, an elderly man was writing in a book. He looked very dignified and severe.

“What’s the charge?” he said without looking up.

“Breaking windows, Your Honour,” said the constable.

The magistrate put down his pen and gazed at the three of us through shaggy grey eyebrows.

“Who, the boy?” he asked, jerking his head towards me.

“No, Your Honour,” said the constable. “The old gentleman here.”

The magistrate put on his glasses and peered, scowling, at John Dolittle.

“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” he asked.

“Guilty, Your Honour,” said the Doctor firmly.

“I don’t understand,” murmured the magistrate. “You – at your time of life! – Breaking windows! – What did you do it for?”

The Doctor was suddenly overcome with embarrassment. He blushed again; shuffled his feet; coughed.

“Come, come!” said the magistrate. “You must have had some reason. Do you hold any grudge against the owner of the house?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “None whatever. I didn’t even know whose place it was.”

“Are you a glazier? Do you repair windows? – I mean, were you looking for a job?”

“Oh, no,” said the Doctor, more uncomfortable than ever.

“Then why did you do it?”

“I – er – did it – er – just for a lark, Your Honour!” said the Doctor, smiling blandly.

His Honour sat up as though someone had stuck a pin in him.

“For a lark!” he thundered. “And do you think the people of this town consider it a lark to have their houses damaged in this ruffianly manner? A lark! Well, if you are trying to be funny at the expense of the Law we will have to teach you a lesson. What is your calling – I mean what do you do – when you’re not breaking windows?”

At this question poor John Dolittle looked as though he was about to sink into the floor.

“I am a doctor,” he said in a very low voice.

“A doctor! – Ah!” cried the magistrate. “Perhaps you hoped to get some patients – bombarding a house with stones! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well, you have admitted the charge. So far as I know it’s a first offence. But I shall inflict the severest penalty that the law allows me. You are fined five pounds and costs!”

“But I haven’t any money,” said the Doctor, brightening up.

“Humph!” snorted His Honour. “Can’t you borrow funds? Have you no friends?”

“No friends with money,” said the Doctor, glancing at me with a hopeful smile.

“I see,” said the magistrate, taking up his pen. “In that case the law gives me no choice. The court regrets the necessity of imposing this sentence on a man of your years and profession. But you have brought it on yourself and you certainly deserve a lesson. In default of the fine you must go to jail for thirty days.”

The Doctor gave a big sigh of relief. He shook me warmly by the hand. “Splendid! We’ve done it, Stubbins!” he whispered as he picked up his satchel.

There was a knocking on the door. Another policeman entered. Behind him was a large flouncy sort of woman wearing many pearls. With her was a coachman, also a footman. The magistrate got up at once and came down out of his pulpit to greet her.

“Ah, Lady Matilda Beamish!” he cried. “Come in. What can we do for you?”

“Oh, good heavens!” I heard the Doctor groan behind me.

“I do hope, Your Honour,” said the lady, “that I’m not too late. I came as fast as I could. It was in my house that the window was broken. Is the trial over? I thought you would need me as a witness.”

“The case has been already dealt with,” said the magistrate. “The accused pleaded guilty – so there was no need of witnesses beyond the constable who made the arrest.”

“Oh, I was so upset!” said the woman, fluttering a lace handkerchief before her face. “We were holding the monthly meeting of the County Chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Refreshments had been served and we were just about to call the meeting to business when a large stone came flying through the drawing-room window and dropped right into the punch bowl. Oh, it was terrible! Sir Willoughby Wiffle was splashed all over! As for myself, I positively swooned away.”

She sank down into a seat and the coachman and footman stood about her, fanning her. The magistrate sent one of the policemen to get a glass of water.

“Dear Lady Matilda,” he said, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am this outrage should have occurred at your home. However, the prisoner has defaulted on his fine and he is being sent to jail. It will teach him a lesson. I just have to book some particulars. I will be with you in a moment.”

Up to this the woman had been so busy, gasping and fluttering and talking, she had not even looked at the Doctor or myself. Now, when the magistrate left her to go back to his pulpit, she saw us for the first time. The Doctor turned quickly away from her gaze. But she sprang up and cried out,

“Your Honour, is that the man who broke my window?”

“Yes,” said the magistrate, “that is he. Why? Do you know him?”

“Know him!” cried Lady Matilda Beamish, bursting into smiles and gurgles of joy. “Why, I dote on him! My dear Doctor Dolittle, I am delighted to see you again! But tell me, why didn’t you come into the meeting, instead of throwing a stone in instead?”

“I didn’t know it was your house,” said the Doctor sheepishly.

The woman turned gushingly to the magistrate.

“Oh, Your Honour,” she cried, “this is the most wonderful man in the world. A doctor – that is, he was a doctor, but he turned to animals instead. Well, five years ago Topsy, my prize French poodle, had puppies. And she was dreadfully ill – so were the puppies, all of them. The sweetest little things you ever saw – but, oh, so ill! I sent for all the vets in the county. It was no use. Topsy and her children got worse and worse. I wept over them for nights on end. Then I heard about Doctor Dolittle and sent for him. He cured them completely, the whole family. All the puppies won prizes in the show. Oh, I’m so happy to see you again, Doctor! Tell me, where are you living now?”

“In jail,” said John Dolittle – “or, that is, I expect to be, for a while.”

“In jail!” cried the lady. “Oh, the window – of course. I had forgotten about that. But let me see” – she turned to the magistrate again – “wasn’t there something said about a fine?”

“Yes,” said His Honour. “Five pounds. The prisoner was unable to pay it. He was sentenced to thirty days in jail instead.”

“Oh, good gracious!” cried the lady. “We can’t have that. I’ll pay the fine for him. Atkins, go and bring me my purse. I left it in the carriage.”

The footman bowed and went out.

The Doctor came forward quickly.

“It’s awfully good of you, Lady Matilda,” he began, “but I—”

“Now, Doctor, Doctor,” said she, shaking a fat finger at him, “don’t thank me. We can’t possibly let you go to jail. It will be a pleasure for me to pay it. In fact, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have considered it a privilege to have my window broken, if I had only known it was you who had done it. A very great man,” she whispered aside to the magistrate, “a little odd and – er – eccentric, but a very great man. I’m so glad I got here in time.”

The purse was brought by the footman and the money was counted out. The Doctor made several more attempts to interfere but he stood no chance of getting himself heard against the voice of the grateful, talkative lady who was determined to rescue him from jail.

“Very well,” said the magistrate finally, “the fine is paid and the prisoner is released from custody – with a caution. This was a particularly flagrant breach of the law and it is to be hoped that the prisoner will take the lesson to heart. The Court wishes to express the opinion that the lady against whose premises and property the offence was committed has acted in more than a generous manner in paying the fine imposed.”

The policeman beckoned to the Doctor and me. He led us down a passage, opened a door, and showed us out – into the street.

• • • • •

•   11   •

In Jail at Last

It was almost twilight now and both the Doctor and I were hungry. Feeling that nothing more could be done that day we set off to tramp the seven miles back to Puddleby and supper. For quite a while neither of us spoke. At last, when we were nearly home, the Doctor said,

“You know, Stubbins, I almost wish I had followed Matthew’s advice and – er – pushed a policeman in the face. It would have been so much – er – so much safer. Did you hear what that woman said – almost a privilege to have her window broken by me? Good heavens! – And you know, it was the simplest case, her Topsy and the pups. All I did was give them some digestive pills – an invention of my own – and get their precious mistress to stop fussing over them and leave them in peace. Topsy told me that Lady Matilda was just driving them all crazy, buzzing round them like a bee and giving them the stupidest things to eat. I forbade her to go near the dogs for a week and they got all right – on milk. Ah, well!”

There was great excitement when we reached the house and stepped in at the kitchen door.

“Why, Doctor!” squeaked the white mouse, “didn’t you go to jail, then?”

“No,” said the Doctor, sinking miserably into a chair, “but Matthew did. I feel perfectly terrible about it. I must go over and see his wife Theodosia in the morning. I don’t suppose she’ll ever be able to forgive me.”

“Matthew! In jail!” said Too-Too. “Why, I saw him out in the scullery just now, washing his hands.”

“You must be mistaken,” said the Doctor. “The last we saw of him was in Gilesborough. He was being marched off to prison. He threw a stone into the window of the bank, hoping that the people would think it was me. But they didn’t. He was arrested.”

At that moment the door into the pantry opened and Matthew entered smiling.

“’Ulloa, Doctor,” said he cheerily. “So they wouldn’t take you in up at Gilesborough jail, eh? Too bad! Most in’ospitable of ’em, I calls it – most in’ospitable!”

“But, look here, Matthew,” said the Doctor, “what about yourself? Do you mean to say they turned you away too?”

“Hoh, no!” grinned the cat’s-meat-man. “They never turns me away – not from jails. But you see, on the way to the police-station I ’appened to remember that I ’adn’t got me skeleton key with me. And though I could, most likely, ’ave got myself out of that jail without hartificial means, I thought maybe it would be best to be on the safe side and escape before I got to jail. So I sizes up the copper what was takin’ me along, see? And I notices ’e was a kind of ’eavy-built bloke, no good for runnin’ at all. So with great foresight and hindsight – still goin’ along peaceful with ’im like – I picks out a spot to shake ’im. You know that fountain on the green with the big marble pool around it?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “I remember it.”

“Well, just as we comes alongside o’ that pool I says to ’im, I says, ‘Why, sergeant!’ – I knew ’e was only a constable, but they all likes to be called sergeant – ‘Why, sergeant,’ I says, ‘look, yer bootlace is untied.’ ’E bends down to look – and, bein’ very fat, ’e ’ad to bend away down to see ’is feet. Then I gives ’im a gentle shove from the rear and in ’e goes, ’ead-first, into the marble pool. Ha! Just as neat as a divin’ walrus. Then I dashes off across the green and down an alley. I took to the open country as soon as I got a chance. And, well – ’ere I am!”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “Good gracious me! Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe and sound, Matthew. I was very worried about you. What have we got for supper, Dab-Dab?”

“Fried eggs, cheese, tomatoes and cocoa,” said the housekeeper.

“A-a-a-h!” said Gub-Gub, coming up to the table. “Tomatoes!”

“Um-m-m-m, cocoa!” said Chee-Chee. “Good idea!”

“And cheese, hooray!” squeaked the white mouse, scrambling down from the mantelpiece.

“You know, Matthew,” said the Doctor when we were seated at the meal, “I think we had better leave Gilesborough alone. What with you giving a policeman in uniform a bath, and my fine being paid by the most prominent lady in the town, I feel we better stay away from there. In fact, I’m very discouraged about the whole business. As I told Stubbins, I had no idea it was so hard to get into jail.”

“Well, yer see, Doctor,” said Matthew, buttering large slabs of bread, “that’s the way it is: when yer wants to get into jail they won’t ’ave yer, and when you don’t want to get into jail, they takes yer and puts yer there. The whole law, I might say, is a very himperfect hinstrument. But don’t you be down-’earted, Doctor. Keep up the good work! After all, yer did get arrested this last shot, and yer didn’t even get that far the first time. You see, you got the beginnings of a reputation now. It’s easy to get into jail when you got the right reputation.”

Polynesia, sitting on the window-sill, let out a short “Huh!”

“Yes, but just the same,” said the Doctor, “I don’t think we should use Gilesborough any more for our – er – experiments.”

“That’s all right, Doctor,” said Matthew, reaching for the cheese. “There’s lots of other places. Your reputation will spread. Wonderful ’ow a good jail reputation gets around. Now listen: there’s Goresby-St. Clements, pretty little town – and a good jail, too! And I was thinkin’ – should ’ave thought of it before – the best thing for you to do is not to bother with banks and charity meetin’s this time. Just go and bust the window of the police-station itself – or the Court ’Ouse, whichever yer fancy. They’ll be bound to lock you up then!”

“Humph!” said the Doctor. “Er – yes, that sounds a good idea.”

“I’ll come along with yer, Doctor,” said Matthew. “You might not be able to—”

“No, Matthew,” said the Doctor firmly. “I am afraid you may get arrested again by mistake. In fact, I don’t believe I’ll even take Stubbins with me this time. I’ll go alone. It will be safer.”

“All right, Doctor,” said Matthew, “anyway, what makes you most comfortable. But you will see there ain’t no bunglin’, won’t yer? And don’t forget, choose the police-station, or the Court ’Ouse, when the judge is there. Use a good big stone, too. My, but I’d love to see it! When will we be hearin’ from yer?”

“You won’t be hearing from me – if I get into jail,” said the Doctor. “But you will if I don’t.”

The next morning John Dolittle set out for Goresby-St. Clements. This was another long walk from Puddleby and for that reason he made an early start. Dab-Dab had provided him with a large packet of sandwiches and a bottle of milk. He also took with him a good supply of writing-paper and lots of pencils – and of course his notes.

I went down the road a little way with him to see him off. He seemed very happy and hopeful as he bade me goodbye. The last thing he said was,

“Stubbins, if I’m not back here by midnight you’ll know I’ve succeeded. Don’t bother about visiting me for a good while. And on no account let Matthew come at all. I’ll be all right. Look after the old lame horse. And keep an eye on those moon plants for me. So long!”

Well, that time he did succeed – as we heard later. All the animals insisted on sitting up with me that night to see if John Dolittle would return. When the old clock in the hall struck midnight we knew that he was in jail at last. Then I sent them off to bed.

• • • • •

•   12   •

Itty

For the next few days I was kept very busy. Without the Doctor in the house I felt entirely responsible that everything should go well. And there was much more to attend to now than when I had been in charge before.

For one thing, there were the animal patients. Although the number of these calling at the house daily fell off, as soon as it was known that the Doctor was away from home, the sick animals did not by any means stop coming. They all wanted to know where the Doctor had gone. I refused to tell them. Then some of them asked me to give them more of this medicine, or that ointment, which they had been getting before from the Doctor. Next thing, a few who had cuts or bruises asked if I would treat their troubles, since the Doctor was no longer there. Of course in my years of helping John Dolittle in this sort of work I had learned a lot. I bandaged them up and even set a broken bone or two.

I got very interested in the work. I felt proud that I could handle sick cases all by myself. Then I began to notice that the line waiting outside the dispensary door wasn’t getting any less each morning, as it had at the start. Once in a while a more difficult case would come in, needing pretty ticklish surgery. I wished the Doctor was there to help me. But he wasn’t. Some of these were urgent cases that needed attention at once. There was no one else to handle the work, so I did it.

I began to study John Dolittle’s books, volumes he had written on animal medicine and animal surgery. I took on more and more difficult tricks of doctoring – sometimes with my heart in my mouth, scared to death the poor creatures might die under my hands. But none of them did – thank goodness!

Without doubt I was very lucky in this. But also it must not be forgotten that I was greatly helped by knowing animal languages – I was the only one (at that time) besides the great man himself who did. I noticed that more and more the animal patients seemed to have confidence in me. Even when I had to put a stitch in a bad cut they lay wonderfully still, apparently knowing that I would save them all the pain I possibly could.

I began to ask myself where all this might lead me to. My reputation among the animals was growing – the same as the Doctor’s had done when he first left the profession of human medicine and took to the care of the animal world. I don’t mean to say that I dreamed for one moment that I could take the great man’s place. No one living could ever have done that. But as I got busier and busier with the work of the dispensary I did begin to wonder – if the Doctor should stay long enough in prison – whether I too might someday have to run away and hide to get peace and quiet. Anyhow it can be easily understood how a young boy would be tremendously thrilled to find he was doing even as much as I was to carry on the work of so important a person.

But besides my duties as assistant doctor there were plenty of other things to keep me on the go. There were the animal clubs down in the Zoo. I had to keep an eye on Jip and Flip so that they didn’t bring in too many new members for the “Home.” Feeding them properly these days was the big problem. It required money to do that. (My job as bookkeeper for the butcher had to be kept going too, or there wouldn’t have been any money at all.)

And then that blessed little Whitey! In spite of his small size he was all over the place at the same time, poking his cheeky pink nose into everything. He seemed to discover a new family of wild mice or rats every day. He would come to me with a long sad story of their troubles and ask if they could join the Rat and Mouse Club – which I usually found they had done already, before I had given permission.

And I had to take care of the moon plants. This was a big job – keeping notes on weather conditions, rate of growth and goodness knows what more. But this was one of the departments of our establishment which could not be neglected on any account. Not only had the Doctor on leaving instructed me to give it special attention, but I knew that the raising of these food-stuffs from the moon would be necessary for his experiments later on and for the writing of his book. He felt that the very secret of everlasting life itself might be contained in these seeds of vegetables and fruits which he had brought down from that other world. If I let the plants die while he was away, he would never be able to try them out on the creatures of the earth.

And then there was Itty, the moon cat – strangest and most puzzling of animals. True, she did not demand any of my time; but I became very interested in her. She had not yet taken her place as part of the household (for which the rest of the animals were not sorry). But she was now at least willing to leave her cage. And she used to wander round the garden on silent feet, examining everything with great care and curiosity. She seemed particularly interested in the birds and watched them by the hour. This frightened the birds a good deal, especially those who were late nesters and still had young ones to raise. But Itty seemed to remember her promise to the Doctor; for I never saw her kill, or even try to catch, one.

Occasionally at night I would see her looking up at the moon, wistfully – as though she was wondering what was going on there, in that home world of hers from which she had cut herself off with so much courage. The other animals, when she first came out and began to move about, left her severely alone. They sneaked into corners when they saw her coming, and kept out of her way. Her answer to this was to keep out of their way – but in a superior, far grander manner. It seemed almost as though, having lived so many thousands of years longer than these upstart earth animals, she felt she should meet their rude unfriendliness with dignity instead of anger – rather the way one might leave impertinent, naughty children to grow older and learn better manners.

Just the same, whenever I saw her gazing at the moon in that strange dreaming way, she seemed to me like a very sad and forlorn soul, one who perhaps carried the secrets and mysteries of all the ages in her heart and had not so far found anyone worthy to share them. And I wondered if the Doctor, in bringing her down, had not had at the back of his mind some wish to keep with him this one last animal link between the world of the moon and the world of the earth. Had he not perhaps felt after twelve months on the moon that a year is but a little time in the life of the universe, and that the moon cat – if and when she would – could still tell him much he did not know?

Certainly I have never known an animal who had such complete confidence in herself. She always seemed to be mistress of the situation, whatever happened. Her eyes! This world of ours has never seen anything like them. In the dark they didn’t just glow, they burned and smouldered with a light of their own – sometimes with the sudden white flash of diamonds; sometimes like the green glimmer of emeralds, a sleeping southern sea at twilight, a cool forest at daybreak; sometimes like rubies, flaming, dangerous, red; sometimes like the opal – all colours, mingling, changing, fading and gleaming again…. What eyes! When they looked into your own, steadily, for minutes on end, they seemed to be reading your thoughts, searching you and your whole life – all the lives that lay behind you, your father’s, your grandfather’s, back to the beginning of time. Itty, often uncomfortable company perhaps, was for me always fascinating.

Quite a while before this I had learned something of her language. She talked very little – gave no opinions. She appeared to be feeling her way about this new world, so to speak, before she would say what she thought of it. When I told her that the Doctor had gone away she seemed quite upset. But I assured her at once that he would be back before very long.

From then on she tried in her funny stiff way to show me that she liked me. This I am sure was not just because I fed her, but because I always treated her in the way she liked to be treated. Of her own accord she would often follow me round the place and watch with great interest whatever I was doing. But she had never as yet gone into the house.

One evening when I was returning from some of my gardening work I found her sitting on the Long Lawn gazing at the moon. I asked her if she would not like to come inside and join the animals round the kitchen fire. Rather to my surprise, she came in with me right away without saying a word.

In the kitchen they were all there: Gub-Gub, Chee-Chee, Dab-Dab, Polynesia, Jip, Too-Too and Whitey. They greeted me with friendly shouts; but when poor Itty stalked in behind me they all bristled like a lot of porcupines and a dead silence fell over the room.

The cat went over everything in the kitchen with her usual careful inspection. On the bottom shelf of the dresser there was a sort of rack for pots and pans. She peered into all the pots and smelt each of the pans. She moved silently over to the fireplace and examined the poker and tongs as though wondering what they were for. The fire itself she stared at for a long while and I wondered if it was the first time she had seen one burning inside a house.

During all this the rest of the animals never uttered a sound or a word, but followed her round the room with seven pairs of suspicious eyes as though she were a bomb that might blow up, or a creeping, deadly snake. I felt so angry I could have slapped them.

I nudged Jip with my knee and whispered,

“Can’t you say something, you duffer? Start a little conversation. I never saw such hospitality. Make her feel at home!”

Jip coughed and spluttered and grunted like someone coming out of a trance.

“Oh, ah, yes,” he said. “Er – ahem – er – splendid weather we’re having, eh?”

I made signs to the rest of them to wake up and show some life. Gub-Gub came to the conversational rescue.

“Yes, indeed,” said he, “though I did think it might rain in the early part of the morning. But who cares? There will be lots more weather tomorrow.”

I glanced for help towards Polynesia on the window-sill. She looked as sour as a pickle, but she understood I wanted entertainment. She broke into a dismal Russian sea-song about a shipwreck.

Then Whitey started to tell jokes, particularly dull ones which no one apparently heard – and even he himself forgot to laugh at them. Everybody’s eyes and attention were still on the cat, who continued to stalk round the room. She looked as though she were taking no notice whatever of anything but her tour of inspection. Yet I felt certain she was listening to every word that was being said, and, quite possibly, understanding a good deal of it. Finally she disappeared under the table. Then all the company became more uncomfortable and awkward than ever. When they couldn’t see her they seemed to feel their very lives were in danger from a hidden enemy. They reminded me of a lot of old maids at a tea-party, scared that a mouse was going to run up their skirts. I truly believe that if I had not been there they would have broken and run off in a panic. I was furious with them, knowing how much John Dolittle wanted the moon cat to feel at home in his house. Things were going from bad to worse. I did some chattering myself, talking about anything that came into my head. It was hard, uphill work. But I did manage to bully them at least into making a noise. It was the most ridiculous kind of conversation, but it was better than nothing.

After several minutes of it Dab-Dab said,

“Sh! What’s that noise?”

We all listened. It was a strange sound.

“It’s almost like a strong wind in the trees,” whispered Gub-Gub.

“More like the sea breaking on a beach,” said Jip.

“No – an engine, I’d say,” murmured Dab-Dab – “Or a band playing in the distance – Extraordinary!”

“I wonder where it’s coming from,” squeaked the white mouse, who had, as usual, retired to the mantelpiece.

I looked under the table.

It was Itty. Although her eyes were half closed, I thought I saw the shadow of a smile on her face.

She was purring!

• • • • •

•   13   •

In the Doctor’s Cell

But in spite of all there was to do, the old place was not the same without John Dolittle. I missed him terribly – so did the animals. The chats around the kitchen fire after supper were not the same. Somebody would start a story and we would all begin by listening attentively. Yet sooner or later the interest would wear off, the thoughts of the listeners would stray away and we would end by talking about the Doctor and wondering how he was getting on.

Dab-Dab, Too-Too, Jip and Chee-Chee – although they missed him as keenly as any – did not seem to worry about him so much. They were old and experienced friends of John Dolittle. They felt that he could take care of himself and would send us news of how he was getting on as soon as it was convenient for him to do so. But Gub-Gub and the white mouse began to get very upset as day after day went by and no news came from Goresby-St. Clements. They took me aside one morning when I was attending to the moon plants. (Polynesia was with me at the time.) They both looked very serious.

“Tell me, Tommy,” said Gub-Gub, “when are you planning to visit the Doctor?”

“Oh,” said I, “I hadn’t set any exact date. But he especially asked me to leave him alone for a good while. He’s afraid that the police may find out that he got in jail on purpose. He wants to get sort of settled down before he has any visitors.”

“Settled down!” cried the white mouse. “That sounds as though he might be there a terribly long time.”

“We don’t even know,” said Gub-Gub with a very worried look, “how long they sent him to prison for. Maybe they sent him to jail for life!”

“Oh, no, Gub-Gub,” I said, laughing. “They don’t send people to prison for life – except for terribly serious crimes.”

“But we haven’t heard” squeaked the white mouse. “Maybe he did do something serious. He wasn’t very successful with the window-breaking business. Perhaps he got desperate and killed a policeman – or a judge – just by accident, I mean. Who knows?”

“No, no,” I said, “that’s not at all likely. If he got a sentence of a month in jail, that would be the most. And he would consider himself lucky to get that.”

“But we don’t know, Tommy, do we?” said the white mouse. “This – er – uncertainty is very wearing. We’ve heard nothing since he left. I can hardly sleep worrying about it, and ordinarily I’m a very good sleeper – at least I was until you brought that terrible cat into the house. But I do wish we had some word of how he is.”

“What is he getting to eat?” asked Gub-Gub.

“I’ve no idea,” I said, “but enough, anyhow, I’m sure.”

“When we were thrown into jail by the King of the Jolliginki in Africa,” said Gub-Gub, “we weren’t given anything to eat at all!”

“Fiddlesticks!” snorted Polynesia, who was sitting on a tree near by. “We got put in prison after lunch and we escaped again before supper-time. What do you expect in jail – four meals a day?”

“Well, we didn’t get anything to eat while we were in prison,” said Whitey. “Gub-Gub’s right. I was there too and I know. Something should be done about the Doctor. I’m worried.”

“Oh, mind your own business!” said Polynesia.

“The Doctor will take care of himself. You’re a fuss-budget.”

“A which budget?” asked the white mouse.

“A fuss-budget,” squawked the parrot. “Mind your own business.”

As a matter of fact I was beginning to be a little bit disturbed about the Doctor myself. Although he had told me he would “be all right” I was anxious to hear how he was getting on. But that same afternoon Cheapside, the London sparrow, came to pay a visit. He was of course very interested to hear what had happened to his friend. When I told him that the Doctor had gone to jail to write a book he chuckled with delight.

“Well, if that ain’t like ’im!” said he – “Jail!”

“Listen, Cheapside,” said I, “if you’re not busy perhaps you’d fly over to Goresby and see what you can find out.”

“You bet,” said Cheapside. “I’ll go over right away.”

The sparrow disappeared without another word.

He was back again about tea-time – as was usual with him. And I was mighty glad to see him. I took him into the study where we could talk privately. He had seen the Doctor, he told me – got through the bars of his prison window and had a long chat with him.

“How did he look, Cheapside?” I asked eagerly.

“Oh, pretty good,” said the sparrow. “You know John Dolittle – ’e always keeps up. But ’e said ’e’d like ter see yer, Tommy. ’E wants some more of his notes. And ’e’s used up all the pencils ’e took with ’im. ‘Tell Stubbins,’ ’e said, ‘there ain’t no special ’urry but I would like to see ’im. Ask ’im to come over about the end of the week – say Sunday.’”

“How is he otherwise?” I asked. “Is he getting enough to eat and all that?”

“Well,” said Cheapside, “I can’t say as ’ow ’is board and lodgin’ is any too elegant. ’E ’ad a kind of thing to sleep on – sort of a cot, you’d call it, I suppose. But it looked to me more like an ironin’ board. Grub? Well, there again, o’ course ’e didn’t complain. ’E wouldn’t. You know John Dolittle – the really important things o’ life never did seem to hinterest ’im. I ’ad a peek in the bowl what was left from ’is supper. And it looked to me like it was ’ash.”

“Hash?” I asked.

“Yus, ’ash,” said Cheapside – “or maybe oatmeal gruel, I wouldn’t be sure which. But it wouldn’t make no difference to the Doctor. ’E’d eat what was given ’im and ask no questions. You know ’ow ’e is!”

At this moment I heard a scuttling among the book-shelves.

“What was that noise, Cheapside?” I asked.

“Sounded to me like a mouse,” said he.

It was hard for me to wait until the end of the week. But I did not want to visit the Doctor earlier than he had asked me to; so in spite of the animals clamouring at me to go right away, I had to contain my soul in patience.

Starting out early on Sunday morning I reached Goresby jail about eleven o’clock. I noticed as I entered the building that many labourers were digging at the side of one wall, as if they were at work on the foundations.

Inside, a policeman booked my name at the desk and made out a pass for me as a visitor. As he gave it to me he said,

“Young man, I think you’re maybe just in time.”

“Pardon me,” I said – “just in time? I don’t quite understand.”

“The superintendent,” he said. “He’s awful mad. He wants to have the prisoner Dolittle removed.”

I was about to ask him why the superintendent wished to get rid of the Doctor. But at that moment another policeman led me away to my friend’s cell.

It was a strange room. The high walls were made of stone. There was a window near the ceiling. Seated on the bed which was littered with papers John Dolittle was writing fast and furiously. He was so taken up with his work that he did not seem even to notice our coming in. The policeman went out again right away and, locking the door behind him, left us together.

Still the Doctor did not look up. It was only when I started to make my way across to where he sat that I noticed the condition of the floor. It was paved with cobblestones – or rather, I should say, it had been. Now it looked like a street which had been taken up by workmen. The whole floor was broken into big holes and all the cobblestones lay around higgledy-piggledy. Littered among these were scraps of food, pieces of cheese, hunks of bread, radishes – even chop-bones, looking the worse for wear.

“Why, Doctor,” I asked, touching him gently on the shoulder, “what’s happened here?”

“Oh, hulloa, Stubbins,” said he. “Well, I hardly know – er – that is, not exactly. You see I’ve been so busy. But it seems that I’m going to have to leave very soon.”

“Why, Doctor?” I asked – “Why? What has happened?”

“Well,” said he, “everything went fine until three days ago. I had done my best. I broke all the windows in the front of the police-station. I was arrested at once. They gave me a sentence of thirty days in jail, and I thought everything was all right. I set to work on the book and I got a good deal done. Everything was going splendidly. And then, Wednesday – I believe it was Wednesday – a mouse came in and visited me. Yes, I know you’d think it was impossible, with all these stone walls. But he got in somehow. Then more came, rats too. They seemed to burrow under the corners, everywhere. They brought me food. They said they had come to set me free.”

“But how did they know you were here?” I cried. “It has been kept a dead secret.”

“I’ve no idea,” he said. “I asked them, but they wouldn’t tell me. Then after the mice had fetched up a lot of rats, the rats went off and fetched a whole lot of badgers. They brought me food, too – all sorts of stuff. Apparently they did not think I was getting enough to eat. The badgers began digging a tunnel under the prison wall to let me out by. I begged them to leave the place alone, but they wouldn’t listen. Their minds were made up that it wasn’t good for me to stay in jail. And there you are…. Sit down, Stubbins, sit down!”

I moved some of the papers aside on the bed and made room for myself.

“When the police discovered what a mess had been made,” he went on, “they moved me into another cell, this one here. But the same thing happened again. The rats and badgers came tunnelling in at night under the walls.”

“But, Doctor,” said I, “outside, as I came in, they told me something about the superintendent. What does it mean?”

“It means, I fear,” he said, “that I’m going to get put out of the prison altogether. After all my work in getting in here! And my book isn’t one-quarter done yet!”

As the Doctor finished speaking we heard the rattling of a key in the lock. Two policemen entered. One I could see from his uniform was a superior officer of some kind. He held a paper in his hand.

“John Dolittle,” he said, “I have here an order for your release.”

“But, Superintendent,” said the Doctor, “I was sentenced to thirty days. I’ve hardly been here half that time.”

“I can’t help it,” said the superintendent. “The whole building is falling down. A new crack has just shown up in the guardroom wall – all the way from floor to ceiling. We’ve called the architect in and he says the whole jail is going to be wrecked if something isn’t done. So we’ve got a special order from the court withdrawing the charge against you.”

“But look here,” said the Doctor, “you must admit I was a very well-behaved prisoner. All this disturbance was not my fault.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said the superintendent. “Whether these were your own trained circus animals that did the mischief is not the point. I’ve been in charge here for seven years now and nothing like this ever happened before. We’ve got to save the jail. The charge is withdrawn and out you’ve got to go.”

“Dear, dear!” sighed the Doctor, “and just when I was getting so comfortably settled and everything. I don’t know what I’ll do now, really I don’t.”

He looked again at the superintendent as if he hoped he might relent and change his mind. But all that gentleman said was,

“Get your things packed up now. We’ve got to let the workmen in here to re-lay this floor.”

Miserably the Doctor put his papers together and I helped him pack them into the satchel. When we were ready the police once again showed us, very politely, to the door and freedom.

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Little Villain

We got back home about three in the afternoon.

Once again the whole household wanted to know what had happened – all of them, that is, except Whitey. I noticed that he was not among the welcoming committee who met us in the garden.

When the Doctor was inside the house he explained why he had come back so soon.

“Did you say your first visitor was a mouse, Doctor?” asked Dab-Dab suspiciously.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “First one and then hundreds – then rats and then badgers. They turned the whole jail upside down. It will cost the police hundreds of pounds to put the building right again. I really can’t blame them for wanting to get rid of me. But just the same it was very provoking, most annoying – just when I was getting into a nice swing with my book and everything was going splendidly. You see, I had planned, after they would turn me loose at the end of my thirty days, to break another window and come in again for a new sentence. But there wouldn’t have been much use in trying to do any more harm to that police-station. The mice and rats and badgers had positively wrecked the place already.”

“Humph! – Mice, eh?” said Polynesia. “I smell a mouse myself now – a white mouse. Where’s Whitey?”

I suddenly remembered the noise I had heard behind the books when I had been talking to Cheapside.

“Yes,” I said, “where is Whitey?”

A general search for that inquisitive little animal was made at once. Too-Too discovered him hiding behind an egg-cup in the china cupboard. He was brought out looking very ashamed of himself and quite scared. Dab-Dab seemed to be the one he was most afraid of. He immediately scrambled up on to the mantelpiece to get out of her reach. Dab-Dab positively bristled with anger as she came forward to talk to him.

“Now,” she said, “tell us: did you have anything to do with this?”

“With what?” asked the white mouse, trying very hard to look innocent but making a poor job of it.

“With all these mice and rats and badgers going to the prison to set the Doctor free?” snapped the duck. “Come on now – out with it. What do you know?”

The housekeeper stretched up her neck towards the small culprit with such blazing anger in her eyes that for a moment it looked as though she was going to gobble him up. Poor Whitey was absolutely terrified.

“Well,” he gasped, “you see, Gub-Gub and I—”

“Oh, so Gub-Gub was in it too, was he?” said Dab-Dab. “Where’s that pig?”

But Gub-Gub had apparently thought it wiser to go off gardening. At any rate he could not be found in the house.

“Go on then, go on,” said Dab-Dab. “What did you and that precious Gub-Gub do?”

“We didn’t really do anything,” said Whitey. “But – er – well, you see – er – we couldn’t find out how the Doctor was getting on over there at Goresby-St. Clements. No one could tell us even whether he was getting enough to eat or not. We knew that the food in prisons isn’t usually very good. So we – er – well, I—”

“Yes, go on!” Dab-Dab hissed.

“I thought it would be a good idea to talk it over with the members of the Rat and Mouse Club,” said Whitey.

Dab-Dab looked as though she was going to have a fit.

“So!” she snorted. “You knew perfectly well it was to be kept a secret – where the Doctor had gone and everything – and yet you went down and gabbled your silly little head off at the Rat and Mouse Club!”

“But don’t you see,” wailed Whitey, real tears coming into his pink eyes, “don’t you see we didn’t know what had happened to him? For all we knew he might have been put in jail for life. When we had talked it over at the club, the old Prison Rat – you remember, the one who told us that story years ago – he said, ‘John Dolittle should be set free right away.’ He didn’t tell us then how he was going to do it. But he is a very old and cunning rat – frightfully experienced where prisons are concerned. And we trusted him.”

“Oh,” said Dab-Dab. “Well, will you be good enough to tell us what happened next?”

Then Whitey explained how the old Prison Rat (who in his day had set free an innocent man from jail by carrying a file in to him, so that he could cut his window-bars) had taken charge of the situation and acted as commander-in-chief in this plot to set the Doctor free.

Rats and mice are curious folk. They live in the houses and homes of people although they are not wanted there – and they know it. But they listen behind the panelling or under the floors, and they hear everything and know what is going on. They know what time a man goes to bed; what time the cook closes the pantry; at what time the lady of the house wakes up; whether she takes tea or coffee for breakfast, and whether she takes it in bed or at the dining-room table. They know when the cat comes home at night and when the dog goes to sleep in front of the fire; they know all the plans of the whole family. They know everything, because they are always listening.

And so the Prison Rat, that old grey-haired veteran of many adventures, had engineered the whole thing. Directly Whitey had spoken at the club about his fears, this general had laid his plans without asking further questions. All the underground machinery of the world of rats and mice was set in motion. Word was sent out that the beloved John Dolittle, the man who had cured the sicknesses of all the animal world, was locked up in a town called Goresby-St. Clements.

The troops were mustered immediately – at first only mice and rats. The message was sent from house to house. Then the field mice were called on and the news flew across country from town to town. John Dolittle was in danger! The message reached Goresby. Larger burrowing animals, like badgers, were needed to pry up the stones of the prison floor. Food was needed! All right. Every larder for miles around was robbed of slices of cheese, pieces of bread, apples, bananas – anything. The great man must have food. At night, when only a few policemen were on guard, the army set to work and drilled tunnels under the prison walls. And that was how Goresby jail had been wrecked.

When Whitey finished his story there was a short silence. Suddenly I heard something outside. I could see from the Doctor’s face that he heard it too. It came from the bottom of the garden. It was a most peculiar noise. To any ordinary ears it was just a lot of squeaks – loud squeaks. But to us who knew animal languages it meant something more. It was coming from the Rat and Mouse Club down in the Zoo. A party – a very noisy party – was going on, to celebrate the Doctor’s home-coming. We listened. Speeches were being made. There was a lot of applause as one speaker ended and another began. Cheers – and more cheers. Now we could even make out the words in the distance: “Hooray! Hooray! The Doctor’s back home again! Hear, hear! Hooray! … Who brought him back? Who set him free? The Prison Rat! … Three cheers for the Doctor! Three cheers for the Prison Rat! … Hooray, hooray, hooray!”

The voices trailed off and faded away. Dab-Dab turned again to scold Whitey.

“You little villain!” she began, “I could—”

“Oh, never mind, never mind,” said the Doctor. “Leave him alone, Dab-Dab. The harm is done now. And anyway it was the Prison Rat who was probably responsible for most of it. Whitey thought he was acting for the best, no doubt. Let bygones be bygones.”

• • • • •

•   15   •

A Grand Party

At this moment the Doctor was called away to see a patient in the dispensary. I went with him. It was a weasel with a sprained back – not an easy matter to put right at all. I helped the Doctor with the case.

After hours of working on it we got the small creature into a sort of jacket made of twigs, like a tube, so that he couldn’t bend his spine in any direction. It looked as though it was very uncomfortable for the weasel. They are naturally squirmy, wriggly things. But this one soon found, when the Doctor had laid him down in one of his little box beds which he kept for cases of this kind, that the pain of his back was greatly eased as long as he did what the Doctor told him to – which was to keep perfectly still. We moved him into the small-animal hospital in the attic.

As we started to go downstairs Chee-Chee met us with the news that a heron was waiting to see him with severe gout trouble in the leg joints.

“There you are, Stubbins,” said John Dolittle, “you see? What chance is there for me to get this book finished – with all the experiments that have to be made-while I have to look after these patients? I can’t neglect them, can I? What am I to do?”

“Look here, Doctor,” said I. “I have an idea. While you were away, many cases came to the house. I told them that you were not here – wouldn’t be back for some time. Well, some of them needed attention right away. They asked me to see to them. I was awfully scared at first, afraid I wouldn’t do the right thing. But you see, being your assistant so long, I had learned a good deal.”

At this point I noticed Polynesia hopping up the stairs to meet us.

“Some of the cases, Doctor,” I said, “were quite tricky. But you were not here and I had to take them on. I actually set a wren’s broken wing. What do you think of that?”

“Why, Stubbins!” he cried, “that’s splendid! Setting a wing on a bird as small as that is about as delicate a job as I know of. Splendid, splendid! And it came out all right?”

“It certainly did, Doctor,” said Polynesia. “I was there and I know. Remember, I gave Tommy his first lessons in bird languages, the same as I did to you. I always knew he’d turn out a good naturalist.”

“Now you see, Doctor,” I said, “there’s no reason why you should not turn over the dispensary to me. If any particularly difficult job should come along I can always call you in. But you need not bother with the ordinary work of the patients. Go ahead and write your book in peace here, in your own home. Why not?”

“Er – yes, Stubbins,” he said slowly. “After all, why not? An excellent idea! – Anyhow, we can see how it works.”

And so the plan was actually tried out. Dab-Dab and Polynesia gave orders to everybody in the household that as soon as a patient appeared at the gate, I should be sent for and not the Doctor. I was a little bit scared at first, fearing still that I might make some serious mistakes with the more ticklish cases; and while I was better off than when the Doctor had been away, I did not want to call upon him for help too often.

But on the whole things went very well. I made Chee-Chee and Polynesia my assistants. The monkey was a wonderful help with his small hands. For all such work as rolling narrow bandages (some of them no wider than a shoe-lace) his slender fingers were just the thing. He was, too, a naturally kindly soul and the animal patients liked him. I taught him how to count a pulse with the watch and take temperatures with the thermometer.

Polynesia I used mostly as a special interpreter when difficulties in animal languages cropped up. We often had new and rare animals coming to the dispensary, like bats and voles and bitterns and choughs. And without the old parrot’s help it would have been very hard for me to talk with them.

As soon as I had the whole thing running smoothly I must admit I felt very proud – especially when the Doctor came and visited us and said he thought we were doing exceedingly well.

And of course all the members of the household were more than delighted. They saw now a chance of keeping the beloved Doctor under his own roof for a long time, since he was busy on a book and his experiments in moon vegetables.

One evening just as I was closing up the dispensary they all came to me in a body and asked me to do them a special favour. Naturally I asked them what it was before I made any promises.

“Well, Tommy, it’s like this,” said Gub-Gub. “While we are no end pleased that the Doctor is staying with us for a time, we don’t see as much of him as we used to. He sticks at that book all the time. We think he ought to give himself a holiday once in a while. And then again, we miss him awful much at our evening chats over the kitchen fire. You know what splendid stories and disgustings—” (“Discussions, you booby, discussions!” snapped Jip in his ear.) “Yes – er – discussions is what I mean,” Gub-Gub went on. “And it isn’t the same any more now.”

“Yes, I understand that,” I said.

“So we all thought,” said Gub-Gub, “that it would be a good way to celebrate the Doctor’s returning home to ask him to come to one of our after-supper parties in the kitchen – as he used to.”

“And you see, Tommy,” said the white mouse, “it will be specially nice now because we’re well into Autumn and we can have a roaring fire.”

“Exactly,” said Gub-Gub. “Only yesterday I was thinking of covering my spinach” (Gub-Gub always spoke of everything in the garden as “my” – “my rhubarb,” “my parsley,” “my tomatoes,” etc.). “We may have frost any day now,” he went on. “And after all a fire is a real fire only when there’s frost in the air. What do you say, Tommy?”

“Well, Gub-Gub,” said I, “I think it would do the Doctor good to get away from his work for one evening. I’ll go and talk with him and see what he says.”

As a matter of fact, it was not easy for me to persuade the Doctor. I found him in his study, writing busily as usual. Sheets of papers with notes on them lay all over the floor; more pieces of paper were pinned on the walls around his desk; plates full of sandwiches (which the devoted Dab-Dab brought him three times a day) were scattered round the room, many of them untouched. I explained to him what the animals had asked of me.

“Well, Stubbins,” he said. “I would most willingly come down to the kitchen after supper – I used to regularly at one time, you know. But – er – well – just now it’s different. I’m behindhand with the book. Thought I would have been much further along with it by this time. And then there are the experiments with the plants waiting for me. You see, I’m dividing the book into two parts. The first part is concerned with my discoveries on the moon; animal, vegetable and mineral, you know. I haven’t got half-way through that yet. The second part is about my trying to grow certain moon things down here on the earth – mostly vegetable, but some insect forms. And it is in that, Stubbins, that I hope to discover some of the really big secrets – such as the great length of life up there, almost everlasting life. Yes, perhaps even that itself – with scientific guidance – everlasting life!”

“But listen, Doctor,” I said. “It will do you good to leave your desk for one evening. The animals have set their hearts on it. They want to celebrate your coming back to your own home – to them. You know, whether you like it or not, they do feel you belong to them.”

He smiled. Then he laughed. Then he threw his pencil down on the desk.

“All right, Stubbins,” he said. “It probably will do me no harm to get away for a while.”

He rose from his chair and we left the study.

It was indeed a very successful evening. Everybody was there: Jip, Too-Too, Polynesia, Chee-Chee, Gub-Gub, Whitey, Dab-Dab and Cheapside. Matthew Mugg had dropped in again, so we had him too. And the old lame horse, when he heard that the Doctor was going to be present, said he would like to be there. We got him into the house through the big double doors we had used for the Doctor when he was still a giant. And though Dab-Dab was terribly scared that he would knock the dresser over, we finally managed to bed him down under the windows where he could see and hear everything that went on.

And then there was Itty. The moon cat now came and went about the house without anyone’s being afraid of her. I had been amused to notice that the two who had raised the biggest rumpus about her at first, Whitey and Jip, had become the best friends she had in the whole family circle.

Piles and piles of wood had been gathered in the kitchen and stacked near the hearth. The air was cold and brisk, and a splendid fire was roaring up the chimney. Dab-Dab had prepared plates of sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, toasted cheese on biscuits, radishes and glasses of milk. Gub-Gub had brought for himself a large heap of rosy Autumn apples. (He said he always listened best on apples.) The big kitchen table looked like a grand picnic.

When the Doctor came in he was greeted by a noisy chorus of cheers.

“Ah!” the white mouse whispered to me as he climbed to his place on the mantelpiece. “This, Tommy, is really like old times. Hand me up one of those cheese-biscuits, will you?”

Well, stories were told by everybody, new stories, old stories, true stories and stories that might have been true. Jip told one; Too-Too told one; Chee-Chee told one; the Doctor told four, and I told two. The white mouse told the latest jokes from the Rat and Mouse Club. Cheapside gave us all the up-to-date news from London. Gub-Gub recited one of his salad poems and another romantic piece of his own (which we had heard before) called, “Meet Me on the Garbage Heap When the Moon Is Hanging Low.” And old Polynesia sang us sea-songs in five different languages. I have never heard so much laughing, gaiety and chattering in all my life. The kitchen floor was simply covered with the shells of hard-boiled eggs, radish-tops and sandwich crumbs. It was a grand party.

I was beginning to think it never would break up, when at last, somewhere about two o’clock in the morning, Matthew said he ought to be getting back home. This gave Dab-Dab, who wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up before breakfast-time, a chance to shoo the family off to bed. The Doctor, Matthew and I went into the study.

“’Ow are you gettin’ on with the book, Doctor?” asked the cat’s-meat-man.

“Well, Matthew,” said John Dolittle, “not as fast as I would like. But I’ll be all right now that Stubbins is taking over the patients for me. You heard about that? Isn’t it splendid? What would I have done without him?”

“But listen, Doctor,” I said. “You won’t sit up too late, will you? You’ll have plenty of time to work in the morning now, you know.”

“Time, Stubbins?” said he, a strange dreamy look coming into his eyes – “Time! If I’m successful with my book and my experiments I’m going to make time for everybody – for all the world!”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, Doctor,” I said.

“Why – er – life,” said he – “long life; perhaps everlasting life. Think of it, Stubbins, to live as long as your own world lives! That’s what they’re doing up there in the moon, or they will do it-some of them – I’m sure. If I can only find the secret!”

He sat down at his big desk and turned up the wick of the whale-oil reading-lamp. There was a slight frown on his face.

“That’s it—” he muttered, “if I can only find it. All my life I’ve never had time enough. It’s getting to be the same with most people now. Life seems to grow busier every day. We are always rushing, afraid we won’t have time enough – to do all the things we want to – before we die. But the older we grow the more worried we get. Worried! Worried that we won’t get what we want done.”

He suddenly turned around in his chair and faced us both.

“But if we never grow old?” he asked. “What then? Always young. All the time we want – for everything. Never to have to worry again about time. History tells us that philosophers, scientists before me, have always been seeking this thing. They called it ‘The Fountain of Youth,’ or some such name. Whenever an explorer found a new world he always heard some legend among the natives, some story of a wonderful spring or something whose waters would keep men forever young. But they were all just – just stories and nothing more. But there in the moon I have seen it. Creatures living on and on – in good health. That’s the thing I’m working for – to bring everlasting life down to the earth. To bring back peace to Mankind, so we shall never have to worry again – about Time.”

He turned back to his desk as though he had a new thought he wanted to make a note of.

“I’m just going to see Matthew down to the gate, Doctor,” I said. “Now please don’t work too late.”

The cat’s-meat-man and I stepped out into the garden. On our way round the house to the front, we had to pass the study window. We both stopped and gazed in a moment. John Dolittle was already writing away furiously. The little reading-lamp with its green glass shade threw a soft light on his serious, kindly face.

“There ’e is,” whispered Matthew, “workin’ away. Ain’t it like ’im? – Tryin’ to set the world to rights? Well, it takes all kinds…. You know, Tommy, me, I never seemed to ’ave time to bother about settin’ the world to rights. The world was always tryin’ to set me to rights – if yer know what I mean…. Everlastin’ life! Ain’t it like ’im? D’yer think ’e’ll ever find it, Tommy?”

“Yes, Matthew,” I whispered back, “I believe he will. He has always succeeded in anything he’s set his heart on, you know.”

“Humph!” muttered the cat’s-meat-man. “Yus, I wouldn’t wonder but what you’re right, Tommy.”

And silently we walked away through the darkness towards the garden gate.

« »

Doctor Dolittle
and the Secret Lake

• • • • •

« BOOK LIST »

PART ONE

1 … The Seeds from the Moon
2 … Prince, the Irish Setter
3 … A Visit from Cheapside
4 … The Doctor Disappears
5 … The End of a Dream
6 … Cheapside and I Agree upon a Plan
7 … Memories of Mudface and the Secret Lake
8 … The Mystery of the Notebooks
9 … The White Mouse Librarian
10 … How the Story of the Flood Was Lost
11 … Cheapside Goes Back to London
12 … The Work of a Naturalist’s Assistant
13 … The After-Supper Story Hour
14 … The Storm
15 … First Aid for Sparrows
16 … The End of a Long Night
17 … The Travels of Mr. and Mrs. Cheapside
18 … Finding the Secret Lake

PART TWO

1 … Our Ship, The Albatross
2 … Goodbye to Puddleby
3 … The Dolittle Family at Sea
4 … The Stormy Petrel
5 … Our Welcome at Fantippo
6 … The Dinner-Party on the House-boat
7 … The Jungle-Scouts
8 … On the Little Fantippo River
9 … The Mystery of the Crocodiles
10 … The Advance Party
11 … The Trail to the Great South Bend
12 … General Jim
13 … The Last Lap
14 … The City of Mystery
15 … At the Turtle’s Island
16 … The Voice of Thunder

PART THREE

1 … The Hippopotamus Ferry-boats
2 … Turtletown
3 … Days of the Deluge
4 … The Elephants’ March
5 … Fireworks for the King’s Birthday
6 … Noah’s Ark and the Great Wave
7 … The Floating Tree
8 … In Mid-Ocean Mudface Leaves the Ark
9 … Belinda’s Brother
10 … Wine Beneath the Sea
11 … Eber Saves Gaza’s Life
12 … The Sign in the Sky
13 … A New Language Is Born
14 … The Tigress
15 … The Raven Meets with Adventures
16 … The Sea-Birds over the Garden
17 … Antelope and Grass-Eaters

PART FOUR

1 … Man Becomes a Slave to the Animals
2 … The Revolution of the Cats
3 … The Escape
4 … The Fall of the Elephant Empire
5 … Meeting an Old Friend Again
6 … How Lake Junganyika Got Its Name
7 … The Graveyard of the Giants
8 … Belinda Changes Her Mind
9 … The Ocean at Last
10 … Boat-Building
11 … Island of Peace
12 … America!
13 … The Raven Explores a New World
14 … The Farm
15 … We Paddle down the Secret Lake
16 … The Treasure Vault
17 … Crown of the World

• • • • •

Part One

•   1   •

The Seeds from the Moon

I was writing at my office-table, in Doctor Dolittle’s house; and it was about nine o’clock in the morning. Polynesia the parrot sat at the window, looking out into the garden. She was humming a sailor song to herself as she watched the tree-boughs sway in the wind. Suddenly, with a squawk, the song stopped.

“Tommy,” said she, “there’s that good-for-nothing Matthew Mugg coming in at the gate.”

“Oh, splendid!” I cried, getting up from my desk. “I’ll go and let him in. The cats’-meat-man hasn’t been around to see us in ages.”

“Oh, he’s been in jail again, I suppose – as usual,” muttered the parrot. – “Been borrowing a few rabbits or pheasants from Squire Jenkins’ place – the lazy poacher! I’m going out into the pantry to get a drink.”

I hurried to open the big front door. Matthew Mugg stood, smiling, on the steps.

“Why, Tommy Stubbins!” he cried. “I declare you grow a foot taller every time I meet you.”

“You shouldn’t stay away so long, Matthew,” said I. “Come in. It’s good to see you.”

“Thank you, Tommy. Hope I ain’t interruptin’ your work.”

“No Matthew. The Doctor will be glad you’ve come too. Let’s go into my study. And then I’ll find him and tell him you’re here.”

“Your study!” said Matthew, following me down the passage. “You mean to say you got an office of your own now?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s really the Doctor’s old waiting room. But he lets me use it as an office – gives him more peace, to write alone. Here it is: what do you think of it?”

I opened the door off the hall and let him in. The cats’-meat-man gasped.

“My word, Tommy, but it’s helegant! What a lovely office! And all to yourself too. This must make you feel awful grown up. My, but you’re a lucky boy!”

“Yes,” I said – “very lucky, Matthew.”

“I’ll bet your ma and pa are proud. At your age, to be secretary to the great Doctor John Dolittle! Getting all your schooling pleasant-like. No teacher running after you with a stick. And here’s your office; with a desk, and ink-pots, and books and microscope and – everything! I suppose you can talk the animal languages as good as the Doctor now.”

“Ah, no,” I laughed – “not as well as the Doctor. I don’t think anyone will ever do that. But let me go and tell him you’re here, Matthew. I know he wants to see you.”

“No, hold on a minute, Tommy. Don’t bother him just yet. I want to have a word with you first – just you and me – if you don’t mind.”

“Why, certainly, Matthew,” said I. “Sit down, won’t you?”

I closed the door while the cats’-meat-man settled himself in an armchair.

“Now,” I said, “we won’t be disturbed here – for a while at least. What was it, Matthew?”

He leaned forward, glancing over his shoulder as though afraid someone else would hear.

“Well—” he began. Then he laughed. “Funny, ain’t it? I just can’t seem to help talkin’ in whispers when I get speakin’ of your voyage to the Moon with the Doctor. Sort of habit I got into – when we was so afraid of them newspapermen comin’ around, trying to find out things.”

“Yes,” I said, “I don’t wonder at that.”

“You remember last time I saw you, Tommy? The Doctor was busy on them melon-seeds he brought back from the Moon. Trying to grow vegetables, he was, to keep a man alive forever. You remember?”

“Yes, Matthew, he was.”

“And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. How’s he getting on with that everlasting-life business? Seemed a kind of a balmy notion to me.”

“It’s hard to say, Matthew. Although I help him all I can, you know, I believe the Doctor is beginning to get a bit discouraged. This climate here in England is very different from the climate we found in the Moon. And while we have used the conservatory and the hot-houses in the garden trying to copy the moon climate, we have not had any great success so far. You know the Doctor, Matthew; he never grumbles or complains; but I’m afraid he’s growing discouraged just the same. Polynesia thinks so too.”

The cats’-meat-man shook his head.

“Well, Tommy, if that parrot thinks that John Dolittle is down-hearted, you can be sure he is. What do you suppose the Doctor is going to do now?”

“I’m not sure, Matthew, I never pester him. He hates to be hustled. That’s what interested him about lengthening life – the way it is on the Moon. He wanted to feel that he had all the time in the world for all the things he wants to do – without this hustling and bustling, as he calls it.”

“Do you think, maybe, he’ll be going on a voyage, Tommy?”

“I don’t know, Matthew. He’ll tell us when he’s ready to. That at least is sure.”

“It’s a long time since he went on one. Let’s see – how long is it?”

“Quite a while,” I answered. “But let me go and try to find him. You wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I was pretty certain that the Doctor would be in his study – at that hour of the morning he usually was. But today he wasn’t. Then I started to hunt for Polynesia the parrot; for I felt sure she could tell me where the Doctor was. But I could not find Polynesia either. So I supposed the Doctor must have gone for a walk.

When I came back and told Matthew, the cats’-meat-man said he would not wait now for John Dolittle’s return. He had some business to attend to in Puddleby; but, he would try to come in again later in the day.

So I bade him goodbye for the present and went back to the work in my office.

Funny old Matthew! He was always hoping that John Dolittle (of whose friendship he was so proud) would take him along on one of his voyages. He wanted to see the world and have adventures in foreign lands. But Polynesia said she was sure that all he really wanted was to keep away from the police – when he had done something he shouldn’t.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Prince, the Irish Setter

Within the Doctor’s house and garden there were a tremendous lot of things for me to do these days. But Matthew had been right when he said I was lucky. No youngster could have been busier – or happier. And certainly no one can look back upon his years of learning with more pleasure than can I, Tommy Stubbins of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

The schooling I got from Doctor Dolittle, through being his secretary, was not only good schooling; it was wonderful fun, thrilling and exciting for a boy, as well. I dipped into so many things which most people do not study till they are quite grown up. Astronomy; navigation; geology or the history of rocks and fossils; the science of medicine; kitchen-gardening – for both the sick and the well; all these – and a hundred more – interested me tremendously.

But one thing above all made my education most different from that of other young people: animal languages. Through this I was able to learn so much which I could not have done in any other way. The same thing had been true for the Doctor himself. Many times he had said to me: “Stubbins, if it had not been for Polynesia – and the lessons she gave me in parrot talk years ago – I never could have learned a quarter of what I have about natural history.”

And to this I answered: “Yes, Sir. But let’s not forget that the animals are grateful to you too. Before you came along how much was known about animal-doctoring?”

There were times, though, when even I was bound to wonder whether knowing the languages of animals was always a good thing for us. The creatures that came to the Doctor’s door with their troubles (everything from plough-horses to field-mice) took up a terrible lot of our time. But the Doctor would not turn a single one of them away.

And then, besides the doctoring work, there were many-other things we did for the animals – sometimes quite peculiar things. For instance, when I got back to my office that morning I found the Doctor’s dog, Jip, waiting for me. And Jip had brought a friend with him.

This friend was an Irish setter, called Prince. And he had been well named; for he was, I think, the most princely, gentlemanly dog I have ever known. Many months ago Jip had brought him to us to try and get him into the Doctor’s “Home for Crossbred Dogs.” Not that he was a crossbred, a mongrel – indeed, no! He had in his day been a prize-winner, a blue-ribbon champion, at the shows. And though the Doctor suspected that he had run away from some rich home, Jip and Prince never told anyone where he came from. And they begged very hard that he should be made a member of the Doctor’s Dog Club, which was inside the “zoo” enclosure at the bottom of the garden.

John Dolittle was quite willing of course. But, by the club rules, Prince couldn’t be a member unless the other dogs (the club committee) said they wanted him. Well, to my great surprise, at first the committee did not want poor Prince.

You see, they were all mongrels and crossbreds themselves; and they did not want any thoroughbreds joining their club. Jip got so angry with the committee he took the whole lot of them on in a free-for-all fight; and I had to get up in the middle of the night and stop the battle.

But before morning the committee gave in; and the beautiful Irish setter was made a club-member and allowed to stay with us.

Well, this morning, as I looked at the two dogs waiting in my office, I knew at once that something was wrong. In Prince’s proud but friendly face there was a great sadness; while Jip just looked very disgruntled and upset. It was Jip who started the talk.

Now when I speak of “talk” between animals and myself, you who read this must understand that I do not always mean the usual kind of talk between persons. Animal “talk” is very different. For instance, you don’t only use the mouth for speaking. Dogs use the tail, twitchings of the nose, movements of the ears, heavy breathing – all sorts of things – to make one another understand what they want. Of course the Doctor and I had no tails of our own to swing around. So we used the tails of our coats instead. Dogs are very clever; they quickly caught on to what a man meant to say when he wagged his coat-tail.

Doctor Dolittle had started learning dog talk long before I had; and I never got to be as good at it as he was. But I managed all right. After getting lessons from old Jip (and from Polynesia the parrot – who spoke English too, very well) I could make myself understood by any dog – even the German dachshund.

“Well, Tommy,” Jip began, “Prince here doesn’t want to stay with us any longer. He wants to leave.”

“Wants to leave!” I asked. “Why? – Isn’t he comfortable at the Dogs’ Club?”

Poor Jip seemed almost too unhappy to go on talking. He fidgeted uneasily with his front feet. At last he said:

“No, Tommy, it’s not that. But – er – he – well – er he—” Then suddenly he turned almost savagely to the other dog.

“You tell him, Prince,” he snapped. “Why do you leave it to me to do all the talking for you?”

Prince had been looking out of the window into the garden. Now he started to squirm and fidget too. Presently he said:

“Well, Tommy, I – er – we brought this to you – I mean we didn’t go to the Doctor about it – because we didn’t want to hurt the Doctor’s feelings. I have been very happy at the Dogs’ Club – happier than I have ever been in my life – anywhere. But—”

The setter stopped and looked out of the window again. And I began to wonder if I would ever get to hear what the trouble was. The morning was almost gone and I had a lot of work to do.

“Come, come!” said I. “Tell me: you say you like living at the club. Then why do you want to go away?”

Again there was a short silence. At last Prince looked straight at me and said in a low voice,

“It’s the rabbits, Tommy.”

“The rabbits?” I gasped. “You don’t mean to say they are driving you away!”

“Yes, I do,” said the dog. “They have made my life just unbearable.”

“But how?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

Then suddenly speaking fast, he said:

“They’re so cheeky – those wretched rabbits. You know, Tommy, that the Doctor won’t allow Jip or me to touch them – not even to chase them. He says that every animal who lives here, in his house or his garden, is to be allowed to live in peace – even the rats in the tool-shed. The Doctor’s so kind-hearted. But you should just see those rabbits! They’ve dug their holes right in his lawn, all over the place – ruined it. But that isn’t enough. Just because John Dolittle protects them from us dogs, they try to poke fun at us. It gets worse and worse all the time. They don’t even pop into their holes when I walk over the lawn now. I have to shut my eyes, so I won’t see them. And the other day, as I crossed the garden with my eyes closed, I ran smack into a tree and gave my head a terrible crack. They thought that was a great joke and burst out laughing. One of them – his name’s Floppy, I think – he’s made up a song about me. – Something like this:

‘Mincie, mincie, mincie!

Look at silly Princie!

Always walking on his toes

While rabbits run right by his nose.

You can’t catch ME!’

“It’s more than any dog could stand, Tommy. Those horrible, little underground, lop-eared vermin! I believe if they had hands they would thumb their noses at me, me, the grandson of ‘Will o’ the Mist,’ the greatest gun dog, the most famous prize-winning Irish setter of all time…. I – I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

If you can imagine a dog just about to break down crying, real tears and all, then you have a picture of Prince at that moment – and of Jip too, for that matter. I myself was a little bit inclined to laugh at the story of the cheeky rabbits; but seeing how serious a matter it was to the well-bred setter who had told it, I kept a very straight face as I said:

“Well, but Prince, why not let the Doctor speak to this silly Floppy – or whatever his name is? Maybe that’s all that is needed to make him behave – and the rest of the rabbits too.”

“No, Tommy,” said Prince sadly. “I don’t want to cause trouble between the Doctor and his friends. Besides, my nose – for a good gun dog – is getting spoiled entirely. If I stay here much longer I won’t be able to smell the difference between a rabbit and a cat on a damp wind. The only thing for me to do is to leave.”

“But where will you go when you leave us?”

“Well, Tommy,” said Prince, “that’s part of what I came to talk to you about. When people have lost their dogs, don’t they sometimes put a piece in the newspaper about it?”

“Oh,” said I, “you mean an advertisement – for lost and found property, eh?”

“Yes,” said the setter, “I suppose that’s what you call it. Only this wouldn’t be an advertisement for a lost dog; just for a new home for a dog. Couldn’t you put a piece in the newspaper saying a thoroughbred Irish setter can be had for nothing?”

“Why, certainly, Prince, I should think so. But there’s no telling what kind of a home you’ll get – that way. It might not be as good as what you have here.”

“Well,” said the dog, “can’t we say in the advertisement just what kind of a home I’d like?”

“Humph!” I muttered. “It’s a new idea: a dog advertising in the newspaper for the kind of home and people he wants, instead of the people going round picking and choosing the dog they want.”

“They’ll want me all right, Tommy,” said Prince. “I’m not conceited, you know that. But after all, I do know more about the business of being a good gun dog than anyone else. And you could put this in the paper too: say that I’ll be willing to teach young puppies to be good gun dogs. You know those little tykes: how they’re always running in front of the guns just as the men fire – and getting their tails shot off. Yes, put that in: I’ll give classes for setter-pups – so long, of course, as I am given the kind of home and treatment I want. – Oh, I almost forgot: I don’t want any children, either, around the place – that is, not real young children.”

“Why Prince?” I asked. “Don’t you like children?”

“Oh, yes,” said he. “But not the very young ones – under, say, six years old. Those little boys and girls always want to play with dogs on the nursery floor. They haven’t much sense – can’t tell the difference between us, the live dogs, and those stuffed, woolly dogs they get for Christmas. They’re always trying to pull our eyes out and change them over. And their mothers raise no end of fuss if we even growl at the brats for it…. Oh, and another thing: no flea-soap – please! I don’t want anyone washing me with flea-soap.”

It was hard for me not to smile at the serious look on Prince’s face as he spoke. Jip too, showed by a nod and a deep growl, that he agreed with what his friend said. While Jip had never won prizes as a gun dog, as Prince had done, he was, in his own way, a better, more clever smeller even than this thoroughbred setter. He still wore around his neck the solid-gold dog-collar (with his name on it) which had been given him years ago for saving a sailor’s life at sea, by tracing him to a desert island just by smell.

So, to keep them both from seeing that I was trying not to laugh, I reached for paper and a pencil on my desk and began taking notes of what Prince was telling me.

“No, Tommy,” he went on, “most of those flea-soaps smell of carbolic – or tar. It may be very healthy and all that. But it’s an awful whiff! Besides, no gun dog could tell if he’s following a pheasant or a quail or a beer-barrel, so long as his own coat smells like a chemist’s shop.”

“All right, Prince,” I said. “I’ll put that down too. Now is there anything else? How about cats? Do you mind if your new home has any cats?”

I was surprised when he told me, no – he had no objection to cats. As a matter of fact, I had noticed that the setter was the only dog in the Doctor’s club who seemed really friendly with Itty, the cat which John Dolittle had brought back with him from the Moon. All the other animals in the Doctor’s household still kept away from her. But the gentle Prince could often be seen walking and talking with the moon cat in the garden. I sometimes wondered if he was, in his own way, a little sorry for this strange and lonely creature who had been willing and brave enough to come down to Earth with the Doctor.

So, I wrote out the advertisement to be put in the newspaper, The Puddleby Press. I am very sure that nothing like it ever appeared, before or since, in the whole history of advertising. It ran like this:

WANTED a good home for pedigreed Irish setter, grandson of Champion “Will o’ the Mist” No money required. Dog must be free at all times, never chained up or fenced in. Good manners. Three times winner of the West Counties Trophy for the Best Sporting Dog of the Year. Willing to teach thoroughbred puppies to be good gun dogs for all kinds of game. No baths with flea-soap. Will come on trial. Strictly no small children. Home and family must be the very best. Only those with good-natured game-keepers need apply.
Write to “Prince” care of Puddleby Press.

• • • • •

•   3   •

A Visit from Cheapside

Not long after Prince’s advertisement was put in the newspaper, he found a good home and left us. But he made an arrangement that he would be given one week-end of holiday every month, so that he would be free to visit the Doctor, Jip and all his old friends of the club.

On the day he left to go to his new home, he came into my office to thank me.

“It was very kind of you, Tommy,” he said. “It made it much easier for me – like that. I would have hated to go straight to the Doctor saying I wanted to leave his club.”

That was the way it always was: if the animals wanted anything done, which they were afraid might hurt the Doctor’s feelings, they asked me to do it for them. That same morning when I wrote the advertisement a bird, a mother chaffinch, came to see me. Would I, please, she asked, speak to the Doctor for her? With a sigh I put away the notebook I was working on. I asked the chaffinch what was the trouble.

“It’s the Doctor, Tommy,” she said. “He will keep feeding my children – with bird-seed – close to the nest.”

“Well,” I asked, “what’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong, young man!” said the mother-bird almost angrily. “Why, my children aren’t learning to fly! Oh, yes, they’ll flutter a few feet, off a bush, down to the ground to eat the seed and then back to the nest again. Their father and I just don’t know what to do. Our children have always been such good fliers. But this lot! – They could barely fly over a barn. They’re as fat as turkeys. – Stuffing their faces, instead of hunting their food…. Between meals they sleep all day … waiting for the Doctor to—”

The mother chaffinch was on the edge of tears, I could see. So before she started weeping, I quickly interrupted her.

“Why didn’t you speak to the Doctor?” I asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said quickly. “The Doctor has always been so kind. I’d be afraid—”

“Ah, yes,” I said hurriedly. “I’d forgotten. Well, I wish some of you, once in a while, would be afraid you might overwork me too…. All right, I’ll speak to him. I’ll go and do it right away.”

But of course, while it was sometimes a nuisance, when I was especially busy, it was a thing I was very proud of: that the creatures so often brought their troubles to me – because I was the only one, besides the Doctor, who could speak their languages.

I went back to the Doctor’s study. I did not find him there – but I did find, to my great surprise, Cheapside the London sparrow. He was looking at a book which lay open on the Doctor’s desk. At the same time he was eating cake-crumbs from a plate the Doctor had used last night.

“Why, hulloa, Cheapside!” I cried. “I had no idea you were in the house. How long have you been here?”

“Only just come,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “Was awful hungry. – Good cake, that. – Tell me, Tommy, this book the Doc’s been reading, what’s it about?”

I looked at the top of the open page.

“It seems to be – er – a sort of very ancient history – long, long ago, you know, when people lived in caves and all that.”

“Yer don’t say!” murmured the sparrow as I turned over the leaves. – “Oh, look, there’s a pitcher! – Ain’t ’e a rummy-looking bloke? What’s ’is name?”

“It doesn’t say, Cheapside. – It’s just a picture of a caveman.”

“Well, ’e should ’ave ’ad ’is ’air cut afore ’e ’ad ’is likeness took. But tell me, Tommy: what’s the Doctor studying all this stuff for? I thought you said ’e was working on them moon-plants and heverlastin’ life.”

“Yes,” I said – “he was. But lately I’ve noticed he is doing a lot of reading on what they call pre-historic times. That’s one of the reasons I fear he is getting discouraged over the work he has been busy on ever since we got back from the Moon.”

“Humph!” muttered Cheapside thoughtfully. – “Pre-’istoric times, eh? John Dolittle’s got one friend anyway, what could tell ’im a lot about them days.”

“Oh, who’s that?” I asked.

“Why, old Mudface the turtle,” said the sparrow. “’E could tell ’im plenty. – Claims ’e was one of the animals on the Ark with Old Man Noah, Meself, I don’t believe a word of the yarn.”

“Oh, of course!” said I. “You were on that trip to the Secret Lake to visit Mudface, with the Doctor, weren’t you, Cheapside?”

“You bet I was, Tommy. The muddiest, messiest journey I ever made. The trouble with old Mudface was ’e talked too much. But if the Doc is takin’ up early ’istory, Mudface could tell ’im more than any books could.”

“Yes,” I said. “He brought back many notebooks which he had filled with things that Mudface told him. They’re all carefully stored away in the underground library, you know, Cheapside – the one I made in the garden while we were waiting for the Doctor to get back from the Moon?”

“That’s right, Tommy. There must ’ave been a good twenty of them notebooks. And when the turtle was finished, the Doctor got all of us birds to build ’im a new home – a sort of island we made by dropping stones into the lake where the old Mudface lived.”

“My, but that must have taken a long time, Cheapside! Even the biggest birds could not carry a very large load of stone. How deep was the lake?”

“I’ve no idea, Tommy. But deep enough, I can tell you. Days and days the job took us. Of course big birds – eagles and the likes of them – they could bring stones as big as bricks. Little blokes, in my class, we fetched pebbles.”

“Goodness, Cheapside, I’d have thought it would take years instead of days!”

“No. You see there was millions of us on the job. That was when the Doctor had his post-office service – you know, the Swallow Mail, as ’e called it. It seems the old turtle got a message to him, somehow, through the mail. ’E was ’avin rheumatics in ’is legs.”

“I see, Cheapside. – The usual thing: the animals bringing their ailments to John Dolittle to cure.”

“That’s it, Tommy. Only this time the Doctor was brought to the patient, instead of the other way around. My, what a trip it was to get to that Secret Lake! Right into the heart of darkest Africa.”

“How big was the island you made?” I asked.

“As big around as St. James’ Park,” said the sparrow – “bigger, if anything. Yes, we done a nice job, if I do say it meself. Nice and high – and flat on the top. That was to keep old Mudface dry when he wasn’t swimming. Seemed to me a lot of that fancy business was wasted on a turtle. But the Doc said nothin’ was too good for an animal what had sailed on the Ark with Noah.”

“Well,” I said thoughtfully, “it does seem kind of wonderful, when you come to think of it.”

“Maybe,” grunted Cheapside. “But gettin’ back to dear old London seemed a lot more wonderful to me. I don’t know what the Doctor wrote down in all them notebooks ’e filled about the Flood. The story part of it we all understood; but there was some skyentific stuff we didn’t.”

“As a matter of fact, Cheapside,” said I, “I haven’t looked into those notebooks, myself. I’ve been too busy…. But – I’m not sure yet – I think you have given me an idea. Let us go and hunt up Polynesia. – I can’t find the Doctor anywhere – maybe she can tell us where he is.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Doctor Disappears

I went to the kitchen first. And here I found most of the Doctor’s regular animal family. Dab-Dab the duck was there; also Jip, Too-Too the owl, Chee-Chee the monkey, Gub-Gub the pig and Whitey the white mouse. There was perfect silence in the kitchen when I came in. But somehow I was sure that they had only just stopped talking before I opened the door – most likely when Too-Too’s keen ears had heard my step coming along the passage.

Then I noticed that Polynesia was not among them. I asked Dab-Dab if she knew where the parrot was. And that seemed to break the spell, as it were; they all started talking at once. But I begged them to be quiet so that I could hear the duck’s answer to my question. Then Dab-Dab poured out a long story.

The Doctor had disappeared! No one had seen him since he went to bed last night. I would not ordinarily have been upset by this news; but I had, myself, been wondering that morning what had become of him. It was now nearly noon; and usually by that hour I had seen the Doctor several times.

But, as I had told Matthew, the ever-cheerful Doctor had lately seemed discouraged about his work. I was not, however, going to let Dab-Dab or any of the others see I was upset.

I said that, after all, there was no reason why John Dolittle couldn’t go for a walk by himself without having to tell everyone in his house. He might have wanted to go shopping in the town, I said – or half a dozen other things.

But Dab-Dab interrupted me by telling me something else which sounded serious. Polynesia had sent off some thrushes who lived in the garden and told them to ask all the wild birds in the country if they had seen the Doctor. The sparrows in the Marketplace of Puddleby had also been told to let her know if the Doctor had been seen shopping. These birds had come back (Dab-Dab was almost in tears as she told me) and they had brought no word of the Doctor – no news, either from the town or from the country round about.

It was difficult for me, after that, to think of anything to say to comfort Dab-Dab. She was openly weeping when she ended by telling me that in all the years she had been housekeeper for the Doctor he had never done such a thing before.

Luckily, a message was brought to me at that moment that there was a mother-weasel in the surgery with a sick young one. So I whispered to Cheapside to do his best to cheer up Dab-Dab and the rest of them in the kitchen; and I hurried off to do my job as the Doctor’s assistant.

Once I got to the surgery, I was kept there – very busy. There were plenty of other animal patients, besides the baby-weasel. And before I had done the whole afternoon was gone; and the long shadows of evening already stretched across the Doctor’s lawn. And still John Dolittle had not shown up!

I began to wonder what I should do if this went on for some days. Ought I to go to the police in Puddleby, so they could arrange a search for him? Then I thought how foolish that sounded: set the police to hunt for John Dolittle when the birds themselves couldn’t find him! And what would he say, or think, of my fussing like an old woman? He hated fuss…. But still, just because he had always seemed to us so calm and safe against danger, that did not mean that no harm could come to him…. And it was true, what Dab-Dab had said: the Doctor had never done such a thing before. Although he mixed so little with the world of people, we, the members of his household, always knew where he was – and usually what he was doing…. Where, and why, had he hidden himself?

While these upsetting thoughts ran through my mind I was walking across the big lawn at the back of the house. As I passed under an apple-tree I heard a voice I knew well.

“Pst! – Tommy!”

I looked up. And there on a bough above my head was Polynesia the parrot.

“He’s coming, Tommy,” she whispered. – “Down the road. He looks awful weary – as though he’d been for a long walk. Though how those stupid thrushes and larks couldn’t spot him for me is more than I can tell you.”

“Anyway, thank goodness he’s back,” I said. “He had got me really worried.”

“Me too, Tommy,” said the parrot – “me too. But don’t let on. Just pretend we never had any idea he could have been in trouble.”

But news travels fast in the animal world. John Dolittle’s high hat had no sooner appeared at the gate than there were squawks and squeals from the house; and all his animal family spilled out of the doors and windows to greet him.

I could see at once that Polynesia was right: he did indeed look weary. Just the same, his cheerful, kindly smile spread over his face as his pets gathered about him, all chattering at once.

“Where on earth have you been, Doctor?” asked Dab-Dab.

“I was out walking on Eastmoor Heath,” he answered innocently.

“For twelve hours!” cried the housekeeper.

“Well, most of that time,” said he. “I wasn’t actually walking every moment of course. Anyway, I admit I’m pretty tired now.”

“Come Into the kitchen and let me give you some tea,” said Dab-Dab. – “Gub-Gub, Jip – and the rest of you – stop pestering the Doctor. Get out of his way so that he can walk, will you!”

“Ah, tea!” said the Doctor. “That sounds a wonderful idea. What would I do without you, Dab-Dab? – Oh, hulloa, Stubbins! How is everything?”

“Quite all right, Doctor,” said I. “There is only one really urgent case in the surgery – a fox with a broken leg.”

“Oh, then I’ll look at it right away,” said he – “while Dab-Dab gets the kettle boiling.”

But the motherly housekeeper would not allow any of the household to question the Doctor any more that night – much to Gub-Gub’s and the white mouse’s disgust. And it was not until after supper, when most of the family were in bed, that I myself learned what had happened. We were in his study, he and I. The only others with us were Cheapside and Polynesia. The Doctor was filling his pipe carefully and thoughtfully from the tobacco-jar upon his desk. In silence, the three of us waited for him to speak – quite sure that something important was coming.

• • • • •

•   5   •

The End of a Dream

When the Doctor had his pipe lighted, he sat back in his chair, sent a puff of smoke towards the ceiling and said:

“Today I had to make quite an important decision. I made up my mind to stop my work not only on – er – making everlasting life possible for Man through the vegetable seeds we brought down from the Moon, but—”

Here the Doctor stopped suddenly and stared at the flame of his reading-lamp; while a smile, a sad smile of bitterness, came into his eyes for a moment. Then he went on:

“But – for the present at least – even of lengthening human life…. I’m dropping it.”

And then there was a silence. I suppose it only lasted a part of a minute. But to me it seemed endless. I glanced in turn at Polynesia and Cheapside the London sparrow. The look on their faces was very solemn. For they too knew, as well as I did, what a serious thing it was that John Dolittle had just said to us. Ever since he had come back from the Moon he had worked untiringly on this, and only this: to get the moon-seeds to grow properly in the climate of the Earth. It was to leave his time free for this that he had taught me surgery and animal medicine, so I could look after the patients who came daily to his door.

The dream he had had was a truly great one. It was to make human life in this world last practically forever, the same as we had seen it in the Moon. He was certain that the secret was in the food they ate up there – the vegetables and fruits. As the Doctor explained to me, the trouble with our world down here was time. People were in such a hurry. If, said he, Man knew he could live as long as he wanted, then we would stop all this crazy rushing around; this fear – which even he, the easygoing John Dolittle had felt – would be taken from us…. Yes, it was a great dream.

And now, here in his quiet study, he had just told us he was giving up that dream – saying that he knew he was beaten! I had never felt so sorry for anyone in my whole life. His body, slumped in the chair, looked desperately tired. As his eyes went on staring at the lamp I wondered if he remembered we were in the room. I noticed that the pipe he had lit had gone out again. I rose quietly from my chair, struck a match and held it over his pipe-bowl.

“Oh, thank you, Stubbins, thank you!” he said, sitting up with a start.

“Tell me, Doctor,” I said as he puffed the tobacco into life again: “What made you make up your mind to this now – I mean, why today, particularly?”

“Well, Stubbins,” he said, “I got some news today. I told you I had been hoping to get Long Arrow, the Indian naturalist, to help me grow these moon-seeds we brought back. – Wonderful fellow on plants and trees, you know, Long Arrow.”

“Oh, yes, Doctor, of course. And I remember very well that years ago he got lost; and you tried to find out exactly whereabouts he was at that time. It was Miranda, the purple bird-of-paradise, who brought you the message. None of the birds could tell where he was.”

“That’s right, Stubbins. I got another message from Miranda. And – well – history has repeated itself, as they say. Long Arrow once more is – is missing.”

“But you went and found him anyway before, Doctor. Maybe you could do the same again.”

The Doctor shook his head.

“That was just a freak chance, Stubbins. We couldn’t expect such luck as that to happen a second time. No, I’m afraid my one last great hope – of getting the Indian’s help – has faded out.”

“Did the bird-of-paradise think an accident had happened to him?” I asked fearfully.

“Well, Stubbins, who can say? That Indian used to take such awful chances with his life. A most extraordinary man: I was always nervous about him. He would take such fearful risks.”

If I had not been in such a serious mood, I would have been amused at that. John Dolittle and the Indian naturalist made a good pair. Both of them took the most hair-raising chances with their safety, without so much as batting an eyelid.

“But, Doctor,” I asked, “did Miranda tell you nothing that would give you any hope?”

“It wasn’t Miranda who brought me the news,” he answered. “She sent her daughter, Esmeralda. That is why I did not have her come here to the house. Esmeralda’s a bit young – terribly shy and all that sort of thing.”

Then, Polynesia, sitting atop the bookcase, spoke for the first time.

“How did you know she was arriving this morning, Doctor?”

“Her mother, Miranda, told a sea-bird – a gull, who was coming this way anyhow – to let me know.”

“Huh!” grunted Polynesia. “But how was it that the wild birds around here didn’t see you out walking, Doctor?”

“Well, of course I knew it might be a long job, waiting. I couldn’t tell the exact time Esmeralda would arrive. And birds-of-paradise can’t pop up suddenly in the English countryside without a lot of finches or sparrows crowding around and gaping. So, I just gave instructions to a pair of thrushes in my garden to go out and tell all the wild birds exactly where my meeting-place with Esmeralda was to be – and ask them all to keep away.”

“Good heavens!” groaned Polynesia. “The mystery is solved! I should have known.”

“Is there no one else, Doctor,” I asked, “whom you could get to help you, besides Long Arrow?”

“Oh, yes,” he said wearily. “There are several great scientists – botanists, they’re called – who have made a special study of just this thing. Acclimatization is the proper name for it; making seeds and trees, taken from foreign countries, grow in other lands and other climates, you know. But, my goodness, Stubbins, there would be no sense in my going to them!… They would only say I was cracked – crazy.”

Again a short silence fell upon the room. Then the Doctor knocked out his pipe and refilled it before he went on:

“I gave a lot of time to this – before I made up my mind. Well, it can’t be helped. That time’s been wasted…. Time, time! But something tells me to stop right now – for the present at all events. There are other things I want to work on. We’ll keep the moon-seeds we have left – especially that of the long-life melon – with the greatest care. But we’ll do no more work on acclimatization. From today on” (the Doctor made a little movement with his hand, like sweeping something away) “from today on, Stubbins, I am done with it. It is finished.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

Cheapside and I
Agree upon a Plan

It was not often that the Doctor went to bed early. He got along with very little sleep. But that night (it could not have been later than half past nine, I believe) even while I was trying to think of some comforting answer to his last words, he got up from his desk, bade us all good-night and left his study.

“Golly!” muttered Cheapside the sparrow as the door closed behind him. “I never saw the good old Doc so down’earted. – Swap me if I did! It takes a lot to lick ’im. Anyone can guess ’ow ’e feels, though – years’ work throw’d away! Poor old Doc! Gone to bed without ’is supper.”

“Oh, we should get him away on a voyage,” said Polynesia impatiently. “He’s gone stale: that’s what’s mostly wrong with him. I’ve never known him to stick to anything the way he has to this blessed everlasting-life business. He needs a change from this beastly English climate. – And so do I. We’ve only had two hours of sunshine this whole month. Fog, rain, mist and drizzle. Only fit for frogs and ducks. Now, in Africa—”

“But, Polynesia,” I interrupted, knowing that the old parrot was starting off on one of her long lectures about the weather of the British Isles, “where are we going to get him to go?”

“Yes, Polly, me old chicken,” chirped Cheapside hopping across the Doctor’s table to see if he had missed any cake-crumbs, “for me, you can ’ave your blinkin’ Hafrican climate – and welcome. Too ’ot – much too ’ot. Just the same, I agree with you that the old gentleman needs a change – needs it bad.”

The sparrow, while he was speaking, skipped about the table till he was in front of the open book, the book which he and I were talking of that morning. And suddenly he looked up at me and said:

“By Jove, Tommy, this might do it!”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” chirped the sparrow, “you wanted something that would take the Doctor on a sea voyage, to foreign lands, didn’t yer?”

“Yes,” I said, “that’s true.”

“And ’is mind is still on this long-life business, ain’t it? – Anyone can see that, in spite of ’is sayin’ he’s done and finished with it, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Well, like I told you this morning, Tommy, when we was lookin’ at the picture of Mr. Caveman ’ere. Mudface the turtle was on the Ark with Noah – or, leastways ’e says ’e was. And that’s ancient ’istory, ain’t it?”

“Certainly, Cheapside,” I said. “Go on.”

“Old Man Noah was supposed to be ’undreds and ’undreds of years old. See? So it’s my idea that you get the Doc interested in making another visit to the Secret Lake and our good friend, Mudface the turtle.”

“Oh, splendid, Cheapside!” I cried. “Of course! Everybody lived to a great age, they tell us, in those days before the Flood. And there is at least a chance Mudface could tell the Doctor something about how they did it – what they ate and how they lived and so on. At the same time your plan would get the Doctor on a voyage – a change of scene and all that – which is what he needs now, above all.”

“Erzackerly, young man,” said the sparrow in a very grand tone. “You catches on real quick – for a youngster.”

“What do you think of the idea, Polynesia?” I asked, turning to the parrot.

“Not bad, not bad at all – for a Cockney sparrow,” said she.

“All right, all right, you stuffed pincushion,” snorted Cheapside, as the feathers on his neck rose in anger. “Don’t get puttin’ on airs – just because you’re a couple of ’undred years old yourself. I notice some birds never get no sense, no matter ’ow long they live.”

“Now, now,” said I. “We must get together peaceably and work this thing out.”

I looked across at the parrot again to see if she had any ideas.

“Well,” said Polynesia after thinking a moment, “I believe that now, for once in his life, John Dolittle has money enough to take a voyage.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think that is so.”

“Then,” the parrot went on, “he has a whole lot of notebooks which he filled on his last voyage to the Secret Lake – when he wrote down the turtle’s story of the Flood. I wasn’t with him on that trip, but Cheapside was.”

“That’s right,” said the sparrow. – “And you didn’t miss much on that picnic, old girl. Mud, mud, mud! But the Doc wrote all day and all night. ’E said our Mr. Mudface – as far as ’e could make out – was surely the last of the passengers left what sailed on the Ark. ’E said it was ’ighly skyentific stuff. ’E told us ’e never expected to write all of it in a regular book for ordinary folks to read, ’cause they wouldn’t believe it. – And, meself, I wouldn’t blame ’em neither. But the Doc, ’e says it was all waluable hinformation, werry waluable. And some day ’e might make use of it. He took it all down: what Noah said; what Mrs. Noah said; and what all the little Noahs said. And when the Doc ran out of notebooks he got dried palm-leaves, and wrote on them instead. We ’ad that blinkin’ canoe so ’eavy-loaded comin’ back, I thought we was goin’ to sink.”

“Tommy,” said Polynesia, “you’d better hunt out those notebooks in the morning. I don’t know what work the Doctor has in mind to go after next. – You know he always has millions of things that he intends to take up – to study. He was certainly blue and miserable enough tonight. But that won’t last long, you may be sure. In a day or so he’ll be off on something new. You better tackle him about a second visit to Mudface before he thinks up something out of his own head. Because that something may not mean a voyage. It may mean his staying right here at home.”

“Very true, Polynesia,” I agreed. “Those notebooks are important. I’d better get after them without wasting any time, first thing, tomorrow. – That is, after I’ve spoken to the Doctor, you know – said good morning and sort of sounded him out a bit on the idea of a new voyage.”

“That’s the plan, young feller,” said the parrot. “I won’t come in on the business unless he gets difficult. You try him out by yourself first. Let me know how you get on. And – good luck to you, Tommy.”

“Same ’ere, young man,” sighed Cheapside sleepily. “We got to pull the old Doc out of this some’ow. – Never saw ’im in such a spell of the dumps.”

And with that, our little committee-meeting broke up and we all went to bed.

• • • • •

•   7   •

Memories of Mudface
and the Secret Lake

The next morning, when I came into the Doctor’s study, I found him working at his desk. He glanced over his shoulder as I opened the door.

“Oh, good morning, Stubbins, good morning!” said he cheerfully enough. “You’re up earlier than usual, aren’t you?” (It did my heart good to see him smile like that – after last night.)

“Good morning, Doctor,” said I. “Yes, I suppose I am a little earlier than usual. I’ve – er – I’ve been thinking over what you said last night. And I wanted to ask you something.”

“Well?” he said, seeing me hesitate.

“Tell me, Doctor: what is the oldest creature you ever met? – I don’t mean in the Moon, but the oldest earthly creature – in this world?”

“Oh, Mudface the turtle, of course,” said he, arranging the papers on his desk. “He was on the Ark, you know, with Noah. Why did you want—?”

He broke off suddenly. His hands became quite still among the papers. Then he looked up at me slowly.

“Mudface!” he murmured. – “Noah … All of them … They lived to a great age. – Or so we are told. But there couldn’t be any doubt about that turtle – the structure of his shell…. I examined it myself. Thousands and thousands of years old it must have been…. Why, the carapace – oh, but I’m finished with all that long-life business. I told you last night I’ve wasted too much time on it already…. Yet—”

Again he fell silent. He looked away from me to the ceiling. For a moment he stared up with a puzzled frown, while his lips moved as though he were talking to himself. But I managed to catch a word or two.

“It… all so long ago. I know I took down a tremendous lot of notes. But only zoology – some history – and archaeology. I wrote it very fast. Haven’t looked at it since…. I wonder—”

And then of a sudden he looked back to me and spoke out loud.

“What made you ask me about all this now – today, Stubbins?”

“Well, Doctor,” I said, “of course I had heard about your visit to Mudface and the Secret Lake; your building an island for him and all that – although I wasn’t with you on that voyage. And I know you will not think it cheeky of me, Sir, to – er – well, to make a suggestion – give an idea?”

“Oh, my goodness, no!” said he. “Fire away. I’d like to hear it.”

“You have spent years, Doctor, on trying to bring everlasting life, to the people of this world, by growing the melons and foodstuffs of the Moon for them. But have you yet given much time to the people in the Earth’s history who lived to a far greater age than folk do nowadays?”

“Er – no,” he answered slowly. “In a general way that’s true, Stubbins.”

“Then, another thing,” said I: “if you’ll allow me to say so, Sir, you have not been well. – Oh, I don’t mean real sick, Doctor – thank goodness, you are never that. But you have seemed discouraged and – er – out of sorts. That’s not like you.”

“Yes, Stubbins,” he muttered, “I’m afraid you’re certainly right there. I should have chucked up the business a long while back. But, you know, I hated to throw away the time I’d already given to it…. Time – always time!… And then, besides, you never can tell. The whole history of discovery is full of cases where men have worked and slaved for years – with their families begging them to give up, take their meals regularly and live like human beings. And then! – Then, just as they are about to quit, success comes to them at last! – No, Stubbins, that’s the trouble in this research game, as they call it: you never know. – But go on with what you were saying.”

“I think you need a change, Doctor. It isn’t how hard you’ve been working. – You always work hard. But you’ve been on this one thing too long – without a real change.”

He made no answer to that – just nodded thoughtfully to show that he partly agreed with what I had said.

“How about taking a voyage, Doctor?” I asked, trying hard to steady my voice, so it would not show my excitement. “It’s a long while since you took one. And I was wondering if you would perhaps make a second visit to Mudface and the Secret Lake. At least there would be a chance that you could learn something from the turtle about long life, wouldn’t there?”

“It would all depend, Stubbins, on – er – well, on two things. First, whether we could find Mudface again. – I’ve had no news from him, you know, in some time. – And second, I’m by no means sure that he would have noticed the sort of things that made people live to such ages as they did then – supposing of course that what we are told about their enormously long lives is true.”

“But, Doctor,” said I, “there can be no question about the great age of the turtle himself, can there? Didn’t he remember things that actually happened before the Flood?”

“True, quite true,” he said. “But while Mudface was a very intelligent creature, it was only the history of the Flood itself I asked him to tell me. I doubt if he could give me much information – scientific information I mean – about what it was in the foods they ate, or in the way they lived, which caused their long lives.”

“Well, Doctor,” said I, “that first trip of yours to the lake was a good long while back, wasn’t it? All your notebooks about it have been kept, as I told you, in the underground library I made – to protect them against fire. Suppose I get those notebooks out, Doctor, and let us see if some of what you wrote won’t be helpful to you in this study of how to live a long time. What do you say?”

“I can’t see any harm in that, Stubbins,” he murmured after a moment’s thought…. “No, as you say, there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t get those notebooks out and let us take a look at them.”

“Very good, Doctor,” said I and quietly left the room.

Never in my whole life had I found it so hard to pretend I wasn’t in a hurry! But as I walked those few steps from his desk to the door, I reminded myself of something Polynesia had said the night before. “Remember, Tommy,” she had whispered as I went upstairs to bed, “whatever you do, don’t hustle the Doctor.”

So, I even stopped half-way to the door and went back to fetch the sandwich-plate off his desk to take to the pantry-sink. And I closed the door of his study very softly behind me. But the moment it was latched, I raced down the passage on tiptoe, like the wind, to find Polynesia – to tell her what the Doctor had said.

• • • • •

•   8   •

The Mystery
of the Notebooks

After some hunting, I found Polynesia in the pantry perched on a dripping faucet over the sink. She was trying to get a drink upside down – while she gargled Swedish swear-words through the water.

“Listen, Polynesia,” I said in a low voice. “I’ve just come from the Doctor – and I spoke to him about a voyage!”

“Oh, you did, eh? Well, we can’t talk here. Lift me out of this rats’ shower-bath, will you? – Onto your shoulder, please…. So… Now let’s go into your office – while we still have a chance to chat, without the rest of the household joining in.”

In my office I quickly told the parrot what the Doctor had said. When I had finished the old bird muttered:

“Humph! – Sounds good to me, young feller. Quite good. At least he didn’t say he had work which would keep him here, in Puddleby. It will all depend on what’s in those notebooks. He’s forgotten, you see? – And no wonder, when you think of all the things he makes notes on.”

“Yes,” I said. “If there is anything in the books about the food they ate in those days before the Flood, then I think the Doctor might be persuaded to go back to the turtle again – to ask a few more questions.”

“Exactly,” said she. “You go and dig out those notebooks right away. But try not to let the others know – at least as long as possible. That silly pig, Gub-Gub, and the rest of them will only be pestering the poor man with questions – asking can they come on the voyage too.”

“All right, Polynesia,” I said. “I’ll keep it as quiet as I can.”

“And remember, Tommy, there’s no time to lose. You know John Dolittle. He hates to be idle for a minute. If we don’t watch out, he’ll be off on some new tack in natural history before you can turn around. And then we’ll never get him away.”

So, being careful not to run into any of the other house-pets, I went and got the key to the underground library. I hardly ever came to this library alone; almost always I took Whitey the white mouse with me. That was because Whitey, quite a long time ago, had been made our Chief Librarian. Of course such a small animal as a mouse was not strong enough to move the books around by himself. He always got me to help him with the heavier work.

But the Doctor had discovered that a mouse has one thing which is very useful in taking care of books: he has microscopic eyes. That means that his special kind of eyesight made it possible for him to see things which neither the Doctor nor I could see at all, such as tiny insects which eat into and destroy books.

And then his tiny body was small enough to go anywhere – all around the books, as they stood on the shelves, without taking them down. And if he found any mites, or damp or even dust he would come to me about it and we would put the matter right.

He was indeed a splendid librarian. And after the Doctor bought him a little magnifying-glass of his own, so that he could even see the eggs of these tiny insects which eat paper, Whitey was tremendously proud of his job – and of his magnifying-glass!

Whitey also had a wonderful memory. The Doctor had, besides all his precious notebooks, an enormous lot of books written by other naturalists and scientists. The most precious of these were kept in the underground library for safety. And although the white mouse could not of course read English, I only had to tell him what a book was about, when I put it into the library for the first time, and forever after he could immediately tell me where to look for it. Some years later he told me that his very keen sense of smell helped him a lot in this. If he could not tell one book from another by its title printed on the back, he could often tell it by its colour or by the way it smelt.

Today, as I put the key into the heavy lock of the library-door, I glanced back over my shoulder, wondering where he was. Little Whitey always had a trick of turning up in the most unexpected way – and the most unexpected places. He had a most enormous curiosity – just couldn’t bear having anything happen without his knowing all about it.

But this morning I felt sure I had given him the slip. In the garden behind me there was no one in sight, except Polynesia in a willow-tree. Her sharp old eyes were darting about in every direction, keeping watch for me. I swung the heavy door open, stepped inside and locked it behind me.

I struck a match. On the big table in the centre of the room we always kept oil-lamps and candles. I lit the largest of the lamps. As the light glowed up, I noticed there was dust on the table – a lot of it. This, I thought, was strange because the white mouse was usually most particular about keeping the library furniture and floor – as well as the books – neat and clean.

I remembered exactly where those notebooks were kept – the ones about Mudface the turtle, and the Secret Lake. It is true I had never read them, though I had always planned to. But that was not surprising. I did not get time to read much now. I lit a candle and carried it at once to the north-west corner of the room, where the notebooks I wanted had always been kept.

When they had first been put in here, I had, myself, wrapped and tied them in careful packages, to keep them from the damp; and these parcels had, I remembered, been put on the second shelf from the bottom, right in the corner – almost against the north wall. There had been four packages of them; and together they had taken up quite a little space.

By the light of the candle I now saw that this space on the second shelf was empty!

I knelt down on the floor and peered in, so I could see right to the back of the shelf. There was not a single notebook there. I swept the shelf with my left hand. Some crumbs of chewed-up paper fell silently onto the floor at my knees.

I didn’t stop to look anywhere else in the library. I knew at once that something had happened – something serious,

I rushed to the door, turned the key and swung it open. Outside, in the brilliant sunlight, the old parrot was still perched in the willow-tree.

“Polynesia!” I cried. – “The notebooks have disappeared. They’re – they’re gone!”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The White Mouse Librarian

Neither did the parrot bother about searching the library further after I showed her those crumbs of paper on the floor. She let fly a few swear-words and then muttered to me:

“Tommy, we’ve got to find him – Whitey. He’s the only one who can tell us about this. Come on, boy – let’s hunt him down.”

She climbed up onto my shoulder again (where she usually travelled when she was with me). I blew out the lamp and candle, locked up the library and together we started for the house.

“You know, Polynesia,” I said, as we were crossing the lawn, “I’ve just remembered; it has been a long time – weeks and weeks – since our Chief Librarian has come to me about the books back there. Usually it was every few days – and nearly always about something which didn’t matter a bit – just wanted to show off his importance as librarian. But now – my goodness, I can’t remember – but it’s simply ages since he came and asked for my help with the books.”

“Huh!” grunted the parrot. “Didn’t you smell a rat, then – or a mouse?”

“Yes, I should have done, it’s true,” I said. “But I’ve been so busy – especially with the surgery and the dispensary. You know how it is in early summer, when the birds have new broods that are learning to fly; and the squirrels and foxes and the rest have young ones who are always falling and getting themselves hurt?”

“Heigh ho! – Don’t I know?” sighed the parrot. “Sometimes I wonder how John Dolittle is alive today, when I think how he worked alone at the doctoring business before he had you to help him.”

“Oh, I’m glad to do it, Polynesia,” I said quickly. “Don’t think I’m not. And it’s very interesting – most of it. But, after all, there are only twenty-four hours in the day, you know. The trouble is—”

“The trouble is Time,” the parrot interrupted. “That’s what the Doctor himself said: ‘Time! If we only had the time to do all the things we want to do….’ Poor man! – That’s what fascinated him most, I think, about the life on the Moon. Well, here we are at the house. We had better separate now. You go in by the front-door and I’ll fly round to the kitchen-door. Watch it now! Don’t let our librarian escape – that is, if he’s in the house.”

We found out afterwards that our precious librarian had overheard the talk between the Doctor and me about the notebooks; and the mouse knew of course that he would be in for trouble as soon as I found them missing and came to look for him.

Well, no one would think it, but it took us the rest of the day to find Whitey – or, I should say, to catch him. When a mouse (even a white mouse) really wants to hide himself in an old-fashioned, English country house, it is surprising how many places he can use for dodging into, or behind, to keep out of sight. What a chase he led us! He would get in the china-closet and hide behind an egg-cup. Then, after I had moved every single piece of china separately, there would suddenly be a white flash and Polynesia would yell: “There he is!”

But he wasn’t. He would dive through a knot-hole in the back of the closet; and two seconds later he would be in the next room, hiding under a corner of the carpet – or upstairs in my bedroom, behind the clock on the dressing-table.

By this time of course the whole household had joined in the hunt – though we had not told them yet why we were going after the little villain (nor why he was running away from us).

Gub-Gub thought the whole thing was some kind of a new game; and while he tried very hard to be helpful, all he succeeded in doing was getting in the way. I think I must have tripped over that pig a good dozen times – once on the stairs (when I almost had the mouse by the tail) and I somersaulted all the way down from the attic to the first-floor – where I landed with a bruised elbow, two barked shins and a crack on the head which all but stunned me.

After that we called a council of war.

“Listen, Tommy,” whispered Dab-Dab: “we have got two of the best mouse-catchers in the business right here with us – a dog and an owl.”

“Why, of course!” said I – “Jip and Too-Too.”

“Suppose the rest of us go out for a walk in the garden,” said the duck quietly. “I fancy Jip’s nose and Too-Too’s ears will very soon find out where that little devil is hiding. – But be careful you two,” she added, turning to them, “how you do it. The Doctor would never forgive us if the mouse got hurt. You’ll have to corner him some way in a place where he can’t get out. Then talk to him. Talk him into surrendering.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Tell him that he will only be questioned in front of the Doctor. John Dolittle will see that he isn’t hurt – no matter what he has done. He will trust John Dolittle to look after him, even if he won’t trust me. We’ll be out on the front lawn, Jip. When you’ve cornered him, bark gently, to signal us. We won’t come back till we hear you.”

So we left the two of them at it and went out into the garden. Jip told me afterwards that it was really Too-Too who ran Whitey down. He said his own sense of smell wasn’t much good for that job; because the Doctor’s house smelt so strong of mice anyway (from all Whitey’s friends who used to visit him). Jip told me that no dog living could tell where one mouse’s scent left off and another’s began.

But Too-Too, with his marvellous sense of hearing, just listened at the panelling and the flooring. And Whitey couldn’t even scratch his ear or polish his whiskers without the owl’s knowing it – much less move from place to place. Too-Too had the patience of a mountain. And he waited, motionless – just waited.

At last Whitey, hearing no sound in the house at all, made up his mind we must have all gone outside. He felt hungry. Then he remembered he had left half a walnut in the coalscuttle, beside the fireplace. On tiptoe he went to get it. But Too-Too’s ears could hear a mouse walking tiptoe, as easily as you or I can hear a horse trotting on a cobble-stoned street. The owl made a sign to Jip to stand ready. The mouse’s white body crept down into the deep scuttle. And then, suddenly, they jumped. With the two of them barring the only escape for the mouse – the only way out – Whitey was cornered at last.

• • • • •

•   10   •

How the Story
of the Flood Was Lost

When I came back into the house, in answer to Jip’s bark, I took Whitey in my coat-pocket and went to see the Doctor. Polynesia, Jip and Cheapside came with me.

“Well, well, what’s all this, Stubbins?” asked the Doctor as the dog and I, with the parrot on my shoulder came to a stop in front of him.

I fished the white mouse out of my pocket and set him down on the desk before the Doctor.

“Whitey will have to explain to you, Sir,” said I. “Your notebooks about the Flood are missing from the library. Every single one of them is gone.”

“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “—From the underground library! Is it possible? How did this happen, Whitey? You always took such good care of the books.”

“Well – er—” Whitey began. Then as he looked up at the eyes of Polynesia blazing down at him with anger, his voice trailed off and he stopped.

“Tell the truth, now,” snapped the parrot, “you – you monstrous cheese-pirate! – Or I’ll swallow you alive.”

“Gently, gently!” said the Doctor. “Let him answer my question, Polynesia, please. What happened to the books, Whitey?”

“Well, it was about a month and a half ago,” the mouse began in a trembly sort of voice, “when those Ship’s Rats – you remember them, Doctor? They asked could they become members of your Rat and Mouse Club. And you said, yes, it was all right if the other members were willing. Well, soon after that, they wanted to set up housekeeping, because Mrs. Ship’s Rat was going to have a whole lot of babies and they wished to make a nest.”

“And where did they want to make the nest, Whitey?” asked the Doctor quietly.

“In your potting-shed, where you keep the lawn-mower,” said the white mouse. “But, you see, they were foreigners – from some hot country – and they always used palm-leaves – shredded out, you know – for building their nests with.”

“Oh, lumme! – I think I know what’s coming,” I heard Cheapside whisper.

“Yes, yes, go on, please, Whitey,” said John Dolittle.

“So they came to me,” said the librarian, “and asked if I knew where you had any old palm-leaves that were not being used. At first I said, no, I didn’t. But then suddenly I thought of something. You remember, Doctor, when you were taking notes on Mudface’s story of the Flood, you ran out of ordinary notebooks; and you took dried palm-leaves and finished the story on them?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor seriously, “I remember.”

“Well,” said the white mouse, “I had been in charge of the library almost since it was built. And I knew that you had never once looked at those notebooks you brought back from the Secret Lake. The packages had stayed in the same place on the shelves, just as Tommy had wrapped them up and put them away.”

Once more the Chief Librarian stopped while his frightened eyes glanced at the angry face of the parrot.

“So,” said Whitey in a small, scared voice, “I thought there couldn’t be any great harm if the Ship’s Rats borrowed—”

“Shiver my timbers, you salty pantry-robber!” roared Polynesia from my shoulder. “Do you mean to say that you took the Doctor’s notebooks – notes that he had gone halfway across Africa to get – and gave them to a couple of bilge-rats to line their nest with?”

“But I didn’t tell them they could take all the notebooks,” said Whitey, almost in tears. “It was only a week later – after I had shown them how to get into the library through a hole I had dug for myself under the wall – that I found they had taken, not only the palm-leaf covers, but all the other notebooks too, for their friends’ nests, as well as their own. I hoped, even then, that some part of what the Doctor had written could be saved. But it was too late. Every single notebook had been chewed up into little tiny pieces and carried away.”

“But why didn’t you come and tell me, Whitey?” I asked.

“I – I was too scared,” stuttered the mouse – “of Polynesia.

Then there was a silence. And I knew that everyone in the room was, like myself, waiting to hear what the Doctor would say. For a moment his fingers drummed upon the desk; and at last he murmured as though he were speaking to himself:

“It’s sort of strange that we should have been talking about those notes only last night…. Losing them would not have mattered so much, if I were sure that Mudface is still alive and I could see him again…. But – lately – I have begun to doubt if he can still be living. I asked several sea-birds to call at his home and find out how he is getting on. They have all brought me the same message: no news of the giant turtle…. Poor old Mudface – a wonderful character. And what things he had seen!… I should have attended to those notebooks long ago – got them written up in proper form, so they could be published any time I wanted…. Now it can never be written: the History of the Flood! There is no one left who saw it happen with his own eyes from the decks of Noah’s Ark – so far as we know…. Well, it’s no use crying over spilt milk, as they say.”

Poor Whitey was weeping out loud now; and the rest of us felt pretty miserable. The Doctor seemed lost in thought. It was getting late, I knew. So I made a sign to the rest of them and we all went quietly out of the study and left John Dolittle alone.

• • • • •

•   11   •

Cheapside Goes Back to London

In the kitchen Dab-Dab prepared a supper for us and fixed up a tray to be taken in to the Doctor. You may be sure our talk was not very gay. Our plans and hopes for a voyage had been badly dampened, to say the least.

However, after we had had hot cocoa and something to eat, we gradually grew more cheerful. And presently Cheapside the London sparrow, said,

“Well, Tommy me lad, what are you goin’ to do now? – I mean, about gettin’ the Doctor off on a trip?”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know, Cheapside – with those notebooks gone. It is strange; but I have never known the Doctor to forget anything so important, so completely. He tells me he hardly remembers a single word he wrote in those notes.”

“Huh! – No wonder, at the speed he was writing,” grunted the sparrow. “I never saw nobody write that fast, never in all me life. What’s more, Idon’t remember what the turtle told us, myself – though I was right alongside the Doctor all the time.”

“It’s a terrible pity,” I said, “that none of you who were with John Dolittle can remember any of it. If Mudface is dead, as the Doctor fears he may be, the story of the Flood will never be known now.”

“Yes, I s’pose so, Tommy,” said Cheapside thoughtfully. “But, you know, this destroyin’ the notebooks might work just the other way.”

“How do you mean,” I asked.

“Well,” said Cheapside, putting his foot on a slice of toast while he broke a corner off it with his beak, “we ain’t got no proof yet that old Mudface is dead, ’ave we? And if it should turn out that ’e’s still alive – or even that there’s a fair chance of ’is bein’ alive – the Doc will be all the keener to go and have another talk with him – so ’e can spend three more weeks sittin’ in the mud, listenin’ to the family troubles of Mr. and Mrs. Noah. Tell me, Tommy, when was the last time the Doc had news of our friend Mudface?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I said. “As you know, the Doctor gets messages and news by bird-carriers, at all times of the year, from all over the world. Let me see: I think the last news of Mudface was brought – er – about three months back.”

“Humph!” muttered Cheapside. “Then that would be somewhere in March, wouldn’t it?”

“Er – yes,” I said. “I think that would be right.”

“What sort of birds was they what brought these reports to. the Doctor?” asked Cheapside.

“Oh,” said I, “usually they were gulls, I think – or some of the heavier kinds of sea-birds who used to make a special trip inland to the Secret Lake, as a favour to the Doctor. And once in a while they would be waders – like the herons or the storks. But why did you want to know, Cheapside?”

The sparrow didn’t answer my question: instead, he murmured,

“None of them birds you speak of is what I’d call very hintelligent, Tommy. Storks! – All they’re good for is standin’ on one leg and fishin’ in a puddle, like school-boys…. Humph! I got an idea, young feller. Nothin’ may come of it. And then again, a whole lot might come. But, first of all, I want to ’ear what Becky, my wife, thinks of it. I’m goin’ back to the city right now – tonight. We’re raisin’ the last brood of the season, you know – cutest little youngsters you ever saw! Two of ’em can talk already. Becky says they’re the best-lookin’ family we ever raised. But then – you know mothers – she’s said the same about every family we ever ’ad. Only don’t never tell ’er I told you. – And if I don’t get back tonight to help her with the feeding, I’ll be getting it hot.”

“All right, Cheapside,” I said, opening the kitchen window for him. “I’m sorry you can’t stay with us longer now. The Doctor has hardly seen you on this visit. And you know how he enjoys hearing the news of London. You always manage to cheer him up – and goodness knows he needs it just now!”

“Yes, Tommy, you’re right. But I shan’t be gone long this time – or, that is, I hadn’t oughter be, if things pan out the way I ’ope they does. But I really oughter get back to poor Becky tonight, to ’elp the old girl.”

“Yes, I understand that of course,” I said. “You are still building your nest in the same place – outside St. Paul’s Cathedral?”

“That’s right, Tommy,” said the sparrow. – “Same old spot: in Saint Edmund’s left ear. ’Ave you got any of that cake left – the same as I was eatin’ the crumbs of, off the Doctor’s plate the other night?”

“Yes,” said Dab-Dab, “I think I’ve got a little piece in the larder. Wait a moment and I’ll see.”

“It don’t ’ave to be a big piece,” said the sparrow. “I’m flyin’ against the wind gettin’ back to London, you know. So I can’t carry much. – Ah, good old Dab-Dab! That’s just the very ticket – the right size.”

As Cheapside took the little ball of cake which Dab-Dab laid on the table before him he glanced up at me with a twinkle in his eye.

“This’ll be a treat for the kids,” he said. – “Kind of a surprise, you know. Cake from John Dolittle’s table! My word! – Becky will be boastin’ about this for a week to all the other sparrow-mothers round St. Paul’s. You never saw such happetites as this last family of ours has! They keep poor Becky and me fair worn out, fetchin’ and carryin’ grub for ’em all day. But they’ll be ready to fly next week. Then we’ll get a rest.”

“Goodbye, Cheapside,” I said. “Don’t forget to give Becky our very best regards.”

“You bet, Tommy. And don’t let the Doc get down’earted. I got an idea. And maybe it’ll work out. You’ll be seein’ me again in a few days. So long, everybody!”

Then taking a firm grip on the cake between his claws, Cheapside gave a flirt of his wings and was gone through the open window, out into the night.

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Work of a
Naturalist’s Assistant

For most of the next week, the Doctor’s house settled down into a regular, humdrum program – or perhaps I should say it came as near as possible to settling down in such a way. John Dolittle’s household never stayed very regular for long, I fear. Perhaps that was one of the things that made it so interesting.

But if life went along more quietly than usual for those few days, I was not sorry – and neither was Polynesia. The night that Cheapside flew back to London, the old parrot came into my office where I was working late. As soon as she appeared I could tell from her manner she had something unusual on her mind. She flew up on my desk and silently nodded towards the open door. I knew what she meant. I got up and very quietly closed it.

I smiled as I came back and sat down. “I don’t think,” I said, “that you need be afraid of poor Whitey trying to listen now. You certainly gave him a terrible scare.”

“Maybe,” said she. “But I wouldn’t trust that little long-nosed snooper farther than I could throw him. The trouble with him is he has to know everything. He has already been gabbing around, trying to find out what idea Cheapside had in mind tonight when he left us. – Luckily, there isn’t much chance of his learning that!”

“No,” I agreed, “there isn’t. The London sparrow was a bit mysterious though, wasn’t he, Polynesia? – Have you any notion, yourself, of what he had in mind?”

“That’s what I came to talk to you about,” said the parrot. “No, I don’t know what it was he was hinting at. But I do know this: Cheapside may be a quarrelsome, vulgar, little guttersnipe. Yet there is one thing about him no one can deny. When he makes up his mind to a thing, he generally sees it through – gets it done. There’s a streak of Cockney stubbornness in that bird. – And I like it.”

“He said he was going to talk over his idea with his wife, Becky. Do you suppose it is something about a, voyage, Polynesia?”

“I couldn’t say,” she murmured, shrugging up her wings. “But I’ll bet you shillings to cracker-crumbs that Becky won’t make him change – if Cheapside has made up his own mind first, before he gets to London.”

“No,” I said. “I think that’s a pretty safe bet…. He’s a funny character, that Cheapside.”

“Well,” said Polynesia, “all the others of the Doctor’s family – besides our wonderful librarian – are trying to guess what plan or idea the sparrow had. That silly pig, Gub-Gub, has asked me a half a dozen times tonight. And he won’t believe me when I tell him I don’t know!”

The old parrot stopped a moment with her head turned to one side. I could see that she wasn’t sure, even here, that someone might not come and interrupt us – or be listening outside the door to our talk. But no sound reached us from the rest of the house; and presently she went on again:

“What I wanted to tell you, Tommy, was this: it may be that Cheapside has some plan to get the Doctor to go back to Africa – to the Secret Lake. He was with John Dolittle on the first trip, you know. And you remember he said we would see him back here in a few days’ time. Now, what I want you to do is to try your best to side-track the Doctor from getting started on any new important work before Cheapside pays us another visit.”

“Well, I’ll certainly try, Polynesia,” I said. “But, as you know very well yourself, it isn’t always so easy to – er – side-track the Doctor away from any plans he may make. He is worse than Cheapside in that – once his mind is made up.”

“But that is just what I mean, Tommy,” said the parrot in a low, earnest voice. “I want you to keep him busy, so he won’t be thinking out any new, big plans – just for a few days, I mean, till we hear from Cheapside again. For months now John Dolittle has left the running of the whole place to you – practically everything except the tricky surgical jobs on the animals that come to his door.”

“Er – yes,” said I. “It is true, he has.”

“Very well, then,” said the parrot. “There must be lots and lots of things which you want to ask him about – to get him to decide on. Just keep him busy, that’s the main thing. And stick close to him all day long.”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “there are a whole heap of things I want to talk over with him – things I’ve put off because I knew he was busy and didn’t want to be interrupted.”

“That’s the idea, Tommy,” said she. “Just keep him busy, deciding this and that. Cheapside will keep his word, you may be sure. He said he’d be down again in a few days. And I’ll make you any bet he will.”

• • • • •

•   13   •

The After-Supper
Story Hour

As a matter of fact, I was surprised myself at what a lot of things there were for which I needed the Doctor’s help and advice, now that he had some free time to give me.

There were the moon-seeds; and, although the Doctor was closing that chapter of natural history for the present, they were the only ones in the world. He might some day want to try again. He handed them over to Polynesia (a seed-eating bird) sure that she would store them away so they would keep in good condition.

And there was the garden. You never saw such a jungle of weeds in your life! Only those beds where we had tried so patiently to make the moon-seeds grow – and the hot-houses – had been looked after at all.

And this time, I think, John Dolittle really saw (after Polynesia and I had taken him round to the worse spots on purpose) that if he didn’t give the garden his attention right away, there soon would be nothing of it left. While his back was turned a moment, and he examined some raspberry-canes, the parrot nodded meaningly to me; and I knew that the same thought had passed through her mind. However, I did what she had told me: I stuck close to the Doctor all day and every day.

No, Polynesia and I had no difficulty keeping the Doctor busy during the daylight hours. It was the evening-time, when he usually went into his study (sometimes to sit at his desk until very, very late) that worried the old parrot and me. For it was then we feared he might think up some new and important work which – once he got started on it – we could not possibly get him to leave.

However, it was Gub-Gub the pig who gave me an idea which was very helpful in this.

“My word, Tommy,” he said to me one evening as he was gathering some rhubarb to take into the house (Gub-Gub still took very good care of the vegetables). “It is really wonderful to see the Doctor around again! It had got so we hardly saw him at all, while he was working on that old everlasting-life business – with him taking his meals and everything in his study.”

“Yes, Gub-Gub,” said I. “It’s much better this way. He was working far too hard – at his desk.”

“He paid me quite a compliment,” said Gub-Gub, rooting out a large weed with his nose, “over the way I’d kept the tomatoes. But, you know, Tommy, there is one thing I still miss – about the Doctor and his ways.”

“Oh?” I said. “What’s that?”

“It’s the stories he used to tell us around the kitchen fire after supper,” said Gub-Gub, his little eyes twinkling with memories as he looked up at me over his muddy nose. “Ah!” he sighed. “Those were the days, Tommy, those were the days!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “You’re right.”

But I fear I was hardly thinking of what I said. My mind was turning over the words Gub-Gub had just spoken.

“Do you realize, Tommy,” said the pig, “the Doctor has not told us a single fireside story since he got back from the Moon? We were talking about it only yesterday; Chee-Chee, Too-Too, and I. – And you remember there was a time when he told us a story every single night?”

“Well,” said I, “listen Gub-Gub: why don’t you ask him to do the same now – now that he has more time? – And take Chee-Chee and Too-Too with you when you go and ask him.”

This the pig did. And not only Chee-Chee and Too-Too went to the Doctor, but the whole of the Dolittle household: Whitey, Jip, Dab-Dab and – of course Polynesia. Even the old lame horse in the stable came clumping across the lawn and told the Doctor (through the window of his study) that the long summer evenings in his stall were very dull: and that if the Doctor should be telling stories to the crowd after supper, he would like very much to listen outside the kitchen window, the same as the Doctor had let him do in times gone by.

Well, of course in the end the Doctor gave in. Myself, I think he was rather glad to. And so that nice old habit, which all the animals enjoyed so much, was started over again: the after-supper story-telling round the kitchen fire.

As soon as the dishes were cleared away and washed, there would be the same old scramble for seats or places. Gub-Gub (who took up more room than the rest) always made the most fuss getting seated and settled. Again the white mouse climbed to his favourite listening-spot – the corner of the mantelpiece, where he could see and hear everything. And I noticed that Itty, the moon cat, was now always in the audience too – though often you wouldn’t know it; because she would choose places where she wouldn’t be seen – and, as usual, she never spoke and never moved.

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Storm

I cannot say that John Dolittle looked better, all at once, from these changes in his way of living. But he was much cheerier; more active in body and mind; more interested in everything going on in, and around, his home.

And the days passed quickly, as they always do when people are busy and happy.

But one wet and stormy night the old parrot again came into my office. The evening story was over; and the Doctor and his family had gone to bed. I remember how the wind and rain beat furiously against the window-panes, as Polynesia strutted towards me across the floor. Then with her claws and beak she climbed up the heavy curtain, like a sailor, hand over hand. When she reached the level of the desk, where I was writing, she stepped across onto it. There she fluffed out her feathers, looked me in the eye and said:

“Tommy, I’m worried – about Cheapside. We should have heard from him by now!”

“Why, how long is it,” I asked, laying down my pen, “since he was here last?”

“It’s ten days tonight,” the parrot grunted.

“Is it really!” I cried. “I had no idea it was as long ago as that.”

“With any other bird I don’t think I’d be anxious,” she said. “But – I told you – I’ve been noticing little Cheapside lately. He’s very reliable. If he says he’ll do a thing, he’ll do it…. I hope to goodness nothing has happened to him.”

“Oh, well, come now, Polynesia,” said I, smiling at her worried frown, “what could happen to him? There never was a bird in all the world better able to take care of himself than that London sparrow.”

“Accidents can happen to anybody,” the parrot muttered.

Suddenly with a sharp gust the wind and rain burst against the side of the old house, rattling the windows in their frames.

“Perhaps this storm has got you fidgetty,” I said. “I wouldn’t start to worry yet.”

“I tell you, young man, accidents can happen to anybody,” she repeated slowly and clearly.

“But listen,” I argued: “Cheapside didn’t say exactly how long – how many days – it would be before he visited us again, did he?”

“He said ‘a few days,’ Tommy. That means, in my seven languages, less than a week – or, not more than a week, anyhow. And besides, if he was delayed, why couldn’t he have let us know? Cheapside has plenty of sparrow friends, who would have flown down here for him, to bring us a message. There are London sparrows in every corner of the world. – And a pesky nuisance they are too – sometimes.”

It took a good deal to get Polynesia upset. Although she often squabbled and argued with Cheapside, I knew she was very fond of him. What she had just said was true. And having no answer to it, I said nothing. The silence in the room was broken only by the noise of rain outside and the old Dutch clock upon the wall, ticking away the seconds, the minutes, the hours – the lifetimes of sparrows and men.

Presently I saw Too-Too the owl appear from behind a pile of books on the top shelf of my bookcase. He looked sleepy, as he always did at this hour – which was his time for getting up. Polynesia’s back was turned and she did not see him. No one could move more silently than Too-Too – just as no creature could hear as well as he, or see better in the dark. And suddenly, without even opening his wings, he dropped down on the desk beside the parrot, like a pudding falling out of a dish.

Poor Polynesia! With a frightened squawk, she jumped as though stuck with a pin. A string of terrible seafaring swear-words, in three foreign languages, broke out; and for a moment I thought she was going to bite the little owl’s head off.

“Don’t do that!” she screamed. “Let a body know you’re coming, if you must fall off the ceiling like a spider.”

“I’m very sorry, Polynesia, really I am,” said Too-Too, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “Something woke me up – all of a sudden.”

“Huh! – Me and Tommy talking, I suppose,’ snapped the parrot, still in a very bad humour from the fright she had had. “You’re no better than that snooping little cheese-thief, Whitey. You were just trying to listen in on what we were saying.”

“Not at all, Polynesia, you are mistaken,” said Too-Too quietly. “I slept right through your chatter. The noise that woke me up came from the garden – or, at least, from outside.”

“What nonsense!” snorted the parrot. “There is a strong wind blowing outside – and rain. You couldn’t have heard anything over that noise. Why, it’s almost a gale!”

“Pardon me,” said Too-Too wearily, “but you are forgetting that we owls, for thousands of years, have trained ourselves to hear the sounds that other creatures make at night – the creatures we hunt for food.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” growled Polynesia. “What did you hear, then?”

“The noise that woke me,” said Too-Too, “was birds flying – battling with the wind. Even on a fairly stormy night I can tell you what kind of a bird it is – by the noise his wings make, beating the air. That is, of course, if there aren’t a whole lot of different sorts mixed up together.”

I could see that Polynesia was really interested now. So, indeed, was I. I opened my mouth to ask the owl a question. But he held up a claw to me to keep silent.

Both the parrot and I stayed still, holding our breath, while Too-Too, the great Night Listener, used those wonderful ears of his.

“They’re small birds,” he whispered presently. – “And not many of them…. Ah, now they’ve made it! They were trying to fly across the big lawn to the house, I guess. Saw your light, I suppose. But they were driven back three times. Now they’ve reached the window-sill…. If I’m right, you’ll hear from them yourself now, Tommy.”

And, sure enough, as the little owl stopped speaking, there came a signal I had often heard before: it was the tapping of a bird’s bill on the glass of the window-pane.

I didn’t wait then, you may be sure. I leapt to the window and pulled it open at the bottom. The papers on my desk went swirling everywhere, as wind and rain and dead leaves tore into the room. But I took no notice of my papers, nor the wet, nor my guttering lamp which was all but blown out. For I had seen two other things which the wind had swept into the house with the leaves: the bodies of two little rain-drenched birds that now lay panting on the floor. In a second I had slammed the window shut again and was kneeling on the wet carpet beside them.

They were Cheapside and his wife, Becky.

• • • • •

•   15   •

First Aid for Sparrows

The two sparrows were certainly in a very bad state. You could hardly tell them from dead birds, so still they lay there, with the water trickling across the floor from under them. The eyes of both had now closed entirely. Only the slightest moving of Cheapside’s feathers showed me that he, at least, was alive. Poor Becky, his wife, was so completely still I feared she was already gone. Very gently Polynesia lifted up Cheapside’s bill with her own, softly calling him by name. But the sparrow’s eyes did not open; and his head fell back, sideways, as she let it go.

“Quick, Tommy,” said the parrot. “Wake the Doctor up and bring him down here. This will be a close shave. Too-Too, you rouse up Dab-Dab and Chee-Chee. Tell ’em to build up the kitchen fire – hot. And get some flannels warmed in front of it. I’ll stay with them here. Hustle now, both of you. This bird’s breathing is slowing down.”

I found the Doctor reading in bed. But I only got halfway through my message before he sprang up, shot past me and was running down the stairs. Over his shoulder he called back:

“Take my bedside lamp, Stubbins, and fetch the little black bag from the surgery, please.”

It was in cases of this kind that always I most admired John Dolittle as an animals’ doctor – when I felt that I myself, compared with him, would never be much better than a slow and ordinary bungler. By the time I had got his bag, he had already carried the unconscious bodies of the sparrows to the warmer air of the kitchen and laid them upon the table. Chee-Chee had piled wood upon the fire; and Dab-Dab had some flannels hung before it on chair-backs.

Then, taking them in turn, the Doctor made me hold the birds with their beaks pointing straight upward. Next, his flying fingers took a tiny teaspoon and filled it with some reddish medicine out of a bottle in the black bag. He sharpened a match-stick to a chisel-point with his penknife. And with this, very, very gently, he pried the bird’s beak apart, held it so with the fingers of his left hand while he took the spoon filled with medicine in the other. Then (I noticed his hand was as steady as a rock) he dropped three drops into the throat of each sparrow. After that he laid the tiny bodies down again – upon their backs; and swiftly but carefully his fingers massaged the legs, the wings and the ribs for a moment. From the bag he now yanked out a stethoscope – a special one which he had invented for small patients; and for a second or two he listened to the heartbeats.

All of us, Polynesia, Chee-Chee, Dab-Dab, Too-Too and myself, silently watched the Doctor’s face, waiting for an answer to the question we were afraid to ask. Meanwhile the storm outside – growing worse now – buffeted and slapped against the old house with a noise like cannon firing far away.

“Give me the hot flannels, please,” the Doctor said to me.

Then the little travellers were rolled up till they looked like tiny mummies. Only their heads poked out of the coverings. A chair was put upside down before the fire; and on its sloping back, with a couple of heavy bath-towels under them, Mr. and Mrs. Cheapside were set to dry.

“Cheapside has a good chance,” he muttered. “But I’m by no means sure about poor Becky. We’ll change the flannels every ten minutes. Must get the bodies dried out. I’ve never seen feathers so saturated. Usually they resist the water, you know, have a sort of oil in them. Almost any bird can fly in ordinary rain for hours and come to no harm. But against storm, that’s different. Goodness! These little fellows, they’re almost like a case of drowning. Even their stomachs are all filled with water, I’d like to know why on earth they flew through this weather, to reach me tonight. They should have taken shelter some place – and come on in the morning. Didn’t either of them say anything at all, Stubbins, when you let them in?”

“Not a word, Doctor. Of course the roaring of the gale, when I opened the window, made it hard to hear anything – short of a shout. And by the time I got it closed again, they had both passed out, fainted away on the floor.”

“Very peculiar,” muttered the Doctor – “very! Give me some more hot flannels, please. It’s time to change their coverings now. We must get them dry, Stubbins, we must get them dry.”

Well, I couldn’t tell you how often we unwrapped and re-wrapped those soaked little birds. From time to time the Doctor would give them one or two drops more of the medicine, while all of us around him looked on, hoping for some sign of returning life. But still the eyelids did not open; and the sparrows’ heads swayed and rolled on their necks, in a way that really frightened me.

I am quite sure that John Dolittle was afraid too that we would not be able to save them. No one, who did not know him as well as I, would have guessed this, just from watching him. As a rule, the more serious a case was, the calmer the way he treated it (except of course where tremendous speed was necessary; and then, even while he hurried, he never got anybody fussed – least of all himself).

But this long, long waiting between the many changes and so on was hard on the Doctor and on us who idly watched. Yes, waiting and doing nothing – because there was nothing more to be done; that was the most difficult thing of all for the Doctor and all of us.

What time it was I do not know. I had grown afraid that perhaps my own anxiety might interfere with the Doctor’s tremendous calm. Anyway, I had moved away from the table, feeling worse than useless. I was looking miserably out of the window. The force of the wind and rain had not dropped. The grey of the morning was, however, showing behind the darker grey of the overcast eastern sky. I realized that the Doctor had been working on Cheapside and Becky through the whole night.

He and I had not spoken to one another for an hour.

I started thinking over what it could have been which these sparrows had flown through such a storm and danger to tell us…. Perhaps, now, neither we nor anyone else would ever know why they had so bravely given up their lives to reach us…. I, as well as Polynesia and the Doctor, had become very fond of that rowdy little Cheapside the London sparrow. Perhaps, too, I was more tired than I realized. Anyway, I felt terribly like crying.

And maybe I would have done so; but at that moment I heard John Dolittle call me by name. I swung around from the window and was back at his side like a flash.

• • • • •

•   16   •

The End
of a Long Night

The Doctor still had the tubes of the stethoscope in his ears and the fingers of his right hand lightly pressed the cone over Cheapside’s heart when I came to the table. I peered up anxiously into John Dolittle’s face; and at once – before anything was said – I was greatly comforted. For the expression in the Doctor’s eyes was now a very different one,

“Stubbins,” he whispered, “I do believe it’s getting firmer – the heart-action, I mean – and more regular too. Move your head aside, please. I want to see the watch.”

I shifted the watch which lay upon the table, closer to him, turning it round so he could read the dial more easily.

“Yes,” he repeated, “it’s firmer. With luck we’re going to pull this little fellow round all right.”

“Thank heaven for that!” I sighed. I did not dare to ask him about poor Becky.

“Get me some warm milk – quickly, please, Stubbins. Not hot, you know, just warm – and another teaspoon.”

Chee-Chee the monkey had a pile of light wood handy beside the hearth. He and I – both of us glad to have something useful to do – went to work on the fire which had been allowed to die down because the kitchen had grown over-warm. We soon blew up the dying embers into a brisk blaze. Over this I warmed some milk in a long-handled saucepan.

“Ah! That’s what we want,” said the Doctor when I brought it to him at the table – “nourishment. These birds are weak from hunger, as well as nearly drowned. Hold him for me now, Stubbins, the same as you did before.”

Then Cheapside was given three teaspoonfuls of warm milk. And both the Doctor and I noticed that, with the last one, the sparrow’s throat actually made the movement of swallowing. This was the first sign of life the bird had shown; and we who stood around smiled at one another.

Next, we took poor little Becky and treated her the same way. She, however, made no movement of any kind.

But, on coming back to Cheapside again, we noticed that his eyes were opening slightly. We fed him more of the warm milk, as much as he could hold.

Soon we could see he was looking at the Doctor in a puzzled sort of way, as though he were trying to remember who he was. And at last in a very weak voice he murmured: “Oh, it’s you, Doc. – What a night, what a night!”

Then his head rolled feebly on his shoulders again and it looked for a moment as though his eyes were going to close once more. But suddenly they opened wide, he struggled weakly as if to get up and look around.

“Where—” he gasped, “where’s Becky?”

“Cheapside, please—” the Doctor began. Then he stopped; for another voice, a sparrow’s voice, was speaking at his elbow. Both of us turned sharply towards the sound. It was Becky talking!

“Here I am, Cheapside,” said she. “I’m all right. How are you?”

Cheapside’s head fell back wearily.

“Ain’t that the limit, Doc?” he murmured faintly. “The old girl wants to know ’ow I am – when I thought she was a goner for sure. Queer lot, women. – Swap me pink! – Queer lot.”

And with that Cheapside went fast asleep again. Becky did the same a couple of minutes later.

“Who would have thought it?” said the Doctor in a whisper, as he put the things back in his bag. “But Becky, to pull out of a battering such as that storm gave her! I assure you, Stubbins, that throughout the last hour it was impossible for me to hear her heart-action at all…. It’s a wonderful thing, the will to live…. Well, well, thank goodness that’s over!”

“They certainly looked done for, Doctor,” I said, “when that storm blew them into the room.”

“What we must do now,” said he, “is to let them rest and sleep. Your office will be the best place – where they won’t be disturbed. We’ll get a fire made up there and when the room’s warm we’ll move them in. Then you must go and get some rest yourself, Stubbins. It’s been a long night for you. We will put Too-Too on watch and he will come and wake us as soon as we are needed. For the present there’s nothing more we can do for them but to keep them warm and let them sleep.”

When at last I got upstairs to my bedroom, I think I must have fallen asleep before lying down; because I certainly don’t remember undressing and getting into bed.

It was around tea-time, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, when Polynesia awakened me (by biting me gently on the nose, as she usually did when she wished to rouse me out of a sleep).

“Oh – er – Hulloa!” I said drowsily, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. “How are they, the sparrows?”

“Doing nicely, very nicely,” said she. “They’ve had a good long sleep and they’ve eaten a big meal. The Doctor has not let them talk so far – although he has been awake for a couple of hours. He didn’t want them tiring themselves out, you know. But soon, I think, he is going to let them tell their story. And I just came up to see if you wanted to come and listen.”

“You bet I do, Polynesia,” I cried, jumping out of bed. “Do me a favour, will you? – Ask the Doctor not to let them start till I’m there.”

“All right,” said the parrot, making for the door. “But you better hurry down. Dab-Dab is giving him breakfast now in your office.”

“Tell them I won’t be but a minute,” said I, struggling into my clothes. “And ask Dab-Dab to let me have some buttered toast and a cup of cocoa.”

• • • • •

•   17   •

The Travels of
Mr. and Mrs. Cheapside

When I got down to my office I saw at once that the sparrows’ story had already begun – but only just. Cheapside and Becky were standing on my big desk. The Doctor was seated in the chair where I usually wrote.

As I slipped quietly into the room John Dolittle was speaking.

“But, Cheapside,” he was saying, “honestly I don’t believe I ever heard of anything so utterly crazy! Just the two of you to make such a trip – about four thousand miles! You know what the migrating birds do when they make a journey as long as that: great flocks string out in sight of one another – in a line ten or twenty miles long – so they can keep in touch with the leaders. The day, in fact the exact hour, they leave for those oversea hops are set by the best weather-prophets they’ve got. Yet you, a couple of city birds, just flip off for Africa as though you were hopping across a London street. Such madness! Why, at this time of year you were liable to run into an equinoctial gale!”

“Quite right, Doc,” murmured Cheapside: “we did run into one – on the way back. Goin’ down there we stayed in sight of land all the way. But flying home to England we found a wind against us. And we came by way of the Canary Islands, thinkin’ we’d get out of the worst of the weather. We took a four-hour rest on the islands. But it was the last part, gettin’ from there to Cornwall – Jiminy! That was the worstest. We hit a north-easter what pretty near blew us inside out. Lucky for us, we picked up an old freight-ship comin’ our way. We sneaked onto the stern of her, when nobody was looking and hid in a ventilator. And did she roll, that ship? – Crikey, I come near to gettin’ seasick!”

“And will you please tell me,” asked John Dolittle in a very severe voice, “what in the name of goodness made you take this journey at all?”

“Well, Doc,” said Cheapside, shifting his feet, “you remember last time I was ’ere, you discovered that your notebooks about Mudface ’ad all got chewed up by some kind friends of Whitey’s.”

“Ah!” said the Doctor. And suddenly a sparkle of new excitement was shining in his eyes as he leaned forward in his chair. (I glanced at Polynesia who nodded her head and winked at me.) “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I remember, Cheapside – the notebooks. Go on, please.”

“Well,” said the sparrow, “I seed as how you was pretty bad upset. You was afraid the turtle might be dead. I asked a few questions of Tommy, ’ere. ’E told me it ’adn’t never been proved that Mudface was dead. And me, I always says, no news is good news – especially when you use storks to get it. They ain’t the same as London sparrows, Doc.”

“Oh, stop boasting, and get on with it!” snapped Becky.

“Anyway,” said Cheapside, “an idea comes into me ’ead. And when I gets back to London that night, I asks Becky ’ow she’d like a trip down to Africa, as soon as our new family could fly and take care of theirselves. And – would you believe it? – The Missus, most unladylike, asks me straight out if I’ve gone nutty.”

“Yes, and I can’t blame her,” murmured the Doctor. “Go on, please.”

“So I says to ’er, I says, the Doc’s done a lot for you and me, old gal. Remember the time when ’e come all the way up to London to look at one of our youngsters what was sick?”

“Oh, yes,” muttered the Doctor. – “Long ago. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Well,” Cheapside went on, “Becky ’adn’t. You saved our little Ernie’s life that time, Doc. And pretty soon I persuades the Missus. I knew the way down to Fantippo all right, ’cause I’d made the trip that time you sent for me – to ’elp you with the mail-deliveries in old King Koko’s country – you remember?”

“Indeed I do,” said the Doctor. “But you made that journey at a very different time of year from this.”

“You bet, Doc – very different. Anyway, it was that same week we got the new family managin’ for theirselves. Then we hops across the Channel near Dover and starts flyin’ south, down the coast of France. Good weather stayed with us all the way; and in a few days we reaches Fantipsy harbour. And so—”

Then Becky broke in again.

“For pity’s sake, Cheapside!” she scolded. “The Doctor is dying to hear what happened to Mudface the turtle. You can tell him all this stuff about our trip afterwards. Give him the news, give him the news – such as it is.”

“Oh – er – humph!” said Cheapside in a disgruntled sort of way. “Well now, ’old yer ’orses, old gal. It all ’angs together. You women ain’t got no patience. You—”

And this time the Doctor interrupted (I knew he was afraid that a family row was going to break out between Mr. and Mrs. Cheapside). He said:

“To tell you the truth, Cheapside, I am terribly anxious to hear what has become of Mudface. Were you able to find out anything?”

“Er – yes and no,” said Cheapside. “Becky and me went off as fast as we could for the Secret Lake; but we ’ad to lose some time o’ course, huntin’ for food – seeds, you know. Them heathens don’t grow regular bird-seed in the jungle; but we found a kind of wild rice that would do.”

“Good!” said the Doctor.

“But suddenly, when we was gettin’ near the lake – within about a hundred miles, I’d guess – I says to the Missus, I says, ‘Something’s wrong here, Becky. I reckernize the country – general-like. – But this river right below us: look ’ow it is!’ I says. ‘The stream out of the Secret Lake used to be just a little brook.’ You remember, Doc?”

The Doctor nodded.

“But this river we was flyin’ over now was miles wide. And I says to Becky, ‘There’s somethin’ queer about this. I’d swear we’re on the right track. But the landscape’s changed. And if I’m right, this could explain a whole lot – maybe – about what’s ’appened to the Doc’s friend, Mr. Mudface. Let’s drop down to the bank and look for some birds, Becky. I want to ask a few questions about this.’”

• • • • •

•   18   •

Finding the Secret Lake

I was so interested in what the London sparrow had to say that I had hardly taken my eyes off him since I came into the room. Now, as Chee-Chee the monkey quietly brought me some buttered toast and a cup of cocoa, I noticed the whole family was gathered there in my office. They had all stowed themselves in different places round the room, silently listening.

“And so,” Cheapside went on, “down we drops a good many thousand feet, out of the cool air we’d been flyin’ in, to the steamy heat of the jungle. We goes pokin’ along the river-bank till we meet up with a couple of birds – some sort of a snipe, I think they was. And I asks ’em, I says: ‘Are we on the right road to Lake Junganyika, the Secret Lake?’ ‘Yes,’ they says. ‘Follow the river. You’ll come right to it.’ ‘But look ’ere,’ I says: ‘I travelled over this stretch years ago – with Doctor Dolittle, M.D., no less. And the blinkin’ country don’t seem the same now. The stream we followed in our canoe was narrow. This river’s four or five miles wide in places. Who’s been monkeyin’ with the landscape?’

“‘Hoh,’ says one of the snipe, ‘hadn’t you heard? We ’ad a big shake-up here – sort of an earthquake. The ground began trembling something terrible and big floods of water started coming down; and the river’s been wide like this ever since. You’ll find the Secret Lake changed quite a bit too.’

“‘You better ask the storks,’ they says. ‘They live right on the shore of the lake. We ain’t seen Mudface in a long while.’

“‘Storks!’ I says. ‘They ain’t no good.’

“‘Oh,’ says the snipe, ‘there’s a couple of old ones up at the lake what we thinks very ’ighly of around ’ere.’

“‘Listen,’ I says, ‘I’d just as soon ask the bulrushes for hinformation. Storks ain’t got no sense. Why, they build their nests on people’s chimney-pots! That shows ’ow bright they are. – Don’t talk to me about storks. ’Ave you seen anythin’ of the Great Water Snake?’

“No, they said, they ’adn’t. So me and Becky left Mr. and Mrs. Snipe and we goes on up towards the lake. And the nearer we comes to it, the more I sees the landscape ’ad changed. There was the same mangrove swamps around, like we’d seen when you was there, Doc. But when we flies over the lake proper, it was plain to see that the open water was ever so much bigger – makin’ it very ’ard for me to get me bearings and be sure just where I was.”

“I can indeed believe it,” said the Doctor. “But tell me: could you find the island which we built for Mudface?”

“Yes,” said Cheapside, “we found that all right. But it didn’t look the same. – You understand we was now flyin’ ’igh up again – so we could get a better view. At first I hardly reckernized it, Doc, as the island we ’ad built accordin’ to your orders. It seemed a different shape. On the west side it looked pretty much as we ’ad left it – though of course palms and such was growin’ there now. But you remember the shape you told us to make it, Doc – good and high, and flat on the top?”

“Yes, I remember that very clearly,” said the Doctor.

“Well, it was like that still on the west side, towards the sea. – And all lovely and green it looked too. But when we went around on the farther side I saw at once what ’ad ’appened. Half of the island wasn’t there no more.”

“Great heavens!” I heard the Doctor mutter beneath his breath.

“You never saw anything like it, Doc. It looked just like a big loaf of bread what had been cut in ’alf with a knife. That earthquake sure done a neat job. It hadn’t been so very long ago neither, ’cause there was a high cliff of bare gravel, where the land ’ad been cut off.”

“Yes, I understand,” said the Doctor.

“Then,” Cheapside went on, “we flew over what was left of the island and searched it from end to end. But no trace of old Mudface could we find. ’Owever, we met some wild ducks. They was kind of snooty at first. But when we told ’em we was friends of yours, they changed their tune and got real chummy. They was there, nest-building. Then we asks ’em about Mudface – and when they ’ad seen ’im last. And they told us they’d seen ’im on the morning of the very day when the island got cut in two.”

“And whereabouts on the island was the turtle – I mean at the time of the earthquake?” asked the Doctor in a voice which, to me, plainly showed his excitement.

“He was at that same end of the island,” said Cheapside, shaking his head sadly. “He was on the half that broke off and disappeared. The ducks was certain of it. Mudface had found a kind of a warm spring, what was good for ’is rheumatism, down by the water’s edge on the east side of the island. The ducks said that as soon as the earth began to tremble they was scared and took to the air. But, as they flew off, they saw tons and tons of sand and gravel and mud pour down on top of the old turtle, who was wading in the warm spring with only his head out of the water. The ducks said they was afraid to come back for three days – till everything was quiet again. And when they did, half the island was gone, they said, disappeared beneath the water. And they reckoned old Mudface ’ad gone with it…. And – well, I reckon that’s all, Doc.”

As Cheapside stopped speaking, a gloomy, short silence hung over the room. I knew that all of the listeners to the sparrow’s story were – like myself – just bursting to ask questions. But no one said a word. For a moment the Doctor, with a worried frown, stared down thoughtfully at the floor. At last he looked up at Cheapside and said quietly:

“I want to thank both of you, Cheapside and Becky, for making this dangerous journey – especially at such a time of year – for my sake – and for Mudface’s. Just the same, please don’t do such a thing again without telling me. Imagine how I would have felt if you had lost your lives and never come back. Because, sooner or later, I would have heard of your trip, you may be sure, from your children, from the snipe or from the ducks.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Cheapside. “But – well, me and Becky thought we’d take a chance. Nothin’ venture, nothin’ gain: that’s what I says. We’re – we’re awful sorry, Doc. I reckon we didn’t do no good.”

“Oh, I’m by no means sure of that yet,” said the Doctor quickly (and I noticed how all the animals around the room leaned forward suddenly, with a new interest, to hear his words). “Tell me, Cheapside,” he went on, “would you say the level of the water in the Secret Lake itself is higher now, or lower, than when you and I saw it the first time?”

“Well,” said the sparrow, “me and Becky explored along the lake-shore quite a way. It seemed as though the earthquake, or whatever it was, had heaved the land up some places and let it down in others. I ain’t no skyentist; but even I could see how the great rush of water – and the new wide river – had been made. – Like fillin’ a soup-plate, made of rubber, and then bending and twisting it: of course the soup would run out on the table and all over the place.”

Then Becky spoke.

“Yes, but the level of the water now is what the Doctor wants to know about.”

Cheapside thought a moment before going on. Then he said:

“There ain’t no doubt the water did rise a lot higher than what it was when you saw it, Doc. But I think that was only while the earthquake was going on…. It seems to me—” again he stopped a moment in thought.

“Yes,” he cried suddenly, “I remember now. The water must have fallen back to near its old level. Because, when we had built the island somebody asked me how high I reckoned it would be from the water to the top. And I said it was about the same as St. Paul’s Cathedral. And this time, when we went round to the far side where half the island had been cut away, the cliff was just about the same height. That’s right, Doc: the water-level is about the same now as when you was there.”

“Good!” said the Doctor. “That’s the first thing. Now, did you find any birds – any living creatures, in fact – who could say they were sure that Mudface was dead?”

“Er – no, Doc,” said Cheapside in a hesitating, slow sort of voice. “But – but them ducks, Doc? – Like I told you: they saw the old feller get buried under tons and tons of stuff! And, natural-like, after we’d been told the turtle had half the island on top of ’im, we – we reckoned ’e was finished.”

The Doctor’s next words made even me sit up. I forgot all about the breakfast I was eating.

“No, not necessarily, Cheapside,” said John Dolittle. “You see, most of the amphibian creatures – that is, those who live on the land and in the water, like turtles, frogs, crocodiles and so on – can stay a long time under water, if they want to.”

“But, Doc,” cried the sparrow, “wouldn’t he get crushed? Think what would happen to you or me if St. Paul’s Cathedral was to fall on us!”

“But we are not turtles, Cheapside,” said the Doctor, smiling. “If Mudface’s island had been solid rock; and the earthquake cut it in two, that would have been very different. But you remember: when we built that island, we made it out of earth and sand and stones – which the birds brought up from the seashore. The very biggest of those stones was only as large as an apple. Mudface’s back is covered with a shell enormously strong and thick. Even that great load of gravel and stuff would not crush him, I feel fairly sure. More likely, it would just press him down into the mud-floor of the lake.”

The look of surprise on Cheapside’s face would have been comical enough to make us laugh, if the talk had not been so serious.

“Well, swap me pink!” he said with a gasp. “Do you mean to say, Doc, you think old Mudlark’s still alive down there?”

“I think there’s certainly a good chance he is,” said the Doctor.

“But if he’s still living,” cried Cheapside, “why don’t ’e crawl out, back to ’is home on the island?”

“Ah, no,” said John Dolittle. “That’s something very different. He would have pulled his head and legs and tail inside his shell at once, as soon as the gravel began to rattle on it. But after half the island had slid on top of him, the weight, as you said, would be tremendous. He could not have moved after that – probably couldn’t even poke his head out of his shell, much less walk around.”

“But what about food, Doctor?” asked the sparrow. “It’s quite a while since that earthquake; and ’e ain’t ’ad a thing to eat.”

“That’s true,” said the Doctor. “But amphibian reptiles can, if necessary, go without food for a long, long time. Did you ever hear of hibernating, Cheapside?”

“Er – ain’t that what the bears does, sort of holing-up for the winter?”

“That’s right,” said the Doctor. “But the turtles, when they want to hibernate, bore their way down into the mud and gravel, under water, at the bottom of a river or lake. I hope that is what has happened to our old friend – only in his case of course, he didn’t go into hibernation on purpose. But, from what you tell me, it is just the same as if he had.”

“But, Doctor,” asked the sparrow, “how is the old feller ever goin’ to get out of there?”

The Doctor rose from his chair; and, standing, gazed out a moment through the window into the garden.

“Cheapside,” he said presently, “I don’t think there’s any chance of his ever getting out, unless someone goes to help him.”

Again a quiet spell fell over the room. It came into my head to ask the Doctor a question myself. But I glanced over at Polynesia first. And I could see that that strange bird already knew what was in my mind; for she shook her head at me and raised her right claw to her beak, like a person motioning you to keep quiet. And soon the Doctor was speaking again.

“I wonder, Cheapside,” he said, “if you would mind making that journey to Africa again – to Lake Junganyika – quite soon, would you?”

“Why, of course,” said the sparrow, “of course I’d be glad to. But I’d stick to the coast-line this time, you bet. What did you want me to find out for you, Doc?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to have you go alone this trip,” said John Dolittle. “I was thinking of going down there, myself, by ship, and taking you with me. You might be very helpful as a guide and all that, you know – having found your way into the Secret Lake, after it’s changed so much. I would have to borrow a canoe from King Koko of Fantippo. I don’t know of course whether I can be of any real help to my old friend Mudface. But I feel that at least I ought to go down there and see what I can do.” And then Polynesia said:

“I quite agree with you, Doctor. You remember when Long Arrow was trapped in the cave in the mountain? That looked hopeless enough. And yet you got him out. Of course we ought to go back to the Secret Lake – not only on the turtle’s account, but to get the story of the Flood again, to put in your notebooks.”

And then, after the parrot had joined in the talk, it seemed as though pandemonium broke loose in my office. All the animals had been bursting to say something for a long time. And now, after Polynesia had spoken, suddenly they all started asking questions, giving advice and talking at once. You never heard such a racket.

Seeing that it was impossible for me to talk to the Doctor in an uproar like that, I made a signal to Jip to clear them out of the room. And that he did very quickly, leaving only the parrot and the sparrows. But even then the noise did not entirely stop. Arguments and discussions could be heard, through the closed door, going on in the passage, on the stairs – everywhere in the house.

When at last these had somewhat died down I started to ask a question of the Doctor. But at that moment a terrible mixture of squeals and barks went rushing by under the windows. I looked out. It was Jip chasing Gub-Gub, who was galloping down the garden to carry the news to the animals in the “zoo.” The white mouse was clinging to the pig’s neck like a jockey on a race-horse.

“Hey!” yelled Gub-Gub. “Hey! The Doctor’s going on a voyage – to Africa. Hooray!… Hooray!”

• • • • •

Part Two

•   1   •

Our Ship,
“The Albatross”

After the news was out, that the Doctor was going on a voyage, it seemed to me no time at all before we were actually there, in Africa.

But, despite the need to be on our way as quickly as possible, there was of course a tremendous lot which had to be done before we could leave. First of all, we had to get a ship. This, Polynesia took charge of. The parrot was an old sailor. When she looked at a ship, right away she could tell you a whole lot about the craft without even getting onto it. The Doctor knew he could trust her to find the boat he wanted – one which was not too large for us to handle; one which could go into shallow harbours like Fantippo.

In this we had good luck (indeed, good luck stayed with us on this voyage, not only on the trip itself, but even in the preparations we made for it). We went and saw my old friend, Joe, the mussel-man, at his little hut on the river-bank near King’s Bridge. And Joe had just what we wanted. He took us a short way down the river where he showed us a boat tied up to a wharf.

“Here she be, Mr. Tom,” said he. “I don’t reckon I could have found a better ship nowhere for what the Doctor wants.”

She was indeed a lovely little craft. Joe had, only ten days ago, finished repainting her from stem to stern. She was named The Albatross. Joe took Polynesia and me aboard her. I could see the old parrot’s seafaring eyes noticing everything; and, although she did not ask any questions, I could tell that she was as pleased as I was with the good ship Albatross.

“She’s a sloop, as you see, Mr. Tom,” said Joe, “but cutter-rigged. Easy to handle in any weather. Nice, roomy cabin with bunks for six. – And complete too: lamps, dinghy, dishes – she’s got everything, even to her charts, nautical almanac, and the rest.”

So I told the mussel-man I would bring the Doctor down to see the boat later that day or tomorrow; and we left.

“We’ve got to think about victualling her, next,” said Polynesia from my shoulder, as I walked toward the Marketplace. “Have you got a pencil and paper on you, Tommy?”

I had; and as we went along, the old parrot gave me lists and lists of things which, she said, we must take along on a trip like this.

“And mind you, young man,” she added, “these are just provisions – things to eat and wear and so on, for ourselves. But besides all this, there is the stuff which the ship herself may need: oil for the lamps, extra rope and so on. But we’ll take care of all that later. Old Joe says she’s got everything – and maybe she has. But no good ship’s master puts to sea without making sure, for himself, that his craft isn’t short of anything he really needs.

•   •   •

Once more poor old Matthew was told that he would have to be left behind when the Doctor went abroad. He complained bitterly. His wife, Theodosia, had come secretly to the house and begged John Dolittle not to take her husband. She was sure, she said, Africa wouldn’t agree with him.

“You see, Matthew,” the Doctor explained to the cat’s-meat-man, “I’m counting on you to look after so many things while I am gone. – Not only the things you have taken care of for me before, but now there’s the garden, as well. I haven’t half finished getting it back in proper order. And if I were to leave it to run wild any longer, it would be just ruined by next Spring. You know the way I like it kept. And you’re the only man I’d put in charge of the work. In fact, I don’t know what I’d do without you – really, I don’t.”

And so Matthew agreed to stay behind and act as general caretaker, gardener and zoo-keeper. It relieved the Doctor’s mind tremendously.

The day after we had seen the Albatross, Polynesia and I took the Doctor down to look over her. He was very pleased with the ship; and the same night he and I were in his study after dinner, “armchair-travelling,” as he used to call it.

“Who else had you planned to take with you, Doctor?” I asked.

“Oh, I think all of my regular household, Stubbins; that is, if they want to come along. Too-Too, Jip, Dab-Dab, the white mouse – and then of course Chee-Chee. You remember how valuable he is in the jungle, at finding foods and all that? And besides, he’s very handy aboard ship too. Quite a good little sailor. And then there’s Cheapside and his wife.”

“How about Gub-Gub the pig, Doctor? I know he is expecting you to take him. He says he hopes to add a new chapter to his Encyclopedia of Food. He claims he is now the best pig scientist living, as well as the most famous pig comedian.”

“Maybe so,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “He discovered some new kinds of wild sugar-cane on our last trip.”

“But he weighs an awful lot,” I remarked, remembering that a sloop is not a very big ship.

“Quite, quite,” said John Dolittle. “Well, don’t worry about Gub-Gub. We’ll take him if we can. But better not make any promises till we see just how much space we have.”

He reached for the tobacco-jar and started to fill his pipe.

“You know, Stubbins,” said he, “I’m quite pleased with the way this trip has fallen out – just happened, as you might say. If those rats hadn’t chewed up my notebooks to make their nests, we wouldn’t be going on this journey, would we? Of course … Mudface, poor old fellow!… Even when I get there, I may find I can’t do anything for him. But somehow I feel we’re going to be lucky on this voyage.”

He struck a match and held it to the bowl of his pipe. Then he leaned forward in his chair. I had never seen his manner show greater, keener, interest.

“And if our luck stays with us,” he went on, “and we are able to get the turtle’s story of the Flood again, it will be tremendously important to science.”

“How long before the Flood was Mudface born, Doctor?” I asked.

“Ah!” said John Dolittle. “That I can’t say. Maybe he told me; maybe not. My memory isn’t clear on any details, any particulars. I wrote so fast. But if I’m right about his speaking of the other animals in the world at that time, as well as the trees, the plants, the rocks and so on – you see how important it will be? Perhaps there were books written on natural history before Noah’s time. But anyhow they were all swept away – lost. Don’t you see how important this trip of ours may be?”

“I certainly do,” I said solemnly. “With all the books before the Deluge destroyed, only one man can bring back the knowledge that was drowned: he who speaks the language of the animals – John Dolittle.”

At once (as he always did when someone said anything complimentary to him) he looked uncomfortable.

“Oh, goodness, Stubbins!” said he. “We mustn’t forget that there are many big ifs between us and success. And the biggest of them is: everything will depend on if I can get poor old Mudface out of the lake from under that mountain of gravel.”

“Yes, Doctor. But also, don’t forget that you said you thought we’d be lucky this trip.”

“Ah, to be sure, to be sure!” he answered, breaking into a smile. “And I meant it…. It’s a funny thing: sometimes a man feels that way and sometimes he doesn’t. Sounds like a lot of superstitious nonsense, doesn’t it? And yet, you know, I don’t think it really is…. Well, anyway, Stubbins, I do feel we’re going to be lucky on this voyage.”

“How soon do you think we’ll be ready to sail, Doctor?” I asked.

“Oh – er – let me see: this is Tuesday, isn’t it?” he murmured. “Well, I think Saturday would be all right, Stubbins. – And by the way, you won’t forget to go and say goodbye to your mother and father, will you? They have both been awfully good about letting you stay here and help me. I’m afraid they haven’t been seeing very much of you lately, eh?”

“No, Doctor,” I said. “I’ll attend to that. I’ll go over and see them tomorrow night.”

“Good,” he said. “We’ll set our sailing date for next Saturday, then. But don’t tell anyone the exact day, Stubbins, please. It might leak out and – you know – newspapermen and all that sort of thing…?”

“No, Doctor,” I repeated. “Not a word to anyone.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

Goodbye to Puddleby

Out-going ships always leave when the tide in the river has just turned to ebb – that is, running out towards the sea. And when we had looked up the hour of the ebb tide for that Saturday, we found it was five o’clock in the morning. Of course, as early in the day as that, practically no one was up and about. So we were able to slip away down the river, without the newspapermen (or, indeed, anybody else) seeing us or knowing we had left.

Joe the mussel-man and Matthew Mugg were the only ones at the wharf to bid us goodbye. (I always asked my parents not to see me off on voyages. I was afraid my mother would cry.)

The morning air was cold; and full daylight had not yet lit up the sky, as the Doctor gave the keys of the house and stable to Matthew. Then the mooring-ropes were let go and hauled aboard. The good ship Albatross was poled out into the current and headed downstream towards the sea. Joe stayed aboard for a short while (with his little mussel-boat trailing behind on a tow-rope). He helped the Doctor and me set one of the smaller sails. And in the misty half-light the ghostly tall shapes of warehouses on the river-banks began to slip astern of us faster and faster.

At last Joe shook the Doctor and me by the hand, got into his mussel-boat, and shouted to the Doctor to cast off. John Dolittle told me to take the wheel while he undid the tow-rope.

“Goodbye!” called Joe. – “Goodbye and good luck to yer voyage!”

I had not realized how fast we were moving. Even as we called our answering farewells to him, Joe disappeared into the mist astern of us. The Doctor took the wheel from me and asked me to find Polynesia because he wished to speak with her.

I discovered the old parrot up forward, humming a sailor song to herself as she looked over the baggage piled on the deck.

“Look at that, my lad, look at that!” said she in her severest, most seamanlike manner. “All that gear will have to be stowed below before we get out of the river into open water. The first sea that comes over her bow will wash the whole lot overboard. – What’s that? The Doctor wants to see me? All right. But get Chee-Chee to help you stow this stuff below decks. And hop to it, my lad! You haven’t got much time, the way this tide is running.”

John Dolittle set Polynesia as a forward look-out, up in the fo’c’sle. Here, being right in the front or foremost part of the boat, she was able to see things ahead sooner than the Doctor at the wheel. And very helpful she was, too. There were ships and barges anchored in Puddleby River – as well as buoys marking the channel of the stream. Often we would hear the old seafaring parrot roar out: “Hard-a-port, Doctor! – Schooner off the starboard bow. – Hard-a-port!”

Then the Doctor would spin the wheel to swing us over – but not too far, lest he run the Albatross out of the channel, onto the mud of the river-bank. And suddenly, in the mist ahead of us, the hull of a big ship at anchor would rear up high; and it would look as though we must surely crash into her. But Polynesia’s keen old eyes had seen her in time to warn the Doctor; and we would skid silently by, under her towering shadow – with only six feet of room to spare.

Speaking of the Doctor as a sea-captain, the parrot had often said: “Yes, John Dolittle almost always does things wrong at sea – and most skippers would go grey-haired in one voyage with him. But you know, when he’s managing his own boat, it doesn’t seem to matter. He always gets there – where he means to go – just the same. Remember that, Tommy: you’re always safe with John Dolittle.”

For the next half-hour Chee-Chee and I were kept busy carrying baggage below decks and stowing it in safe places, where it would not slam around when the sloop should start to pitch and roll. This, we knew, would begin as soon as we got out of Puddleby River into the open sea.

It was a strange collection of stuff we had brought with us. There was not much of what you would call ordinary baggage, such as trunks and the like; but there was plenty that was not ordinary. There were butterfly-nets, collecting-boxes for birds’ eggs, hatching-cages for caterpillars, and all sorts and kinds of other things which naturalists and explorers take with them on their travels.

All the packages were carefully labelled, telling what they had inside them. I think a stranger, reading some of these labels would have been quite puzzled. For instance, one label read: Moon-Seeds – Store in a dry place. The Doctor, just before we left, had said: “We are going to West Africa but Long Arrow might turn up anywhere. Let’s take a few of those seeds along – just in case. They won’t need much room.”

And there was another box, much larger, marked: Live turtles. Keep this side up – With care! John Dolittle knew that I did not understand turtle language at all well. And, as I was going to act as secretary this time and write down all that Mudface should tell us (if, of course, we succeeded in rescuing him from under the lake), the Doctor thought I ought to practise up on the language as much as I could before we got there. So he had sent Matthew Mugg up to London to buy a few turtles at a pet-shop: and I spent a couple of hours each day, learning turtle talk (with the help of the Doctor himself).

The Doctor also bought me a book on short-hand writing; and I studied that too. Because, he said, Mudface was a fast talker – though not always. The Doctor thought it would be far easier and less tiring for me to use short-hand.

Most of the rest of the baggage was of course food supply; you have to buy many things for even a few people who are going to be cut off from all shopping for several weeks at a time. And you have no idea how easy it is to forget the most important. However, with the help of Dab-Dab and Polynesia (both of whom had sailed with John Dolittle before) I can proudly say there was very little I had missed.

I did have one dreadful moment, though, as I now carried the packing-cases and barrels and parcels below deck. Cheapside and his wife Becky had been hopping around the baggage, as if hunting for something. Myself, I was too busy to talk; but presently I heard the Cockney sparrow say to his wife:

“No, Becky. It ain’t ’ere. They’ve been and forgot it.”

“What were you looking for, Cheapside?” I asked as I heaved a small but heavy case of prunes up onto my shoulder.

“The bird-seed, of course!” said Cheapside. “What d’yer think we’d be looking for – cigars?”

“Oh, my goodness,” I cried, “don’t tell me I forgot the bird-seed!”

“That’s just what I am tellin’ yer,” shouted the sparrow in his most fighting manner. “Now me and my old lady has got to live on biscuit-crumbs for three or four thousand miles. Nice kind of a first mate you are! And what ’appened to that wonderful old ship’s master, Polynesia? She ’elped you make out the lists. Listen: if she ’ad you bring sunflower-seeds for parrots, and no bird-seed for sparrows, I’ll pull ’er tail out for ’er. – Swap me pink if I don’t!”

Cheapside’s angry voice had now become so loud that it clearly reached the ears of the Doctor at the wheel. For suddenly he called out:

“It’s all right, Cheapside. We have plenty of bird-seed aboard. I happened to think of it, myself, on my way to the Post Office the last time. It’s in my overcoat-pocket hanging on the back of the cabin-door.”

“Oh – er – excuse me, Doc,” said the sparrow. “I just wanted to make sure – kind of checking up on the ship’s stores, like.”

And as Cheapside went below, followed by his wife, I could hear Becky scolding him.

“Of all the bad-mannered street-arabs,” she was saying, “you’re the worst! – Anyone would think you were home, the way you behave.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Dolittle Family
at Sea

When we at last reached the mouth of the river, the sun had risen upon a fair and beautiful day. The long arm of the dike (a sort of high earth bank which marked the end of the stream) had a lighthouse on the seaward tip of it. The keeper was an old friend of ours. He waved to us from the lantern-railing, as our ship took her first plunging pitch in the swell of the open sea.

Poor Gub-Gub was lapping up a drink of water from a bucket when the pitch came; and our ship’s stern reared up so steeply and unexpectedly, the pig scientist suddenly found himself standing on his head in the pail, instead of on the deck.

Of course our sloop was small. The weather was only what regular sailors would call a swell. But I liked the way our boat handled it, the way she rode over the crests of the waves and down into the troughs between. There was something about the brave little Albatross (buried out of sight, she was half the time) which gave you confidence and trust in her. The morning sun glistened on her bright new paint; she moved like something truly alive; and the tang of the salt spray on your lips made you glad to be alive with her, in this wide world of water where she seemed so much at home.

I was glad, though, that I had obeyed Polynesia and got the baggage stowed below before we passed the lighthouse. Because the ship’s motion now made work on the deck pretty hard. Indeed there was plenty to keep me busy. The Doctor called to me to get Gub-Gub down below. He was afraid the pig (who was very round in shape) might get rolled right overboard. So I took him downstairs and put him to helping Dab-Dab and Chee-Chee tidy up the cabin.

Then I arranged our animal family: the sleeping quarters for each, and so on – in the way the Doctor and I had agreed upon beforehand.

Gub-Gub was not the only one who had difficulty with the rolling and pitching of the ship. Mice, when they sleep, have a habit of drawing their legs in, so they look like a ball. Whitey, to begin with, wanted to sleep in the cabin with the rest of us – mostly, I think, because he was afraid that anywhere else he couldn’t hear us talking and so might miss something that was being planned. Well, the first night or two he would go to sleep under my bunk; but before morning the roll of the ship would trundle him across the cabin-floor and wake him up by banging his head against the door.

So in the galley (which is what you call the kitchen aboard ship) I found an old teacup with the handle broken off. I gave it to Whitey for a nest. He lined it with ends of twine and shreds of newspaper, so it was very snug and comfortable. Then I set the cup back in the china-rack (that is where you keep your dishes at sea, so they won’t slide onto the floor). And for the rest of the voyage Whitey slept in peace – but Dab-Dab was very annoyed. “What next, I’d like to know?” she snorted. “Mice in my china-rack!”

“Fussy old party, ain’t she?” said Cheapside who had overheard her scolding me. “By the way, I heard the Doctor calling for you just now, Tommy.”

I found the Doctor. He wanted me to go forward with him and look at some maps in the chart-room, as it was called. This was, to me, one of the most interesting parts of the ship. It had windows or port-holes all around it. Here the charts, or maps, were kept – also the instruments which are used for finding your way at sea: the sextant, the chronometer, and many more. In this little room the “course” of the ship was worked out: that is, the direction she should go in.

My boyish imagination could always conjure up smugglers – and even pirates – who might have been captains of this ship in days gone by. And in fancy I could see them bending over the broad desk, with pistols in their belts, plotting the sloop’s course to some little, uninhabited island, where they meant to bury treasure they’d stolen from other ships.

“We will hold her sou’-sou’-east, Stubbins, for the present – till we pick up Cape Finisterre,” said the Doctor as he spread out one of the maps. “I want to check with the chart. This following wind is grand. We’re making good headway. – Hope it keeps up. We’ll try more canvas – more sail – on her soon.”

After we had cleared Cape Finisterre the weather got warmer and warmer, as we made our way south. At times it got a little too warm for the Doctor and myself; but Polynesia and Chee-Chee just revelled in it.

“Ah!” gurgled the old parrot, fluffing out her feathers. “Wonderful to see the sun again! I declare if you lived in England long enough, you’d forget what sunshine looked like.”

“You got a cheek, you stuffed stocking!” snorted Cheapside. – “Always grousing about the Henglish climate. We like it kind of moist there. That’s what keeps our brains from dryin’ up – the way yours is. Phew! This deck is ’ot. I’m goin’ down to the cabin – before I turns into fried chicken.”

The weather certainly stayed wonderfully good and – what was still better – our northerly winds blew steadily the whole voyage. In fact everything seemed to go pleasantly and well. I do not remember any other sea trip with the Doctor where we had better or easier sailing. Even the after-supper story hour was kept up aboard ship, the same as it had been in the old house at Puddleby.

It was strange that aboard the Albatross the animals always asked the Doctor to tell them sea stories. And by the end of the first week John Dolittle said he had told them all he knew. But the next day Whitey the librarian, hunting through the lockers in the chart-room, came upon a nice thick book, called Tales of the Seven Seas. And for the rest of that peaceful journey the Doctor’s family got him to read them a chapter aloud out of this, every night, translating it into animal language as he went along.

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Stormy Petrel

The only interruption – if indeed I could call it that – to the smooth sailing and our happy voyage came towards its end. For a whole morning the Doctor had been looking at the barometer (that is the instrument for telling the weather) every ten or fifteen minutes; and I noticed he usually frowned over it. However, I was too busy to pay much attention at the time.

But presently, when the Doctor had gone down to the cabin, I noticed a bird skimming low down over the sea on the starboard side. Of course I had to watch the compass carefully (I was handling the wheel just then). But I managed to glance, every once in a while, at the bird. It was a stormy petrel.

In bygone days this kind of bird was supposed to be a sign of bad weather. As a matter of fact it isn’t – though to be sure, it is often seen when the sky is gloomy or overcast. I have always admired the petrel (sometimes called, Mother Carey’s Chicken) because, hunting alone or in pairs, it seemed so safe and really at home in mid-ocean, no matter what the weather or the sea might do.

Well, to my surprise, presently this petrel came and perched upon the rail quite close to me.

“Is this Doctor Dolittle’s ship?” he asked. And then, at the same moment, we both recognized one another.

“Why, it’s Tommy!” he cried. – “Grown so big no one could recognize you.”

“And you’re the petrel that came and found me, after the shipwreck – on our trip to Spidermonkey Island,” I said. – “I know you by that grey feather in your right wing. I’m awfully glad to see you again.”

“Thank you,” he said politely. “Ever since daybreak I’ve been hunting all over the ocean for the Doctor’s ship. What I have to tell him is important. Is he awake?”

“Yes, I think so,” I said. “I’ll call him for you.” I snatched out my bos’un’s whistle, which I wore on a cord round my neck, and blew a quick, sharp blast. In a moment the Doctor came trundling up on deck and ran to my side.

“Doctor,” said the petrel, “you’re sailing right into a hurricane, a real bad one – ninety-mile-an-hour-wind and a heavy sea. It’s blowing right across your path, the way you are sailing now. You’re too close to the land. Head farther out to sea and you can get behind it – but you’ve got to hurry, or it will pile your ship up on the coast.”

“All right,” said the Doctor. “We’re sailing due south now, with one point to westward. If I—”

“Swing her due west,” the bird interrupted quickly. – “Due west, Doctor, hurry!”

John Dolittle took the wheel from my hands. Then with his eyes shifting from the compass to the sails, to watch their behaviour, he carefully pulled the ship’s bow over till we were heading straight out into mid-ocean.

“How’s that?” he said at last.

“That’s fine,” said the bird. “Hold her to that until I tell you to change. You’re now running alongside the storm – coming in the opposite direction – and you’re about thirty miles this side of the hurricane – but nothing to hurt you. If you had gone on and cut right across its path, I don’t know what would have happened. I’m surely glad I found you in time.”

“So am I,” said the Doctor, laughing. “And I am very grateful for your warning. I thought my barometer was dropping awfully fast. And I knew there must be bad weather brewing somewhere close to us. But I couldn’t make out in what direction it was. – By the way, you said you had been searching for me. How did you know I was at sea?”

“Oh, very simple, Doctor,” said the petrel. “Most of the sea-birds know you by sight – at least, along these coasts. I was talking with some gulls I met; and they told me they’d seen you on a small sailing ship. But the duffers had not noticed what course you were on – just that your sloop was heading generally southward. And that wasn’t so simple – I mean, finding you. I didn’t know whether you were making for the Canary Islands or following the African coast, closer inshore. I had just flown out of the path of that same storm myself. Well, I searched the sea for a long time. And I was on my way to get some more petrels to help me hunt for you when – only by pure luck – I spied your little ship right below me.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor suddenly serious: “good luck has certainly been with us on this voyage – so far. Let’s hope it stays. You have been most helpful. Wouldn’t you like something to eat? We have some excellent sardines in the larder – real Portuguese.”

Well, in the end, the petrel stayed with us a whole day and night – and very good company he was too. He was an entirely different sort of bird from Polynesia, Too-Too, Cheapside or the rest of our friends. The stormy petrel is a citizen of the sea. And he looked it, with his sleek, long wings (indeed, when he was flying, he seemed to be all wings – with just a little hinge for a body between them, pointed at both ends). I never got tired of watching the beautiful, easy way he flew into the teeth of a high wind.

He was different too in other things: in his likes and dislikes, in his thinking – in fact, in almost everything. He was very fond of John Dolittle, who had mended one of those long wings years ago – when he had broken it flying round the rigging of an old wrecked ship, stranded on the rocks.

At our after-supper story-time in the cabin the Doctor got him to tell us pieces out of his own life; and they were more thrilling than any stories of the sea which I have ever heard or read. Yet he never boasted, but spoke of the most hair-raising adventures as though they were nothing more than what a petrel must expect any day in the year.

It was quite clear that he knew a tremendous lot about sea-weather in general and of winds in particular. John Dolittle asked him many questions about winds and what caused them; and he got me to write down the petrel’s answers in a notebook.

Good luck again? Who can say? Anyway, I thought, as I scribbled down the questions and answers, for me it was a mighty comfortable feeling, right now, that a stormy petrel would pop up out of nowhere and make us change our course to miss a terrible storm.

After we had sailed due west for about six hours the petrel told the Doctor the danger was passed and we could go back on our old course.

“What port are you making for, Doctor?” he asked.

“Fantippo,” said John Dolittle.

“Oh, well, you’re not far off it now,” said the bird. “Head your ship straight in for the land. – No, no, a little more east. – That’s good. Hold it,” he added, when the Doctor had pulled the helm over a little farther. “In a short while you’ll come in sight of the island of No Man’s Land and the entrance to Fantippo Bay. I’ll be leaving you now. I must get back up north. I’m meeting a brother of mine. Is there nothing more I can do?”

“No, indeed, thank you,” said the Doctor. “You have been most kind. I’m sorry I delayed your meeting with your brother.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the bird. “He’ll just loaf around, fishing, till I come. We sea-folk don’t bother too much about time, you know.”

The Doctor had given the wheel back to me, as soon as his eyes had noted the new course for Fantippo on the compass-card. The petrel took a little jump off the rail and spread those beautiful long wings upon the air. With no flapping or slapping, he just soared around the sloop, making the wind lift him as he wished, till at last he skimmed over the tip of the main-mast. Then he lunged off towards the north.

“Goodbye, John Dolittle,” he called down. – “Goodbye and good luck!”

“Goodbye, old friend,” the Doctor shouted back. – “And the best of luck to you!”

He stood quite still at my side, his eyes watching the bird swoop over the white-capped waves till it was out of sight.

“You know, Stubbins,” he murmured at last, “I’ve never wished to be anything but what I am, a doctor. Yet I believe if I had to change into something else, that’s what I would choose to be, out of all other creatures in the world: a stormy petrel.”

Late that afternoon Too-Too, who was on look-out duty atop the mast, suddenly shouted, “Land ahead! – Land on the starboard bow, Sir!”

And so our lucky voyage came to an end.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Our Welcome at Fantippo

Most of the Doctor’s animal family had been to Fantippo before. But for me this was my first visit to that kingdom. So, as you can easily understand, I was a little excited and very interested to see what it would be like.

We had taken down the big mainsail from the sloop’s mast and left only enough canvas to move us at the speed of a walk. Polynesia was now on look-out duty up in the peak of the forecastle; and the Doctor, who knew these waters to be full of rocks and sand-bars, had taken the wheel himself. I stood at his side with the telescope to my eye, watching the land grow nearer and clearer in the slanting light of the evening sun. Presently he pointed to a round lump ahead of us, on the north side of the opening to Fantippo Bay.

“That’s where I had my Post Office, Stubbins,” said he: “on a big house-boat, moored to the shore of that island.”

“I see it,” I said. – “And the house-boat is still there. This is a good telescope. Why, I can even see the geraniums growing in the window-boxes.”

“You can!” he cried. “Well, that’s my old friend King Koko’s doing. The swallows told me that he had always kept the house-boat spic-and-span after I left – hoping, I believe, that someday I’d come back and run the Swallow Mail for him again. – What’s the matter? What are you seeing now?”

“I don’t know, Doctor. Strange! Seems like crowds and crowds of canoes or something. You have a look. I’ll take the wheel a moment.”

The Doctor took the telescope from me and peered towards the land.

“You’re right, Stubbins. – Hundreds of canoes waiting, just inside the reef. I can see the King’s canoe among them too, with the flag at the stern, the royal standard…. Why, it almost looks as though they were waiting to welcome us. But how on earth did they know we were coming?… Oh, for heaven’s sake! – I know what’s happened: there are great flocks of gulls around the Post Office. Most likely they heard, through the petrel, that we were sailing in these waters and they gathered at my old house-boat to give us a welcome. The King must have seen them; and he probably thinks I am coming to run his mails for him again. I’m afraid he’ll be disappointed. Well, anyway – from birds or kings – it is nice to get a welcome when you come to foreign shores. Don’t you think so, Stubbins?”

“It certainly is, Doctor,” I answered. “Just look at those gulls! You don’t need any telescope now. See them rising over the island – like white clouds! I don’t wonder the King thought there was something happening.”

“My goodness!” laughed the Doctor. “I fancy they have sighted our ship…. Yes, sure enough. Here they come, flying out to meet us.”

It was indeed a sight to be remembered for a lifetime. We were still a good mile from the shore. But the air and the heavens between us and the island seemed to be filled with white wings flashing in the sun. Soon we could hear the peculiar high-pitched voices of the gulls. “Welcome!” they called. “Welcome, John Dolittle, welcome back to Fantippo!”

The noise they made grew into a deafening roar, as the first flights of them reached our ship and circled round the masts. The air was so thick with them that, gazing up I wondered how they managed to keep from jostling and colliding in that densely crowded space, big as it was. For I now saw, when they were closer, that this enormous army on wings had spread itself out at least a mile wide. They did not settle on the ship itself; but, like a guard of honour, formed themselves up on either side of us – leaving a wide path ahead of the Albatross empty and clear. They seemed to understand that they must not fly directly in front of us towards the harbour – for if they had, of course, it would have been impossible for anyone to steer his way through that fog of feathers.

It was no new thing, Polynesia told me, for the Doctor to receive welcomes by birds. But that evening I felt this was surely something that no man could ever get used to. I glanced at his smiling face behind the wheel. And I felt glad indeed that the old parrot and Cheapside had made him come; and that I, in my own way, had helped.

Any more talk was impossible for the present, with the noise that the gulls made. So John Dolittle, watching for signals from the look-outs, steered the sloop carefully through the dangerous shallows, till he at last brought her within the safety of the harbour. Chee-Chee and I were waiting, with our hands upon the anchor-cable, for him to signal us. And when at last he waved his hand, we let go. The big bow-anchor splashed into the water; the coils of rope at our feet ran out through the hawse-pipe and then suddenly went slack. We made fast to a cleat. The good ship Albatross swung slowly round, down-wind, and then came to rest – anchored in Fantippo Bay.

As I walked towards the stern to speak to the Doctor, I noticed that the roaring chorus of sea-birds had stopped. But now another sound – though not so great – had taken its place. It was the chatter of human voices. And it came from the waiting canoes.

This crowd of little craft had stood off some distance from us, so as not to interfere with our handling of the sloop. These small boats were simply packed with people, all gaily dressed in bright-coloured clothes – all, that is, except the paddlers, whose fine black bodies wore nothing but a rag around their middle. As soon as our anchor splashed into the water a shout went up; and the whole fleet started across the bay towards us at a most surprising speed.

But though they came fast, it was no higgledy-piggledy rush. The leading paddler in one of the canoes started a song; and then all crews in all the canoes sang along with him. I now saw that this was to keep them in line, so that all the paddles should plunge into the water together. The paddles, and the canoes too, were curiously carved and painted. There seemed to be ten men or so working in each boat; and, as there were easily two hundred canoes, that made a lot of singers.

The sun had now dropped down to the sea’s edge; and its red light flashed back from all the wet paddle-blades together, as the men shouted their strange but pleasing song. And the whole canoe-fleet seemed to leap forward at each powerful stroke. It was a wondrous, fascinating sight to watch.

In the centre of this crowd of canoes there was one much larger than the rest. It was more like a wide barge, with a purple awning over it to keep off the sun. Under the awning sat an enormously fat man with a crown on his head and a green lollipop in his hand. Sometimes he put the lollipop in his mouth to suck upon; and at others he held it up to his eye, to gaze through it like a quizzing-glass.

On my way to the wheel I had stopped amidships to watch the show. Now as I leaned upon the rail the Doctor came up and joined me. Cheapside was with him.

“Oh, look,” cried the sparrow. “There’s old King Coconut. – Criminy giblets! ’E’s fatter than ever.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “And he’s not likely to get any thinner, so long as he eats lollipops morning, noon and night. They were always his great weakness.”

“You’re right, Doc,” said the sparrow. “Old King Lollipop! Eatin’ candy, couldn’t stop. – Lumme, Doc, that’s poetry, that is! Maybe I should ’ave been a writer, same as you.”

“Oh, there are plenty of writers,” said John Dolittle. “But,” he added, smiling at the sparrow, “there’s only one Cheapside.”

“Huh! – Thank goodness for that,” said a voice behind us. And, turning around, we found that Polynesia had joined us.

“Why, you heathen, Hafrican hedgehog!” snapped Cheapside. “For two pins I’d wring—”

But the Doctor stopped the squabble before it got really started.

“Listen, please,” he said. “We will let down the rope-ladder – on this side. The canoes are making way, see – so the King’s barge can come through. It looks to me as though we are going to get an official visit from His Majesty. Lend me a hand, please, with the ladder, Stubbins.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

The Dinner-Party
on the House-boat

King Koko’s visit of welcome to our ship turned out to be a very grand business indeed. For not only did His Majesty himself come aboard to pay his compliments, but all the important men in his kingdom came – with all their wives and all their children. I thought that our able seaman, Polynesia, was going to have a fit. She and I were sitting up in the rigging. We had climbed there to get away from the crowd. Looking down, we could see that our visitors actually covered the deck from stem to stern. They were like ants on a jam-pot.

“We must get the Doctor to stop them, Tommy,” the parrot sputtered. “We’ve only got six inches of free-board left; and they’re still climbing up the ladder – and more yet coming out from the shore. This sloop may turn turtle and go down any minute. Shiver my timbers! I thought I’d seen everything a sailor can. But, by cracky, it seems I’m yet going to see a ship sunk by kindness! I can’t even make the Doctor hear me, with all those fat grinning women cackling over him. Can’tyou do something to get his attention, Tommy? The water will be over the main-deck any moment.”

I cupped my hands and yelled down to John Dolittle as hard as I could. – No use. He didn’t even look up. Then an idea came to me (I can’t tell why it hadn’t before). I snatched my bos’un’s whistle from my pocket and blew on it hard and long.

That did the trick. It was a new kind of sound to the Fantippans, I suppose. Anyway, there was a sudden, complete silence. John Dolittle looked up and saw me in the rigging.

“Doctor,” I cried. “Stop the crowd. Get them off the ship. We’ve only six inches of free-board left. We’re top-heavy. We’re going to sink if—”

But the Doctor didn’t wait to hear more. He said something quickly to the King at his side. His Majesty raised the sacred lollipop on high; and everyone respectfully paid attention to the royal command. He only said five or six words in a strange, clicking kind of language. But it was enough. The crowd scrambled for the canoes.

By good luck, all the port-holes down below were shut; otherwise the cabin and the hold would have been swamped. As it was, the scuppers of the main-deck were under water; and now the poor little Albatross leaned and listed with the rush of the visitors to one side or the other, looking for canoes with space left to take them off. In the confusion a few children fell into the sea; but they were fished out again. Nobody was hurt.

The sun had now set and it was growing dark. The King had not left the Doctor’s side. As soon as Polynesia and I had climbed down out of the rigging John Dolittle introduced us. Koko had a nice merry face; and despite some rather childish habits (like his everlasting lollipop and his always wearing his crown, even in a canoe) there was something kingly and commanding about his great enormous figure, which even my young eyes took notice of. I liked him right away. I was surprised to find that he talked English – and well too.

“I am deelighted to meet you, Mr. Stubbins,” said the King, bowing with difficulty from his very thick waist. “I have just been inviting Doctor Dolittle to take dinner with me tonight, with all of his ship’s company. May I trust you will honour me with your presence also?”

“Thank you, Sir – I mean, Your Majesty,” I stammered. “If the Doctor is coming, I would like to, too.”

“Where is the dinner to be, King Koko,” the Doctor asked: “in your palace on the edge of the town?”

“No,” said the King. “This is a special banquet, Doctor. It will be in your old house-boat, the Post Office. Look behind you across the bay, please.”

We all turned. Then both the Doctor and I gasped at the same moment. Nearly all daylight had gone now. Only to seaward was there a faint crimson glow where the sun had set. The far shore of the bay was just a black line. Faint starlight shimmered on the silvery water; but where the sky met the shore against the island of No Man’s Land the house-boat was all lit up with strings of Chinese paper-lanterns – red, green, yellow and violet. There seemed to be no end to the beautiful surprises of this strange country of Fantippo.

The King turned to me and said:

“When John Dolittle ran my Post Office for me, he always had tea served to the public at four o’clock. English visitors have told me that mine was the only Post Office in the world where they got a cup of tea given them with a penny stamp. So it is only fitting and right that I should give my reception-dinner for him in the post-office house-boat. We shall expect you at seven o’clock, Doctor. It will be a grand feast.”

And gently patting his enormous stomach in happy expectation, the King walked to the ladder and went down it onto the royal barge.

Well, the dinner was a great success. A little before seven we all piled into our ship’s dinghy and rowed across the bay to the gaily-lighted house-boat. Here Koko himself met us and led us to our places at a big table which was all set and ready under an awning at the stern of the boat.

Perhaps no other king in the whole world would have treated the Doctor and his strange animal family with such polite kindness and hospitality. Of course the King of Fantippo had met nearly all these animals already. And he had special foods for them which he knew they liked; and special places at the table – including a highchair for the white mouse with tiny dishes of many sorts of cheese set before it.

Gub-Gub, who was seated next to me with a wonderful collection of vegetables and fruits in front of him, was a little nervous about his table manners.

“You know, Tommy,” he whispered, “I had dinner with a marchioness once. That was in London – when the Doctor was putting on the Canary Opera. But this is the first time I’ve eaten at the table of a real king. Thank goodness the servants haven’t put any spoons and forks at my place! That’s what bothers me at these grand dinners: the silverware. I always use the fish-fork for the salad and the dessert-spoon for the soup. But here, look, no table-tools at all. The King has remembered I like best to pick my food up and eat it – very thoughtful of him. Ah, ripe mangoes! – Um-m-m!”

I must say that the animals behaved very well indeed. The only difficulty was the great number of dishes or courses. For, from the soup at the beginning to the nuts at the end, there were forty altogether! Truly King Koko was a mighty eater. The Doctor, who in the old days had often had dinner with him, had warned us all to take only a taste of each dish, so that we would have some room left inside us for the rest. His Majesty, it seemed, always got most unhappy if any of his guests stopped eating before the dinner was over. But even with the Doctor’s warning, I could see that many round the table were having hard work to stay with it. And as for myself, by the time I had reached dish number twenty-four, I felt I’d surely crack down the middle if I ate another crumb.

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Jungle-Scouts

The next day the Doctor once more started to hurry things along. Those easygoing weeks while we had been at sea had given him a good change and rest; and he was now full of “ginger and gumption” – as Polynesia called it. In the cabin at an early breakfast he said to me:

“I am anxious to lose no time in rushing on to Lake Junganyika. Mudface’s life may depend on how soon we get there.”

“But I thought,” said I, “you felt he should be safe where he is, in a sort of – er – state of hibernation.”

“True, Stubbins, quite true. And if he were a younger turtle I wouldn’t worry about him. But he’s old – unbelievably old. He has been sick. Everything depends on how strong he was when that earthquake happened. But he is helpless now – with those tons of gravel on top of him.”

“Have you any plan,” I asked, “for getting him out?”

“No, Stubbins, I haven’t any notion at all. I’m just hoping some idea will come to me after I look over the scene. – That’s another reason why I want to get there as soon as we possibly can.”

“Yes,” said I, “I can well understand you don’t want to loaf around here. Did the King say anything last night about your running his Post Office for him again?”

“No, not a word.”

“What will you do, then, Doctor, when the King does ask you?”

“I’m not going to wait for him to ask me!” said John Dolittle. “I’m going to ask him to do something for me, first. We have reason to return his call anyway – that’s etiquette business, you know. As soon as we have finished breakfast, we will go over to his palace and get him to lend us a good canoe. And I shall want him to give us a man to stay on the sloop here while we’re gone. – You understand, to take care of things, to set up her riding lights at night, so other boats won’t run into her – and all that.”

Just as we were about to leave the table Polynesia and Cheapside came into the cabin. It seemed they had been having one of their arguments. The sparrow was still talking.

“And listen to me, my old Pollywog,” he ended: “the next time you call me Mr. Cockney I’ll put you on the end of a stick and mop the decks with you. You – flyin’ dish-rag!”

“One of these days,” said the parrot thoughtfully, as she took a place on the table’s edge beside me, “I’m going to forget I’m a lady and bite that guttersnipe’s head off.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed the Doctor, “squabbling again! You know, to listen to you two, anyone would think you had never been ship-mates before on a voyage. Now settle down quietly and have your breakfast, please. We have a lot to do today.”

Dab-Dab, with Chee-Chee to help her, came in bringing breakfast for the newcomers. “And please don’t crack your seeds all over the cabin,” she said to the birds. “Chee-Chee and I are tired of sweeping up seed-shells off the floor. Crack ’em onto the table; and then they’ll be cleared away with the crumbs.”

“Right you are, right you are,” said Cheapside, starting to eat. “But it’s old Pollysnoot over there what makes all the mess. Yer know, Doc,” he added as soon as the duck and monkey had started back for the galley, “women is strange creatures. Why is it that ’ousekeepers always ’as to be so fussy? That Dab-Dab really is a wonder – when you think of all the jobs she gets done in a day. Only a short time back I was sayin’ to Tommy ’ere: old Dab-Dab’s more pernickety, in some ways, than your sister, Sarah Dolittle, was. Do you remember how upset she got about that crocodile you kept?”

“Ah, yes, indeed!” murmured the Doctor dreamily. “Poor, dear Sarah! I wonder how she’s getting on. – A splendid woman. But she would let the little things of life annoy her…. That crocodile – he came to me from a travelling circus, with a toothache. Then he wanted to stay with me. So I let him…. Sarah said he ate the linoleum. Can you imagine it?”

“Sounds ’orrible to me,” said Cheapside with his mouth full of food. “Linoleum – why, even parrots wouldn’t eat that!”

Polynesia pretended not to hear this last insult, but went on noisily cracking her sunflower-seeds.

“You know,” said the Doctor in the same sort of faraway, remembering voice, “Sarah simply wouldn’t believe me when I told her the poor creature had promised me not to bite anyone – not even the goldfish in my garden-pond. She thought that crocodiles, when they see an arm or a leg, they just have to bite it – even if it is the leg of a table…. As a matter of fact, crocodile … crocodiles …”

The Doctor’s words died away in a murmur. I had been watching him as he spoke. The look on his face had changed; and I knew, before he ended, that he was no longer thinking of what he was saying. Polynesia too stopped eating and watched him. He was now staring down at the table-cloth, his thoughts a thousand miles away.

Suddenly he looked up, all smiles.

“That’s it!” he cried. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Cheapside, you’re a wonder. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Cheapside looked puzzled.

“’Scuse me, Doc,” said the sparrow; “but what might you be talking about?”

“Why, crocodiles, of course!” the Doctor cried. “Here I’ve been badgering my brains for weeks – in fact ever since you brought me the news of that earthquake – for some way I could get Mudface up from under the floor of the lake. And then you spoke of it just now: crocodiles! – Polynesia, would you please find Chee-Chee and bring him down here?”

The parrot fetched the monkey; and when he was seated at the table the Doctor said:

“Now please listen carefully. You two, Chee-Chee and Polynesia, are the best jungle-scouts anyone could ask for. This country is your native land. And often in my travels you have gone ahead of me to find the way, to hunt fruits to keep us fed – and to warn us of dangers. The River Niger is not very far from us here. And on the Niger there lives a crocodile, who was once a pet of mine in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. I brought him back to this country and left him here. He told me he was going on to the Niger, which, he says, is the finest stream for crocodiles in all Africa. Do you think you could find him for me now?”

Solemnly little Chee-Chee nodded. But Polynesia put her head on one side and said,

“Well, I think I’d recognize him – I surely ought to: I was with him enough at your home, Doctor. Let me see: he had a sort of a scar across his back – where the tail joins on. But those messy brutes are always so caked up with mud you couldn’t tell one from the rest, if he was wearing a coat and pants. Besides, remember, Doctor, there’s an awful lot of crocodiles in the Niger River.”

“Oh, please, Polynesia,” said John Dolittle quickly, “do not think I don’t know I am giving you a hard job. I am asking you to search a stream, which is thousands of miles long, for one animal. Of course I hope that you will be helped by asking the other crocodiles where to look for him, on what stretch of the river he was seen last – and so on.”

“Well,” said the parrot, “can’t say I was ever very good at their language – though I can talk it a little. I hate the messy creatures, myself.”

“But Chee-Chee speaks it well,” said the Doctor. “And if you succeed – well, I can’t tell you how important it may be for me – and for natural history as well.”

It was plain the parrot did not like the idea very much. She frowned and scowled a moment before she said:

“And what do you want me to do with him when – and if – we find him,” she asked: “wrap him up in a palm-leaf and fly down here with him?”

“No, listen,” said the Doctor patiently. “This particular crocodile has thousands and thousands of relatives living on the Niger. I want him to bring as many friends with him as he can and to meet me at the Secret Lake. I think he will be willing, on account of my fixing up his tooth-ache long ago. Crocodiles will be the best animals of all to dig down into that mud and gravel and set the turtle free – in fact I believe they’re the only ones who could do it. But we will need a lot of them. Underwater digging is hard work.”

“But will he know the way,” asked Polynesia, “across from the Niger country to the Secret Lake?”

“Perhaps,” said the Doctor. “The landscape has changed somewhat since the earthquake, it’s true. But to be on the safe side, I am going to ask Cheapside to go with you. He has been there only a short while back.”

That of course started another squabbling argument between the parrot and the sparrow. But I knew all along that both of them would end up by doing what the Doctor wanted.

Nor was there any time wasted in their going. That same afternoon we rowed the dinghy over to the mainland and watched them start their journey into the jungle. Of course Chee-Chee’s speed of travel was slower than the birds’; but it was surprisingly fast, just the same. He did not touch the ground at all, but leapt from tree to tree in the dense tangled forest. He reminded me of a squirrel, the way he would run out to the tip of a limb and shoot himself off the end of it, to the next tree, like an arrow.

The parrot and the sparrow always waited for the monkey to catch up to them; so they had plenty of time to argue and quarrel. And even after the jungle had hidden them from our view, we could still hear them calling names at one another, back and forth, within its leafy shade.

“Ah!” said the Doctor as we turned away to go on to the King’s palace. “That’s a great team. I am lucky to have such friends. What would I do without them?”

• • • • •

•   8   •

On the
Little Fantippo River

It was agreed that Cheapside’s wife, Becky, was to travel with us because the Doctor felt we could save time on the long water-trip from Fantippo to the Secret Lake if we had a guide with us who had flown over this same stretch of country since the earthquake had happened. Also, he might wish to use Becky as a messenger between himself and the “advance party,” as he called it – that is, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and Cheapside.

So the little hen-sparrow was with us when we called at the King’s palace – as were Too-Too, Jip and the white mouse. Dab-Dab and Gub-Gub had been left on the ship to wash up the breakfast dishes.

I must say that Koko behaved very well indeed when John Dolittle told him he was in a great hurry to go “up-country” on special business. I could see from the King’s face that he was very disappointed to lose his friend again so soon. The Post Office was not even spoken of at all. And as soon as the Doctor said he would need a good canoe, His Majesty sent for a man he called “Admiral” – so we supposed this was the commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy of Fantippo. All the man wore in the way of uniform was a rag around his middle and a yachting-cap several sizes too small for him.

However, after we had thanked the King for the dinner and told him we would call on him again on our return journey, we left the palace and went back with the Admiral to the harbour.

Here we were shown a great many canoes. Most of them were beautifully carved and painted. At last the Doctor chose one of middling length which would float in very shallow water.

“It can’t be too heavy, Stubbins,” he explained. “I remember places on the way to Junganyika where the river runs over rapids and waterfalls. We have got to be able, once in a while, to lift everything and carry it around, on the banks, to the smooth water farther up. This canoe should do very nicely. Now we’ll want three extra paddles – and we must arrange for a man to take care of the sloop while we’re gone. Then, I think, we’ll be all ready to go.”

We paddled the canoe out to the ship. The Admiral came with us. And when the Doctor had shown him over the Albatross, he was so pleased with her that he told the Doctor he would be glad to live aboard her, himself, while we were away and to take good care of her.

When we had gathered all the stuff together in a pile on the ship’s main-deck it certainly looked like a great deal of baggage; and we began to wonder if, after we should get it into the canoe, we would have any room left for ourselves.

However, in this the Admiral was very useful. I think he was rather proud to be helping these white friends of his King. Laying aside his beautiful yachting-cap (it was so small for him, it was always falling off his head) he set to work and stowed the baggage away for us. When he had finished there was comfortable space for the Doctor and myself to kneel, or sit, where we could paddle properly – as well as room for Gub-Gub, Jip and the others.

It was late afternoon before we had finished getting ready. But the Doctor said he would start today anyway. And so we bade the Admiral goodbye and set out.

The Doctor explained to me that the river we were going to follow was not the big one that flowed out through the reef into the ocean. A smaller stream, called the Little Fantippo River, he said, flowed into the bay on its southern side.

Besides that, the mouth of the Little Fantippo was not easy to find, where it crept out through the heavily wooded coast to join the bay.

However, Becky and Dab-Dab did some scouting ahead. And presently they found it all right and led us into it.

The mouth of the Little Fantippo was peculiar. It was so narrow and grown over, you could pass it by a hundred times without guessing there was a river there at all. But once inside the mouth, we saw there was nothing “little” about the Little Fantippo. A wide lagoon (a sort of lake) spread out before us, hidden from the bay and the ocean – calm and smooth as a mirror. We crossed this, going northward now; and soon I could see we were coming into a regular broad river. And then, little by little, it became narrower again.

It was very interesting to me to watch the jungle-covered banks of this stream draw in closer together as we paddled inland. Presently the shores were near enough for me to catch glimpses of brightly-coloured birds, parrots, macaws and others, flitting from branch to branch. Here and there beautiful orchids hung from the tree-forks. And once in a while the chatter of monkeys reached our ears from the depths of the forest, reminding me of Chee-Chee, of Polynesia, of Cheapside and the errand the Doctor had sent them on.

In those days, not much exploring had been done – beyond a few miles inland from the seashore. The stream ahead of us was now winding and turning much more, as we followed it ever onward, into the dark heart of Africa. I began to wonder what lay behind these walls of green. What was going on in these jungle-hidden lands where no white men had yet come? Truly it was country of mystery and adventure.

Just before the last of the daylight had gone we rounded a bend and came upon a riverside village. A cleared space lay between it and the edge of the stream.

“I think, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “this will be a good place for us to spend the night.”

We drew in to the shore and landed. Then, while we were getting some of our baggage out of the canoe, we saw the Chief himself and other important men of the place coming down to the landing to greet us. It seemed he had recognized our canoe as one coming from Fantippo – whose king he greatly liked. The Chief made quite a speech to the Doctor, bidding him welcome to the village and inviting him to use one of the houses as his home for as long as he wished.

As a matter of fact, all of us were only too glad to sleep ashore for a change. And when we had thanked him, the Chief sent for some porters and our baggage was quickly carried up to one of the larger houses of grass. Here we were invited to dinner, too. But the doctor was afraid of more long speeches and feasts. So he explained (mostly in sign-language) that our whole party was very, very tired from much travelling and work; and that, since we wanted to make an early start tomorrow morning, it would be best for us to prepare our own simple meal and get to bed as soon as possible.

All the villagers were disappointed (as was Gub-Gub, who had looked forward to another grand feed with forty different courses). However, the Chief bade us good-night, saying he would be happy if the Doctor visited him again, on his return journey.

And after we had brewed a cup of tea and eaten a very light supper, John Dolittle and I climbed into our hammocks and pulled our mosquito-nets over us. In a very few moments we were lulled to sleep by the croaking of frogs and that strange and restful chorus of insects, birds, and other creatures which makes African river-nights something to remember.

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Mystery
of the Crocodiles

The next morning we were up early – even a little ahead of the sun; and again it was only a quick meal we took for breakfast. A half-hour later we had repacked the canoe and were back on the water once more, paddling northward.

“In this country, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “it is a good thing to start the day early – before the sun gets high and hot. You can always take a good rest around noon, when the heat is at its worst…. My! This paddling is hard. What a current! That’s the ebb tide – flowing out – and still strong. It will be easier for us once we get above the first rapids.”

After that we didn’t talk much, saving our breath for the work. But about ten o’clock in the morning I asked: “When do you think we’ll hear from the advance party, Doctor?”

“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “My old crocodile friend, Jim, lives on the Niger, you know. And that river is over there, about fifty miles to the east – according to the maps. But it may be much farther; no maps have yet been made which we can trust very exactly.”

“Well, why don’t we go up the Niger River, ourselves, Doctor,” I asked – “instead of bothering with this one?”

“The Niger would not bring us to the Secret Lake,” he said. “There is only one stream flowing out of the lake: and that’s the one we’re following now, the Little Fantippo. Besides, it is more important that I should get to Mudface’s island – or what’s left of it – without losing any time. Our advance party can do the searching work much better than you or I could…. Oh, look! – Up ahead. There’s the first rapids. – And a waterfall just beyond.”

While we had been talking, and I had my head turned sideways to listen to the Doctor in the stern, we had rounded another bend in the stream. Now, in front of us, I saw a straight stretch. Along this the river was so shallow that the stony bottom it raced over could be plainly seen. There were low sand-bars too, here and there. A little farther upstream I saw a white ribbon of a waterfall. The spray rose above it like a thin mist; and faintly the distant roar of the tumbling river reached our ears.

“There should be some crocodiles on those sand-bars,” said the Doctor. – “That’s where they love to bask in the sun. If we see any, maybe they can tell us something of the advance party.”

The sun was indeed well up in the heavens by now and the heat was considerable. Presently I felt the Doctor steering us over towards the east shore.

“Take it easy now, Stubbins,” said he. – “And keep an eye open for sudden shallows – especially for boulders and rocks.”

Paddling in the bow of that canoe, where I was, it was of course easier to watch the depths of the water for stones – and for crocodiles.

We met with no accidents – nor any sight or trace of crocodiles.

“Humph! That’s strange,” the Doctor muttered. “I felt almost certain we would have seen at least a few at such a place as this.”

Then Becky said.

“There were plenty of crocodiles here when Cheapside and I flew over, Doctor. I remember this place well. We came down at the foot of the falls up there, for a drink and a shower-bath in the spray. And I remember Cheapside pointing the creatures out to me. I thought they were logs, they kept so still. But there were simply hundreds of them – all over these sand-bars – then,”

“Well, quite possibly,” said John Dolittle, “they’re still back in the deeper water, waiting for the sun to get hotter or something. See if you can find the landing for a portage-trail over there, Dab-Dab, please. We have to go ashore now and carry everything around the falls.”

Dab-Dab had been over this same journey with the Doctor years ago; and she did not take long now to discover the landing-place he spoke of. But when we nosed the canoe’s bow into the bank where she stood calling to us, it was so tangled and overgrown with thick bushes, I was surprised she had been able to find it at all. Behind these bushes and vines there was a little cleared space. And a trail, running alongside the stream northward, could be seen.

We tied the canoe by her painter-rope to a palm-tree and unloaded the baggage on to the river-bank. Then the Doctor and I each took a load and started up the trail. Jip took one of the smaller packages in his mouth and said he would go ahead of us.

“I’m not afraid of leopards or wild animals, so long as we have you with us, Doctor,” he said. “But these African hunters – some of ’em – have a trick of shooting a poisoned arrow at you first, and asking questions afterwards. Let me go in front – with Too-Too. We’ll likely smell ’em or spot ’em before they see us.”

The upper end of the portage-trail came out on the river-shore above the falls where the water was calm and deep. Here the landing’s clearing was much bigger. You could see that, in spite of the heavy jungle, this trail was in use all the year round. For, although we met no one on it today, the earth of this narrow path through the forest was worn and patted smooth by the bare feet of many native travellers who had carried their loads around the falls.

It took four trips to get all our stuff over the portage. The canoe was sort of tricky to carry. We took it upside down on our shoulders – which made it hard for the Doctor and myself to see where we were going, with our heads inside it. But Jip and the others helped guide us; and we got it safely above the falls at last.

“I think we’ve earned a rest, Stubbins,” said the Doctor. “Let us have a bite to eat and then hang the hammocks between these trees in the clearing here. A couple of hours’ nap, what? – But first of all: a nice cold bath in the stream?”

“That sounds the best of all – to me, Doctor,” I said. “I don’t believe I ever felt so hot.”

In a moment we were undressed and swimming in the river – Jip and Dab-Dab with us. (Gub-Gub decided not to risk the crocodiles.) We kept up-river and near the shore, though; because the Doctor feared the drag of the falls might still be strong enough to pull us over them, even here.

“You know, Stubbins,” said he, “it’s funny about those crocodiles – none of them being around. I can’t make it out, – Ah, this cold water feels grand! Refreshing, eh?”

“Wonderful,” I panted. – “Too bad we can’t swim all the way to the lake, instead of paddling.”

“Yes, quite so,” he said. “I’m satisfied, Stubbins,” the Doctor went on, “that there are no crocodiles near these sand-bars – not now at least. But I confess I am completely puzzled.”

“I wish,” said Dab-Dab, who was paddling close behind the Doctor like a toy steamboat, “that you’d stop talking about crocodiles while I am swimming. You make me feel that one of the brutes is going to come up right underneath me any moment and swallow me, whole.”

The Doctor laughed.

“Never fear, Dab-Dab,” he said. “You’d see him first.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

The Advance Party

As the Doctor had foretold, we found the work of paddling far easier after we had passed the first rapids. Indeed we made very good time, seeing that we were going against the current – and how many waterfalls we had to portage around. At each of these we looked for crocodiles in the shallows and sand-bars that lay below; but as before, we found none. However, at last we did come upon a few tracks which, the Doctor said, were certainly made by crocodiles’ feet.

At one of our midday rests we were looking at a map. It showed the Little Fantippo – and the Niger too, the third largest river in all of Africa. According to this map, the two rivers flowed down from the north, staying pretty much the same distance apart. But at a certain point, about three hundred miles from the sea, the course of the Niger River changed; above that point it was shown flowing from the west. This place was marked on the map as the Great South Bend.

“You see that, Stubbins?” asked the Doctor. – “And then this other point here, where the Little Fantippo comes nearest to the Niger? – I am holding my pencil on it. Do you see it?”

I said I did.

“Well, that will be the short cut,” said he – “the short cut for anyone who wishes to come across from one river to the other. I wish I knew what kind of country lies between the rivers. But of course this doesn’t show that.”

“You mean that is where our advance party will come over from the Niger into this stream we’re travelling on?” I asked.

“I wasn’t thinking of that so much,” he said. “Birds and monkeys can travel through almost any kind of country: it makes little difference to them. It was something else I had in mind. Anyway, we ought to be almost there by now – I mean, at that point nearest the Great South Bend. Let’s see: today is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

He took an old envelope out of his pocket and made a calculation in pencil on it.

“I should say we have been doing thirty miles a day,” he muttered…. “Er – that will come to,er—”for a moment I could not hear his words as he mumbled a little arithmetic.

“Why, yes,” he said at last, in a puzzled kind of way, “we should have reached the short cut yesterday – that is, of course, unless the distances on this map are utterly crazy…. Too-Too, just check over my calculation here, will you please? I may have made a mistake. Stubbins, will you glance through it too?”

I took the envelope from the Doctor; and Too-Too, the mathematical wizard, looked over my shoulder as I ran through the Doctor’s reckoning. I was only half-way through the multiplication, when the owl snapped out: “Right, Doctor – correct.”

“Humph!” said John Dolittle thoughtfully. “Well, I wonder why we haven’t seen it yet.”

“But what would there be to see, Doctor?” I asked. “The Great Bend itself is over on the other river, the Niger, isn’t it?”

“Quite so,” said he. “But there would certainly be a path, across from one river to the other, at the shortest distance between them. Such a path is also called a portage-trail – like the short ones round the waterfalls. The trail to the Great South Bend has probably been used for hundreds of years by native traders, bringing their stuff down to the coast from up-country…. This is queer!… I wonder could we have paddled past it without noticing it. The jungle is still awfully thick on the banks. – Where is Becky?”

“She’s just down below, at the third rapids, Doctor,” said Too-Too. “I’ll go and fetch her for you.”

But when the little hen-sparrow was brought, she said that she and Cheapside had flown over this stretch of the river at a great height. And so it would have been impossible for them to see small things on the river-bank – even a trail through the jungle. They were trying then, she told us, to spy out the Secret Lake itself.

“But listen, Doctor,” Becky added: “why not let me and Dab-Dab fly ahead, scouting for you, while you take your midday rest? If the Great Bend trail is even another day’s paddle farther on, we can come back and let you know before you’ve got the canoe repacked. There’s no wind against us.”

So the Doctor let Becky and the duck go forward while we strung up our hammocks to the trees to take a rest. As we climbed into them the Doctor said:

“Dear me! What would I do without them? – I mean Becky and Dab-Dab. But you know, Stubbins, having a guide with you is sometimes not altogether a good thing.”

“Well,” I said, “you’ve done so much exploring in outlandish countries it is not surprising to me that you can’t remember every river and trail you’ve been over.”

“Ah, but I should,” said he. “That’s one of the most important things any good explorer must do: take note of everything he passes, so he’ll be able to find his way back. But the trouble was that I had too good a guide on that first trip.”

“What do you mean, Doctor?” I asked.

“The Great Water Snake,” said he.

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “I remember now: Cheapside told me about him.”

“He was perfectly marvellous,” said John Dolittle.

“Yes,” said Jip. “Do you remember the way he used to get our canoe off the mud-banks, when we got stuck, Doctor? – Take a turn around the bow-post with his tail and yank us into deep water, as though we weighed no more than a feather.”

The Doctor nodded, smiling to the old dog, and then went on:

“So of course, Stubbins, seeing the snake knew the streams and the swamps hereabouts so well, I’m afraid I didn’t bother noticing the way he was taking us. There was such a lot of other things I was looking out for – birds, animals, trees and so on. Very interesting country – never been explored. That’s why the animals call it the Secret Lake. They claim that its water is the actual water of the Flood – which never dried up from its swamps. You may have noticed that the map does not show the Little Fantippo River as flowing out of it at all. According to the map, that river begins only about a hundred miles this side of the lake – which is surrounded by wide swamplands. Mud, mud, mud – miles and miles of it – with shallow water in pools: and narrow streams running all through it; and the mangroves, ten feet high, sprouting and sprawling out of every square yard. Lake Junganyika, Mudface the turtle calls it. Strangest country I’ve ever seen, I don’t wonder that it’s stayed a secret lake. Why, when I was once on the shores of the Black Sea, the—”

Never before do I remember falling asleep while the Doctor was telling me of his travels; but I confess I did that day. We had been paddling hard all morning; and we had made an extra early start; so, maybe, I was particularly tired. Anyway I heard no more of what he was saying. Without any break at all his deep restful voice changed right into a dream.

I was in a sea of mud somewhere, after travelling on foot, by coach, sailing ship and canoe for months – through oceans of more mud. I was lying on my back, all tangled up with jungle vines – and a big snake was trying to yank me free by the neck. Then immediately a tremendous crocodile appeared from nowhere, grabbed hold of my boots and started to pull me the other way. At that, Cheapside popped up onto a tree-limb above me and started to laugh his silly head off.

When I opened my eyes the Doctor was standing over my hammock gently shaking me by the shoulder; and my sleepy ears heard him say:

“Stubbins, please wake up! Becky’s back. Listen: Becky’s back. And Cheapside’s with her – and all the advance party too. Wake up, Stubbins! They’ve brought great news!”

• • • • •

•   11   •

The Trail to
the Great South Bend

When at last I shook myself free of the dream and sat up, everybody was gathered around me – and all of them talking at once. Besides the Doctor, there were Polynesia, Chee-Chee, Jip, Cheapside, Becky, Dab-Dab, Gub-Gub, Too-Too and the white mouse. After a moment I got myself really awake.

The Doctor and I went down to the water’s edge to freshen up in the cool river; but John Dolittle also wished to get me alone so we could talk in peace.

“Stubbins,” said he, as we knelt down upon a flat rock and began scooping up the water, “our luck is holding. Polynesia tells me everything went wonderfully well. In almost the first lot of crocodiles they met, over on the Niger, there was one who knew all about me. – Had known my old pet, Jim, from the circus – was a sort of relative of his. What do you think of that – speaking of luck?”

“Oh, well,” I sputtered through the water I was throwing over my face, “nothing very extraordinary, Doctor. The birds and the monkeys know you – throughout the whole of Africa.”

“Well, but Stubbins,” said he, “these are reptiles. It’s different. Imagine it: just because I cured a simple tooth-ache for that poor beast, years afterwards I come here and find I have friends – and cold-blooded, amphibian friends at that – in an African swamp! Positively astonishing! – What makes this water so muddy here?”

“I was wondering about that too,” I said.

At the place where we were kneeling there was a sort of natural basin for washing. No mud lay anywhere near; and the clean rock bottom of the river could be plainly seen when we had first come to it. But now, as we both stared down into the water, we saw it had grown muddy. – Then it cleared again; and a moment later it was muddy once more.

“How very strange!” the Doctor murmured. “Well, let’s get the canoe packed, Stubbins, and be on our way. Becky says the trail to the Great South Bend is only about ten miles farther up the river; so we should be able to get there before nightfall.”

There was now a feeling of excitement among all of us, as the hammocks were taken down and stowed in the canoe. Yet, after the first greeting, there was little talk – very little, seeing that we had now been joined by our advance party.

I remember that this struck me as a bit curious at the time. After all, these three, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and Cheapside, had travelled many hundreds of miles since we last saw them; and anyone would suppose they would have a lot to chat over. I noticed a rather strange look in Cheapside’s eyes: as though he were trying a little too hard to make us think that a trip like that was nothing out of the ordinary for him. The thought went through my mind that perhaps he and Polynesia, in spite of all their arguments and squabbles, had agreed together to keep something a secret from us – a surprise.

However, I was too busy loading the canoe to attend to anything else just now.

We found the flow of the river much stronger in this stretch than it had been anywhere throughout the whole trip. One of the few times that the Doctor spoke, he told me the extra-hard current we were fighting was caused by the river being narrower and shallower here. This was one of the stretches where the trees formed a solid roof over us.

Both the Doctor and I, without knowing it, had caught some fever of hurry and were paddling harder than we had ever done in our lives. All the animals were silent – even Gub-Gub and the white mouse. In the green tunnel of that jungled-shaded river no sound broke the silence but the regular plash plash of our paddles.

I was sure now that, for all our hard work, we were not making as good a speed against this swift current as we had done most days. But, just the same, I also had a strange feeling (it sent a sort of tingle up my spine) that something very important was going to happen – and soon.

I think it was about four in the afternoon when we came around a wide curve and headed up a long straight stretch. Here the banks lay back on either side and let the full sunlight in upon our heads once more. And it went on like that all the way up the straight stretch, which must have been over a mile in length. At the far end of it some sort of commotion seemed to be going on, a tremendous splashing – whose low white line, like a bar across the river, could be plainly seen from where we were. Yet even I could tell that this was not made by any waterfall or rapids.

From the sudden easing of the canoe’s speed, I knew that the Doctor behind me had stopped paddling. I rested too.

“What in the name of goodness is that?” John Dolittle gasped.

And then old Polynesia’s grating voice answered:

“Crocodiles, Doctor – just crocodiles.”

She said it in a quiet, off-handish sort of way, as though telling us she thought it might rain.

“But – but,” the Doctor stammered – “how many!”

“Ha!” giggled Cheapside with a cheeky chirp. – “’Ow many, Doc? Well, I don’t reckon old Too-Too, the mathematooter, could count them for yer, John Dolittle. Up there is where the land trail comes across from the Niger River’s Great South Bend. And when we left it, I calculated – by dead reckonin’ and pigonometry – that the crocs was pouring across into the Little Fantippy here at the rate of two million an hour – this is, o’ course, roughly speakin’ – in round numbers.”

A second passed without anyone moving or talking. Our canoe lay perfectly still. The eyes of all of us were fixed on that strange white line across the river a mile ahead of us. Then, when the breeze changed a moment and blew into our faces, the distant sound of a mighty, hissing roar come down to us.

“Great heavens!” the Doctor murmured at last. “No wonder the water was muddy above the last falls!”

Then suddenly he shouted like a school-boy in a football match:

“Let’s get on! Run her up!”

Our paddles dug into the river together; and the canoe almost left the water as it leapt forward, heading for the South Bend trail.

• • • • •

•   12   •

General Jim

We were nearly there when we saw one large crocodile swimming all alone towards us.

“Here comes your old circus friend to welcome you, Doc,” cried Cheapside. “Good old Jim!”

It was a great and important meeting; and when Jim came alongside our canoe many questions were asked and answered. Myself, I could only understand, so far, a few words of the language.

Once or twice the Doctor explained to me what was being said. But, as he was in great haste, he asked old Jim to turn around and swim beside our canoe as we went on upstream.

In the books of the life of Doctor Dolittle there are a few places where I have written of certain happenings which I shall never be able to forget: scenes that are pictured so lastingly in my memory that today, years afterwards, I can see them all over again, exactly as they took place. And this, as we paddled up close to the trail-landing of the Great South Bend, was one of those pictures that was to stay in my memory for life, clear and unforgettable.

The right bank of the river rose here to quite a height. And down this slope the crocodiles from the Niger were pouring – in a solid procession – into the Little Fantippo River. The jungle, whose heavy tangle covered all the land on either bank, had here been torn up and cleaned off by millions of clawed feet, making a wide, crowded road.

You could barely see the ground they walked on – only the creatures’ backs, as close together as stitches in a carpet. But once in a while a free spot in the parade would open up; and then you saw that the earth had been trodden as smooth as a pavement.

As they reached the water’s edge, this great army did not stop or hesitate a moment. They flopped into the river a hundred abreast, and headed upstream. The water all around looked as though it were boiling. I wondered how none of them got hurt, with those heavy tails slapping right and left.

Old Jim now left us and swam out to a low flat rock in mid-stream. Onto this he crawled and began directing the traffic – exactly like a policeman at a busy street-crossing. The noise of all that splashing made it hard to hear anything. We had stopped paddling; and the canoe rose and fell gently where the Doctor halted it, a hundred yards or so downstream from the trail-landing.

But as I chanced to look back a moment, I saw him signal to Cheapside. And the sparrow flew onto his shoulder where he could speak right into the Doctor’s ear. Then I saw John Dolittle get out a piece of paper and a pencil. I guessed what calculation he was making this time. Cheapside would be telling how many days ago this living flood had begun flowing over the trail. I saw him take his watch from his pocket and hold it in his hand while he kept an eye on the crocodiles who, row after row, came down to the edge and splashed into the water. He was trying to reckon how many of the creatures had already passed up the Little Fantippo on their way to the Secret Lake.

I glanced up the river, myself, and I saw that this too seemed to have changed into a solid mass of reptiles. Dry-shod you could have walked from bank to bank. After about another half-hour John Dolittle sent Polynesia over to the rock in mid-stream with some message for old Jim.

And it was now that a strange thing happened. Jim began swinging his tail wildly from side to side. Clearly the Doctor’s message was: “Enough!” For very soon I could see the swarm of beasts pouring over the trail begin to thin out – to grow less crowded. I suppose Jim’s message was sent back from mouth to mouth all the way to the Niger River.

Anyway it was almost twilight when it stopped altogether. In the sudden quiet I realized that it was now possible again for us to talk. For General Jim had commanded his army to halt.

But It was Cheapside’s cheeky voice which first broke that silence.

“You know, Doc,” he chirped, “I’m beginnin’ to understand your sister Sarah’s notions about them crocs. You can’t call ’em ’ouse-pets – really you can’t. Just look what they’ve gone and done to that there poor jungle! – Made it look like a race-track after a ten-day rain. It’s a good thing for you that old Jim didn’t ’ave to bring ’is friends through your garden to get ’em to the Secret Lake.”

“Yes, indeed!” murmured Gub-Gub in a hushed, scared sort of voice. “What would they have done to my tomato plants?”

“Yes – and to you too, Mr. Bacon,” said Cheapside, “if they took a fancy for a little fresh ham while Jim and the Doctor was lookin’ the other way.”

As the light was now fading fast the Doctor was anxious to pitch camp. A place was found, this time on the left bank. As soon as we had the hammocks set up and a nice fire burning, the Doctor had a talk with Jim. This time either John Dolittle or Chee-Chee translated everything for me.

I had been anxious to get a good, close-up look at this famous reptile who had, quite unintentionally, so upset the Doctor’s household years ago on account of Sarah, the Doctor’s sister. Well, it may be hard for you to imagine a crocodile looking friendly and quite un-dangerous, but this one did.

We gathered around the fire on which our supper was being cooked. The Doctor’s own animals all knew Jim of course already; and none was in the least afraid of him. Not even the white mouse was scared – indeed, he kept running up and down the great beast’s knobbly back, from nose to tail. Whitey’s only worry was that he might miss something that was being said. And he never seemed to be certain whether it was Jim’s head or Jim’s tail that was doing the talking.

Meanwhile, our visitor, for his part, seemed to be greatly enjoying the attention he received at this meeting with his old friend the Doctor – answering his questions, and suggesting ideas as to how the work of setting Mudface free could best be carried out. Just the same, I could not help thinking that if any of the good people of Puddleby were to come upon us now and see John Dolittle, M.D., sitting over a fire in the African jungle and talking to a crocodile, his reputation as a crazy man would surely be more firmly fixed on him than ever.

Jim told the Doctor that he had already been up to the Secret Lake, himself, as soon as Polynesia had told him what the Doctor wanted. He had taken two of his brothers with him. They had gone all around the turtle’s island to make sure where to start the underwater digging. He had left his two brothers up there to wait for the coming of a good big herd of crocodiles. These would set to work, under the brothers’ leadership, as soon as they arrived.

“I am very hopeful, Doctor,” said he, “from what we saw of the lake bottom at the north end of the island, that we shall be able to dig your friend Mudface out all right. – Only it may take us a couple of days, possibly longer.”

“I am happy indeed to hear that,” the Doctor answered. “And I find it difficult to thank you enough – not only you, but all the others who came this distance to help.”

“Oh, we were only too glad to do it,” said Jim.

“You certainly brought an awful big crowd across from the Niger,” said the Doctor, smiling.

“You know, Doctor,” said Jim, “when you brought me back here to my homeland years ago, the story of how you had cured my tooth-ache and got me away from that wretched circus, soon spread up and down the Niger – even as far as Timbuktu. Your monkey here, Chee-Chee, told me that the same thing happened when you stamped out that sickness which was killing off his people. You don’t realize, John Dolittle, how widely known you are among the wild animals of the world.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “with birds and monkeys, that’s something else. They travel more freely – and news, I suppose, travels with them.”

Old Jim shook the mouse – who was tickling him – off his nose (much to Whitey’s astonishment) and then he said:

“You’d be surprised, Doctor, how fast we can pass messages along a river – under water. It was only half a day after I sent out word that you needed our help that they began arriving. And an hour later the Great South Bend was packed so solid with crocodiles the open water of the Niger River had disappeared. Handling the traffic back there was a job, I can tell you – even when I got six big cousins of mine to help me. The overland trail was rubbed right out in no time. But your advance party went ahead of us – they could travel on land much faster than we of course – and so the mob kept going in the right direction. But the crush was something awful, just the same.”

“My goodness!” said the Doctor. “I had no idea you could collect so many crocodiles in so short a time.”

“The main reason for that, Doctor,” said Jim, “was because every single one of them was just crazy to see you.”

“Humph!” said John Dolittle thoughtfully. “That is really a great compliment.”

“I’m afraid the others must have been terribly disappointed, Doctor,” Jim said – “I mean those I had to send back to the Niger, when you told me that enough had gone up to the lake.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Doctor – “very sorry that so many took the long journey for nothing.”

“Oh, well,” said Jim, “it was a change for them anyway. Life on the Niger River gets a bit dull sometimes.”

“How far,” asked the Doctor, “do you calculate we are from the Secret Lake here?”

“Not a great distance,” said the crocodile. “The edge of the swamps that surround it are just around the second bend. I think we should easily reach Mudface’s island tomorrow afternoon.”

By this time our supper had been prepared and eaten. And so, with the comforting picture of our journey’s end at last so near, we turned in and went to sleep.

• • • • •

•   13   •

The Last Lap

Next day the Doctor put on another of those bursts of speed of which I have spoken before. As we passed by the trail-landing this morning it looked very different from what it had yesterday. There was not a single crocodile in sight – except old Jim, who, swimming a few yards ahead of us, acted as guide. The great wide avenue on the right bank, over which the thousands had come swarming down last evening, was now empty and deserted. It looked strange indeed, in the bright light of morning, clear and clean, cutting through the green jungle, up the low hill, till it disappeared from sight. I wondered how many ridges and valleys it climbed up and down before it joined the Niger so many miles away.

And now, following Jim’s lead, we did not have to be watching out for those dangerous rocks and shallows. We could give all our attention to steady powerful paddling. And I knew, by the way the banks slipped by us, that we were making a far better pace than we had done before.

As our guide had told us last night, we saw, at the end of the second curve in the stream, that we were entering on the wide swamplands which surrounded Lake Junganyika. This was country such as I had never seen before. I could guess how easy it would be for a traveller to get lost here.

Gradually the Little Fantippo seemed to disappear as an easy-to-follow waterway. And soon we found ourselves in a flat, flat world stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Most of it was water. What patches of land were here never stood up more than a foot or two above the muddy slush. – They were nowhere larger than a barnyard and often as small as a footstool.

There seemed to be very little animal life: a few wading birds were all we saw.

As for the water, wherever you looked it lay in pools and ponds of every size and shape, joined together by a network of narrow channels and creeks. These did not seem to be coming from, or going to, anywhere – in fact, it was hard to believe they flowed at all, so still was the water. Once in a while we would reach a spot where we could see down these unmoving streams for a fair distance. But to get a longer view in this deserted swampland did not cheer you up at all: instead, it made you wonder how far the useless country went on – or if this was (as some had said) the end of the world.

But old Jim was certainly not bothered by any such notions. This puzzle of brooks and ditches never stopped our guide for a moment. He would shoot across one of these pools and disappear into a tangle of mangroves. We would follow as fast as possible. And behind a clump of bushes on the farther shore we would always find him waiting for us with a new way to get through.

Today we did not take our regular sleep at noon. We just halted by a clump of mangroves and ate our luncheon which we had made and packed at breakfast-time. When we had finished, the Doctor asked me if I was tired by the paddling. I said, no: and on we went again.

Presently I saw that the surface of the water was no longer quite smooth. Waves, very tiny but very wide, were washing towards us. With these wavelets came a breath of gentle wind which sometimes carried a thin mist. Soon the waves grew a little bigger, rocking the canoe; while the fog kept parting. One moment you saw quite a distance ahead; and the next, little indeed could be seen – even near by.

I looked over my shoulder at the Doctor. He smiled, nodding, as though he knew the question in my mind; then he pointed ahead.

Peering forward once more, I found the fog now billowing over us so thick I could see absolutely nothing at all. The next moment, magic-like, the soft wind swept it away.

But before it had time to shut down again I knew we were in the Secret Lake at last!

I have already spoken of some stretches on the Little Fantippo where that stream had flooded out so that you could not see across them. But this was different. I am sure anyone, waking up to look on this for the first time, would have sworn he was at sea.

In every direction the water stretched out to meet the dim straight line of bleak grey sky. I had the feeling now so strongly of being on a body of water which had no shores at all, that I got uneasy about our heavy-laden canoe if a storm should come up.

The clear spell lasted only a moment. But, as my eye swept around the empty circle in front of us, it stopped at one point. Almost dead ahead of us there seemed to be something sticking up above the water. I couldn’t be sure. It was very far away. Perhaps it was only an odd-shaped cloud touching the lake there…. And then, down came more fog, blotting everything out.

But the Doctor’s eyes had been as sharp as mine. “Did you see that, Stubbins?” he cried.

“I thought I saw something,” I called back. “It was away off on the horizon – right as we are headed now.”

“Well, that’s it!” he shouted happily. “That was Mudface’s island. Take it easy now. Don’t tire yourself out. We’ve had a long pull. But this is the last lap, Stubbins – the last lap!”

• • • • •

•   14   •

The City of Mystery

As John Dolittle and I settled down to an even, steady paddle-stroke to finish this open run across the lake, all the animals began to cheer up and talk. (They had barely said a word that day, so far.)

“Ah, well,” sighed Gub-Gub comfortably, “it’s a long road that has no turnip – as the saying goes.”

“You’ve got that wrong,” grunted Jip. “It’s a long road that has no turning.”

“Yes, of course,” said Gub-Gub. “But I changed it. After all, it’s far more important that a road should have a turnip in it than a turning.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse. “Gubby always carried a turnip with him on his travels – in case of sickness, you know.”

“Good Lord!” groaned Jip. “I might have known. – Golly but this fog is wet!”

“Yes,” said Cheapside who sat with hunched-up wings on the gunwale of the canoe, “a very pretty climate! Grey sky, grey water, grey fog, grey mud, grey parrots, grey everything. Kind of colourful, ain’t it? This is merry old Africa, me hearties. I’m just tellin’ yer, for fear yer might think we’d lost our way and wandered into a public steambath.”

“Huh!” squawked Polynesia. “And I suppose you’re going to say you don’t have any fog in London! Last time the Doctor and I were there the street-lamps were lit, night and day, for a whole week. – And at that, we did nothing but bump into people if we dared go outside the house. It isn’t like this all over Africa, you ninny! This is flat swamp country; but, just the same, it is very, very high here. – So high, you practically have your head in the clouds.”

“Lumme!” muttered Cheapside, as a drop of water fell from the tip of his beak. “‘Your ’ead in the clouds!’ says you. – ’Ow you do run on, old sweet’eart! Seems to me more like I got my ’ead stuck in a drain-pipe. Listen: London, at its worstest, never ’ad a climate as wet, as ’ot, or as gummy as this. Go stick your ’ead back in the clouds, old Polly-sponge: you’re welcome to it. Gimme London any day.”

“An awful city,” said Polynesia closing her eyes in painful memory – “just awful! Never in my life was I so glad to get away from a place.”

“Not ’alf as glad as what the Londoners was to see you go, I’ll bet,” Cheapside muttered.

As for me, I hardly heard what they were saying. My attention was given to trying to see ahead through the mist. Africa, the Dark Continent, as it is called, was never more mysterious than it was here. Behind that fog you could imagine anything rising up on the horizon. You felt like an explorer crossing a sea which had never been travelled before – and that, as you went forward, even enchanted countries might appear. But the curtain of mist had not lifted again, after it had given us that one glimpse of the turtle’s island.

It was almost a rule with the Doctor not to chatter while we were paddling – to save breath and strength for the work. So I was surprised to hear him join the general talk.

“You remember, Cheapside,” said he, “that Mudface told us something about an old, old city lying beneath this lake?”

“Oh, yes, Doc,” said Cheapside, “the most wonderful city ever built – accordin’ to ’im: palaces, race-tracks, zoos and everything – belongin’ to a big king. But, you know, I never believed ’is story meself. Who would ever pick a place with a climate like this ’ere to build a city?”

“Ah, but don’t forget,” said the Doctor, “the climate here may have been quite different when the city was built, from what it is now. In fact, many people believe that the Deluge, the Flood, was caused by the North and the South Poles shifting their positions. That would change climates all over the world.”

Cheapside shook the wet out of his feathers before he answered.

“Well,” said he, “this neck-o’-the-woods sure got a dirty deal.”

We had now been travelling on for quite a while, unable to see much – but chatting, to make up for it, of this and that. How old Jim, our guide, was keeping the right direction we had no idea.

And then suddenly (the Doctor told me afterwards it was about three o’clock in the afternoon) the fog lifted and the sun actually shone! We could hardly believe our eyes. The steamy lake was clear in every direction. The high hump of Mudface’s island was now much clearer to us, though I reckoned we were still a good five miles from it. It was wonderful how cheered up I found myself, just by the sun’s coming out and warming my back.

I could feel the canoe was moving faster now; and I guessed that our complete change of weather had done the same to John Dolittle as it had to me – that he was working harder on that long stern-paddle of his. And then, just as suddenly, our speed slacked off and I knew that his powerful strokes had stopped altogether. His voice sounded hushed almost to a whisper when he spoke; but I heard what he said quite plainly in that wide silent desolation of water.

“Look, Stubbins, over to starboard!”

At the Doctor’s words, I shipped paddle, turning my head quickly to the right.

What I saw did not stand high out of the lake; but there could be no mistaking what it was. It was a row of buildings! Perhaps it would be better to say it was what was left – the ruins – of a row of buildings. It was only a short distance from us – a hundred yards, I’d judge. And as our canoe, which was still moving forward, ran silently and slowly by it, you had the feeling you were passing the waterfront, the shops and houses, of some riverside harbour.

The buildings were all of stone or brickwork. Their fronts were lined up, as though they bordered, or faced, upon a street. Yet they were not all alike by any means, either in size or style. There was no land to be seen on which they stood. They rose straight out of the lake like ghosts of the past. The wet of the fog, which had wrapped them from our sight, still glistened on their walls where the sunlight fell; and this added to their ghostly appearance. It was easy to imagine that some magician had waved a wand, only a moment before, and made this city rise out of the depths of the lake.

Some of the lower houses showed only their roofs; others, with no roof at all on them, showed a storey and a half – and the level of the water lapped gently in and out of the second-floor windows. Here and there, behind the front line, we could see pillars and pieces of wall belonging to a second row of houses.

“My goodness!” said Whitey softly. “Why, it’s a town! – What’s it doing here?”

Indeed, that seemed a fair enough question to ask at the time. To find ourselves, in the middle of the Secret Lake, where mankind never came, suddenly facing a row of buildings – as though we were on a London street – was something hard to explain.

“Cheapside,” said the Doctor, “did you see these houses when you were here a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, Doc,” said the sparrow. “Though when you was here last there was nothing of the kind to be seen. – Sort of a dismal sight, ain’t they? Becky and me didn’t pay much attention to ’em, being anxious to get news to you of your friend Mudface. And so we forgot to speak of ’em. – Dear, dear! In a shockin’ state of repair: just look at them cracks runnin’ down the walls!”

“That’s not surprising, Cheapside,” the Doctor murmured, “when you think how long ago those stones were set together and carved – before the Flood, before Noah launched his Ark!… My goodness! If, instead of becoming a naturalist, I had gone in for archaeology, what a find this would be!”

“What’s archaeology, Doctor?” asked Gub-Gub.

“Oh – er – archaeology?” said John Dolittle. – “Well, an archaeologist is a man who studies from ruins – such as these we see now.”

“Huh!” grunted Cheapside. “Archaeologist or naturalist? – I’d call you a bit of both, Doc; a sort of a Noah’s-arkeeologist. ’Ad you a notion to go over and take a look around them ruins?”

“No, no, not now,” said the Doctor quickly – “although I’d like to. Maybe later, Cheapside. We must get on and see about Mudface. – Ah, there’s another crocodile, see, talking to Jim. Perhaps he has brought some news.”

It turned out that this newcomer was one of Jim’s brothers. He had been left at the island to take charge of the digging till John Dolittle himself should arrive. The brother and Jim now swam down to the stern of the canoe to give the Doctor a report.

• • • • •

•   15   •

At the Turtle’s Island

Polynesia guessed the Doctor would try, without losing any time, to get down under water and take a look at the old turtle. So she volunteered to go up to the island ahead of us all and find out what she could.

In about twenty minutes she was back. She had asked all the crocodiles to quit working till the Doctor should arrive; to leave the water and scramble out onto the land. This she had done, the parrot explained, so that the mud stirred up by the diggers would settle and leave the water clear.

John Dolittle was glad; but he wanted to hurry more than ever now. Until the island at last came in sight, I had had no idea how large it was. And it was hard to believe that birds alone had (at the Doctor’s orders, years ago) built this great body of land, stone by stone.

Now, as we stopped in the shadow of it – our long journey ended at last – I gazed at it with great curiosity and respect. Here John Dolittle had, through his friendship with the Animal Kingdom, actually changed geography in a small way.

Jip had told me that none of the great things he had done (except, perhaps, setting up his Post Office and the Swallow Mail) had made him so popular with the creatures of all the world. This island was a monument to the Doctor’s memory, Jip said, such as no kings had ever left behind them. It had taken an earthquake to disturb it; still it remained a work that men must wonder at!

As I stared up, kneeling in the canoe, at the steeply sloping sides of the island, I could well understand that what the old dog had told me was true. All animal life was important to the Doctor; but Mudface, who had known Noah, who had come through the Flood and still lived, he was different. When John Dolittle found him dying in the swamps of Lake Junganyika, he had made up his mind that the old turtle should have the finest home possible, on high ground.

From where I knelt I could not see the flat top of the island. Many trees had grown to a great height. Midway up the slopes, flowers bloomed in a few open places. But mostly (except upon the side where the land had broken off) the whole island was draped up to the top with heavy jungle such as we had seen on the river-shores nearer the coast.

And everywhere I looked I saw the little beady eyes of the Crocodiles, who had now all crawled ashore and were resting in the undergrowth. The water was very still and clear and calm.

A sudden splash made me turn my head. The Doctor had taken off his clothes and dived overboard. For a moment I thought he was going to swim down right away to the turtle. I had no idea how deep he would have to go; and I admit I was afraid for his safety. But in a moment he bobbed up again, with his head quite close to my paddle-blade.

“Stubbins,” he said, “you’ll find a short coil of rope – underneath the grub-box, I think. Get it out and tie it in a loop for me, will you? Jim’s brother is going to tow me down to Mudface. It’s deep where he is – but getting towed will save my strength for looking around after I reach him.”

In a moment I got the rope out and tied it the way he said. By that time the Doctor’s crocodile-guide was beside him in the water. He opened his great jaws and took the loop in his mouth like a horse’s bit and reins. John Dolittle grabbed the free end. Then his tow-horse plunged downward under water. I could see the Doctor’s white skin go glimmering deeper and deeper, dimmer and dimmer, as it was hauled into the lower depths of the lake. Then it disappeared altogether.

I called at once to Too-Too to get the Doctor’s watch out of his waistcoat and bring it to me. John Dolittle, I knew was a sturdy swimmer; but I also knew that the length of time the best swimmer can stay under water has to be measured in minutes and seconds. I was taking no chances. As the little owl gave me the watch I noted the exact time, jotting it on a package near by.

“Huh!” grunted Cheapside. “Just like the good old Doc, that. ’E no sooner harrives on the spot, after a trip of three or four thousand miles, then ’e jumps out of ’is clothes, jumps out of ’is canoe, jumps on an alligator and continues ’is journey on ’orseback under water, as you might say. ’E don’t waste no time. There ain’t many doctors would do that for their patients – specially if they knew they wasn’t goin’ to get paid nothing for the visit.”

But I was too anxious, to listen to the sparrow’s chatter. My eyes were on the second hand of the watch. I had now asked Polynesia to have Jim stay close to the canoe; for I intended, as soon as a minute and a half had gone by, to send him down after the Doctor…. One minute and ten seconds – the tiny hand went jumping round the dial... One minute and twenty seconds … One minute and twenty-five seconds – my right arm rose straight up to give Jim the signal I had arranged. – And then suddenly there was a swirl in the water at the canoe’s other end. The Doctor’s head appeared. He was gasping for breath. He still had hold of the towing-rope. But now there were three or four crocodiles around him who seemed to be bearing him up. However, I could tell at once that he was all right, even if badly exhausted.

Polynesia called to me to come forward and make the rope fast, so that if the Doctor went unconscious he could not slip back under water. Then the crocodile nosed the canoe across to the shore of the island. This took only a few minutes. And soon we had the canoe alongside a gravel landing where we could unload. I spread a tarpaulin and got John Dolittle to lie down and rest; meanwhile Chee-Chee slung up a hammock; and Jip scurried around and collected wood for a fire.

Presently (looking like a red Indian chief in the blanket which I had got out of the baggage for him), John Dolittle crouched over a cheerful blaze. Polynesia, Cheapside and I waited close to him till he should have breath enough to speak.

At last, with a deep sigh, he straightened his shoulders, then turned and looked at me, smiling,

“By George, Stubbins!” said he in a low voice. “Kind of – kind of out of training – for that sort of thing…. My goodness, I’m winded!”

“It’s not surprising, Doctor,” I answered. “You gave me a real scare. One minute and thirty-one seconds.”

“Hah, good old Stubbins!” he puffed. “So you kept track of me with the watch, eh? What would I do without you?”

“How did you find things, Doctor? Is the turtle still alive?”

“I’m pretty sure he is,” said John Dolittle. “It’s hard to tell, though. We can’t wake him up. He’s fast asleep.”

“Asleep!” I cried. “I don’t understand.”

“Conditions,” said the Doctor. – “Just hibernation conditions. The earthquake which buried Mudface came at the exact month of the year which is the regular time for turtles to start their hibernation – their winter sleep.”

“But, Doctor,” I said, “do you mean he never even knew he was in any danger at all?”

“Well, Stubbins, perhaps no danger of getting killed or seriously injured, no. They are naturally a very calm race, turtles. He has buried himself before, of course, every year. But not so deep. Goodness knows how he would have got out, after his hibernation was over – if Cheapside and Becky had not come to Africa.”

There was a moment’s silence. It was broken by Cheapside who had been listening thoughtfully.

“Asleep, is ’e? Well, swap me pink, Doc! After we makes a record trip to rescue ’im, we finds the old boy takin’ ’is after-dinner nap! – Criminy! That’s what I’ll do next time Becky starts one of ’er lectures on the duties of a good father. ‘Hush, my dear!’ I’ll say. ‘I feels my ’iberation comin’ on.’” (Cheapside closed his eyes, sighing noisily.) “‘Sh! Can’t you see I’m gettin’ drowsy?’ Bye, bye! You may call me in April – if the weather’s good.’”

• • • • •

•   16   •

The Voice of Thunder

The Doctor told Jim he feared that, even if Mudface was awake – and trying to help lift himself – it would still be unlikely that he could be freed from the grip of that terrible mud-suction. Only after the turtle was able to use his legs to swim with, the Doctor added, would it be possible to get him to the top.

The three crocodiles had already gathered together all the other leaders and heads of families to listen to the Doctor’s instructions. And a strange-looking council of war they made, crowding around Big Chief Dolittle (still wrapped in his red blanket).

“Listen, Jim,” said the Doctor: “now that you have cleared the gravel off the top of the turtle, why not set a big gang to work prying under – his lower shell – at one point only? I mean, don’t let the crocodiles waste their strength working all around him at once. He’s much too heavy to lift that way – tons and tons.”

“I understand, Doctor,” said Jim. “You want us to let the water leak in under him at one place to break the mud-suction?”

“That’s it exactly,” cried the Doctor. “But for pity’s sake be careful you don’t crack his shell. You had better pry him up by the shoulder – a turtle’s lower shell is thicker there.”

“All right,” said Jim. “But in digging down to him, we had to make a deep hole in the floor of the lake. Now it’s the same as if he were lying at the bottom of a basin – very little room for us. So I was just thinking that while I have one gang prying him up close to his head, I could set another to work behind his tail – you know, to cut away the wall of the basin.”

{… missing} idea, Jim!” cried the Doctor. “You mean you
{… missing} sort of down-slope ready behind him. Then,
{… missing} his shoulders free of the suction, he would
{… missing} backwards into the deeper water and be able to
{… missing} for he will surely wake up as soon as he feels himself moved. – Good! Jim, you should have been an engineer. – Marvellous!”

I found that, as the Doctor’s hopes rose higher, I was becoming strangely thrilled at the thought of actually seeing Mudface, the only living passenger left who had trod the decks of the Ark, the one link in all the Animal Kingdom between History and the Days Before History. After all, it was for this that we had come so far. But I never dreamed, as the Doctor finished speaking and started to put his clothes on again, that he meant to try and get the turtle free that night!

There was, I suppose, about two hours of daylight left. As soon as the meeting was finished, Jim gave out orders to all the leaders. Then many things seemed to start happening at once. Even with Chee-Chee’s help as a translator, I couldn’t keep track of it all. But later on I managed to put things together; and write them into my notebook.

First of all, a strange noise struck my ears. This was the plop, plop – splash, splash, as all those great beasts, in sixes and sevens, threw themselves off the land into the lake. The leaders had been ordered by Jim to divide the diggers into regular work-teams. As the Doctor had told me, it was very exhausting. So, as soon as one lot was tired out, the order would be given to change over: the weary gang would come back to rest; and a fresh lot would plop, plop into the water and disappear.

What was going on below of course I did not know till afterwards. But every once in a while Jim would come and tell the Doctor something; and I hoped it was good news.

After about an hour Jim and his two brothers – all three of them together – brought up some specially important information. (I knew this, because the Doctor clearly became tremendously interested; and he gave them very careful instructions to take back to the workers under water.)

It turned out that the diggers had scooped out the slope behind the turtle and were now ready to finish prying up in front to let the water under him. John Dolittle told me this was the one part of the whole job where he was afraid that the noses of all those crocodiles, heaving together, might crack or break the turtle’s shell – in spite of its thickness.

The way they went about it was very clever, I thought. A dozen crocodiles, set close side by side, thrust their flat, chisel-like noses under the shoulder of the shell, as deep into the mud as they could go. Then a dozen more got up onto the tails of the first lot and bore down with all their weight.

At the first try nothing happened. And Jim’s brother was all for sending word up to the Doctor for new instructions. But Jim, it seems, said, no: he didn’t believe in giving up so easily. Then he sorted out the crocodiles by size; and, taking only the very largest and heaviest, he lined up another two dozen and tried again.

This time they had better success. From the way the water started to flow in under Mudface’s body, Jim felt sure that the suction must soon let go. He got two more gangs of heavy-weights and lined them up on the turtle’s other shoulder, the right one. Then, by heaving first on one side and then on the other, he got the whole of Mudface’s front part levered up a good foot out of the mud. And at last, as the water rushed in under the whole length of the turtle from head to tail, the great beast’s body slid slowly down the slope prepared for it and rolled over on its back, free!

I cannot say what picture as to Mudface’s size I had ever had. Cheapside had spoken of him airily, “as big as a house” – but then I knew that the sparrow often exaggerated. I had heard the Doctor tell of the turtle’s size as “unbelievably large” or “perfectly huge” – which could mean anything.

But when at last I saw him with my own eyes – though really I only saw parts of him that night – I thought I must be having another nightmare (like the one I’d had about the giant snake, back in the swamplands).

Twilight was coming on now. But you could still see pretty well – except where the setting sun threw the island’s long shadow on the calm water. John Dolittle had finished dressing and was standing on the shore by our camp fire, staring out into wide and silent Junganyika.

Presently, in this darker shaded part of the lake, I thought I saw something come to the surface, gently breaking the calm of the water – something round and flat, like a ball just afloat. At first it seemed no bigger than a tea-tray. But as it rose, it slowly grew – larger and larger and larger still.

Close behind me I heard the Doctor give a long sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness!… They’ve managed it…. Here he comes!”

Too-Too, the night-seer, made some clicking noises with his tongue; while little Chee-Chee, always so brave in real danger, whimpered fearfully somewhere in the gloom.

It was getting harder to make things out in the fading daylight. But I could tell that this great mass out there had stopped rising and was slowly moving towards us. And, from the smoothness of its motion, I guessed it must be swimming.

“Well, well, the lucky voyage, Stubbins!” the Doctor whispered over my shoulder. – “The lucky voyage!”

John Dolittle was never one to make a show of his feelings. (This, Polynesia had often said, was the most English thing about him.) But as the strong fingers of his right hand suddenly gripped my shoulder, they told me, better than any words, how much this successful ending to our voyage meant for him.

“He’s crawling now,” I heard him say. “You can tell his feet have touched bottom by the way he moves. – You see that? Good! Then his legs – his rheumatism, you know – can’t be too bad, or he couldn’t even walk that much.”

Our camp fire gave only a dim light. But I was glad we had built it well back from the water’s edge; for if Mudface was coming ashore right here, we did not want it to be in his way. Nearly all of the Doctor’s animals had moved inland too, for fear of being stepped on in the half-dark.

Exactly when I first saw the turtle’s head I don’t know. My eyes were busy staring down into the water, watching for what might come out of it. There was a single large palm-tree quite close to me. I had noticed Chee-Chee the monkey look up at the top of this palm from time to time; and I suppose my own gaze followed his. Anyway, I suddenly saw that, besides the head of the palm-tree up there, there was something else, swaying against the sky. It was the same height as the top of the palm – and about the same size. Then, before the Doctor told me, I too moved back; I suddenly knew what it was. It was Mudface’s head!

And, in the way we often get reminded in great moments of things unimportant and far away, I thought of a picture in the Doctor’s library back home. It showed big lizards who roamed the earth thousands of years ago, nibbling the leaves from the tops of the forest.

But my dreaming thoughts were suddenly brought back. The ground beneath my feet seemed to be trembling. Was this another earthquake, I wondered?… No. This monster, towering over us, was speaking to the Doctor.

How thrilled I was to find I could understand what this thunderous voice was saying! Later, when I was writing out his story of the Flood, I was to miss a word or sentence here and there; and I had to fill them in later. But this evening, when Mudface spoke his first greeting to his old friend, I caught every word of it – perfectly. My hours of study with the little turtles had not been wasted. I felt very proud, I can tell you, as I wrote down the great animal’s first rumbling words in my notebook:

“Again, John Dolittle, you come in time of danger, in time of trouble – as you have always done. For this, the creatures of the land, the water and the air shall remember your name when other men, called great, shall be forgotten. Welcome, good friend! – Welcome once more to Lake Junganyika!”

• • • • •

Part Three

•   1   •

The Hippopotamus
Ferry-boats

And now, in a very short time, the island was changed in many ways.

For one thing, before General Jim and his great army of the Niger left us, they cleared out a wide space on the high flat top. This was for the camp. They dug a good ditch around it, so that all rain-water would be drained down into the lake. Mudface’s old path up to the top had disappeared with the earthquake; and the crocodiles also put that right for us. They made a new fine road from the canoe-landing at the water’s edge to the camping ground where it was always dry underfoot.

Here, so much higher than the lake, the sun was often shining; and we could look down upon the tops of coloured clouds partly hiding the wide waters of Junganyika.

“Humph!” grunted Cheapside, one day as all of us were gazing down at this strange sight. “Looks like a sea of rollin’ rosy pillows, don’t it? Makes me feel I ought to be flyin’ around over ’em in me night-shirt, blowin’ a trumpet.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse. “Fancy Cheapside as an angel – in a night-shirt!”

“And why not, pray?” stormed the London sparrow. “Angels always wears night-shirts – in pictures. It’s sort of a uniform with ’em – for flyin’. I suppose you think I ain’t good enough to be an angel, eh? Well, let me tell you somethink: I want no more sauce from you, Whitey-me-lad. – Or you’ll suddenly find that smart young mice are wearing their tails shorter this season, see?”

The Doctor and I set up a tent. And the change to sleeping inside, in regular beds of dried, sweet-smelling grass – after several weeks of hammocks – was very pleasant.

And then there was the need for more food to keep us going while we listened to the story of the Flood from Mudface. We had brought only enough from the Albatross to last us for our trip up here, being afraid of overloading the canoe. So Polynesia and Chee-Chee set out on foraging expeditions. The parrot and monkey, native Africans, knew how, and where, to look for wild nuts, fruit, honey, and roots which were good to eat.

One sort of food we did not have to fetch and carry. A hippotamus and his wife called upon the Doctor, and wanted to know could they be of any help to him and his party. When they had been told about our need for food, the father hippo asked if we liked rice. The Doctor said, yes, rice was very nourishing. (It turned out that John Dolittle had treated the father, when he was a baby, years ago at his Post Office, for some trouble.)

Then the hippos said they would see that we got all the wild rice we wanted. And they went off and fetched us enough to last an army for a month.

“That’s done it!” grumbled Cheapside to me. “Now old lady Dab-Dab will serve us rice-puddin’ every meal for the rest of the trip. Of all the dull mush! I can stand it once or twice a year. But – oh, what’s the use? Sometimes, Tommy, I think the animals are a bit too kind to the Doc.”

John Dolittle’s main concern at first was Mudface’s health. He gave him a thorough medical examination. At the end of it he told me that, all in all, he was pleased to find the great beast as well as he was.

“You know, Stubbins,” said he – “in a way, I’m back where I was: on the study of long life. Very different from the human kind, of course. Just the same, I could write a book about Mudface’s case which would make a whole lot of doctors in London open their eyes.”

“I’m sure you could,” I agreed, exchanging glances with Polynesia who was listening to our talk. “But you want to get the story of the Flood from him again, don’t you, first?”

“Quite so, quite so,” said he. “I was only telling you about my examination of him. I feared it might be weeks and weeks before I could let him tell his story to us. But now,” the Doctor went on, “after looking him over, I think it will be only a matter of days, instead of weeks.”

“Oh, that’s splendid, Doctor,” said I.

“In spite of his enormous age – so great we can only guess at it – I find nothing we call radically wrong. The rheumatic condition is worse of course, I expected that. I’ve written out a prescription for him. Our difficulty will be to make up enough, you know. The medicine must be taken, not in teaspoonfuls; but in barrelfuls! We can get everything I’ll need for this tonic in the jungle. But how to get enough. That’s my problem.”

I asked why he did not speak to our hippo friends about this: and he said he intended to.

Those strange and gentle beasts (they lived almost entirely on wild rice; and Cheapside said, of course, that accounted for their having no character at all) turned out to be most helpful. Mr. Hippo took the Doctor on his back and swam off with him in search of medicinal herbs. He looked a strange sight, with his high hat and all, astride that wide back – crossing the lake. Cheapside roared with laughter; and even the Doctor realized how comical he looked.

“Hippopotamus means river-horse ,” he laughed back at us. “They’re very comfortable, plump and well padded. Too bad the Puddleby newspapermen aren’t here now! Goodbye! – I’ll see you later.”

And thus, as old Mudface himself had said, the creatures of the wild remembered John Dolittle and his kind deeds; they tried in every way to repay him.

All sorts of animals came to welcome him to Africa. They were all very respectful, staring at him in wonder – as though he were something magical. A good few of them, I suspected, came just out of curiosity, or to be able to boast to their children that they had actually seen the great man himself. But there were others who turned out to be very useful to us in setting up our camp and making our work lighter in many ways.

A large band of monkeys (most of them were cousins of Chee-Chee’s) travelled two or three hundred miles to visit us. When they reached the shores of the lake they could get no farther. So they called across to us in a loud chorus of howls and shrieks. Chee-Chee heard them and told the Doctor what it was. Then John Dolittle asked Mr. and Mrs. Hippo if they would kindly swim over and ferry the monkeys across to the island.

This was done. And I believe there must have been a good thousand of them. Every single monkey had brought a couple of bananas with him – which they knew the Doctor was especially fond of. We had not tasted any since we left Fantippo; so we had a grand feast that night. And Gub-Gub enjoyed it no end because we saved all the banana-skins for him – which he preferred to the fruit itself.

• • • • •

•   2   •

Turtletown

What the Doctor said came true: as soon as he mixed enough of the medicine and Mudface started taking it regularly, we could almost see the giant turtle getting better by the hour. John Dolittle was a great doctor – as well as a great naturalist.

This large band of monkeys who came to visit him stayed with us till we left; and it was almost unbelievable how helpful they turned out to be.

They were a bit scared of Mudface at first, of his truly tremendous size. But they quickly got over that. And as soon as they learned what the Doctor wanted, they built huts around our camping ground. I never saw such fast and clever workmen. They dug holes, using their paws to scoop out the sand. And in these holes they set posts, about as thick as your arm. Then they covered the roofs of the huts with palm-leaves – and the walls the same. They left spaces for just a door and a window.

In no time at all, it seemed, our camp (which before had been one single tent) had a cookhouse; a comfortable, roomy bunkhouse where the Doctor and I slept; a store-hut in a cool place for keeping food; a surgery where the Doctor made up medicines and attended to any animals who were sick; and a big roofed shelter for Mudface himself. Altogether, it looked like a little village.

Cheapside, who was perched on my shoulder as I watched the monkeys cleaning up around the new buildings, remarked:

“Pretty nifty, eh, Tommy? Look, we got a street-cleaning department and all. We gotter give them monks credit. They’re smart. It ain’t everybody could put a town up for you in only a day. All we needs now is a few lamp-posts and a copper walking up and down. Yes, pretty nifty village. What’ll we call it? .. . Why I know! Turtletown, o’ course!”

And still another hut was called the office. This was set well away from any of the others, so that I could write my notes without the noise of monkeys chattering nearby. Also, I had made up my mind that this time the notebooks of the story of the Flood should be kept from harm, so far as I could prevent it.

Many notebooks I had already filled with things the Doctor wanted taken down on our journey here from Puddleby; and these I carefully brought from the canoe-landing and stored in a dry hole in the floor of the office. Jip and Polynesia took it in turns to mount guard over this hut for me, night and day. And later, as each new notebook was finished, it was put away safely in the hole. I found a few large stones to cover the hole – so the notebooks would be protected in case the hut should take fire.

The day after the monkeys finished Turtletown, the Doctor said that Mudface should be well enough by tomorrow to tell us his History of the Deluge.

“But we must go easy with him, to begin with, Stubbins – say, half an hour or so a day – and see how it goes. Remember there are those monkey-carpenters who want to listen. So, with them all, poor Mudface is going to have a large audience to talk to. I’ll give you my watch. Keep an eye on it, will you? Don’t let him talk more than three-quarters of an hour the first day, eh?”

“Very good, Doctor,” I said. “I’ll signal you at forty minutes…. I only hope I can understand him.”

“Ah, don’t worry about that,” he said with a smile. “You can always ask us afterwards – if you get stuck, Stubbins.”

“When will we begin, Doctor?” I asked.

“Tomorrow evening, Stubbins. Mudface is always in better form at night. We’ll start after supper – an early supper.”

And so, the following evening we gathered at the turtle’s shelter. All the Doctor’s family came: Jip the dog, Too-Too, the owl-mathematician of marvellous memory; Dab-Dab the duck; Chee-Chee, proudly at the head of all the visiting monkeys; Whitey, the inquisitive mouse who wouldn’t have missed the show for anything; and Gub-Gub the pig, who was also present. Then there was Cheapside the London sparrow, and Polynesia the African parrot. These two famous quarrellers, while pretending to be bored by the turtle’s story, were, I knew, far more interested than they would admit. And Becky, Cheapside’s wife, she came along too.

The big crowd found places – somehow – around Mudface within the shed. (It was not much more than a roof supported by poles.)

From this high ground you could see out in all directions. The view of lake Junganyika was extremely lovely as the big stars came out over the quiet water and spangled it with their silvery light.

•   •   •

And so I started the hardest – and perhaps the most important – job of note-taking which I had ever done in all my experience as the Doctor’s secretary.

• • • • •

•   3   •

Days of the Deluge

Very well, then, Doctor,” said the giant turtle, “I will tell you the story of the Flood just as though I had never told you any of it before. It is a good thing that we have this second chance – since all your writings have been lost.

“When I was a young turtle I was captured with five others and put in a menagerie. It was a sort of zoological gardens – owned by the great King Mashtu. May his bones rot in the mud! Would that all memory of him might be wiped out forever!”

As the turtle stopped a moment and glared savagely out across the gloomy lake, the Doctor asked,

“You sound bitter, Mudface. King Mashtu did you harm?”

“I should say he did,” growled the enormous beast – “to the whole world!”

The look in the turtle’s eyes changed – though he still stared out across the waters – a look of memories: sad, fond, thrilling, all changing and mixed up.

“Out there, John Dolittle,” said he after a moment, “in the middle of the lake, beneath hundreds of feet of water, lie the ruins of the City of Shalba, King Mashtu’s capital. Once it was the proudest, most beautiful city in the world. It had everything: a grand, royal palace for the King; lovely buildings of white marble; shops that sold anything you could wish; theatres; great libraries filled with books brought from every country on earth; an enormous circus; a race-track; parks of flowering trees – and a zoo where wild animals were kept. And it was there, to the zoo, that I was brought when I was captured.

“The head keeper of the zoo was a very old man. He too had been captured – taken prisoner in the wars by King Mashtu’s generals. This man, in his own country, had been what is called a patriarch. And all of his family were also brought to the City of Shalba and made to work in King Mashtu’s service. But the patriarch himself, for a special reason, was made head-keeper of the zoo. He was very old – for a man – six hundred years of age. His name was Noah.”

“Ah!” said the Doctor. “I had guessed it would be Noah. But for what reason, Mudface, was he made zoo-keeper?”

“Because,” the turtle answered, “he spoke animal languages. He was the first and only man, besides yourself, John Dolittle, who could understand animal talk. Having lived six hundred years, you see, he had plenty of time to learn.”

“Of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “And how wonderfully well he must have learned to speak in that time!”

“No, there you’re mistaken, Doctor. He could make himself understood, it is true. But he could not chat in turtle talk, for example, half as well as you can – nor even as well as Tommy, here. And as for writing down things, he never learned. He was not as wise and clever as he was cracked up to be. In fact often he was downright stupid – as you will see later.”

I was pleased by the turtle’s praise; and I looked up to smile. But Mudface was going on with his story – this time much faster. And I had to hurry on, scribbling away like mad.

“Although,” said Mudface, “I was much smaller in those days than I am now, still I was by far the biggest and oldest of the six turtles who had been captured. And you may remember, Doctor, my kind is both sea turtle and fresh-water turtle.”

“Yes, I remember that,” said John Dolittle. “You are the only one of your sort left in the world today. But please go on.

“Well, they prepared a pond for us in the zoo gardens. It had no mud in it, only clean bright gravel – which we didn’t like at all. We loved mud. The King and his people would come to look at us through the strong iron fence surrounding the pool. And sometimes I, the Giant Turtle as I was called, gave the visitors rides on my back – though it was as much as your life was worth if the keeper didn’t watch me all the time. Because I used to spill the people off into a puddle, when I could find one, pretending it was an accident.

“We were fed by Noah. The other five turtles, even if they were unhappy, ate their food regularly. But I did not. I was separated from my wife.”

“Er, Mudface,” the Doctor interrupted. “How is it your wife wasn’t captured with you?”

“Well, you see, Doctor,” said Mudface, “Belinda was in another part of the country visiting her relatives. – You know how women are – always getting lonesome to see a cousin or an aunt or someone’s new baby. Any excuse for a change of scenery. Of course, I was glad for her sake she was still free; but I was dreadfully lonely for her….” Mudface stopped a moment, sighing in memory.

“Oh, dear,” said the Doctor, “then that is the reason Belinda is not with you now – you never saw her again?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the turtle, “I did see her soon after my capture. I’ll tell you about that as my story progresses.”

Mudface paused, wrinkling his brows. “But her absence now puzzles me. She left quite suddenly a few months ago – just before the earthquake – and I haven’t heard from her since. I’m worried.”

“Ain’t that just like a woman, Doc?” said Cheapside. “Galavantin’ off when ’er ’usband needs ’er most.”

“Quiet, Cheapside,” said John Dolittle. “I’m sure Belinda will be back immediately when she hears about Mudface’s trouble.”

The giant turtle raised his head and smiled at the Doctor. “Thank you, John Dolittle,” he said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t worry. Belinda has always been able to take care of herself.” He settled his shell comfortably and went on.

“I was pretty unhappy. I moped and ate no food at all. Noah told this to the King and asked to be allowed to let me go. But Mashtu said I was the finest and the biggest of the collection; and that I would soon settle down and eat my food. But I didn’t. I hated the life of the zoo. Still, as you know, turtles can go a long time without eating. And I did not die.

“All six of us spent most of the time trying to work out some plan of escape. The fence around our pond was not very high but it was too much for a turtle to climb over. I was the oldest and strongest; and the others looked to me to find them a way to liberty and freedom. And one night I thought of a clever idea for undermining the low wall, on which the iron fencing was set, and getting out underneath the fence – instead of over it. For three whole nights I worked, burrowing and scratching. At last I got one of the big square stones loose enough to pull out. Freedom was in sight!

“But we agreed to wait till the following night, so as to have plenty of darkness to get away in. The zoological gardens were large; and turtles are slow on land.

“Well, the next night came; and my five companions waited breathlessly while I pulled the stone down into the pond and then made the hole large enough to climb through. All went well. We got out under the fence and started to cross the park in the dim light of a rising moon. But we had scarcely gone twenty steps when the park-gates opened to a blare of trumpets. The King himself entered with a party of friends to show them his collection of animals! With him came hundreds of guards and torch-bearers. Mashtu especially wished to show the visitors his new turtles. He made straight for our pool.

“Escape then, for such slow creatures as we, was of course impossible. We were caught at once and put back. The fencing, with its wall, was made stronger than ever, so that we shouldn’t get out again.

“We were all terribly down-hearted. My grand plan had only made things worse than they were before.

“However, Noah had an assistant-keeper, little more than a boy – and he had been, like Noah, captured in the wars and brought here from some foreign land. He took pity on us turtles – out of sympathy, I suppose, for fellow-prisoners. He was our one comfort. His name was Eber. And I shall speak of him again, often.

“He had begun as a gardener – at which work he was very skillful. But later he was put under Noah, in the menagerie, as assistant-keeper.

“Eber had a kind heart; and he did his best to make our lives happier: bringing us special foods; spraying us with fresh cold water when the weather was unbearably hot; and doing anything else he could for our well-being.

“Eber had fallen in love with a beautiful young girl called Gaza. She, too, was a slave. To foreign travellers, Shalba – always boasting of her freedom – must have seemed full of slaves. Gaza, who had a truly lovely voice, used to sing for Mashtu’s chief wife, who lived in a smaller palace of her own – called the Queen’s Pavilion – close by the zoological gardens.

“And often in the twilight I listened to her songs of far-off lands, which reached us on the evening wind in our wretched prison-pond. Mashtu’s spies discovered that Eber was meeting her secretly in the park. As a punishment, Eber was beaten most unmercifully. He could not walk for days after. King Mashtu was a cruel-hearted man.

“After a month or two had rolled by, life for me was suddenly made much brighter. Belinda, that clever wife of mine, found out where I had been taken. And she used to come at night and talk to me through the bars of the fence. You can have no idea how much this meant to me. I had begun to give up all hope – to look forward to nothing but this stupid life of prison for the rest of my days. Belinda’s visits made me fearful that she might be caught; but just seeing and talking with her every night put new heart into me. She was so cheerful and so certain that we would yet escape some way, if only we’d be patient.

“Now, I had always given a good deal of study to the weather, even as a youngster. And by this time I had become quite well known among all the water creatures as a good weather-prophet. I used to foretell the rain-showers for the other turtles in our pond. You see, we looked forward to them. We like rain. It is pleasant to feel it trickling down your shell and running off the tip of your nose – exceedingly refreshing in hot climates. And on account of my being able to tell when it was going to rain, the weather became the favourite thing for us to talk about. – It is hard to find much to chat over when you are fenced in a pond only fifty feet across. And Noah himself, who often used to listen to us, got the habit of talking of the weather, too. And so it was handed down, as the favourite thing to talk about, for thousands of years.

“Well, one day a gale sprang up towards evening. The trees of the park bent down before it like lily-stalks; and big gravel stones blew along the walks just as if they were dust. The other turtles gathered around me, asking what I thought of it. I looked up at the sky and saw a whirlpool of angry black clouds spinning, twisting and crossing, the heavens. It was different from anything I had ever seen.

“‘Cousins,’ I said turning to the other turtles, ‘it will rain before night.’

“‘Good!’ said they. ‘It is uncomfortably hot.’

“Suddenly a terrific crash of thunder seemed to split the air; and the clouds came right down low, wrapping themselves about the trees.

“‘My friends,’ said I, ‘it will be a great, great rain.’

“‘Good,’ they said. ‘The water in our pond needs changing badly.’

“Then, with a roar, the heavens seemed to open; and a great flash of lightning spat earthward, ripping a stout oak-tree, which stood near our fence, clean in two, from fork to roots. Suddenly I wondered was Eber in safety.

“‘Turtles,’ I said, ‘somehow I’m sure the time of our escape is close at hand. This will be the greatest of great rains. These Men are but weak creatures in some things. Many will be killed. They can stand only so much rain; while we turtles love it. In ten days from tonight the water in this pool will rise above the fence, freeing us to swim where we will.’

“‘Good!’ said they. ‘Long have we suffered in slavery. Welcome, rain! How sweet will be the mud-banks of liberty!’

•   •   •

“Now, that rain began falling in a peculiar way. It started on a Friday – no, it was a Monday – no, now wait a second…. Let me see, it was—”

The listening Cheapside (I had thought he was asleep) opened one eye and muttered.

“Let’s hope it wasn’t an Easter Monday – spoil the holiday. There ain’t nothin’ worse than a wet Bank Holiday. Come on, old Muddypuss, make up yer mind. It’s past bed-time.”

“Anyway,” whispered Dab-Dab the duck, “there’s no one can argue with him. That’s one thing sure.”

“Well,” the turtle went on, “whatever day of the week it was, the rain began in the forenoon; and it began very gently. At first my friends were very disappointed. And they thought I must be mistaken as a weather-prophet – that it was going to be only an ordinary shower.

“‘Wait!’ I said to them angrily. ‘Have I ever foretold the weather wrong for you? This rain will last for forty days, beginning light but growing heavy. After the first ten days, as I have promised, you will be free. But at the end of the forty days King Mashtu, the proud, and his City of Shalba shall be no more. The earth will be covered in water. For this, brother turtles,this is the Deluge.

“‘Good!’ said they again. ‘What could be more delightful than a deluge? – A lovely flood! It is high time these Men who have enslaved us should be washed away. In a world of water, we, the slow walkers and swift swimmers, will be the great ones of the Earth.’

“To this for a moment I said nothing. My mind had strayed away from them and their chatter.

“At last, my voice sounding strangely serious even to my own ears, I answered,

“‘Perhaps … perhaps.’

“I was thinking – of Eber….”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Elephants’ March

Remembering, suddenly, what the Doctor had told me about keeping an eye on the time, I grabbed his watch out of my pocket, as Mudface stopped a moment. My goodness! The turtle had been talking a whole half-hour longer than John Dolittle had said he should – to begin with, I made a signal to the Doctor that, for tonight, our time was up. He rose from his seat at once.

“Thank you, Mudface,” said he. “There are a million questions already I would like to ask you about those times. But you must take a dose of your medicine now and get to bed. We will look forward – if you will be so kind – to hearing more of your story tomorrow night.”

“You can bet on that,” said Cheapside sleepily. “We’re going to be listenin’ to that old chap’s yarn for months yet.”

As the Doctor and I prepared to leave for our bunkhouse a few doors farther up the main street of Turtletown, Mudface started humming a tune. The sound – though not unpleasant to the ear – was so unbelievably powerful that the earth shook beneath us. The Doctor paused at the door.

“Pardon me,” said he. “But what is that tune?”

“It is the ‘Elephants’ March,’” said the turtle. “It was always played in Shalba, on circus days, for the elephants’ procession on their way to the show. I learnt it by heart; it’s become a habit for me to hum it as I’m going to bed.”

“Very interesting indeed,” said John Dolittle. “I’ve always been keen about music myself. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to hear a march that was written before the Flood. You must teach it to me sometime. We will write it out – the score, I mean. Good-night, Mudface.”

As we started off down the street, the pavement still trembled to the humming from the big shelter we had left.

“As I believe I remarked before,” said Cheapside, who was perched on the Doctor’s shoulder, “a voice like old Mudpan’s is kind of wasted in this gawd-forsaken swamp. He ought to get a job as fog-horn on an ocean rock somewhere. Ships could hear ’im twenty miles away.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse from my left pocket.

“What an experience, what a story!” muttered the Doctor, his mind still full of the Deluge.

Once in our snug bunkhouse – terribly tired – I was soon asleep. Never had I written so fast. My right hand was so cramped I wondered if I’d ever be able to straighten it again. And all night long, though I never woke once, dreams kept flitting through my mind – and always about the same person…. In my sleep, like Mudface, I was thinking of Eber.

• • • • •

•   5   •

Fireworks for
the King’s Birthday

The next evening Mudface seemed to be feeling better still. Waiting for us to settle down, he looked fresher. And his voice sounded keener and less tired when he spoke.

“Then,” said he, “we turtles, for the present, just sat behind our prison-bars and waited as before. But our mood was different. For instead of thinking dreary thoughts, we were dreaming great dreams. Where would we go when, for the first time in so long, big voyagings were made easy? Each of us of course had a different plan in his heart as to what he would do first, with his new freedom.

“How clearly I remember it! It was King Mashtu’s birthday, that Friday – or whatever day it was – and a public holiday. There had been shows going on at the circus ever since midday; and the royal elephants had paraded to that march I hummed last night. – Though the music sounded very sour, with the band’s instruments all wet.

“The day’s celebrations were to end with a display of fireworks in the Royal Zoological Park. Through the fencing around our pond, we watched them getting ready for this grand finish. The wind had now eased off, though the rain still fell evenly. A deathly calm hung over the twilit park, the sort of calm that can turn a steady rain into a cyclone.

“With a most unmusical blare from wet trumpets, the King entered the park and gave orders for the fireworks to begin. The darkness, with the overcast sky, was now almost complete; and lanterns of coloured paper had been lighted and hung in the trees. But they did not stay lighted long.

“Oh, how we chuckled in our prison-pond as the rain suddenly grew heavier! The last of the lanterns flickered out. And when the men tried to light the fireworks, not a single one of them would go off. How we chuckled!”

Mudface leaned down to moisten his throat from a calabash near by filled with muddy lake-water. (He always liked his drinking water muddy.) And while he was at this I scribbled away in the notebook more furiously than ever; for he was talking fast again and I had fallen behind.

“The magicians,” he went on presently, “and the astrologers of the court looked up at the black, starless sky; and said the rain was a bad omen. They did not recommend that his Majesty go on with the celebrations tonight. The King, trying to take the matter lightly, then gave orders to put off the fireworks and merry-making till tomorrow. He turned and left by the same gate through which he had entered. But I noticed that on passing through it he signalled to the trumpeters to stop their blowing. This could be easily understood; for the poor drenched men were now blowing nothing but water out of their trumpets instead of music. We could just see the dim forms of Mashtu and his family, as they entered the lighted palace in the distance.

“‘Cousins,’ said I to my fellow-prisoners, ‘King Mashtu enters his palace for the last time. Never again will he leave dry-shod.’

“Beneath the now heavier rain, the crowd which had gathered for the fireworks scattered to their homes; and the park was soon left empty. In our pond we frisked and frolicked and splashed water at one another, like kittens at tag. Even I so far forgot my dignity and age as to join in the fun. Throughout the whole night it rained, heavier and heavier; and all night we played on, celebrating Mashtu’s wettest birthday.

“Well, after that date we did not see the sun again for forty days. Next morning, when dawn came, it was merely a murky light, little better than twilight – and it was still raining. A few brave citizens came out with umbrellas, to see If the jollifications were going on as the King had promised. But all they found was mud. The Royal Palace was closed. The people hurried back home again.

“Late that afternoon my wife came to see me, walking carefully across the park behind the cover of the trees, lest she be seen. When she was within hearing I shouted to her,

“‘There’s no need to keep yourself hidden now. No one will bother you any more. This is the Deluge!’

“‘As soon as the park is flooded deep enough,’ I said, ‘we are going to swim out over the top of this fencing. See, the water of our pond has already risen two inches in the night.’

“My poor wife, who had already suffered much worry through our separation, was very happy. But she could not believe that our prison-days were really over.

“‘Are you quite sure, my dear,’ she said, ‘that enough rain will fall to float you out?’ – You know, Doctor, women will never believe anything till they see it.

“‘Am I sure!’ I cried, astonished. ‘Listen, Belinda: have I, as a weather-prophet, ever led you wrong? In nine days I will join you on the other side of this wretched fence or my name’s not Mudface.’

“I could see I had taken a load off her mind. Her mood too changed. And suddenly all seven of us, out of sheer recklessness, turned and shouted towards the King’s palace as hard as we could,

“‘Hooray! – Happy Birthday, Mashtu!’

“But no one came out to bid us be still.

“Now, when I had foretold our freedom in ten days’ time I had calculated on a growing fall of rain each day. And I was right. The next morning the level of the water in our pool had risen another three inches. And we could see that many parts of the park now lay wholly under water. The day after that – it was a Sunday – or I think it was. – No, maybe—”

“Oh, never mind the day of the week!” Dab-Dab snapped. “Just tell us what happened; don’t bother about what day it was.”

“I don’t believe he knows the days of the week,” muttered Too-Too.

“Well, you can’t never tell,” said Cheapside, as the turtle still tried to remember. “Maybe in those days they had two Sundays every week, one at each end, like. You can’t never tell. They was a church-going lot, them antedelvulians.”

“The next day,” said the turtle presently, “Belinda, who had gone into the city to find out how things were getting along, came back to us in a great state of excitement.

“‘What do you think, Mudface?’ she said. ‘Just outside the town, where the old race-track was, there’s a man trying to build an enormous boat. – And all sorts of animals, hundreds of them, are standing around watching him!’

“‘What does the man look like?’ I asked.

“‘He seems terribly old,’ said she. ‘But – listen: he can speak to the animals in their own languages!’

“‘Why, that’s Noah,’ I said, ‘our head zoo-keeper. I suppose he guesses this is no ordinary rain – that a flood is coming – and he’s making a ship to save himself in.’

“Well,” (old Mudface looked out over the lake, and something like a smile played around his grim mouth) “the great hour arrived at last – on the tenth day, as I had said it would. The water-level in our pool had kept on creeping up and up till at last I could put my front claws on the top of the railing. Then with a mighty heave I pulled myself over the fence into freedom! Belinda and I embraced one another; and both of us wept tears of joy into the flooded park.

“I knew the other turtles would be all right now; so, partly swimming and partly walking, I led Belinda towards the main-gate. I wanted to see the sights – and especially Noah’s ship. Of course by this time water covered most of the park. Only the heads of the trees stood up out of it. As we passed the King’s palace we saw people leaving by the windows in beds or rafts or anything that would float. Farther on we saw that the river which ran through Shalba was now a mad roaring torrent. The stone bridge near the Silk Market had been swept away like a piece of paper. Indeed, only the higher ground in the city could be seen at all – thus it was not easy to tell whereabouts in the town you were. And the people were leaving even these higher places and making off for the mountains.

“These mountains stood about two miles from the city. And everyone thought that if he could only reach them he would be safe.

“Everyone, I ought to say, except the patriarch Noah. My wife, after we had swum and scrabbled around sightseeing, guided me to where she had seen Noah building a ship. This was on a high flat piece of land at the western end of the city. It had been a race-track. It was now used as a timber-yard.

“I have often thought that many more people would have been saved from the Flood if they had only realized, at the start of the forty days’ rain, that they must take to strong boats, prepared to live in them a long time. But everyone thought that any minute the rain would stop. So all they did, when the ground-floors of their homes became flooded, was to go upstairs and wait at the top windows. And by the time they saw that the water was going to rise right over their roofs, it was too late to build boats of any kind.

“But Noah must have known somehow – or guessed – what was going to happen. Perhaps he heard me promising the forty days’ rain.

“Anyway, reaching the old race-track, we found him with a tape and rule in his hands, measuring beams of timber. His thumb, which he had hit with a hammer, was done up in a dirty rag. He looked very wet, unhappy and upset. He hadn’t done much boat-building yet; all he seemed to be doing for the present was measuring – just measuring miserably in the rain.

“I heard him mutter to himself over and over again the same thing: ‘A hundred cubits by fifty by thirty.’ And every time he said it he looked more puzzled than ever.

“He had his three sons Ham, Shem and Japheth with him, the sons’ wives – and his own wife. But none of them seemed to be helping him much. The men were quarrelling about who had lost the hammer; and the women were arguing over who should have the best room on the boat when it was finished.

“And all the while the water kept rising around them. The flat island, on which they worked, kept growing smaller. And Noah kept on measuring – and muttering – in the rain.”

• • • • •

•   6   •

Noah’s Ark
and the Great Wave

“Listen, Mudface,” said the Doctor, the following evening: “before you begin tonight may I ask you something?”

“Of course, John Dolittle,” said the turtle. “I’ll be glad to answer your questions any time – if I can.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “couldn’t you tell us a few things about what the world was like before the Flood?”

“What sort of things, Doctor?”

“Well,” said John Dolittle, “for instance, how did King Mashtu become so great that his palaces had foreign slaves brought from every corner of the Earth? How were these slaves transported? What was the most important trade or business of the people who lived in King Mashtu’s kingdom; and – er – oh, a thousand things about the music and art of that strange civilization.”

In silence Mudface thought a moment before he answered.

“Suppose, Doctor, you first let me get further on with the story of the Deluge and what followed it. I’m sure you will find many of your questions answered as I go along.”

“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Please begin.”

“Now, at either end of this old race-track,” Mudface went on, “two crowds of different animals stood around waiting. They were waiting, we guessed, for the ship to be finished and ready. It was, we learned later, called the Ark. – Just as well, because it couldn’t be called a ship: the StableStable would have been a better name. These waiting creatures were wet, but patient and quiet. All except the cats – you know, Doctor – tigers, leopards, panthers and beasts like that. Their behaviour was not good – cats don’t like getting wet. They were snapping at the other animals and pushing everyone out of the way – so as to be ready to rush for the driest places on the Ark as soon as Noah gave the word.

“Directly the patriarch Noah caught sight of my wife and myself he said: ‘Ah, turtles!’ Then he read down a long damp paper which he brought out from a pocket of his gown, containing instructions about the Ark. – I’ve no idea where he got it from. Presently he ticked off a name in the list. ‘Go and stand over there,’ he ordered us. ‘I have no turtles as yet.’”

“Pardon me, Mudface,” said the Doctor. “But did they have regular paper then – in Shalba?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” said the turtle. “They had everything – or so it seemed to me.”

“Make a note of that, Stubbins, please – paper.”

“Very good, Doctor,” said I, jotting it down.

“Excuse the interruption,” said John Dolittle. “Go on, Mudface – if you will, please.”

“‘We don’t want to go into your Ark,’ I said to Noah. ‘We turtles can swim. We like deluges.’

“‘Don’t argue with me,’ he said angrily, going back to his measuring. ‘You’re down on the passenger-list and you’ll have to come…. Let me see: a hundred cubits by fifty by thirty. – It’s that window that …’”

“Shiver my timbers!” muttered Polynesia, the sailor. “‘A hundred by fifty by thirty’; sounds like a barrel to me.”

“Yes,” groaned Cheapside – “and mark you, only one window is mentioned – for all them people and animals. – Phew! Ain’t you glad you wasn’t at sea then, old Pollypatriarch?”

“So,” said Mudface, “Belinda and I started walking towards the north end of the race-track to join the crowd of waiting animals.

“‘No, not there,’ Noah shouted after us. that’s the end for the clean beasts. It says I’m to keep them separate. You creep. You belong to the unclean beasts. – Up this other end. Hurry along!’

“I was furious. ‘What do you mean: unclean beasts?’ I asked the old man. ‘I’m as clean as you are.’

“As a matter of fact, the patriarch did look frightfully bedraggled and messy after ten days of measuring in the rain.

“‘Oh don’t argue with him,’ Belinda whispered. ‘Let him get on building the ship – or all these animals who can’t swim will be drowned before he has it finished.’

“I did as she said. But as I moved off, I couldn’t help firing a last shot at Noah over my shoulder.

“‘Listen,’ I called: ‘we turtles live in water, washing all the time. You’re a fine one to talk! Your beard has mashed potatoes in it – yes, and prune-stones as well!’

“I was never so angry in my life.”

Mudface hesitated a second, as though to calm himself down before going on with his story.

“Now, the citizens of Shalba – or what was left of the poor wretches – had all by this time gone off to the mountains. We could see them from the race-track, herding like sheep here and there on the slopes, gradually being driven higher and higher. It was lucky for Noah that they forgot about the high flat land of the race-track or he would have certainly been mobbed by folk, clamouring for a place on the Ark. And of course the citizens, once they were on the mountains, could not come back. Because now, between us and them, there was a lake ten miles long.

“Well, for days and days my wife and I stood among the other waiting animals at the south end of the race-track – wondering why, if we were unclean animals, anyone was bothering to save us at all. Every hour the rain grew fiercer – so fierce that if there ever was any difference between clean and unclean beasts nobody could tell it after a wash like that.

“The middle of the race-track – where the ship-building gave room – was piled high with bales of hay, sacks of corn, peanuts and suchlike, to feed the animals. No cover had been spread over this fodder; and of course most of it was already soaked and water-logged.

“The workers at last realized that something should be done about this – that the ship’s main-deck must be finished in a hurry to protect all that food from being spoiled. They stopped quarrelling about the tools and set to ship-building with a will. By the end of the thirtieth day the Ark began to look like a real boat.

“And a very good thing it was, too. For the downpour had been getting worse and worse – so that Noah’s family could scarcely see one another through the curtain of rain. Although the ground was not yet under water, the mud was terrific. Then, to add to the mess, Noah said the Ark had to be tarred – inside and out – before it put to sea. It was in his instructions, he said, and must be done.

“The old man was awfully particular about those instructions. And when he wasn’t getting in the men’s way, measuring, he was studying that piece of paper.

“Then they got barrels of tar and started messing up the Ark inside and out. Before long they had the tar all mixed up in the mud under their feet; they had it on the tools; they had it all over their hands and faces. And the wives couldn’t tell one husband from another.

“At last, on the night of the thirty-eighth day of rain, everything was in readiness. And after Noah had read his instructions for the last time, he folded the paper up and put it in his pocket. There was a long heavy gang-plank leading up to a door in the ship’s side. And standing at the head of this plank, Noah faced the animals gathered in the race-track and shouted (the falling rain was real noisy now): ‘All aboard! Unclean beasts for’ard; clean beasts aft; and my family amidships.’

“Then all the animals rushed to get into the Ark. And Noah was knocked right off the gang-plank into the mud by two big deer who got there first. Some time was lost before things were straightened out. And Noah and his sons made the animals walk in, two by two, in a proper orderly manner. It took hours and hours to get them all in this way. And just as the last tail was disappearing through the Ark’s door, Noah remembered the fodder!

“Then a terrible argument broke out among the sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. It seems Noah had told them to be sure and remind him about the fodder before the animal-passengers were let into the Ark; and now each one of his sons was saying it wasn’t his fault. And it came out in the argument that every one of those young men had passed on the reminding-job to one of the others. Then of course each had proceeded to forget all about the fodder, which was still out there in the wet.

“The argument among the sons got so nasty that at last their parents had to interfere.

“There were many tons of stuff which had to be brought in. The only thing Noah could do now was to fetch out all the animals again (that is the beasts of burden, like horses and donkeys and camels) load them up with the hay and corn and bring it aboard.

“Belinda and I began to grow nervous over this last delay, because the storm had really become terrible by this time. However, unbelievable though it may seem, they did get the big job done.

“Now, ever since that first clap of thunder, when the oak-tree was lightning-struck, the heavens had been quiet. True, they’d been darkly, gloomily threatening of course; but the droning hiss of the rain, as it beat into the puddly earth – as if indeed it never meant to let up – was the only sound the storm made.

“However, on the morning of the thirty-ninth day – after our first dry sleep since the Deluge started – we awoke to hear strange, rumbly noises beneath us, over our heads and all around us. I opened my eyes and for a moment wondered where I was – till I remembered that we had just spent a night aboard the Ark. I could tell the ship still rested in the mud, because she was not rocking like a ship at sea. But what was all this rumbling racket? I at once left our quarters down below and hurried up on deck to see what was happening.

“Well, the whole race-track had almost entirely disappeared under water. You could see only the earth – or mud – just close around the Ark. Far away to the eastward I could see the upper parts of the mountains. Here the townsfolk yet clung and clustered – though they were fewer than before.

“Our ship’s gang-plank had been drawn up. But old Noah was still standing outside on the last strip of ground which wasn’t flooded. He was watching, like me, those miserable people on the mountain-tops. Tears were trickling down the patriarch’s dirty face. His tremendous work was finished; and all he had to do now was to wait till the waters lifted the Ark up and floated her away.

“One of his sons’ wives stuck her head out of the door, scolding him. She asked, didn’t he know enough to come in out of the rain? – He was old enough in all conscience, she added. But Noah, weeping and watching the last of the folk on the mountains, did not even seem to hear her.

“Again I began to think of Eber, the slave who had been so kind to us. – And Gaza: what of her? I had not seen her in months and months.

“As for the other people of Shalba, to tell you the truth, I did not worry very much. They had certainly never bothered themselves about me. To them, wild animals were just something to eat; to be made to work; or looked at in menageries. Why should I – like the weeping Noah – care, now that they were being swept away to make room for other creatures? But Eber! – I had been really fond of that boy. And, as I watched those wretched folk huddling on their last mountain-refuge, I wondered only how Eber had fared. Had he been saved?… And, as I watched, a strange thing happened.

“Suddenly behind the mountain, a long way off, the waters – which now stretched out in nearly every direction to the skyline, like a sea – seemed to rise up as a wall and rush towards us. It was a huge wave, as wide as the world – and growing higher and higher as it came nearer.

“At that, Noah cried out to his daughter-in-law: ‘Heaven help King Mashtu’s people now! See, the ocean herself has broken bounds and is running abroad like a wild thing.’

“Then the rumbling noise which had been rising steadily since it first woke me, grew into a terrible roar. I sometimes wonder if the spilling over of the seas did something inside the mountains – made the volcanoes’ fires explode, maybe – and earthquakes under the water. Anyway, the next thing I knew, the whole Earth was heaving and rolling about in the most terrifying way. I glanced again towards the mountains.

“And they were gone! The sea stretched flat and unbroken now, right around the world. Not a spot of land was in sight. What had happened to them I did not know. They had disappeared like magic. For Eber my heart went sick.

“But the great wave of the ocean was now roaring on towards the race-track and ourselves – quite near. Noah’s wife came and joined the other women. They all screamed to the old man to come in and fasten up the door.

“‘So be it,’ he said. And he stepped into the Ark.”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Floating Tree

On the morrow we gathered again in the twilit shed. The turtle went on,

“Even while Ham, Shem, and all of them were frantically barring up the door inside with strong beams, the walls of the ocean struck us. It lifted our clumsy boat high in the air, like a cork. And then down, down a great hill of water – which seemed to have no end – we were swept along, spinning and turning – down, down, down. It looked as though the ocean were shifting – as indeed it was, I believe – from one side of the world to the other. For hours we sped on down this rushing cataract of water. And I began to wonder if, and where, we’d ever stop.

“It was the last floundering agony of our Mother Earth in the grip of the Deluge. After that – when calm came – the world was water so far as we could see or know.”

In a solemn silence Mudface hesitated. Then he moved slowly to the edge of his shelter and craned his neck outside, as though to see better over the misty lake far below.

“You see that stump, John Dolittle,” he asked, pointing with a muddy claw – “the one jutting out from the shore, where the mangroves make a sort of cape? Well, that is the very spot where Noah stood, his hand still upon the door-sill of the Ark, watching the great sea-wave sweep towards us. That is where we started from – started upon a long and wearisome voyage.

“For then began long days of idleness for us, the animal-passengers. We all felt dizzy in the head from the spinning and pitching; and I even heard that Noah’s wife had been a trifle seasick. However, the sun did come out – a sort of a sun, and the sea eventually calmed – to a sort of a calm. The coming of this calm was taken as a good sign by all – and Mrs. Noah sat up and drank a cup of beef-tea.

“But oh, time hung heavy on our hands. To amuse ourselves the best we could do was guessing – guessing how long It would take the water to dry up off the land.

“As for the course we followed, I don’t believe Noah himself had much idea of where we were or where we were going. We were just drifting. Nevertheless, a weak wind began presently to blow; and the Ark moved slowly before it under some makeshift sails which Shem rigged up on the main-deck.

“However, if we were bored, for Noah and his family it was a very busy time. Feeding all those animals and keeping the ship clean was an enormous job. The three sons were hard at it all day, carrying and sweeping. Some of the animals got ill with the rolling of the ship and Noah had to doctor them.

“Of Noah’s sons, Shem seemed the most sensible; so he was worked hardest. Ham was very lazy; and most of the day he spent playing tunes on a whistle down in the hold. One day he played the ‘Elephants’ March.’ And the two elephants thought that the circus was beginning. They started parading up and down the main deck, upsetting and smashing things in all directions. After that, Ham’s mother took the whistle from him and threw it overboard.

“The elephants gave a lot of trouble – though they didn’t mean to at all. They were so enormously big; and they ate such a lot. The Ark was a big boat, it’s true; but when you have elephants for passengers – even just a pair – you need room for them, for their fodder and for their drinking water. Quite early in the voyage their food supply ran low; and the amount they were given at each meal had to be cut down. One day the bull-elephant fainted from hunger. He fell against his stable-partition and smashed it flat. And it took all of Noah’s family, with Mrs. Elephant and two hippos, to get him up on his feet again.

“On the first Thursday after we started I was looking over the side of the ship. Suddenly I noticed something a little distance away. The waters, smooth enough, moved gently under a firm wind.

“Presently this thing I was watching rolled in the swell of the sea; and I saw it was a large uprooted tree. On it there was a man’s body. The breeze brought it closer to the Ark’s side. And then I could see there were two bodies on it: a man and a girl. Their eyes were closed. But something told me they were not just sleeping. They were dead or unconscious. The man had an ugly cut across the back of his neck. And the only thing which kept them at all upon that floating tree was that their arms and legs were so tangled up in the roots they just couldn’t slip off.

“I was about to move away and go down to dinner, when the tree pitched and turned again. With the motion, the man’s head rolled backward on his shoulders. And then, for the first time, I could see his face. It was Eber, the slave who had been so kind to us during our imprisonment!

“At first, thinking he was dead, I was very sad. He was the only man in the whole world that I had wanted saved from the Deluge. And now he had been drowned!… It seemed so unfair.

“But, while I still watched the little waves gently lapping across his body, I saw his eyelids move – only a flutter; and his lips parted, though no sound came from them. Still, that was enough to tell me that at least he was yet alive.

“With a whoop of joy I bolted down below to find Noah, upsetting a pair of guinea-pigs who were playing some game on the stairs. On my way, I met Belinda; and I told her in a a few hurried words what I had seen. Then the two of us started to run through the ship in search of Noah.

“We found the patriarch at dinner with his family.

“‘Listen, Noah!’ I cried rushing up to him, breathless. ‘There’s a man out there – in the water – floating on a tree. He’s drowning – only half-conscious. It’s Eber! You remember? – Your helper in the zoo. Come upstairs and save him – quick!’

“But, to our great surprise, Noah did not jump up and rush to the rescue. Instead, he chewed away till his mouth was empty – he was eating potatoes. Then he turned to me and said:

“I’ve no authority to save him.’ Then he got that old paper out of his pocket. ‘What name did you say?’ he asked.

“‘Eber,’ I said impatiently – ‘Eber, your assistant.’

“‘I’m sorry,’ said he, reading the list on the paper. ‘But his name is not down here. There’s nothing I can do.’

“And he handed his plate to his wife for a second helping of potatoes.

“Then I think I went a little mad.

“‘Look here!’ I almost screamed at him. ‘Do you mean to tell me you’re going to let that boy drown just because it isn’t in your instructions to save him?’

“‘I can do nothing,’ he repeated. ‘That’s what it says: “Only the righteous shall be saved.” I must obey the orders given me. – Ham, take your elbows off the table.’

“I thought I would choke, I was so angry.

“‘And is it your idea,’ I spluttered, ‘that you and your stuffy old family are the only righteous people on the Earth – the only ones worth saving? If that’s how you’ve read your orders, then you’ve read them wrong, Noah. You’ve read them cross-eyed with stupid conceit. That boy Eber is just as righteous as you and all your family. If you will not save him, then I and my wife will leave the Ark this minute. For we would be ashamed to stay on it while such a man as Eber is dying out there.’

“In answer, the old man said nothing – just went on munching potatoes.

“Then I turned to my wife.

“‘Come,’ I said. ‘Let us leave the Ark to this self-righteous family and try to rescue that boy by ourselves. And If heaven is on our side we’ll win, Belinda. For Gaza, too, is out there upon the floating tree. – Gaza, the Queen’s singing-girl. Eber snatched her from the Flood – even while it threatened his own life. Come! Who knows? If they’re both alive, that boy who was kind to us in our captivity may some day start a world and a people of his own.’”

• • • • •

•   8   •

In Mid-Ocean
Mudface Leaves the Ark

“Then, our noses in the air, Belinda and I walked out of Noah’s dining-saloon and up the stairs to the main deck. With no hesitation we scrambled up the rail and dived straight into the sea. A crazy thing perhaps. But I have never been sorry for it – though we paid dearly enough later for our boldness. It took one hundred and fifty days – five whole months – for the Earth to show again after the Deluge.

“Eber himself was made of wonderful stuff. And it was he in the end – rather than Belinda and I – who saved Gaza. Any ordinary man would have died in the first week from exhaustion. But that boy, in his life as a slave, had grown hard and wiry.

“When we reached those two upon the floating tree they were in terrible shape. Their lips and tongues were swollen from sunburn and thirst. They lay upon that log like dead folk. Things didn’t look hopeful at all. We saw at once that the tree was dreadfully low in the water and could not float much longer.

“So, first of all, Belinda and I untangled them from among the roots. Then each of us took one of them on our backs; and we swam off looking for something better to put them on. There was plenty of stuff still floating around – all manner of things, the wreckage of a lost world.

“After about an hour of hard swimming – you have no idea what a job it is for a turtle to keep his shell above water with the weight of a man on his back – we found something that would do. It was the roof of a small house, floating complete – just as it had been lifted off its walls by the Flood. And it was big enough to carry us all.

“Indeed it turned out to be almost as good as a ship. The slope of the roof was gentle and flattish. Belinda and I climbed right up onto it with our burdens.

“There we laid the boy and girl down side by side. My, but they looked terrible! Eber’s eyelids had not even moved again since that first flutter. Both he and Gaza were unconscious all the time.

“When we had got our breath, we two turtles talked over what we’d better do with these almost-dead humans. Neither of us had much idea of how to set about such a job – with people, that is; with turtles we could have been far more helpful. Anyway, we patted them and rubbed them gently with wet seaweed. But nothing seemed any use.

“We were both dreadfully discouraged. For it began to look as though we’d failed in our task; and these two poor youngsters were going to die before our eyes after all. My wife stood watching them gloomily a moment; and then she said,

“‘Husband, I reckon it’s food they want. This is the tenth day that they’ve been drifting on the ocean. It’s not likely they’ve had a single thing to eat in all that time – except the bark or roots of that tree. See, Mudface, how thin and pinched the girl’s cheeks are. It’s food they need. I’m certain.’

“‘Ah, food!’ said I. ‘That’s easier said than found.’ And I gazed miserably all around the flat ocean trying to spy a single thing afloat that could be eaten by a man…. Nothing! – but driftwood and the wreckage of houses.

“‘We haven’t even fresh water,’ I said, almost weeping, ‘to let them drink.’

“Then, suddenly, an idea came to me.

“‘Listen, Belinda,’ I said. ‘It is no use our trying to find men’s food in water. Men are land-creatures, remember. Fish would be our only chance – and all fish have run from the anger of the Flood and taken refuge in the deepest oceans. We’ve only one hope of getting food or drink for them.’

“‘And what is that?’ she asked.

“‘To swim down under the water,’ I answered, ‘till we come upon a city or town; and there to search among the houses of Men till we find Men’s food.’

“‘I think you’re crazy,’ said she. ‘Cities don’t grow like pebbles on the beach. How do you think you’ll find a town under this sea that covers the Earth? Why, we don’t even know what side of the world we’re on! We may be a thousand miles from any of the drowned lands where Men ever lived.’

“‘Perhaps, Belinda,’ said I. ‘Yet I’m going to try.’

“I went to the edge of the raft to dive off.

“‘Wait a minute,’ my wife called out. ‘I don’t think there is any hope at all. But if you should find houses of Men, go down into the lowest room, the one underneath the ground – and bring wine. It is kept in bottles or jars; and it’s always stored below the house. Wine is what Men use in case of sickness. When the Flood was first getting bad in Shalba, I saw many families trying to rescue their wine from beneath the ground. Of course, Mudface, bring any other food you can find. But be sure and bring that: wine. It is red in colour; and it grows in bottles, remember. – And listen: don’t go off too far and get lost. If a storm should come up it may be more than I can manage, alone, to keep these two people from rolling off the raft.’

“‘All right, Belinda,’ I said. ‘And in the meantime you can busy yourself rigging up some sort of tent over Eber and the girl – there are still plenty of leafy boughs floating around. That girl’s skin is all cracking open from the sun. Goodbye, my dear!’

“Then I dived into the water and disappeared.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

Belinda’s Brother

“Well, to begin with, I swam straight downward for nearly an hour. And at the end of that time I seemed no nearer the bottom than I was when I started. I was surely over low land or the bed of an old ocean.

“So I stopped swimming downward and took a new direction by the sun – which I could still dimly see far, far above me. Then I started off in a straight line westward: hunting for mountains; looking for a town; searching for a bottle of wine beneath the waters of the Flood – for Eber my friend.

“For another hour I kept on, swimming level. I began to fear perhaps Belinda had been right – and I was on a fool’s errand – when I met another turtle. I spied him long before he saw me. He was paddling away in a southerly direction, at the same level as I was. What good luck – I said to myself – that the first living creature I meet in this puzzling, underwater world turns out to be one of my own people, a turtle! I hastened to overtake him.

“On coming nearer – would you believe it? – I recognized an old friend: it was a relative of my wife’s – her favourite brother, in fact – a splendid fellow.

“As soon as we had exchanged greetings, I told him what I was after.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘if it’s mountainous country you want, you had better take me along. I’ve just left some quite high hills to the north of here. – Not what you’d call mountains exactly, but perhaps farther behind them we’ll find a real range…. Isn’t it splendid weather we’re having – just the stuff for turtles? Quite new, all this water. I haven’t had such a splendid swim in weeks. No traffic at all. I hope it keeps up. Was on my way to the Turtles’ Meeting – a sort of convention, you know. I heard it’s being held about a hundred miles from here. Our people are going to talk over what’s to be done by all the water-folk, now that there’s so little land anywhere. Important business! But I’ll gladly turn back and lead you to the hilly ground I left – though it’s still covered over, you understand…. How’s Belinda?’

“He always had been a cheerful sort. And you’ve no idea how his chatty company cheered me up. My wife called him Wag – sort of a nickname.

“So off we went together. And, sure enough, after we’d travelled about half an hour we ran right into the face of a steep cliff. We crawled up this; and found ourselves on the top of a sort of rolling plain. We swam on farther; and soon we noticed that the ground was growing steeper. We were sure we were coming to real mountains.

“It was very strange to see, around these parts, land-trees still growing under water – and wide meadowy slopes where deer had once fed. Of course in the river-beds much damage had been done – great holes in the banks, big enough to put a large house in. Here, in the first fury of the Flood, the streams had torn out trees by the roots and swirled them down the hillsides, before beginnings of a calm had come to the tormented Earth.

“Soon I saw the tops of the mountains whose foothills we’d been exploring. I clambered up one of these to the peak. And there, standing with my feet on a rock pinnacle (from which eagles had looked out in past times, no doubt), I found that by stretching up my neck I could just poke my nose out into the air. Only six feet of water covered the top of that mountain! It was a strange feeling to look over a flooded world with my feet on land.

“‘Within a few days,’ I said to Wag, ‘this mountain-top will show above the Deluge.’

“‘What a pity!’ said he.

“‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘It’s sort of dreary, all this wet desolation. I know it’s grand for us water-animals. But somehow I’ll be glad to see the land-creatures around again. – Besides, the scenery was better the way it was, too.’

“Now of course, where the water was so shallow the light was much brighter.

“‘Listen, Wag,’ said I. “We mustn’t waste any time in hunting up a town or a village where we can find food. I’m awfully worried about that boy. Suppose we separate and search in two directions at once. You go east and I’ll go west. And let’s meet here again in half an hour.’

“Well, on that first trip we had no luck. We met again as planned; and because night was not far off we agreed to give up the hunt till next day. We lay down where we were on the mountain-top to sleep.”

“Pardon me,” the Doctor interrupted. “You slept on the rock, eh? But you have often spoken of how much you like mud. Tell me: can turtles see in the mud?”

“No,” said the great creature – “at least very little. While moving or travelling in mud you find your way by bumping instead of seeing. When you meet anything, and you want to be sure what it is, you bump it. Then you know.”

“Ha!” murmured Cheapside. “There you ’ave the sixth sense, Doc, what you naturalists is always talking about: hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, seeing – and bumping. – Glad I don’t have to travel under the mud…. I wonder how you tell the time.”

“One of the senses you haven’t got, Cheapside,” snapped his wife, Becky, “is common sense. For pity’s sake hold your tongue and let the turtle get along with his story!”

“Thank you, Mudface,” said the Doctor. “Please go on.”

“I ain’t worried about his going on,” whispered Cheapside. – “Question is: when is ’e goin’ to stop? Old Mud-pie has been drooling longer than usual tonight, seems like.”

“Well of course, John Dolittle,” said the turtle, “our eyes are always very good and far-seeing. But in exploring a whole country for houses, when we had to work in a hurry, we needed the best light we could get. That’s why I had come to the high mountain levels, where the shallower water would let more of the sunshine through.

“Early next morning Wag said to me, ‘Let’s go off to the other end of this mountain-range. I fear we’re not going to have much luck around here.’

“I agreed. And together we set off, keeping along the top of the ridge, so we could find our way back. We had gone about ten miles when suddenly we came to a deep gap in the mountains – a sort of saddle. Across on the other side of this we could dimly see the ridge and the line of peaks going on into the distance.

“Wag wanted to swim across this gap at the level we now stood at – to save distance and time. But I said: ‘No. It will take us longer, I agree, to go down into this saddle and crawl up the other side. But I have a feeling that if we swim over it we may miss something. Let’s explore it on foot.’

“And it was lucky we did – or Eber might have died before I got back to him; and the later history of the world would have been different.”

• • • • •

•   10   •

Wine Beneath the Sea

“After we had gone down the slope of this gap a little distance I spied something whitish in the gloom below. It looked tremendously long and snaky; and, as far as I could make out, it wound its way still lower, towards the very foot of the mountains – where it faded into the dark of the deeper water. When we had climbed down to it we found it flat and hard. It was about twelve feet wide.

“What on earth is this?’ asked Wag.

“‘This,’ I said, ‘is called a road – sort of a trail. Men, when they travel, don’t go straight across country, like we do – through swamps and everything. They have to have a track prepared for them, along which they drive in carts, or walk.’

“By the edge of the road there stood a square, chiselled stone with some letters on it.

“‘And this stone,’ I said, ‘is a milestone. I wish I could read those letters – then I could tell how far we have to go. We will follow this road; and it will lead us to a town. This highway has been made to cross the mountain-range, at the lowest point – through this saddle, see? My, but I’m glad we came down into this gap on foot, instead of swimming across it! How stupid of us! We could have saved ourselves the trouble of looking for towns on the top of the ridge. Let us hurry, Wag. Eber and the girl are starving for food.’

“So off we tramped, side by side, along the broad road leading downward, towards a valley. And as it took us lower and lower, the light grew dimmer and dimmer. Presently the country began to flatten out into what looked more like real farming land. By counting the milestones, we knew how far we had come – but, alas, not how far we had to go!

“Just as we were passing out of sight of the mountains we’d left, we came upon something strange. It was an outpost or a sentry station. This was to mark the line between one kingdom and another. We had no idea what kingdoms they had been: but clearly the lands of one king had run up to the foot of the mountains. And there, before the Flood, soldiers had been posted to guard the borders of his kingdom. The men’s spears and helmets, reddening with rust, were stacked against the little shelter-hut beside the road. Near the hut there was a well. And its wooden bucket, tied at the end of a rope, now stood straight upright, floating at anchor a hundred feet above our heads. Wag laughed outright at the sight of it.

“‘The big rain certainly turned things upside down all right,’ said he. And he was all for biting the rope in two, just for the fun of seeing the bucket shoot up to the surface of the ocean. But I made him leave it and hurry on. I had no idea what time it was – being unable down here to see the sun. I was afraid night might come on and force us to rest again till the following day. So on we went.

“After we passed the fifth milestone we suddenly stumbled upon an axe lying in the middle of the road.

“‘That’s a good sign,’ I said. ‘A town or a village is probably not far off now.’

“And I was right. Near the sixth milestone we came to the outskirts of a town – at first no more than a few houses, set wide apart, here and there on either side of the road. – Heavens! You could scarcely call them houses any more. Roofless they were, most of them; while some had had their walls undermined by rushing water and were now just piles of bricks and mortar.

“However, we pried and searched each one of them in turn, hunting for that precious bottle of wine. Such rubbish and wreckage we dug through! The first building was a blacksmith’s shop; and the smith’s tools lay around the anvil, where he had dropped them to flee for his life. There was no food here.

“Of course, getting into the cellars of some of the houses in our hunt for wine was often impossible, on account of the big stones that blocked the cellar-stairs. But the homes became more plentiful as we went on; and I was tremendously excited and hopeful. I hustled Wag along at such a pace from door to door, the poor fellow had to swim half the time to keep up with my longer legs.

“At last, when we had reached a sort of town-square or market, we saw a large brick house, complete and almost undamaged. Over the door hung a sign with the picture of a bottle on it.

“‘If I’m not mistaken,’ I said to my brother-in-law, ‘this is a wine shop. And if we can make our way into it, I believe our search is ended.’

“We found the doors and all the windows locked. How to get in? That was going to be a problem. But at last Wag thought of the chimney. – He was no fool. By swimming up onto the roof, we were able to scramble our way down a dirty, sooty chimney; and we came out, by the fireplace, into the large main room of the house. Here we found bottles in plenty. But they had all been opened and the wine washed out of them long ago.

“Then we went down into the cellar, where, to our great delight, we saw rows and rows of more bottles stacked up neatly against the walls. These had their corks still firmly fastened in them. Down here the light was awfully bad – the cellar having only one small window, high up in the west wall. So, to make sure these bottles were not empty too, we smashed one against the stone floor. And Wag whooped with joy as the ruby wine flowed out and mingled with the water all about us. It got in our noses and made us awful dizzy – so that for a while we could barely make our way around.

“‘Ah, at last, at last!’ I hiccoughed to Wag. ‘Now let’s each of us take two bottles and get out of here – while we can still stand up.’

“Just as we were about to leave – by the chimney again – I remembered that, besides the wine, I ought to take something for my friends to eat. So once more we hunted through the flooded rooms looking for food of a solid kind.

“In a cupboard we came upon some loaves of bread. But these were ruined by the water and fell to pieces as soon as we touched them. However, in the same closet, on the top shelf, Wag found a basket of apples, three unopened cocoanuts and a whole cheese. There were some old sacks lying in a corner of the cellar. We put some of the fruit, the cheese and two bottles of wine into a couple of these bags.

“It wasn’t easy, scrabbling back up the chimney, dragging those loads clutched in our mouths. But at last we managed it; and came out onto the roof. I mumbled to Wag through a mouth full of sacking,

“‘Your sister said I’d never do it. Won’t she be surprised? Let’s go! It’s quite a while since I left her – and we might yet be too late to save that brave boy’s life. Swim your best now, Wag – swim!’”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Eber Saves Gaza’s Life

“The journey back to the raft, in spite of the loads we dragged, did not take as long as the outward trip. I had been careful to watch and remember every change of direction I’d made since I left Belinda. And when Wag and I bobbed up to the surface of the water I at once looked at the sun. It was still fairly high; so there would be some hours yet before darkness. I took a bearing on it and led my brother-in-law off in a straight line for where I reckoned the raft to be.

“Up here, on the top, it was a great change to feel the comforting hot sun on our shells, instead of the numbing cold which had chilled us in the lower depths. Putting our best foot forward, we churned along merrily to make good time.

“At last, afar off on the rim of the sea, we spied a black speck which I felt sure must be the raft. We sighted it at this long range because Belinda, while I’d been gone, had built a fine roof of leaves and boughs to shade the girl from the sun; and this, upstanding like the mast of a ship, could be seen from quite a distance.

“As soon as I’d come within hearing, I called to my wife, ‘Have they opened their eyes yet?’

“‘No,’ she answered.

“‘Are they still breathing?’ I yelled.

“Yes. – But that’s about all.’

“Indeed it was a close thing. When Wag and I dragged our burdens up onto that raft those two people were as near dead as anyone could be. I immediately got a bottle of wine out of my sack. And then we found the cork so tight in the neck that we couldn’t budge it. Both Belinda and I were almost weeping from rage and impatience as we struggled with it. Why on earth had these silly men-creatures invented such a crazy way to seal their wine?

“But the good Wag again came to the rescue. ‘Give it to me,’ he said sharply.

“I handed it over. And in a flash he’d bitten the head right off the bottle and was spitting the broken glass out into the sea. Then, while my wife gently pried open Eber’s clenched teeth with her front claws, I poured the gurgling wine into the boy’s throat.

“It acted like magic. In a moment his hands began to open and shut. Then his head started rolling slowly from side to side. And presently he opened his eyes. They were blue in colour – like the sea when the sun is shining. But a great fear showed in them, as he gazed round into the faces of us who had rescued him from death.

“I was puzzled by this – at the time. Yet I suppose it was natural enough. We were not of his kind. And awakening from a long wet sleep to find three giant turtles bending over him (Wag, who had a trickle of blood running from his mouth, where the broken glass had cut him a little, looked especially tough) Eber must, no doubt, have gotten something of a shock. And remember, the boy had already been through all the terrors of the Deluge.

“But presently I could see, from a changing expression in the lad’s eyes, that he half recognized me. For, ever so slightly, he smiled up into my face. And, though you may hardly believe it, John Dolittle, that smile brought me one of the greatest thrills I’d felt since before I’d lost my freedom in King Mashtu’s zoo.

“I had paid back a debt.

“Presently the boy closed his eyes and seemed to sleep again.

“‘Let him rest now, husband,’ said Belinda. ‘We have the girl, too, to look after. Bring the bottle over here and I’ll see if I can open her mouth without hurting these cracked lips.’

“‘Wait!’ cried my brother-in-law. ‘Don’t you two realize what you’re doing? Eber was your friend, Mudface. That’s different. But who is this woman? If you save her too, she’ll marry the boy and raise a family. We’ll have the earth overrun with Men again. Zoos for animals and all that; while now the Earth belongs to us, the water-creatures – as it should do. Why bother with the girl?’

“‘Brother,’ I answered, ‘the boy would be lonely in a world all to himself, with no others of his own kind – just as you or I would be. I doubt if he would want to live, if we let her die. For Eber – for my friend’s sake – she must be saved.’

“And, bending over Gaza, Belinda and I set to work.

“Bringing the woman to her senses was a much harder job than reviving the man. We found that on her the wine didn’t seem to do any good at all. After we had worked over her for a full half-hour – and she still lay like a lifeless thing – Belinda and I became very discouraged.

“‘I’m afraid,’ said my wife, frowning, ‘that with her, Mudface, we are too late.’

“‘You think she is already dead?’ I asked fearfully.

“‘Yes,’ whispered Belinda. ‘Her flesh is growing cold. She is not as strong as the man. It is no use pouring more wine into her. See, she does not swallow it.’

“‘Alas,’ I said, ‘that it should be so! I feel sorrier for Eber than I do for her…. Well if she is dead, then let us roll her quietly into the ocean – before the boy wakes up again and sees us do it.’

“So, with heavy hearts, my wife and I began to push her towards the edge of the raft.

“But just as we were about to thrust her body into the water, I felt something clutch the shoulder of my shell from behind. With a guilty start, I turned my head. It was Eber. His eyes were staring wildly from his exhausted, haggard face; his left hand gripped me; while his arm reached out over my back towards the girl.

“‘What is it?’ I asked Belinda. ‘What does he want?’

“He’s trying to stop us from burying her in the sea,’ said my wife. ‘Maybe he thinks she is not dead yet. Stand aside and let us see what he will do.’

“We drew Gaza’s body back from the roof’s edge and laid it at his feet. Over it Eber knelt; and, while big tears welled up in his blood-shot eyes, he bent and listened at her heart. Then suddenly with frantic efforts he tried to roll her over, face-downward. The task was too much for his weakened strength – and we helped him. Next, he pressed her back and sides, then he worked her arms up and down.

“He seemed to know a lot more about what to do with half-drowned humans than we did; for when, in answer to his signals, we turned her face-upward again, we could see that she was now plainly breathing – though with a gurgling sound in her throat.

“Presently Eber pointed to the bottle. And this time after we trickled the wine into her mouth, she gulped and swallowed it.

“And then – thank goodness! – she too opened her eyes.

“At that the lad gave a great cry of joy. Suddenly he fainted from exhaustion, fell down beside the woman and lay still.”

• • • • •

•   12   •

The Sign in the Sky

“And, a moment later, we knew that Eber and the girl were sound asleep. Belinda and I breathed a sigh of thankfulness.

“‘They will both live,’ said my wife, turning away. ‘Let us get out the fruit and cheese you brought and prepare it against the time when they awake.’

“‘Well,’ muttered my brother-in-law, opening the second sack, ‘it seems all wrong to me. However – just as you say, Belinda. But remember, if you’re sorry for this later, don’t say I didn’t warn you. – Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

“‘And where,’ my wife asked of him, ‘did you pop up from, Wag? I’ve been too busy with this job even to give you a single word of greeting. – Gracious, what a home to welcome you to! – But it’s good to have you with us, brother. For we’re in need of cheerful company. Tell me: how is it you and Mudface returned together?’

“‘Oh,’ said Wag airily, ‘we ran into one another – by chance, you know. Your husband was hunting for mountains; and he took me along – just for the trip.’

“Wag was never one to boast.

“‘Don’t you believe him, Belinda,’ said I. ‘He was tremendously useful to me. It was he who led me to the country where we found the wine. I don’t know what I could have done without him.’”

“Hah!” whispered Cheapside the sparrow. “That’s what the Doctor’s always sayin’: ‘what would I do without you?’ … Funny, how people is always wondering what they’d do without you – when you’re useful: and when you ain’t, they’re wonderin’ what they’ll do with you.”

“That’s not surprising – in your case,” murmured Becky wearily.

“Cockney chatterbox!” snapped Polynesia the parrot. “I’d hate to tell you what I would like to do with you – if you don’t keep quiet.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse.

“Ho, indeed!” said Cheapside, turning upon Polynesia and bristling up for a fight. “Becky was talkin’ to me. But of course you have to shove yer hooked nose in, interfering between ’usband and wife. Breakin’ up ’omes and the like – you – you flyin’ carpet, you! Why, for two pins I’d—”

“Now, now!” said the Doctor quickly. “Stop the squabbling, please! Isn’t it bad enough to have me interrupting with questions all the time, without you birds starting a fight? Settle down, settle down for pity’s sake, and let’s hear the rest of Mudface’s story.”

“Okay, Doc,” said Cheapside wearily. “But I do wish old Fuddy-muddy would lay off for the night. I’m gettin’ sleepy.”

“By the way, Mudface,” said the Doctor. “Some time back you spoke of Noah eating potatoes on the Ark. In our histories, potatoes were not known on this side of the world till long after the Flood. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have brought them back with him from the Americas. I meant to ask you about it, when you told us of Noah eating them; but I forgot. I won’t stop your story for that question at this time. But remind me to ask you later on. Please go ahead now – whenever you are ready.”

•   •   •

“And so,” the turtle went on, “I moved down to the other end of the raft to help Wag get out the food which Belinda had asked for. But I had hardly turned my back when she suddenly cried out, ‘Look, look!’

“I swung round and found her pointing at the western skyline. And there, just peeping out of the waters, was a mountain-top!

“A drowned world was at last arising from the Flood!

“That mountain-peak was a long way off and very little of it showed as yet; but the setting sun behind made it stand out sharp and clear. I turned once more to help Wag – facing eastward now. And in that quarter, where a slight shower was falling, I saw a rainbow. Two great, gaily-coloured arches, one within the other, curved across the sky, dazzlingly bright.

“The gorgeous beauty of that double rainbow fairly took your breath away; and I could not take my eyes off it. I felt my wife move up close to me, her shell touching mine. And together, in solemn silence, we gazed at this glory of the heavens – till it began to grow dim in the twilight of coming night.

“‘It is a sign, husband,’ whispered Belinda, ‘a sign of better things and brighter days to come – with this first showing of the drying land.’

“‘Maybe so,’ said I. ‘Anyway, my dear, I’m glad we saved those youngsters. For, come what may, at least we’ve made a good start – in whatever new world is being born tonight.’

“Then the rainbow faded out, as the sun behind us slipped gently into the sea.”

• • • • •

•   13   •

A New Language Is Born

“When, next day, dawn broke over a sunlit sea, the tip of the mountain which Belinda had sighted, showed much plainer – and larger. My wife and I took to the water and pulled the raft close to it. Then Eber and Gaza got out onto the land at last.

“They were both of course still very weak and exhausted. The mountain-top had nothing on it whatever to eat. It was all bare rock. But firm land of any kind was better for them than the raft, which had often pitched and swung terribly in the swell of the ocean.

“In a day or so the fruit and cheese which we had got for them was nearly gone – since the two, as soon as their appetites came back, needed more food. So I made many trips again to the village of the wine shop, away down in the drowned valley, to get more supplies. And besides food, I brought up blankets for them which, when dried, kept off the cold night winds. I got tools, too, to make things with – axes and the like.”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor interrupted again. “But how did you communicate with Eber? – What I mean is: he couldn’t talk your language, could he? How did you manage about that?”

“No,” said the turtle. “At first it was very difficult. Belinda and I had to do a lot of guessing over what things he needed. Besides, Eber could not even talk the girl’s language. This surprised us; for we had supposed that all men used the same talk – the way we turtles do, all over the world. But, you will remember that these two young people, although they had met in Shalba, were not born there. They were both slaves; they had been brought to Mashtu’s court from different lands, as prisoners of war: Eber, the clever gardener and Gaza, the beautiful singer. And neither one spoke the other’s language.

“Now, as I have said, everything in Shalba was very grand – away ahead of all other countries – for the free people, that is: the Shalbians themselves. Especially education. After paper was invented – instead of that old clumsy business of writing on bricks – all who were free people learned to read and write.

“Besides the main library in the Square of Victory, there were many smaller branch libraries all about the city; and bookstores and magazine-stands on every street-corner. Millions of books were printed every year. Myself, I think there were far too many books. Everyone spent his time loafing around, reading. And – still worse – if they weren’t reading books, they were writing them. Everybody seemed to think he just had to write a book. Goodness only knows why! So you see the Shalbians had plenty to read; and if anyone wasn’t well educated, it was his own fault.

“But now, with the drowning of the world, all this printed stuff was swept away, every bit of it – except a few story books which were taken onto the Ark by Ham, the lazy one. But even these were later eaten up by the goats, when their regular food ran low. – You know, Doctor, goats don’t seem to care what they eat.

“Sometimes I think that was perhaps the only good thing the Deluge did: sweeping away all the books. Because if it hadn’t, the authors, who made their living by writing books, would surely have had to go out of business – into ploughing or something – since there would have been nothing left to write about when the Flood was over.

“But for those who were slaves it was very different of course. They had to do honest real work – and plenty of it. For them there was no time to learn reading and writing. All they had was the spoken language they were born with.

“And when Eber and Gaza found themselves rescued together on our raft, a new language was made. Up to that time, just making love as they had done in the Royal Park, well, that of course has always been something that needed no real language at all. Folks in love get along simply with ‘Goo, goo!’ and such stuff; but now these two had to talk really – sensibly.

“At first it was a puzzle for them. They began by picking up things and saying a sound. And that sound would be whatever their mothers had taught them when they were little. Eber would pick up, for instance, an apple; and say to the girl, ‘Boo-boo?’ Then Gaza would shake her head and say, ‘Bah-bah.’ So in the end they would mix the two sounds and call it a boobah. And in that way boobah became the word for apple in their new language.

“By this time dear old Wag had gone off and left us – because he suddenly remembered he had a wife and family of his own somewhere, who probably needed looking after. So then there were only Belinda and I to listen to this new language which Eber and Gaza were building up together, word by word. We were tremendously interested. And of course we could not help but learn it too – after a fashion. I mean, to understand what was being said: of course we never learned to speak it – turtle talk being so different.

“But I’m sure if there had been other kinds of animals on our raft, some of them at least would have learned to talk it, as well as to understand it. And then you might have had animal-folk and human-folk talking to one another like friends everywhere – which of course is the way it should have been in the new-born world.

“Soon after the first mountain-top appeared and showed that the Earth was drying again, a visitor turned up. It was a raven. He had been sent out by Noah from the Ark to look for land. He stayed with us for quite a while. He said the Ark smelled like everything; and he wasn’t going back to it for the patriarch Noah or anybody else – not to stay.

“He was good company – even if he was an everlasting chatterbox. And he learned the new language of Eber and Gaza better than any of us. But I heard that later – when his mating season came around and he went off and left us for a while – he soon forgot almost every word of man talk which he’d learned. That’s the way with ravens, you know: easy come, easy go. But he was very useful to Belinda and me while he was with us.

“Our mountain-top of course kept growing bigger and bigger with the lowering of the water. But still we could find no food fit to eat. Soon other peaks of mountains began to show here and there, like a chain of islands. I swam over to some of them and hunted for food. But scarcely a thing could I find. And I came back to the raft very discouraged, because I knew how starved that boy and girl were.

“Belinda, the raven and I all agreed that Eber and Gaza were getting into poor health for want of something decent to eat; and, although they complained hardly at all, we knew that human-folk couldn’t live long without regular meals. Suddenly the raven said,

“‘Look here, you two: it’s quite likely I can find my way back to the smelly old Ark. There too, everyone was desperately hungry. But when I left, Old Man Noah had put everybody on strict rations – only so much to a meal, you know – to make the grub last longer. What do you say I go and look for him?’

“My wife and I both agreed readily.

“‘When I saw him last,’ the raven went on, ‘Noah was just batting around looking for land. Since I didn’t go back to him he’s probably still waiting for me. There won’t be lot to eat on the Ark; but your boy and girl will certainly be no worse off than they are on this boulder of bare rock – and perhaps much better. I might be able to pinch a few things from the larder for them meanwhile – if Mrs. Noah isn’t looking. Anyway, it’s worth trying, don’t you think?’

“We said we were sure it was. And right away the raven took wing – flying up to a great height, so he could look over a good wide stretch of the sea. Then off he went towards the south-west.

“To our great delight he was back again in three hours. And he was all out of breath from excitement.

“‘What do you think?’ he gasped as he landed on the raft. ‘Noah and his Ark – I tracked ’em down more by smell than anything else – have found land on their own account! – Or rather the land found them, I should say. The ship ran ashore on another mountain-top which lay just beneath the level of the water. Very proud, the Noah family is. You’d think they’d found the land by mathematics – when really they only escaped a shipwreck by good luck.’

“‘Oh, how splendid!’ cried Belinda.

“‘That was about a week ago – when they ran ashore, I mean. And now there’s quite a wide piece of land showing on the mountain – with that smelly old Ark sitting up in the middle on top of it. Looks like an island wearing a cock-eyed hat. Mrs. Pigeon told me the mountain is called Ararat – though how they’re sure of that, goodness only knows. Myself, I don’t think Old Man Noah has any better idea of where in the world he is than you have here.’

“‘I didn’t stop to explore,’ said the raven. ‘As soon as I’d made sure of their position, I flew straight back here. – Thought you and Belinda would want to hear the news as soon as possible. There’s a full moon tonight. Soon as I’ve got my breath I’ll lead you over there. Gather up those young people and get them on the raft. Hitch on those vine towing-ropes you used before; and let’s get started, if you want to come.’

“‘Don’t worry, Raven,’ said I. ‘We’ll waste no time.’

“‘And listen,’ said he: ‘I’ll fly ahead of you – but slow enough so you won’t lose me against the night sky. I can see the moonlight flashing on your wet shells as you swim. The two of you, harnessed to that light raft, can make a fair speed. I’ll keep an eye on you. – And bring what’s left of that fresh rain-water you caught in the last shower we had. The direction we’ll travel will be a little south of south-west. If all goes well we ought to sight the Ark by daybreak – and if we don’t see it, we’ll smell it, believe me.’

“My wife and I were very grateful to the raven and we began getting ready at once. We rounded up Eber and Gaza who had gone off exploring somewhere on our island hill-top. We made them understand by signs that we were leaving for a new part of the ocean. And the raven was very proud that he could squawk, ‘Ark! Ark!’ Because they understood then where we were going.”

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Tigress

“The journey went off very smoothly. A nice steady wind followed behind us and made our job much easier and faster than we’d hoped for. As the sun rose next morning it showed another island ahead of us. The raven was right: Noah’s ship, which had been so much trouble to build, was perched, all lop-sided, on a high peak in the middle of this island. From afar off it did look like a crazy hat.

“As we pulled the raft in closer, we saw animals of different kinds standing around it on the rock – and Noah’s family in twos and threes also. Nobody seemed to be doing anything. And as we drew closer yet, we saw why: there was nothing whatever growing on this island either. All the trees had been killed by the salt-water; and seeds of the grasses and plants had been rotted and spoiled.

“The starving animals, as soon as they saw our raft coming, rushed down to us at the shore, hoping, poor things, that we’d brought food for them. The raven whispered to me, ‘Look out for that big cat in the front of the gang, the tigress. It’s goodbye to Eber and Gaza, once she gets her claws on them. She’s a meat-eater – and a fiend.’

“‘Yes, she looks big and savage enough to eat anything,’ said Belinda.

“‘You bet,’ said the raven. ‘Mrs. Pigeon told me that the mother-pig had a family of babies while the Ark was at sea – and she wasn’t the only one. – The mother-animals kept Noah busy, with the food running short and all. Well, that tigress, when the old man wasn’t looking, ate up three of the baby-pigs. Of course there were plenty left in the litter. But Mrs. Pig made no end of fuss. – Can’t blame her altogether. After that, Noah, who is the only one the tigress is afraid of, made her promise – with a pitchfork – to leave the piglets alone. But I wouldn’t trust her farther than I could carry her in my beak. Keep an eye on her, Mudface. You and your wife are safe against her – with your hard shells. But Eber and Gaza; they’re juicy. Remember, a hungry tigress is about the most dangerous beast in the world.’

“Belinda and I did remember it. We took no chances – for the boy and girl – with Mrs. Tiger.

“For the present I left the raft floating a quarter-mile away from the island; only so, I knew, would Eber and Gaza be safe – because the tigress couldn’t swim. But, to make double-sure, I asked the raven to stay with them on the raft and bring me word if anything went wrong. Then Belinda and I swam ashore to look for Noah.

“We found the patriarch in an even greater state of puzzlement than he was when building the Ark. Food, food, food was his trouble now. All the supplies of hay and such stuff were pretty nearly eaten up; and the animals that lived on meat hadn’t had a meal for days. Things looked awful bad. After we had talked to the old man a while we swam back to the raft. And I said to the raven,

“‘It’s no use our staying around here. There isn’t a bite of food to spare – except the fish which the seals are catching; and that’s barely enough to feed themselves and their pups.’

“‘Humph!’ said the raven. ‘If you’ll mount guard over the raft here I’ll fly across the Ark presently and see if I can swipe a piece of bacon for you. But I can’t carry much, you know.’

“‘Listen,’ said Belinda: ‘do you know what I think we should do? – Try to find our way back to Shalba. I’ve no idea how far Africa is from here. But you remember Mashtu’s Royal Botanical Gardens. Every fruit-tree, oranges, olives, bananas, grapes, pineapples – everything was grown there. Surely some of them must be left.’”

“Pardon,” said the Doctor. “But are you sure about the pineapples? Christopher Columbus, you know, was supposed to be the discoverer who first brought them to this side of the world – long after the Deluge.”

“If you’ll allow me, Doctor,” said the turtle, “I’ll answer that question too, later on? For the present it may interest you to know that, in the days of Shalba, not only did we have nearly every fruit you can find today, but many more besides. You see, the Flood killed off many delicious fruits and vegetables – with their seeds – so that they never grew in our earth again.”

“Oh quite, quite,” said John Dolittle – “most interesting. Certainly put off all that till you’re ready to tell it. I am most keen now to hear what luck you had in trying to get back to Shalba from the Ark. – Excuse my breaking in, please. What did Belinda say next?”

“Well,” she said, ‘we’ve got to do something, Mudface. Eber and Gaza are going to starve to death if we stay here.’

“That raven was a clever and adventurous bird. (He had already slipped across to the Ark and got a piece of bacon for us.)

“‘You’re right,’ he said after thinking a minute. I’m willing – though I have only a foggy notion which way to go to reach Africa. But I’ve always trusted my good luck. Maybe we’ll fall in with other animals on the way – water-creatures – or what not – who are still alive. For myself, I can probably pick up a thing or two to eat. If it hadn’t been for the floating plants, which use no roots – like the water-hyacinth – those two elephants over there would have been dead long ago. Water-hyacinth is all right for vegetable-feeders – if they can find nothing better. But it carries air-balls to keep it floating. And Mrs. Pigeon told me the bull-elephant nearly died of colic – gas on the stomach, you know. And when an elephant has gas, he has an awful lot. Like a balloon – very uncomfortable. But he stayed alive.’

“‘It’s those youngsters I’m worried about,’ said Belinda. ‘They’re just skin and bone…. Shalba! It’s a long trip ahead of us.’

“‘Well, now,’ said the raven, ‘perhaps we can pick up a cormorant – or some other fishing bird – and take him along. If we can, we’ll be all right, you know. We’ll manage on shrimps, flying-fish and such food. You turtles are too slow for that kind of diving and catching. Myself, being a land bird, I’d be even less use. But a cormorant or a kingfisher could keep us supplied.’

“And so it was agreed that all five of us would set out on a very daring journey. I was afraid to keep those youngsters near that fiendish tigress.

“No doubt it’s natural that meat-eating animals should kill others, to get food. But Eber and Gaza were now the same to Belinda and me as our own children. I am sure that neither Belinda nor I would have hesitated one second to give our own lives, if it would have saved those youngsters from destruction.

“The animals around the Ark were sorry to have us go. They had seen how I had come through the Flood – leaving the Ark and going off on my own; and how Belinda and I had now returned after rescuing two human beings from drowning. They had hoped I would stay with them for a while to help them with my cunning and wisdom. Seeing their food growing less and less each day, they were losing their faith in Noah as a leader – and they too were afraid of that tigress.

“The deer, giraffes and the rest gathered around, begging us to stay or to take them with us. I felt sorry for them. But the mysterious thought that I might yet be more useful in saving one man and one woman – the very creatures whose kind had imprisoned me and enslaved the world – that thought kept coming back to me: Eber and Gaza must live at all costs. To the hungry animals that clustered around me as I crawled back ashore, I found my heart grow suddenly, strangely hard. All I said was,

“‘I must go. I’ve only returned for a barrel of fresh water to take on the raft. But no one, except my wife, the boy and girl and the raven, come with me on this voyage.’”

• • • • •

•   15   •

The Raven Meets
with Adventures

“After we had left the Ark this second time, the clumsy old ship seemed to drop out of sight below the skyline strangely fast. And then only wide empty seas spread all around us again – which gave us a feeling of great loneliness.

“Now an odd thing I’d noticed as we had pulled away from those islands was that some storks and sea-birds seemed to be following us – just drifting here and there, in twos and threes, as if on no particular business.

“Belinda too was uneasy about them. ‘It looks to me, Mudface,’ she said, ‘as if those birds might be trailing us. – Yet why? They’re a lot better off, on the Ark back there, than we are – with only a pound of bacon between us. Whatever are they up to?… I don’t like it. – Wish they’d mind their own business.’

“I said nothing in answer. But I well knew of what – or of whom – my wife was thinking.

“As for the raven, he gave them only one glance, frowned and then went on with his calculations for the voyage.

“‘Let me see,’ said he: ‘we are starting about the second hour after sunrise’ – though I myself was by no means certain of the time, because—”

“I wish he’d stop trying to remember what time it was,” whispered Polynesia to me in her sqawky voice. “All I want to know is, what happened.”

“The raven seemed a little puzzled in his reckoning. ‘Look here,’ he said presently, ‘suppose you keep pulling the raft along this line, changing your course gradually for the position of the sun. I will go ahead of you, flying high; and maybe I’ll see something. If I do, I’ll come back over this same course and meet you. But, remember: if it gets cloudy and there’s no sun to guide you, stop dead where you are and leave it to me to find you.’

“So the raven went off. And we ploughed along through the seas, at an easy pace. After about a couple of hours the sun did cloud over; and remembering our instructions, Belinda and I at once stopped swimming, so as to stay more or less in the same place.

“My wife got sort of anxious. ‘What would happen,’ she asked, ‘if the raven was unable to pick us up again?’ A heavy mist lay on the breast of the waters and you couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead of you.

“‘Don’t worry,’ said I. ‘That raven, though he’s no sea-bird, is clever. He’ll get in touch with us again – never fear, if the mist lasts for three days. We’ve got a whole keg of fresh water, remember – and that piece of bacon he took from Mrs. Noah’s larder. There’s no need to get nervous about the youngsters yet.’

“But night settled down upon the ocean with still no sign of the raven. And next morning, I confess, I was very uneasy when I awoke to find the sea mist as thick as ever. Belinda was of course full of worries: what if the mist should last a whole week? The piece of bacon would keep Eber and the girl for only a couple of days. Suppose the raven himself was lost, having no sun to go by? – And a whole lot more.

“But I kept on telling her that I had faith in that chatterbox; and I was quite sure he would turn up any minute, so long as we did as we were told and didn’t drag the raft all over the ocean looking for him.

“Well, I got the poor old lady quieted down at last – though I never let her know how unhappy I felt myself.

“Somewhere around half past five in the evening – no, maybe later – six or half past, as near as I could judge by the growing dark—”

“Oh, gracious,” sighed Too-Too. “Now he’s worrying about the time again.”

“Well, anyhow, the light was very dim, I remember,” the turtle went on, “when I thought I heard a sound away off over the stillness of the misty sea.

“‘Belinda,’ I whispered, ‘did you hear that?’

“‘No,’ she grumbled. ‘I heard nothing.’

“‘It’s coming from behind you,’ I said. ‘Listen again.’

“We both strained our ears. And, sure enough, a long way off we could both hear a faint, hoarse sort of cry: ‘C-r-a-r-k!… C-r-a-r-k!’

“‘The raven!’ I whispered to my wife, nearly falling into the water in my excitement. ‘I told you he’d never get lost. He’s hunting for us somewhere. Let’s answer him!’

“Then the two of us let out the most awful noises you ever heard. We waited. A moment passed. And at last we were answered. This time the grating voice came closer still – though the fog was terrible. Soon we felt, rather than saw, dark shapes which swept and circled in the air about us.

“Then, plop! plop! – two somethings – the light was too bad to tell what they were yet – landed on the raft between Belinda and myself.

“‘Is that you, Raven?’ I asked the smaller one.

“‘Did you think it was Father Christmas?’ growled the scrapy voice. ‘Gosh! What a night!’

“‘And who’s that, the dumpy thing over there, you’ve brought with you?’ asked Belinda.

“‘Sh!’ hissed the raven. – ‘Not so loud! That’s a pelican, the diving bird I said I’d look for. Marvellous to see him work – brings up a pailful of herring in one swoop. But they’re very touchy about their looks, pelicans. – Reminds you of a cross between a coal-shovel and a coffee-pot. Stop staring at him, will you? – He can’t help his shape.’

“‘Oh, Raven,’ sighed Belinda. ‘What would we have done without you?’”

Cheapside woke up with a snap.

“There you are! See what I mean?” he asked.

“Oh, go to sleep!” muttered Becky. – “Wonderful how you can always pick the wrong time for wakin’ up – and the wrong one for goin’ to sleep!”

“Now, now!” said the Doctor gently. “Let Mudface get on.”

“The next day,” said the turtle, “we were glad to find the fog cleared away and the sun shining brightly. There was no land in sight. But over breakfast the raven told us of his adventures since he had seen us last.

“‘I kept straight on, like I told you,’ said he, ‘but I couldn’t seem to find a piece of land big enough for a canary to perch on. It was getting dark; so knowing I was going to have to spend the night at sea, I flew around as best I could in circles. I was aiming to stay in the same place till sunrise. But Jiminy! In the morning the fog was worse than ever.

“‘Well, after slapping around a while longer, I spied what might be a barrel, floating a ways off. I was tired from flying all night. And I needed some place to rest. On my way to the barrel I picked up an orange. It was pretty rotten; but I reckoned that if I could get it to the barrel I might be able to make a breakfast off what good seeds were left inside it. When I got close I saw there was another bird sitting on the barrel. I recognized him at once – the last kind of bird in the world you’d expect to find in a place like that. I know neither of you will believe me; but it was a dove – not stuffed, mind you – a real one.

“‘“Hulloa!” says I. “You’re a long way from home. How did you get here?”

“‘“Noah sent me,” says he.

“‘“Noah sent you,” I says. “What for?”

“‘“He said I was to bring back an olive-branch,” sniffed the dove, water dropping off his nose. His bill chattered so you could hear it a mile off. Altogether he looked like something they’d used for washing out bottles.

“‘“Noah,” he went on, “said that the Dove was the Bird of Peace. And the olive-branch I’d bring back would be a sign – a sign of the end of the Deluge.”

“‘“Ho, ho!” I says, snickering. “A sign, did he say? – of the end of the Deluge, eh? Sounds more to me like a sign of softening of the brain. True, the rain’s stopped. But look at the mess it’s left! Now I tell you what you do, old lovey-dovey: you fly straight back to Old Man Noah, before you get your death of cold and tell him there aren’t any olive-trees growing round these parts yet.

“‘“He ought to be ashamed of himself, sending a dove out to catch olives – in a wind blowing forty miles an hour! I wonder he didn’t tell you to bring in a gallon of vinegar along with the bottle of olive oil. – Look, here’s a couple of good orange-seeds. Toss them down the crop. They’ll last you till you reach Noah’s ship. And you tell the old man from me that as far you bein’ a ‘Bird of Peace,’ he’s lucky he ain’t getting you back in pieces.”

“‘Well,’ added the raven thoughtfully, ‘poor old Dovey was awful glad to be let off duty. And, with his crop full of orange-seeds, he wasted no time flying off to try and sight the Ark from the higher levels. Myself, after tearing what was left of that smelly orange in pieces, I began to work out a plan. The sun was warming up now; and I decided I’d fly as high as the limit and see what I could see.

“‘After climbing for more than an hour I ran into a couple of vultures. They were huge, hungry beasts; and had made up their minds I’d be a slick sandwich. But while their speed was better than mine, they were no good at dodging. Still, I knew they could get me in the end; because they had longer wind.

“‘But suddenly I remembered the wonderful gift for smelling dead meat at long distances, which vultures are supposed to have. I’ll try a bluff, I told myself. Maybe it will work. Then as I looped and ducked around their tails, I said to them, “What good will a little snack like me do to the hungry stomachs of great creatures like you? You’ll be starving again in ten minutes. But listen: not far off from here I’ve found great lands – not little rocky islands – but huge countries where men once farmed. And there, teams of drowned oxen, flocks of sheep and trains of camels lie dead and rotting in the sun. If you will but leave me alone, I will lead you there and you may eat your fill on the long-dead meat you love so well. Your scent is no good over the sea – you know that. Should you kill me now, brothers, you will lose your guide – and likely starve – all for the sake of a little raven.

“‘I could see I’d got them thinking. Myself, I hadn’t an idea of where these great lands lay. But my bluff worked. I saw the vultures start talking to one another in argument. At last they gave in to me.

“‘“So be it, Brother Raven,” said they. “Lead on – to the big lands where the carcasses of camels lie rotting in the sun.” – I could see that rotten meat stuff had done the business. “But listen: fulfill your promise – and no monkey business – or we will snap you up like a field mouse.”

“‘Well, my luck was with me. At the end of the first day, when I thought I was going to drop into the water from weariness, I saw a long land-line stretching out ahead of me. It looked like a continent. As soon as the vultures too saw it, I noticed their beaks open and their tongues smear round their dirty faces. They could smell dead camel-meat, the brutes.

“‘That did it. They at once forgot all about me. By sheer accident I had led them to an enormous continent with enough rotten camel-meat on it to poison an army. They raced ahead of me at twice my speed and never even looked back.’

•   •   •

“My wife, Belinda, sighed heavily as the raven ended the story of his adventures.

“‘My goodness, Raven,’ she said at last, “I think you’re wonderful!’”

“What would you have done without him?” said Cheapside, mimicking the Doctor, with a yawn. “Come on, folks – bed-time! I was in the middle of a nice nap; but the smell of them rotten camels woke me up.”

• • • • •

•   16   •

The Sea-Birds
over the Garden

“What land, Mudface, was this continent,” the Doctor asked the following night – “I mean, where the raven escaped from the vultures?”

“I am pretty sure it was Asia Minor,” said the turtle. “But I will come back to that too in just a minute, John Dolittle, if you don’t mind. It was at first frightfully confusing to turtles of our kind, who often travel great distances by both sea and land. Only a long time after the Earth dried completely were we able to get a true picture of what the new world looked like – and even then we often had to go by guess-work.”

“I can quite understand that,” said the Doctor. “Excuse my impatience. I am very keen to learn how much the world was changed by the Deluge. But tell me in your own time. We are all ready – when you are – to go on.”

“Well,” said the turtle, “after we had finished up our piece of bacon, the raven called to the pelican whom he had brought back with him last night.

“‘Take a dive, Pel,’ says he. ‘We’re going to need some grub before we sight the land.’

“The pelican grunted and took off. Marvellous it was to see the difference, in that dumpy bird, between his walking and his flying. In the air, he soared most gracefully. He scouted round the raft quite a while before he suddenly shut his wings and dropped like a stone towards the water. His keen eyes had seen fish swimming near the top. What a splash he made! – Reminded me of pitching an anchor into the sea.

“But he knew his business. Disappearing under the water for five minutes, he suddenly pops up again, only a yard away from the raft. We helped him aboard. Then he opens that great shovel-mouth of his and spilled out a load that looked like a fish-market. There were two fine haddock, a mackerel and a lot of little fish besides.

“‘Will that do – as a starter?’ says the pelican in a gentle grunt. ‘Light wasn’t so good – and many got away from me under water.’

“‘Brother,’ says the raven, ‘that will do elegant. – Enough food to hold us all for quite a while. Boy, you may not hit the water pretty; but you’re surely a great fisherman. – Oh, watch that mackerel! He’s trying to flip overboard.’

“Indeed, Belinda, Eber, Gaza and myself had to get busy keeping the jumping, live fish from hopping back into the sea. Eber had a sharp stone knife he had made. He chopped the heads off the fish, slit them open and – after washing them – set them outside the roof-shelter to dry in the sun. Then the raven says,

“‘Now, my hearties, as soon as you’re ready, let’s go. Your pace – swimming and dragging this crazy raft – will not be fast.’

“He spoke the truth. I can only guess how far it really was – close to five or six hundred miles, I’d say. Luckily the wind helped us most of the way. But oh, how sick we got of fish, the only food we had. Yet we never could have made the trip without it.

“At last, on the fifth day, however, we sighted a low line of land ahead of us; and hopes of a new home, on dry earth, put heart into us. We found a nice harbour or bay, where we anchored the raft. How wonderful it felt to step out onto something dry – which kept still under your feet!

“But oh, the country was desolate! There was nothing growing yet of course – even here. And, although the water had dropped much lower in these parts, the shore was cut by many large rivers. You see, a great deal of water lay on the high plains, many miles inland from the sea; and this was still rushing down to get to the ocean, cutting river-beds on its way.

“We set about making a home at once – just a hut – out of drift-wood, planks and old wreckage we found along the beaches. Our good friend, the raven, went off searching for seeds of fruits and vegetables. He brought back many kinds that seemed still in good condition. Eber, you will remember, was a very clever gardener, having been chief assistant to King Mashtu’s park-keeper – till he was changed over to help Noah in the menagerie. Well, he dug a garden behind the hut and planted seed. But not a single one of them sprouted.

“This puzzled him for some time. But in the end (being a good gardener) he found out the reason. Down here, close to the shore, the salt-water of the ocean – when it had been higher – had so poisoned all the soil that for years it would be useless for plant growth. After that we moved farther inland, hunting for hilly country where the ground might not be as salty. We found what we were looking for only a few miles away. There we built another home, dug a garden and planted more seed.

“This time our luck was better. In a few weeks many of the seeds took root and came up. They grew very slowly and were not much to be proud of; but you’ve no idea how happy it made us to see anything green sprout out of that bare earth.

“By now, too, the waters at the shore were beginning to settle down; and when rains came we noticed that, in the rivers, it was almost drinkable – though we still did not use it for drinking. We did what we had all along: caught the fresh rain-water in anything we could, and stored it away for drinking and cooking. Off the rocks at the shore, the fishing too was better, as the currents grew calmer. Eber rigged up a kind of spear, or harpoon, and killed sea-otters and the like. So at last we had some fresh meat, instead of that everlasting fish-food which poor Gaza was dreadfully tired of.

“From time to time, when we were working on our garden, we noticed many large sea-birds in the sky above, soaring around in circles. But, at the time, we did not pay much attention to them. We supposed they were just interested to see green plants of any kind coming up for the first time in so long.

“While we were waiting for our vegetables and fruits to get big enough for eating, I went down to the shore and explored under the sea for towns. But I found only a few scattered farm-houses – no towns or villages. Again I got a bottle of wine or two – with a few gardening tools; and these I brought back to our hut. But what I had been hunting for was real solid food, to give the boy and girl a change. They had begun again to look sort of sickly on fish, with only a piece of otter-meat now and then – and no vegetable stuff at all.

“On these trips I was forever hoping to find the old city of Shalba. It had been such a rich and well-fed town, as I knew it before the Flood. I felt sure there must still be plenty of good eatables among the wreckage of its shops – as well as good seeds in its Royal Botanical Gardens.

“But in this too I was disappointed. I could not find Shalba; and nowhere else, it seemed, could I find any solid food for men-folk to eat. I was very unhappy.

“However, on one trip I made a discovery. This time I went farther off than I’d ever done before. I was gone for twelve days and must have travelled several hundreds of miles from the hut.

“I had crossed one deep valley where the current, running through it northward, was terribly strong. I suspected it to be the great River Nile which drains most of Egypt. And, if it was the Nile, that meant I had passed over, under water, from Asia Minor to the mainland of Africa. After going on a great distance, I became surer and surer this was true.

“Every once in a while I’d come to deserts and ranges of mountains which I could have sworn I’d seen before.

“Then suddenly I found myself on a long steep slope which stretched downward into much deeper water. Now, in my free days, before I’d been put into King Mashtu’s zoo, I had travelled a lot through and around his kingdom – sometimes for big distances. But I couldn’t remember ever having seen this steep slope before. I decided to go down to the bottom of it to make sure of where I was.

“Well, I never reached the bottom! For hours and hours I went on, skimming down, lower and lower. The light got so poor that at last it was black as night; and I could see nothing at all. No use to go on: you can’t explore where you can’t see. I knew, by the terrible cold and the great pressure on my shell, that I was now in enormously deep water.

“But I had found out something more. I only guessed at it then. Years later, when the waters settled still lower, and more shore-line showed, I knew that my guess had been right. This was a brand-new ocean I was in, one which had been cut by that wide and mountainous wave we had seen sweeping across the Shalba race-track.

“You see, John Dolittle, the world before the Deluge had been made up of more land than sea; now it is more sea than land.”

“Ah!” murmured the Doctor. “That explains a whole lot which geographers have been guessing at for thousands of years. – But go on, please.”

“Before the Flood,” said the turtle, “Africa, Europe and America were all joined – just one large continent. And Mashtu ruled as king over almost the whole of it. This new ocean, into which I had stumbled, was what you call now the Atlantic. America was a wild and distant country, with few or no people on it. Between the Old World and the New there was said to be a waterless desert of sand and stones. But later, when the Flood cut through, the ocean was simply full of islands. Most of them were soon washed away by storm and what not.

“And, as you know, today the only big island-groups left are the Canaries, the Cape Verdes, the Madeiras, the Azores – with a few less important ones, like the Bermudas and the Bahamas. The world was changed indeed! Even that little ocean you call the Mediterranean Sea, which used to be a large inland lake, cut the thin neck of land at Gibraltar and poured its waters through, to join the Atlantic.”

“Most interesting,” said the Doctor. – “Don’t miss any of this, Stubbins. It’s terribly important to science.”

“Very good, Sir,” said I. “I’ve got it all down.”

“Tell me, Mudface,” said the Doctor, turning back to the turtle: “the climates of the different parts of the Earth must have been changed too by all this, eh?”

“Oh my, yes!” said Mudface. “In the good old days almost everywhere there seemed to be plenty of sunshine. Many good vegetables grew wild. A man need never starve, even if he wandered without tent or baggage; for almost anywhere the countryside would provide him with the food he needed. For this reason there was very little meat eaten – by civilized people, at all events. It was only after the Flood that Man and Beast had to struggle and fight one another for a living. Ah, yes, it was very different then, keeping yourself alive!

“And it changed the lives of all creatures. Before, Men had spent their days thinking of higher things, singing songs, playing games and inventing poetry. Now everyone had to calculate and work and worry for one idea only: getting enough to eat.”

“Do you feel,” asked the Doctor, “that the world has not yet recovered – got over – that dreadful Flood?”

“No, Doctor,” said the turtle. “Things got slowly better of course. But this Earth has never since been the same. What had been warm countries were now cold ones. – Why, palm-trees with dates on them, used to grow where the North Pole is now placed, in the frozen Arctic Ocean.

“But to get on with my own story: I swam up to the surface and started to go back to the hut. As I said, I had been gone from our home twelve whole days.

“When, after much hard swimming, I at last drew near to it, my heart was filled with fear. Gathered about the hut was a huge crowd of animals of every kind. How had they got here? Cats cannot swim. Then suddenly I remembered the birds who’d watched our gardening: and I knew. Those birds had led them here, over the land which had now grown so much larger with the lowering of the water-line. I cursed my stupidity in staying away so long.

“When I got closer still, I saw the tigress, who seemed to be in charge – as usual. For weeks we had felt ourselves quite safe – thinking that, with so much water between us, the cats would never be able to follow. I could see nothing of Eber and Gaza – those children whom my wife and I had grown to think of as our own!… Were they killed? Had they been eaten?

“Tired as I was from the long swim, I broke into a run towards our home as fast as my legs would carry me.”

• • • • •

•   17   •

Antelope and Grass-Eaters

To my surprise, it was the pelican, and not the raven, who came forward to meet me. Without waiting for any questions from me, he hurriedly told me that Eber and Gaza were still alive but in great danger. They had shut themselves in the hut and barred the door; but he feared they would not be safe for long, as the hut was so light and flimsy.

“But by the time I’d reached the edge of the crowd of animals, the bull-elephant had his shoulder against the shack’s door. One shove from that great body could, I knew, lay the whole building flat. I cried out to the elephant to stop. Then I spoke to the crowd, asking the animals why they wished to hurt my friends.

“‘Your friends!’ cried the tigress, stepping forward and raising her upper lip in an angry snarl. ‘Why do you call this man and woman your friends? Have not they and their kind made slaves of us? Did they not take away my cubs and put them in a cage to be looked at?’

“‘Aye!’ trumpeted the elephant, waving his trunk wildly in the air. ‘Didn’t they make a beast of burden out of me and walk me through the streets in circus-processions? Did they not make slaves of the horses and oxen, setting them to plough the fields in the hot sun?’

“‘Let them die!’ snarled the tigress. ‘Elephant, crush in the door and I’ll swallow them in two gulps. We want no more Men in the world. We are now the masters. This Earth forever more shall be the Kingdom of the Animals. Smash the door, Elephant. They will make a juicy meal!’

“‘Aye, aye!’ they all howled. ‘Break down the door I’

“The elephant drew back his shoulder in readiness, like a battering ram. I saw that this was the moment when I must act – and quickly. I put my head down and pushed my way through that crowd. The sharp edges of my shell knocked the feet out from under animals of all kinds, who fell either side of my path in kicking, struggling heaps. I weighed eight hundred pounds which made my shoving as destructive as that elephant’s. I reached the hut; and while the elephant’s shoulder was still drawn back, waiting, I slipped in between him and the shack and set my back against the door.

“‘Stand aside, Turtle!’ yelled the tigress. ‘Your friends must die.’

“‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘Wait and let me speak. You have told me why you think this man your enemy – that he imprisoned you and gave you hard work to do. Let me tell you that these things were done to me also. I too was a prisoner in a zoo. And yet I call those within this hut my friends. It was not they who made us slaves.

“‘It was King Mashtu who did it – he who almost enslaved the whole world, Man and Beast. These two young people you wish to eat were also slaves – like you and me. Yet, in spite of his own slavery, the boy Eber did his best to make life more bearable for me and my companions in prison. And that is why I call him friend?

“‘What do we care for that?’ asked a big black panther working his way forward to the front of the mob. ‘If these two are allowed to live, they will have cubs, like ourselves, peopling the Earth again with cruel masters. Give them to us, Turtle!’

“‘Yes, yes,’ the crowd yelled. ‘We would rid the world of Men now and forever. We want a free Earth. Down with Man! – Let him and the woman be wiped out!’

“Then with ugly howls, the crowd rushed forward. Once more the elephant, reaching over my back, put his shoulder against the door. I heard Gaza inside whisper to her companion with a sob, ‘Goodbye, Eber. This is the end!’

“Then red floated before my eyes and a great anger boiled up in my heart. I shouted to the growling crowd. ‘If any of you eat them, you’re going to have to kill me first.’

“And suddenly, rearing up on my hind legs, I bit a piece clean out of the elephant’s ear. With a roar of pain he staggered back carrying the others with him. And for a moment the space about the door was clear again.

“But I knew another rush would come. There were too many against me. Belinda, I guessed, was inside the hut, ready to put up a last fight for the youngsters’ lives. If only I had the raven here to help me think out some plan! But he happened to be away seed hunting when that mob of animals arrived. I decided that the best I could do for the present was to keep them talking, hoping against hope that help would come to me from somewhere.

“‘What of Noah?’ I asked the crowd. ‘Where is he? Have you eaten him?’

“‘No,’ barked the she-wolf. ‘He’s still back there at the Ark. Only the sheep stayed with him. There are two lambs; and Noah is trying to keep them alive with half a sack of dried rice out of his own stores. We came away and left him in disgust. For us he has no food. All he has given us for weeks is just promises. What was the good of saving us, if we are to have nothing to eat to stay alive on?’

“‘Maybe that was the only thing the old man could do,’ said I. ‘With no more than half a sack of rice left, he chose to save sheep instead of wolves. I’m sure I don’t blame him.’

“‘We would have eaten him and all his family,’ said the tigress. ‘But it was he, Noah, who saved us from the waters; so we let him live. But if his sons and their wives have any babies we’re going to eat them. And when Noah’s grandchildren die, Man shall disappear for good. Stand away from that door, Turtle! You have hindered us long enough.’

“‘Fools, fools, fools!’ I cried at the top of my voice – it was the best speech I ever made and that was the way I began it: ‘Fools, fools, fools! Do you suppose this Flood was an accident, like stubbing your foot against a stone? No. Some One – I don’t know Who – but Some One planned all this. The King of Shalba made himself ruler of almost all the world. But his rule was bad – built on lies, slavery, cheating and broken promises. Still he went on from power to more power. No country had the strength or courage to beat him down.’

“I saw that living skeleton, the she-wolf, shift restlessly, impatient at my talk. But many animals were listening with attention. I went on:

“‘And had Mashtu become complete ruler of the whole world, nobody can say what bad things would have followed – nor how long that lying King and his children’s children would have run the world to suit themselves and their friends.

“‘Then this Some One, whose name we do not know, but whose greater power controlled the rains, the tides and the fires in the sleeping volcanoes, made up His mind that the world and its so-called civilization must start again from the bottom of the ladder. And even if some suffered, a new Earth and a better civilization must be rebuilt.’

“‘Oh twaddle,’ I heard the tigress mutter. ‘Words, words! We want food, not talk.’

“But most of the animals took no notice of what she said. – Neither did I.

“‘Now tell me,’ I said to the crowd: ‘do you think you can live without Man? Well, look around at this land which the Deluge has given back to you. Has it grass or fruits or anything to eat on it? No. – And more than half of you live on grass, not meat. When my two poor friends in this hut are killed, when Noah and his family are gone, what then? You’ll start eating one another, won’t you? – Till there is no life left in a dead world. Look around you. The Earth is naked – nothing but stones and steaming, rotting rubbish. Now go look behind this hut.’

“They went. There they saw the seedlings and young plants in the garden. In less than a minute every green shoot had been gobbled up by the hungry deer.

“So much for all of poor Eber’s hard work I thought to myself. But I did not interfere. I slipped back to the front of the hut, put my back to it again and let them finish their meal.

“When they returned and gathered before me again, I said,

“‘Now do you understand? It was not planned that Man should pass from the Earth – not in this Deluge anyhow. You need Eber’s brains and skill if you want to live through this destruction. You need him to farm and plant, so that the Earth may again give you food and pasture and cover.’

“Then from the expression in the faces of the deer and antelope – of which there were hundreds of different kinds – I saw that I had got them thinking. They began talking together in low tones. I knew that if I could get all the grass-eaters on my side, my battle was won; for the cats and other meat-eaters – although far more deadly fighters – were fewer than the animals which live on grass and vegetable food.

“‘Listen,’ I shouted, ‘you who don’t eat meat: do you want this man Eber to live and bring the green Earth back to life for you? Or will you give him to these cats to eat?’

“The deer of course were afraid of the tigers and leopards. They whispered together a moment longer, while I saw the scowling tigress talking to the lions a little farther off.

“Then suddenly those hundreds of antelope, deer, and chamois sprang to my side and lowered their horns like a row of swords to defend the door – to defend Eber, the gardener, against the meat-eaters of the world.”

• • • • •

Part Four

•   1   •

Man Becomes a Slave
to the Animals

“That, I fancy, was the greatest surprise of Mrs. Tiger’s life. She was so furious at this unexpected turn that, very foolishly, she got her husband to make another rush at us at once. But the brave antelopes stood their ground. It was a bristling ring of horns that spread around the hut. They did not tremble; they did not give way – though I knew how they feared the Queen of the Jungle. And, within three paces of those spearlike points, the cats changed their minds and slowed down.

“The tigress muttered something – which I could not hear – to her husband. Then they turned and slunk back. Next, I saw her go through the crowd, whispering to each of the meat-eaters in turn. I guessed she was trying to get them all worked up to fighting pitch.

“At any time they were deadly brutes – now made more dangerous by hunger near to starvation. Again I grew afraid for Eber and Gaza; because it was plain the tigress was planning this attack upon the hut from several different points at the same time. Soon I saw the cats getting ready: they were forming up in gangs of six or eight in a bunch.

“But in the nick of time help came to me from a very unexpected quarter. I heard the cow-elephant whisper to the bull-elephant.

“‘Husband, this moment is, I’m sure, one of great importance. If the cats should win this battle, much trouble – perhaps death for want of food – may come to us. I am for the turtle – and Eber, the sower of seeds. Where in all this devastated desert of a world are you and I – and our young ones later – going to graze, unless somebody gets the grasses started? The turtle is right. Let us take his part.’

“Then (you can imagine my relief!) just as the tigress opened her jaws to give the word for the next rush, those two great elephants tramped forward and stood, shoulder to shoulder, with the antelopes and myself. With them came the two hippos and a pair of rhinoceroses – also grass-eaters. All of them were heavy beasts whose trampling charge could knock a stone wall down. After that, there was no doubt whatever as to which side was the stronger.

“‘Get away, you mangy cats!’ bellowed the bull-elephant. ‘Leave the man alone! We want grass. Eber is a good gardener. We need him. He is going to live, I say – to live and work for us. With food, we animals will be the masters of the world and he the slave. When his usefulness is done and the Earth is green again, you may eat him if you wish. But until we have grass, he is under my protection. Do you understand? – Good! Let no more be said.’

“Well, John Dolittle, that was how a short chapter in the history of the world began – the time when the Animals were the masters: and Man the slave. Alas! I had succeeded in saving Eber and Gaza from being killed, only to see their freedom taken from them a second time.

“When the door of the hut was opened they were set to work at once in the garden, which was made larger yet. They were harnessed to the wooden plough which they had used for their own vegetables. And the elephant drove them like a team of horses along the furrows, cracking a big whip over their heads, the way he had seen the ring-masters do in the circus of Shalba. Many of the animals laughed and jeered at this sight.

“But to me, who remembered how kind Eber had been to the creatures in Mashtu’s zoo, there was something terribly unfair and saddening in the whole business.

“However, you could not help noticing, after the elephant first defied the cats and took command himself of this new Animal Kingdom, how the creatures of every sort grew less afraid of the tigress. She couldn’t boss them around the way she used to. A new leader had taken her place – a leader whose word was law. Many meat-eaters were now doubly dangerous. So near to starvation were they, they often fought, killed and ate one another. Yet they were never allowed to touch Eber and Gaza.

“The birds and the little digging beasts, such as badgers, moles and field mice, were ordered to bring all seed, nuts and acorns to Eber. And these creatures – though they too were ravenously hungry – did as their new elephant-leader told them.

“For they all realized the importance of that first new crop of plants. This crop would of course, in time – as soon as the salt was washed away by the rains – spread its own seed over the world’s naked soil. But it must be given a chance to come to full growth. So meanwhile, the grass-eaters were allowed to nibble only enough, here and there, to keep alive. And the leader-elephant – who usually eats an awful lot in a day – he did the same.

“He was, in a way, the new Mashtu of the world – with this difference: he always kept his word. And though he worked Eber and Gaza terribly hard, he wasn’t cruel or treacherous, like Shalba’s king had been. All the animals respected and liked him.

“Those who stayed back with the Ark, were treated just as fairly. There, as the islands grew larger with the falling water, Noah’s sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, were put to work, cutting the buds out of old uprooted trees and planting them in the ground to start new orchards. The patriarch Noah was not made to work because he was too old and weak. The elephant sent his own wife over to take charge of this part of his new kingdom – to see that Ham didn’t loaf instead of work.

“I have often thought that if the beasts of the world were saved by Noah and his family from the Flood, the animals paid back the debt later. For they kept him and his sons alive by their good sense and planning when starvation – after the land began to dry, seemed to grip all creation with an iron hand.

“And so, for a while at least, things went along pretty well. But they did not suit that savage, selfish tigress. Although she pretended, like the others, to be obedient to the new Elephant Emperor, I – for one – did not trust her.

“She had always wanted to be the boss herself; and something warned me she had never given up hope of some day, somehow, again setting herself up as leader, now that Man had sunk to slavery. Belinda and I talked it over; and we agreed that I was most likely right. So I made up my mind to watch that slant-eyed man-eater. For Eber’s and Gaza’s sake I did not intend to be caught napping a second time.

“I had to be most careful that the tigress should never learn I was keeping an eye on her. At last I became certain that, in spite of all her show of obedience, she was a traitor, jealous of the Elephant Emperor and working secretly for his downfall.

“And this was how I found her out. Eber and Gaza slept in the hut. But every night two animals were posted as sentries at their door, to make sure they did not escape. A short distance away a sort of stable-shelter had been rigged up for the Elephant Emperor to live in. Still farther off, I knew the tigress had made a den for herself and her husband, out of a tangle of dead trees.

“It became a habit of mine every night to rest close to Eber’s hut. I used to half bury myself near by, so I could see but not be seen. One night, when Eber and Gaza were sleeping inside, tired and worn out with hard work, I saw the dark shape of the tigress lurking around the shack. The sentries on duty that night were two giraffes. But they did not see that great cat. Indeed the beast, in that poor light, sneaking slowly over the ground on her big padded feet, was more like a shadow than a living creature.

“Soon I made a discovery: she had not come to attack my friends tonight. She just wanted to make sure they were still safely locked up. And – what’s more – she was, herself, most anxious that the giraffe-sentries should not see her. She did not go up to speak with them. But, after sniffing round the hut a bit, she moved off in a direction quite different from that by which she’d come. So, after she’d gone, I followed her, making no more noise than she did herself.

“Now, at the bottom of a big hollow to the south there was a cave in the rocks, where the animals often went to enjoy the cool when the sun was especially hot. Mrs. Tiger was headed towards this cave. I reckoned it was about midnight. She came to the mouth of the cave and I saw her glide down into its dark depths without a sound.

“I was about to do the same. But on second thought I decided to hang back a while. – Lucky for me I did! Presently while I watched and waited – crouching low behind a stone – down into that hollow crept more cats: cheetahs, leopards, black panthers, lions and many other kinds. It began to look like a gathering of our old enemies. Still I waited on, to see if there were more to come. After about a quarter of an hour I thought it would now be safe for me to move. I wasn’t going down into the cave; but I was going to get as close to the entrance as I could.

“So, first, I went to a mud-hole near by and caked myself all over with mud. When I had finished I looked just like a lump of messy earth. Then I went and placed myself as close as possible to the cave’s entrance, drew my head and feet into my shell and kept as still as a stone.

“Well, I heard every word that was said at that meeting – which was what I’d come for. I learned every detail of the great Revolution of the Cats which later overthrew the Elephant Empire.

“The tigress told them she thought the lion should be set up as leader in the elephant’s place. The others all noisily agreed to that. But I, at least, was not taken in by her talk. I was still certain the tricky old cat meant herself to be the boss – even while she told the rest of them that in the lion they had chosen a good leader. All she really wanted – for the present – was to set them against the Elephant Emperor.”

• • • • •

•   2   •

The Revolution
of the Cats

“Well,” Mudface began, as we sat down next night, “the tigress told the meeting she had the whole revolution planned out and arranged: tomorrow, Saturday, I think, but—”

“Revolution indeed!” Jip growled in a low and angry voice. “What that old she-pussy needed was a nip on the ear. – But it certainly sounds exciting!”

“It was,” said the turtle – “though not exactly as the tigress hoped. Her idea was this: the next night, as soon as the elephant would be fast asleep, she and the lioness, the leopardess, and the she-panther were going to surround the leader’s shed and force him to give up his empire and go away. If he refused, it was agreed that they would kill him – which they could have done, so long as they attacked him in a band, unexpectedly. In the meantime the lion, the tiger and the leopard would kill Eber. Gaza was to be kept for the women-cats to eat.

“You see, during all this time when the big meat-eaters were short of food they had kept themselves alive by devouring other creatures who were too small and weak to fight back. Noah was not with them now to keep order. And so, John Dolittle – the same as with the trees – we lost many kinds of animals who were completely wiped out and never seen again. And as soon as the tigress spoke to that ravenous pack inside the cave of eating Eber and Gaza, I heard them all lick their chops and grunt with appetite.

“A little later I guessed, from the racket down below, that the meeting was over and the party was breaking up. And before I had time to get away from the mouth of the cave all the big cats came trundling out, talking together in low whispers. For a moment I was scared I would be discovered, spying. But my disguise worked perfectly. With my head and feet drawn in and my back all plastered with mud, I looked like a part of the ground itself. Those great beasts walked over or around me, never suspecting I’d heard every word of their plot. Many of them actually stepped on me with their large padded feet.

“The last to leave the cave was the tigress. On her face I could see, by the dim moonlight, a grin of cunning conceit. She was thinking of the great plans she had set afoot to make herself Queen of the Animal Kingdom. I watched her long muscular body creep up to the rim of the hollow, where she stood for a moment against the sky.

“‘All right, you slinky old witch,’ I whispered to myself. ‘It’s queen you’re going to be, eh? Wait and see. I, Mudface the turtle, know now what you mean to do.’

“As she moved off the skyline, towards her den, I brought my head all the way out of my shell and shook off most of the mud in which I had caked myself. At first it seemed to me best to go at once to the Elephant Emperor and warn him of his danger and the Revolution of the Cats.

“But on thinking this over a bit, I could see it wasn’t such a good idea. It would only mean that fighting among the animals would break out sooner; for I felt certain at last the tigress would put up a fight to a finish, to be made the leader of the beasts.

“Besides, I myself partly agreed with the animals of the world in their not wanting to become once more the slaves of Man. – That is, I did until I saw how, through their everlasting separating and squabbling among themselves, they showed that they had not the sense to rule the Earth – even as well as Man had done. – And that isn’t saying much. But anyway, whether the Animal Empire succeeded or not, my mind was made up that neither Eber nor Gaza was going to be eaten.

“So I sat there a while, wondering what was the best thing I could do. And presently I said to myself: ‘Tonight! That’s it. Get them out of it – beyond the reach of the cats – before the dawn comes. It’s the only way to be sure of saving them. If I wait till morning all sorts of animals will be awake to tell the tigress what I’m doing. I won’t stand a chance then. – While now I have only two sentries to deal with – giraffes – and not very bright. Eber and the girl must leave tonight.’

“I got busy, I can tell you. It was about an hour past midnight. First of all, I followed Her Majesty Mrs. Tiger to her den, taking care she shouldn’t hear or see me. I lingered near her home till the sounds of a grunting snore told me she was safely asleep. Then I hustled off and woke up my wife, Belinda, who lived not far from Eber’s hut. I told her the whole business as fast as I could. When I’d finished, she said,

“‘Mudface, you’re right about getting those two young people away immediately. But as for the giraffes, the sentries on guard at the hut, you’d better leave them to me. No use trying force, because they’d raise an outcry and we’d have the whole camp around our ears in two seconds. You keep out of sight a minute and let me go talk to the guards. I’ll tell them of a place where the wild rice is sprouting.’

“‘Where’s that?’ I asked.

“‘Nowhere, so far as I know,’ said Belinda. ‘Yes, I grant you it’s a dirty trick to play on those simple grass-eaters. But the boy and the girl come first. The giraffes are hungry enough to believe, and do, anything. I’ll offer to lead them to the growing rice. Then, as soon as they and I have left, you burrow in under the wall of the hut and get Eber and Gaza to run off with you!”

“‘Humph!’ said I. ‘That may take time, you know.’

“‘True,’ she answered. ‘But we’ve got some hours before the sun rises. Get as far away as you can and I’ll try to pick up your trail as soon as it is safe to give the giraffes the slip. But don’t forget that those cats have dreadfully sharp noses for following a scent. You better make for the nearest water. And, again, remember that the nearest water is much farther off than it used to be, now that the seas are dropping lower every day. But once you reach the big water, you’ll be safe from the cats – with Eber anyhow. You may not be able to swim with the two on your back…. If you can’t, hide the girl in a cave or something till I catch up with you. Now I’ll go and talk to the guards.’

“‘All right, Belinda,’ I said: ‘Lead them off to the westward for the rice; and I’ll take Eber and the girl towards the east. Good luck to you!’

“‘Good luck to both of us!’ she answered.”

• • • • •

•   3   •

The Escape

“I watched my wife as she crept towards the hut. The long necks of the giraffes stood up like flagpoles before the door, I wanted to hear what was said; but I remembered Belinda’s advice and stayed back out of sight.

“Just the same, I knew she must be finding it hard to get them to go away. For minutes and hours passed; and still the low murmur of their talk went on. I began to wonder how much more of darkness I had left to make the escape in.

“At last, to my great relief, the giraffes lowered their long necks and slunk away into the shadows, led by Belinda. Much time had been wasted; and as soon as they were gone I hurried to the door of the hut. I could not undo the latch and I was afraid to knock, lest the noise should wake the Elephant Emperor whose sleeping shed was quite near. So I started at once to scratch my way under the door.

“By working like a madman, I soon dug a hole big enough for me to get through into the hut.

“Inside it was pretty dark. – The tiny window was covered with sacks. I moved gently round the little room till I found Eber and Gaza sleeping on the floor. They were scared when I nudged them awake; but the boy’s hands, touching my shell as he got up, told him it was I, Mudface – his friend.

“Then came another delay to waste still more of the remaining darkness. I was unable to tell them what I’d come for! You see, although I could understand most of their language, I could not of course speak it. I had to use signs and acting. And you’ve no idea what a time I had getting it into those people’s heads that they were in the greatest danger and must fly with me immediately.

“At last, after I’d run back and forth between them and the hole I’d made under the door, they caught on to what I meant.

“‘Eber,’ the girl whispered, ‘the turtle is telling us to leave the hut, I think. Perhaps if we follow him we may escape from slavery.’

“‘What chance is there of that?’ asked Eber. ‘There are the giraffes outside, on guard. How could we get past them?’

“Then I grabbed hold of him and tried to drag him to the door. He came. He knelt down and peered out through the hole I’d made.

“‘Why, Gaza!’ he said. – ‘The sentries are gone! We can escape…. Good old Mudface!’ He patted me gently on the head.

“As soon as they fully understood that I had come with a plan – and a chance for them to get away – it was not so hard for me. On all fours, both of them followed me out, scrambling under the door.

“Eber knew as well as I did that their great danger was the big cats (who can follow a trail, when there is meat to kill, better than any animals living).

“And he now did a very bright thing. He told Gaza to wait with me just outside the hut; while he himself ran all around it and went off short distances in every direction. This was to leave his scent all over the place, to confuse the cats when they would try to follow. As soon as he had finished he came back to us. Then we started off.

“I led them to the eastward, as Belinda and I had arranged. But alas! We had scarcely gone more than a mile when I saw the sky ahead of us turning grey with the first show of morning. Most likely, I guessed, the giraffes had already returned to the hut from their wild-rice chase; and any moment now the whole camp would be warned of our escape.

“I was not far wrong. Soon, as we scrambled and tumbled forward, I heard in the distance behind us the howling of wolves and the bark of hyenas. Our flight was discovered.

“I blessed Eber’s good sense then in leaving his scent on false trails before we came away from the hut. For, without that extra time, we would have stood a mighty poor chance. I reckon a good hour was spent by Mrs. Tiger, shooting off on wrong tracks, before she struck our true trail eastward.

“Now, I had hoped by this time to have found water. But, in spite of Belinda’s warning, I had no idea how much more land had been left dry since last I’d gone exploring. The country spread out flat in all directions with not a drop of water in sight.

“Suddenly behind us I heard the first roar of the lion. He had pulled a little ahead of the other cats in the hunt. At that terrifying noise, poor Gaza clung to Eber, begging him to find some hiding place.

“Indeed I was beginning to think of that myself – bad though the chance of cover was. Still, I knew there was no hope of outdistancing our enemies in open country, now that they had got our scent.

“I clambered onto a big uprooted tree and looked in every direction for rocks or a cave – anything to put my friends in. There I might at least be able to defend them till Belinda’s help arrived – or the elephant caught up with the faster cats and called them off. That would mean going back to slavery at the plough for the boy and girl; but at least it was better than being eaten.

“Suddenly Gaza screamed and pointed to the west. And there, just coming in sight over the skyline, was the whole pack of them – with the tigress now in front – travelling at full speed. Eber picked up a rock and got in front of the girl. But of course for him to stand and fight such enemies as that (there were a good two dozen in the leading gang) was just madness.

“At my wit’s end – with no other plan except to get them farther away – I scrambled down from the tree, made a sign to Eber to follow me and stumbled on.”

Mudface stopped a moment; and that same kindly grin passed across his aged face.

“Stumbled is the right word,” he said presently. “I don’t believe I ever ran so hard in my life. I tripped and fell and bumped my nose a hundred times. The roaring and the snarling of the cats grew nearer and louder every minute. I really thought it was all over for these human-folk.

“I could hear the elephant now, too, a long way behind the cats, bellowing to them to stop. But the revolution had broken out and they took no notice of the Emperor’s orders any more. As I glanced back over my shoulder, I could see that savage tigress leaping towards us at a truly terrific speed. Her husband galloped at her side – with the two lions close behind. And still, because there was nothing else to do, I stumbled on, gasping encouraging words to those two terrified youngsters – but with no real hope left in my heart.

“Soon the tigress, as she now saw her prey almost within grasp of her wicked claws, started jeering and laughing at us – calling me a clumsy fool every time I stumbled or fell.

“But she jeered – and laughed – too soon. The change in my luck was near.”

• • • • •

•   4   •

The Fall of
the Elephant Empire

“At the last moment, when I was in complete despair – expecting to see the boy and girl torn to pieces before my very eyes – a miracle happened. The ground suddenly gave way under my feet; and I found myself wallowing in a bog!

“The country, which had looked so flat and dry for miles in all directions, was really one large marsh. I had not reached real water; but I had reached mud, which suited me even better.

“Eber and Gaza were up to their waists already. They scrambled onto my back. With the weight I began to sink – almost out of sight. I could carry one, but not both.

“Eber understood and got off at once, back into the mud. But I knew he couldn’t last long there – exhausted as he was. So I signalled to him to take a hold on the shoulder of my shell and cling to it with one hand. In this way I could keep his chin above the mud. So, with the girl on my back and the man in tow, I ploughed on deeper into the bog. Presently I turned my head and shouted to the snarling, disappointed tigress behind us.

“‘Come and get them now, you she-devil – from the mud, where clumsy fools, like turtles, are at home! Follow us here, if you dare!’

“And, would you believe it, John Dolittle,” (again that half-smile flickered in the eyes of Mudface) “the tigress was so mad she did try to follow us, as I had challenged her to do? She drew back for a spring and leapt out into the marsh after us, reckoning I suppose, that she’d land on my back in one leap and kill the youngsters before I could get them farther away.

“But, great jumper though she was, she misjudged the distance that time. And with an awful splash she landed two feet short of me. Down she went in the swampy mire, right up to her ears. It nearly cost her her life, that leap. For in the deep mud she was as helpless as a kitten. Her big paws stuck fast; and the harder she struggled to get them free, the deeper she sank.

“Finally her husband and the other cats formed a living chain from the dry land; and, little by little, they pulled her great body out onto the solid ground. But oh, how she looked I You know cats hate to be wet and dirty. Well, her beautiful striped coat, of which she was so proud, was plastered in slush from head to tail. She reminded me of an enormous drowned rat.

“So now for the present we were safe – but by no means in a pleasant situation for Eber. While I could, even with Gaza on my back, drag him slowly along in the bog, such travelling was dreadfully tiring for him. And I knew that to go any long distance would be quite impossible without the help of Belinda.

“For some time now I had wondered why my wife had not shown up. Where she was I had no idea. Eber, I could see, was already near the end of his strength. I stopped where I was for the moment to rest him.

“Meanwhile I watched the crowd of cats on the shore of the marsh. They were talking together – I suppose about what they could do next.

“Presently the elephant arrived and started storming and scolding the cats for not waiting when he called to them. It was a great surprise to him when the meat-eaters, after they’d whispered to one another some more, suddenly turned on him in open rebellion.

“‘We will obey you no longer,’ snarled the tigress. ‘You are big, but too stupid to lead the animals of the world. I have been chosen to take your place. Go now – while still you can. You are Emperor no more.’

“Then was it seen how that poor, good-natured elephant was never meant to be a leader. What he should have done of course was to talk pleasantly to these rebels till the rhinos, the hippos and the other big grass-eaters should come to his help. But instead, he gave the tigress such a box on her ear with his trunk that he knocked her over on her back.

“She suddenly turned into a four-legged fire-cracker. From the safety of the mud, I watched her get to her feet. She was positively cross-eyed with rage. She sprang upon the elephant, biting, scratching and tearing like a fury.

“The other cats joined in. And if it had not been for his thick leathery skin he would have been torn to ribbons. As it was, he was soon bleeding badly from many places. He seemed covered in fighting animals – who had tasted blood. Then he suddenly lay down and rolled, killing some of his attackers under the weight of his enormous body. Those who were only wounded by the crushing were immediately eaten by the others, now they could no longer defend themselves…. Gaza covered her eyes to shut out the picture. So much, I thought, for a world run by animals alone!

“At last the elephant arose, shook the rest of them off him and, bellowing with pain, galloped across the country as fast as he could. Some moved to follow him; but the tigress bade them stay. The Elephant Empire had fallen; and that strange chapter in the history of the world when Man was the servant of the animals was drawing to a close.”

• • • • •

•   5   •

Meeting an Old Friend Again

“Tell me, Mudface,” said the Doctor: “after the elephant ran away from the cats, did mankind take hold again and run things?”

“Not exactly – or, I should say, not yet, John Dolittle,” said the turtle, as he settled down to his storytelling the next evening.

“It is true of course that for a while many of the hunting creatures were led by the tigress. But the grass-feeders just kept away from her – out of fear mostly.

“The bull-elephant, for instance, went off and joined his wife in the country where Noah was. From there, later, the pair of them drifted still farther away, seeking better fodder.

“The same thing happened with the meat-eaters, too, in the end. They grew tired of that old she-devil, of her conceit, of her bossiness – as well as of her savage temper. Then another split came. They wanted a chief whom they could respect, who would rule by something more than fear and trickiness.

“The lion was a good fellow. At least he was honest, even if he too was a killer. They elected him. And, as you know, the lion is spoken of to this day as the King of Beasts.

“But as for Man’s return to the mastery of the world, that did not come about till many years after Eber escaped from the hut.

“And I, the clumsy turtle, did a great deal to make that third big revolution possible. I did not realize this at the time – being only concerned in saving the lives of my human friends from the cruel hunger of a ruined world.

“I will tell you more of that last revolution soon. Just remember for the present, Doctor, that in the story of Eber and Gaza I am going on from where the tigress is still more or less mistress of the Animal Kingdom, determined to destroy mankind altogether. – And we three hunted creatures are waiting out there, in the mud, hoping Belinda will join us any moment. You follow me?”

“Oh, quite, quite,” said John Dolittle. “And now tell us, please, what happened next.”

“The cats at last,” Mudface went on, “began to straggle back towards their camp. Anyone could see they were discontented over the tigress’ failure to give them meat – as she had boastfully promised.

“As soon as the last of them had disappeared over the skyline, I got Eber and the girl out of the bog onto solid ground – for a more comfortable rest. But I did not as yet go far from the marsh’s edge, lest our enemies return unexpectedly.

“By now I became really worried about Belinda. Surely she must know how much I needed her help! Where could she be?

“Well, it was twilight, with a rising moon, before she showed up.

“‘What kept you so long, Belinda?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, dear!’ she sighed. ‘I thought I’d never get free of those stupid giraffes. I took long enough to coax them away from the hut, but longer still to get rid of them afterwards. I had to keep making up new excuses for not finding that wild rice. But after hours of fooling around, we heard behind us the alarm which meant your escape had been discovered. Then I thought the time was come when I might shake them. Not at all: they stuck to me tighter than ever. Better stay with me, they said, and get some rice out of it, anyway.’

“Poor Belinda was almost in tears.

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘never mind. You got here – that’s the main thing. Take the girl on your back: I’ll carry the boy. And let’s be going. I’m afraid of more trouble from Mrs. Tiger any minute. Now that darkness is near, attack will be easier for her.’

“As we waded into the marsh with our passengers aboard, I told Belinda about the elephant’s downfall and flight.

“‘But what on earth is your idea,’ she asked as I ended, ‘in taking these young people out into the mud-lands? What are you going to put them on? How are you going to feed them?’

“Belinda nearly always asked her questions in threes – I suppose to make three times sure she’d get some answer. I, as usual, picked out the easiest question, knowing she’d likely forget the other two.”

“Huh!” grunted the London sparrow. “That, my old Mudlark, is somethin’ I really understand.” Becky pretended not to hear; while the Doctor whispered,

“Hush, Cheapside! – A little more respect, please.”

“‘Belinda,’ said I,” (the turtle’s voice grew tired and I glanced at the watch) “‘my idea is to put them on dry land – when we reach it – the other side of this swamp.’

“‘But how do you know there is any other side?’ she asked. ‘What if this marsh is the end of the land? How can you be sure, husband?’

“‘My dear,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure of anything, except our need to go on. This is the only direction we can take to escape the cats. And if, later, the bog turns into open water, so much the better: our travel will be easier and faster when we can swim. Come along.’

“That ended the discussion for the moment. All night long we travelled on in silence, while our weary riders slept on our backs. I took a course, still eastward, by the stars. And as I gazed up from this clinging desert of mud into the free and spangled dome of the sky, I was reminded again of Shalba.

“I thought of the nights, when I used to stare into the heavens from the water of our prison-pond. Then those twinkling, distant lights had somehow seemed company for my imprisoned loneliness of heart. And the stars tonight looked exactly as they had above the zoological gardens of Shalba in the Dry Season of the year.

“You see, Doctor, before the Flood we had no Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, the way we do now. The year was divided into two halves only: the Dry Season and the Rainy Season. I have met animals who say it was the changing of the Earth’s spin at that time – as much as the forty days’ rain – which caused the spilling of the oceans, the Great Wave, the rumbling noises underground and all the curious things which happened with the Deluge. But whether this is so or not I cannot tell.

“Anyway, that night as Belinda and I churned our way along, I fell to wondering again what had become of the proud city of Shalba and the spot where it had stood – under water or above.

“As the day was breaking, our flat landscape of swamp showed signs of changing. Wisps of fog appeared ahead. Eber on my back turned and muttered in his sleep, as the chill wind of dawn swept fitfully across the marsh. I sniffed at it and turned to my wife.

“‘Belinda,’ I said, ‘I think we are coming to a lake. See the wide puddles dotted about in front of us. Look, how queerly the grey light plays on them, between the shifting banks of mist. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are near a real big lake.’

“‘How do you know it’s a lake? Why can’t it be the sea? What if we’ve come to the end of everything – but mud?’ she asked.

“‘Belinda,’ said I wearily, ‘whatever it is, I’m going on. We can’t go back. I think it’s a lake we’re coming to…. Please, no more questions!’

“Little by little, the mud gave place to water deep enough for swimming. And by the time the sun was well risen we found ourselves right out in open water, with no land in sight to the eastward. We were on the broad bosom of either a large lake or a sea.

“‘This water tastes salt,’ said Belinda.

“‘You can’t be certain of that,’ I snapped back at her.

“I admit I was a bit peeved, after stirring soupy mud all night (and remember, Eber was no light weight to carry). ‘Not even you can be sure of that, my dear,’ I repeated. ‘All water tastes more or less salt now, since the oceans and the rivers got mixed up. I don’t suppose this water itself knows whether it’s fresh or salt. And as for the rivers, one half of them have forgotten where they’re flowing from; while the rest are still trying to make up their minds where they’ll flow to. – Very confusing business, a deluge.’

“‘That’s true, anyway,’ Belinda grunted. ‘And this Deluge, I believe, husband, has made you a little crazy in the head.’

“‘Maybe so,’ I said… ‘Ah – oh, but isn’t it a relief to feel your legs free, where it’s deep enough for swimming?’

“‘I suppose so,’ was all she answered.

“But even she was cheered out of her grumbling when, in the afternoon, we chanced to meet our old friend the raven. He was flying in the opposite direction, low down over the water. It had been long since we saw him last. He settled down upon my shell. And I told him of the revolution led by the tigress; and the reason for our present flight.

“‘Humph!’ he grunted. ‘I’m sorry about the poor old elephant. – A good sort in his way – even if he wasn’t a born leader. But, believe me, that big striped pussy will mess things up for the animals far worse than ever he did…. Hulloa, Eber! . .. How are you, Gaza?’ They smiled at the raven, guessing that this was a greeting from him.

“‘Wonderful how they understand me!’ he said proudly. – ‘And me so out of practise in their lingo I can hardly remember a word of it…. Well, thank goodness my work’s over for this year!’

“‘What work?’ asked Belinda.

“‘You know,’ said the raven – ‘the mating season. It used to be easy: hen-bird sits on the eggs and cock-bird sits on a limb near by, singing: tra, la – tra, la! – Twiddle-dee – TWEET! – Oh gracious!’ He broke off in a cough. ‘I declare my voice is getting worse. All this dampness, you know. But if you think you’re the only one who’s had troubles, Brother Turtle, you ought to try and find enough worms to satisfy a large family of fledglings. – O’ course we would have to have one extra egg in a flood year! What beats me, though, is how earth-worms learn to disappear in a deluge. Like looking for needles in a haystack.

“‘The wife says it’s my fault – I’ve been off gadding instead of attending to my proper job. I’d like to see anybody gad since the Big Rain fell! Well, job’s over now. The nippers flying around on their own, bumping into everything, bless ’em!.. . But tell me, Mudface, where are you all going now?’

“‘Anywhere – to get away from that tigress,’ I answered.

“‘What is this water, Raven?’ asked Belinda. ‘Is it the sea?’

“‘Oh, no!’ croaked the black bird. ‘This is only a lake. If you keep on swimming for two or three hours more, the way you are now, you should come in sight of land on the other side.’

“‘What is the country like on the other side?’ I asked.

“‘Nothing to boast of,’ said he – ‘low-lying and swampy, till you get away back. But then every place is pretty bad now. Got to expect that. I’ve been trying to catch fish – a fellow must eat something. But I’m no good at the game – never came so near drowning in my life. Wish I had old Shovelface Pelican here to teach me how. Somehow I lost touch with him ages ago.’

“‘But where is the sea then,’ asked Belinda, ‘if this is only a lake?’

“‘Well,’ said the raven, ‘at the farther shore of this lake there’s a river running out of it. It flows through a big drowned forest; the trees are all dead – but still standing, like ghosts. It’s a gloomy place. If you follow that stream, it will bring you out to the sea, a brand-new ocean. I’ve just come from over there. – Turned back at the shore, because the ocean looked most awful large. But I suppose there must be more land on the other side of it – if anyone had a mind to go and explore. Once there your troubles should be over. No cats ever crossed that piece of water, I’ll take a bet.’

“Our travelling companion seemed really glad to see us after his lonely wanderings over the sad landscape of a deluged earth. He prattled on a while longer about the things he’d seen; and at last we asked him would he care to come along with us. He thought a moment and then he said,

“‘That’s not half a bad idea. – Can’t see much sense in my going to join the other animals now – so long as that mean-tempered old puss is the boss. I never could stand that sneaky snooper – and she doesn’t like me either…. Yes, I’ll come with you. We always had good luck when we voyaged together before.’

“So he joined our party and we went forward again. And somehow on the wide waters of the lake both Belinda and I felt safer and more hopeful, now we had the company of our re-found, chatterbox friend, the raven,”

• • • • •

•   6   •

How Lake Junganyika
Got Its Name

“The sun was setting in the west when we reached the farther shore. Here again we found land difficult for travel. But we didn’t stop. With the help of the moon and the raven’s guidance, we pushed straight on till we came to firm ground, about six miles farther inland.

“Now at last we could let our passengers get off our backs and move around on their own feet. Such a relief for Belinda and myself to be free of our loads! Too weary to bother about a proper camp or anything else, we settled down at once to sleep.

“But next morning the everlasting question of food bothered us once more. Eber and Gaza hadn’t had a thing to eat in two days. So I thought I would go back and explore the bottom of the lake. If luck was on our side, who knows? – I might find the homes of men a second time – and food for the youngsters.

“Well, the lake’s floor, to my surprise, was gravelly, instead of muddy – at least it was then. And somewhere under the middle of that wide water I ran my nose into – you’d never guess what: the bent and twisted railing of my old prison-pond! I had found the City of Shalba at last! And here before you, John Dolittle, you see the same lake that hid it then and hides it still.

“I knew every scratch, every chip in the paint on it. It was strange, as I sniffed at that railing beneath the water, how the picture of my bitter, unhappy days of captivity flashed again before my eyes. The smell of the iron reawakened a hatred in my heart for Mashtu, Shalba’s cruel king.

“I left the railing, crossed the park and made my way through the crumbling doors of the Royal Palace. And there, among the silent, lofty halls of marble and porphyry, I threw back my head and laughed.

“‘So,’ I said, ‘Mashtu the King passes! But Mudface the turtle lives on! Now will I go down into the cellars and bring royal food to them who were a king’s slaves!’

“My luck was not bad. Dainties and rare things for eating, brought from all over the world, were there in plenty. But only the stuff sealed up in jars and bottles was any good now.

“I picked out one medium-sized jar – with no idea what was inside – swam up to the surface and carried it to the shore. I had a terrible time getting it over the few miles to the camping ground where we had spent the night.

“With hungry cries of delight Eber and Gaza set to work on the cover of the jar and had it open in a moment. Inside there were spiced dates in syrup, a dainty brought from China.

“‘Junga!’ cried Eber, clapping his hands. You see, that was his native word for dates.

“‘Nyika, nyika!’ laughed Gaza, shaking her head at him; for such were dates in her language.

“‘Junganyika!’ they cried together, cramming the fruit into their starving mouths. So it was that the word passed into their new language, both as the name for dates as well as for the lake in which I found them; and Lake Junganyika men still call it to this day.

“We searched the country about us for fresh food also. But we found nothing, absolutely nothing, for man or beast to eat.

“So I asked the raven how long did he reckon it would take us to go on to the seashore, travelling by the river he had spoken of. And he said we ought to be able to get there in a week.

“For a journey as long as that, Belinda thought we should rest up the young people a little; and it was agreed that I should make several more visits to the palace cellars and get them all the food I could.

“It was hard and slow work, hauling up the stuff, in small quantities, all by myself; for I always left Belinda on guard each time I went down under the water. And so, this way, we spent all of a week, not knowing if we could get them any more food at all, after we should set out on our trip to the sea.

“The motherly Belinda of course pestered the raven and me to death with her fears that, even after reaching the sea, we’d still find nothing for these humans to eat. But the raven said that around a regular ocean-beach we could surely hunt up diving sea-birds, who would at least get fish for us.

“Yet, before we were ready to go, once more the long, threatening arm of danger reached across the desolate, starving world to us. One day – I think it was a Sun—”

“Excuse me please,” (this time it was the polite voice of little Chee-Chee, the timid monkey, who interrupted the story) “but the day of the week makes no never mind. Be so kind as to tell us what happened. – Yes, please?”

“Oh, certainly,” the turtle answered. “Anyway, it was when our whole party was on a food-hunting trip; and we had come to a place where the dry land around us changed to the mud-swamp of the lake-shore. We were strung out single-file; and this time Gaza happened to be in front. Suddenly we heard the girl give a scream. All of us hurried up to her. We found her pointing with a trembling hand at a mark in the soft ground. It was the foot-print of an enormous cat!

“‘The tigress!’ whispered Gaza through chattering teeth. ‘See, she has followed us even here!’

“‘How on earth did she get across the lake?’ asked Belinda.

“‘Never mind how she got across,’ croaked the raven. ‘She’s here. No mistaking that foot-print. We hadn’t planned to leave for the seashore before tomorrow. But this changes things. We’ve got to get on our way at once. – And we won’t stop even at the seashore to build sand-castles on the beach. We’ll go on. We’ll cross the sea. – Never mind food or the craft to sail in. We’ve managed before – somehow; and we’ll manage again. But, once you’re on that ocean I saw, no cat will follow us any farther. – Step lively and let’s get out of here, everybody!’”

• • • • •

•   7   •

The Graveyard
of the Giants

“From then on we hustled, and no mistake. No more questions, arguments or worries – even from Belinda. We turtles, who up to this had led the whole escape, were now quite satisfied to leave everything to the raven. It was he who told us what he wanted done: it was we who obeyed. Not one of us went back to the shelter where we’d lived – even for the blankets and the poor bits of things the youngsters owned. At Commander Raven’s orders, we just left and raced at once for the river he had spoken of – the one which flowed out of the lake down to the sea.

“We guessed of course that the tigress and most of her man-eating gang would be following us by scent, hoping to cut us off. But they never caught sight of us again, after the raven had seen that big foot-print in the mud. Because his speed didn’t give them a chance – either to catch up with us or to cut us off. He knew what danger we were in; he knew of a short cut to that stream; and, above all, he knew that once we were travelling in water, no cat could follow us by scent.

“Well, we got to the river. – And were we glad to see it? At the spot where we struck the stream it was running wide in flood. We took the youngsters on our backs again, plunged at once into the fast water and headed downstream. Meanwhile the raven flitted back and forth through the dead trees on the banks, keeping a sharp look-out for enemies behind us and troubles ahead.

“Along the first few miles the going was easy, while the powerful current swirled us on our way. But farther down, the river began spreading out into many branches that led nowhere. And if we had not had the raven to lead us, we would surely have been lost.

“That was the last dash which poor Eber and Gaza had to make to escape from the tigress. I told you: we never saw her again. Yet that journey was, I believe, the most terrible one that human beings ever lived through.

“It took us seven days in all. The line of it, from the lake to the ocean, was almost exactly the same as you, John Dolittle, followed in coming here from the ocean to the lake. But oh, how different was the country then!

“As we went forward into the district which the raven had spoken of as a dead forest, the main stream kept shrinking narrower – and shallower – till it was little more than a muddy dribble that no one could swim in.

“And often it was choked and barred by the big stuff swept down and stuck between the banks. Then we had to set our passengers off, to wait till we found a way for them around, under, over or through, the jam. Truly the raven had been right when he called it the Land of the Dead Jungle.

“No words of mine, Doctor, can draw you a picture of the dreary gloom of that drowned forest through which we fought our way to the sea. Some of the trees were of immense size – many still standing upright, but now dead, gaunt, leafless and broken. In other places they were fallen or leaning crisscross in great tangled masses – like walls of crazy shipmasts as high as heaven.

“And all this dead vegetable growth was steaming, rotting and stinking in the terrible African heat, a Graveyard of the Giants. While before, it had been lovely greenery; gay with brilliant parrots; with gorgeous butterflies; with bright orchids in bloom.

“No birds or creatures of any kind could be seen then. In the jungle, always so full of life, life had stopped.

“We were unable to find one single scrap of food, in seven whole days, to feed our human friends – only dirty, bad-smelling water, half salt and half fresh. In many places moving forward at even the slowest pace, while keeping track at the same time of that trickle of a stream, was so difficult that Eber and Gaza had to work too – hungry and worn out though they were. The raven stayed aloft in the trees, keeping watch; for he still feared that some prowling band of meat-eaters might by chance cross our path.

“Once Belinda, passing close to me, whispered, ‘Husband, I fear the youngsters cannot hold out much longer. Don’t you think we should rest them a spell, while we send a scouting party forward to seek food?’

“But all I answered was:

“‘Leave that to the raven, Belinda. He is a good leader.’

“But again, I did not tell her how hopeless I felt, myself.

“Yet, sure enough, an hour or so later I came upon the body of Gaza lying in the mud where she had fainted away from exhaustion. While I was trying to bring her to, my wife came up. I sent her to find Eber – who had before shown us he knew how to bring back life into a half-drowned human.

“In less than ten minutes I heard my wife calling to me from the other side of a tangle of fallen trees: ‘Here he is. I’ve found him. I’m not sure if he’s dead – but unconscious anyhow. Husband, come! I can’t wake him up!’

“I hurried around to her side. The boy was lying across a fallen log. No amount of shaking brought back any sign of life. I put my ear down against his chest; and heard a regular thump – though very slow and faint.

“‘Good boy, Eber!’ I muttered. ‘You’re tough, – you’re tough, thank goodness! – Belinda, we must get the raven here.’

“‘He’s downstream ahead of us, I think,’ said my wife. ‘But what can he do here? Oh, husband,’ she sobbed, ‘we’ll never get these poor children to the sea! I believe the sun has burnt out and the very Earth itself is dying.’

“‘Let’s find out what the raven says to that,’ I answered. Then throwing back my head I sent out a parrot’s call – a signal we had arranged between us in case of danger – screeching downstream over the leafless tree-tops. It was answered right away by a like call. And two minutes later our guide fluttered down at our feet.

“For once in his life the raven-chatterbox had little to say. As he took a look at each of the youngsters, I could tell very plainly he felt this was a bad business.

“‘It’s my fault,’ he croaked solemnly at last. ‘I’ve travelled them too fast. But seeing the shortage of food, I thought it best to get this trip over and done with as soon as we could. Besides, having no other birds around, to get news from, made it more difficult – not that I blame anything on wings for staying out of this mess of a country.’

“‘But what are we going to do? asked my wife, bursting into tears again. ‘We can’t sit by and watch death take them from us, after all they’ve gone through!’

“‘Ah now, wait a minute,’ said the raven in a kindly voice. ‘Don’t give up yet, old lady. Once we reach the ocean’s shore, they’ll be all right. Getting them across the sea to the land on the other side may be a longer trip but it will be much easier. This is the bad stretch, the dead jungle.

“‘I knew that – but what was the sense in my telling you ahead and getting you down-hearted? The best we can do now is for you to rest them up here while I fly the whole way down to the beach alone. There’s bird-life there; and I can likely get some fish. Just how long it will take me to get back here with food, I can’t say. Maybe quicker than you think. Because – strange thing – up there in the tree-tops, I’ve felt the air changing lately: a damp wind off the sea perhaps. Anyway, I’ve a notion that we can’t be very far from the river’s mouth.’

“And then with a flash of his blue-black wings he was on his way, up through the skeleton jungle, to the higher air.

“‘Goodbye!’ he called. ‘Don’t be down-hearted. We’re not beaten yet.’”

• • • • •

•   8   •

Belinda
Changes Her Mind

“With uneasy hearts, Belinda and I watched him disappear. We knew we were alone indeed now – with two desperately sick young-folk in our care.

“We found a sort of cave in the river’s bank and brought both Eber and Gaza to it. Near by its entrance the stream still flowed sluggishly. Then, with big dry palm-leaves, we scooped the water up, threw it over them and fanned them.

“But after hours and hours of this they still showed no sign of life.

“‘It’s no use,’ said my wife. ‘And what good would it do if the raven did return – with raw fish? While they’re unconscious, we couldn’t make them eat it. True, the heat and the work have been hard on them; but their main trouble is starvation.’

“I had to agree with that of course. But what she said next fairly took my breath away.

“‘Mudface,’ she sobbed, dropping her fan, ‘you can’t ask me to stay and see these brave humans die…. My dear, I— I am going away … till it’s all over.’

“Then, when she turned her back on us and slowly moved off, I saw that her mind was made up to desert the task. And of a sudden, something like desperate anger boiled up inside me.

“‘Stop, Belinda!’ I shouted. ‘Stay where you are! Did we not despair once before of Gaza’s life? Yet we pulled them through, didn’t we? Stick on the job: I order you.’

“‘I can’t stay and watch them die, husband,’ she whimpered – ‘I really can’t.’

“My heart sank as again she started to go farther into the forest. Never in my life have I felt so hopeless.

“‘Belinda,’ I called after her, ‘you know I cannot stop you. But if you leave me alone now, when I need your help so sorely, you will be sorry for it all your living days.’

“That halted her. Why, I cannot say. – Women are strange creatures. – Slowly she turned around and came back towards me. And she had not taken more than two steps when a half dozen clams seemed to fall out of the sky upon the muddy ground between us.

“Both of us looked upward. A tall and leafless mahogany tree stood close by the entrance to our cave. In the bare topmost branches of this we saw twenty or thirty pelicans gathered – their great shovel-bills filled with fish to overflowing.

“Among the queer birds I easily recognized the raven, who wasted no time in coming down to us.

“‘What ho, my hearties!’ he croaked. ‘How are the kids?’

“‘The same,’ said I, ‘as when you left us. We’ve tried all we know, but no life have they shown yet.’

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘we’ve got to get them awake somehow. No use stuffing unconscious mouths with uncooked fish – it was all I could find. – And we can’t afford to be polite: slap them awake, if that’s the only way.’

“So, taking Eber first, I began slapping his face with soft stems of palm-leaves. The raven signalled one of the pelicans to come down with some more clams. Then he explained to Belinda how to crack them up in her mouth till she had a couple of quarts of clam-juice ready.

“Unmercifully I beat and slapped poor Eber for a quarter of an hour. And the treatment must have done something to get his blood circulating again. For presently he mumbled, as if in a dream, about my roughness. At that I put my front legs underneath his arms, lifted him into a sitting position and shook him till his teeth almost fell out. Then he stumbled, all groggy, to his feet and started to fight me back.

“‘He’ll do,’ snapped the raven sharply. ‘Now give the girl the same. Both of them must be alive enough to swallow clam-juice.’

“With the gentle Gaza I liked this business still less. But I had been given my orders. And after I’d broken six or seven palm-stems over her, she too woke up – and tried to run away! Of course she did not get far before she fell from weakness.

“But things went much easier for us after we had brought both of them to their senses. Belinda trickled the clam-juice into their mouths and they gulped it down hungrily.

“It was wonderful to see how quickly those youngsters changed with food and rest. I watched them talking and smiling together. Once more they had been saved from the very jaws of death. I was happy – happy for them and for myself. But I believe I was happiest of all for Belinda: that she had changed her mind and not deserted us. For had she left me at that terrible moment, I am sure she never could have forgiven herself. Poor, motherly Belinda! She was crying again now – but this time out of gladness and relief.

“In a few days, the raven said, he thought we could be on our way again – as long as we watched how the humans took it.

“‘You know, Mudface,’ said he, ‘I was delighted to find what a short trip it is. I reckon we should see the ocean within three or four days now – even taking it in easy stages.’

“Then he gave orders to the pelicans to fly along with us overhead; and we started off again on our march to the sea.”

• • • • •

•   9   •

The Ocean at Last

On their way home to bed that night the Doctor’s animal family seemed unusually talkative.

“Looks to me, Doc,” said Cheapside, “as if old Muddy Pants was coming to the end of his story. – Thanks be!… Just to see dear old London once again! Do you realize, John Dolittle, M.D., ’ow long we’ve been listenin’ to that antediluvian yarn-spinner in the middle of this foggy swamp?”

“No,” said the Doctor. “But anyway it was worth it.”

“Tee, hee, hee!” tittered the white mouse. “You should know, Cheapside, the Doctor never bothers about time – when he’s interested.”

“Ah!” cried Gub-Gub suddenly. “Home! The thought – the very thought – of a nice large English cauliflower! Um-m-m! I’m terribly tired of these African vegetables.”

“I wonder,” said Jip, “how old Prince is getting on – teaching those pups to be gun dogs – without losing their tails. I wouldn’t want the job.”

“Ah me!” murmured Chee-Chee the monkey. “Africa is a beautiful country, of course. But if you stay away from it long enough, losing touch with your old friends, it’s surprising how your taste changes. It’ll be wonderful to see dear old Puddleby again.”

“It would be,” muttered Polynesia the parrot, “if it wasn’t for that awful English climate – rain, rain, rain!”

“The truth is, I suppose,” said Too-Too the owl: “your real home is where your friends are; the Doctor and his stories round the kitchen fire o’ nights; the freedom of his home and the rest. Well—”

“And then there’s always something new popping up there,” said the white mouse. “I don’t believe I’d want to live any other place now. For instance—”

“I’m afraid those kitchen windows,” said Dab-Dab, “will need new putty. I wonder if Matthew Mugg has kept out of jail…. And as for the house-cleaning! Well, as the Doctor says, ‘Never lift your foot till— ’”

And so they all chattered on, mostly about Puddleby and the old home, till we reached the office and I had the notebooks safely stowed in the vault under the floor. Then we went to the bunkhouse and turned in.

“You know, Stubbins,” said the Doctor as he lay down and punched his hay pillow into shape, “I fancy Cheapside’s right: Mudface’s story of the Flood is coming to an end. I do hope Belinda, his wife, shows up before we leave. Mudface shouldn’t be alone – with his rheumatism so bad.”

I had been thinking the same thing. “I suppose he won’t take his medicine regularly after we go if she isn’t here to see to it,” I said.

“That’s what worries me,” said John Dolittle. “Oh, well, we haven’t gone yet. Perhaps she’ll return before we have to leave.”

“Do you mean to ask Mudface about those ruined buildings we saw at the lower end of the lake?” I asked.

“Very likely,” he answered, “very likely. But I have such millions of things I want to learn from him concerning the days of Noah, I’m not sure if I shall get round to it. That’s always the way: no matter how many questions you ask – when you have the chance – you always forget the most important, till after it’s too late. Oh, well, we’ll do the best we can, Stubbins. Good-night!”

•   •   •

“We took things much easier now,” Mudface went on the next evening. “We had to think of the young people’s strength. But towards the end of the second day Belinda asked,

“‘Isn’t the ground sloping all the time? The walking doesn’t seem so hard – or is it just my imagination?’

“‘No,’ said the raven, ‘the going’s all downhill, gentlelike, from here on. This is the ocean slope. We’re coming down off a high jungle plain to the beach-level below. Don’t you notice that the dead trees are thinning out – growing fewer?’

“‘Yes, I do,’ said Belinda, smiling and brightening up for the first time in seven days.

“And now, soon, the river became wider and deeper. That may not sound much to you. But for me, to feel my feet no longer touch bottom – that I could swim again, instead of that heart-breaking scramble over and around tangled timber, that – well, what’s the use? It would be impossible to make anyone understand the joy of it.

“No longer did that dreadful stagnant stench of rotting woodland-world cling about our weary overheated bodies. The clean smell of an ocean wind blew freshly in our faces.

“Every one of us took new heart, straining his eyes ahead to the promise of a new climate. And presently we saw the river was spreading out more and more, into a regular lovely bay – miles wide.

“I signalled to our passengers to get upon our backs; and, with mighty strokes, Belinda and I churned the clean water to cross this natural harbour, the harbour of Fantippo. The raven flew on ahead of us and alighted in a tall tree upon the bank. What a tiny dot he looked! But he was not so small or far that we couldn’t hear his bass, croaking voice, as he turned and shouted back to us,

“‘Surf ahead! – The beach is just outside the bar. I can see the ocean breaking on the sands. We’ve done it, my lads! Take your time: we’re all right now. – The sea, the sea at last!’”

• • • • •

•   10   •

Boat-Building

“Of course,” Mudface went on, “just for two turtles and a bird, travelling over an ocean would have been easy. But with two weakened people to care for, the crossing was a very different matter – especially since it was a sea no one had ever crossed. The Atlantic, you call it now. But at that time, remember, it was newly cut, completely unknown.

“Said the raven, when we were talking over the long trip ahead,

“‘This is such a tricky sort of a journey – I think it would be foolish for us to try to get prepared for every little thing. Goodness! No matter what we do, we’re bound to run into surprises – things we don’t expect.’

“‘True, Raven,’ said I – ‘Very true.’

“‘What we must have first,’ he said, ‘is good, fresh water, till rains come and supply us at sea. Next, enough food to get us started. The pelicans tell me there are groups of islands on the way across. And on them we’ll hope we can find something more to eat. A few fishing birds have promised me to fly part way with us; so we might be worse off. Then – very important – we must build a boat that will stand storm and rough weather. While you’re busy on that here, I’ll go ahead and try to find the first islands for you to take a rest on. What do you think?’

“‘Sounds like good sense,’ said I.

“‘Very well. Let’s waste no time,’ he said. ‘I’ve a feeling speed is going to be important – in spite of my mistake before.’

“‘We’ll keep an eye on the youngsters while you’re gone this time,’ said Belinda. – ‘Don’t fear.’

“So, taking a couple of pelicans with him, the raven flew off.

“As he disappeared, my wife said, ‘Husband, let us make sure of the food, first. All of us will go hunting. The boatbuilding will be easier, when we get Eber and Gaza in better health to help us.’

“Right away we all went off exploring for food. The young people by now – while they still of course could not talk our language – were much better at catching on to our sign-talk. It took us barely a moment, by acting out what we wanted them to do, to make them understand almost anything.

“Their spirits too were much gayer on this food-searching picnic. They also seemed stronger already – no doubt through the change in air. Truly, I thought, they looked a most handsome couple as they followed behind us, laughing and talking.

“‘They don’t seem to be hunting very hard for food, now, Belinda,’ said I, glancing back over my shoulder.

“‘My dear Mudface,’ she whispered, ‘eating is not the only important thing – except when you’re starving. – Sh! That’s just a little love-making, stupid! Don’t stare at them so! It’s their business, not ours.’

“‘Quite, quite,’ said I. – ‘Their business, as you say. For truly I never saw turtles make love like that – throwing seaweed at one another. Most peculiar!’

“Along the shore we gathered many kinds of shellfish. These were carried up beyond reach of the tide and stored in marked places, for picking up later.

“A little farther back from the beach, where trees still stood here and there, we discovered the edible tree-mushroom, growing in plenty on the dead trunks. These too we gathered.

“The problem of making something for carrying drinking water in was not so easy. But, luckily the one thing that Eber had brought with him on our last wild flight from the tigress had been his stone knife – which he kept stuck in his belt. With this we were able to kill and skin a seal. Eber spread the skin out on a frame to dry in the sun.

“‘I hate to see animals killed,’ said Belinda gazing thoughtfully at the spread-out skin. ‘But this time it had to be done. We can’t go without something to carry drinking water. When that hide is sewn up properly, with tough grass-thread, it should hold nearly a hundred gallons. Well, let’s get to the boat-building. The raven may be back any day now, croaking with impatience to sail.’

“This part of our preparations proved the hardest of all. We made many kinds of boats and rafts from the dead poles of trees. But when we came to launch them in the sea they rolled and tossed and cracked us on the head; and they all ended by falling apart in the rough surf. Here we were dealing with water much rougher than the lake.

“It was not till the raven returned that we had any success in our boat-building. Without delay, he explained that there was only one kind of craft for us to use on such a journey.

“‘It’s a sort of faggot-outrigger,’ he said, ‘and it is pretty nearly unsinkable. You make two faggots – out of long sticks – pointed at their ends, and you lay them side by side on the beach. Then you get heavier poles to fasten across the tops of the faggots, binding them firmly over the faggots to form a deck.’

“‘What are we going to fasten them with?’ asked Belinda. ‘We haven’t any nails.’

“‘Why, with ropes made out of bark-strips of course,’ said the raven. ‘We’ll need yards and yards of it – for the faggots and for fastening the cross-pieces too. Where are the youngsters? – That will be easy work for them.’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘last time I saw them they were chasing one another around the sand-hills – a new game: throwing mud at one another. Belinda says it’s a sign – with humans – they’re in love, and that I should leave them alone.’

“‘Throwing mud at one another!’ snorted the raven angrily. ‘Don’t they know there’s work to be done – and in a hurry too. The sea-birds on the first group of islands told me the wind may change any day at this season. Then it’ll be against us instead of with us – cutting our speed in half. It’s a long trip – and I’ve no idea yet what the farther islands may be like. – And these kids are throwing mud at one another!’

“‘But they’re so young,’ said Belinda. ‘The better feeding has made them feel like new people.’

“‘New fiddlesticks!’ snapped the raven. ‘We’ve got to be on our way before this wind changes. Go and get them for me at once, please.’

“So I went and searched out the boy and girl and brought them back to the job of boat-building.

“The raven, after one glance at their mud-spattered faces, told me to take them off and explain what he wanted about the ropes.

“There was only one kind of tree on the bay-shore whose bark was any good for rope-making. But I found it; and soon we had coils and coils of rope of different thicknesses – twisted, braided and strong. With these on my back and the youngsters clinging to my shell, I swam across the bay again, out to the beach beyond the bar.

“‘Good!’ said the raven. ‘I think you’ve got enough there. Let’s go to work.’

“Under his directions, I soon saw the shape our raft was going to be. It was a sort of double-keeled canoe. The cross-pieces formed a kind of deck; and this was covered over with a shade-cabin in which we were to live and store baggage. It had a window each side, a door at each end, and a roof of thatched grass. By the time it was finished we had stopped referring to it as a raft and had begun to call it a boat: it looked so nearly like one.

“‘Now,’ said the raven, ‘the paddles are the next thing. Get some soft light wood, you turtles, and bite them into the shape of paddles – with good wide blades and strong shafts. – How about the drinking-water supply? We must have enough for six days at least.’

“And Belinda explained how we had made the sealskin water-bag.

“‘Fine!’ he said. ‘Then we’re all set, as soon as you’ve made the paddles. Let’s launch the boat empty, first, to see how she behaves in rough water. Afterwards we’ll bring her back and load her with the stores.’”

• • • • •

•   11   •

Island of Peace

“When our strange boat was loaded up, the young people were delighted with her. The arrangements for paddling were certainly very snug and comfortable. The whole floor inside the cabin was lined with thick soft grass. And the paddlers knelt either side of the boat and paddled out of the windows. When they grew tired, they could just lie down on the cushiony grass and take a rest.

“The deck-house took up only the centre of the boat. – Amidships I think you call it?” (The turtle glanced this question at Polynesia, the old sailor – who nodded in agreement.) “And the ends of the little ship were left unroofed, for storing the food, drinking water, spare rope and so forth.

“We had a rudder – of sorts – a long sweep-paddle: but we meant to steer mostly by watching the raven and his pelicans, who knew the way to the first group of islands. And by night I had the stars to hold a course on.

“At the last moment, the raven said, ‘By gosh! I almost forgot the sail.’ And he sent me back into the forest to fetch a bamboo pole. We laced the upper part of this with dry palm-leaves. It looked like an enormous, long-handled fan; and we fastened it in the stern, so it could be turned, and set any way you wished.

“‘That’ll come in handy – especially if the wind changes,’ said the raven. ‘Now, my hearties, say goodbye to Africa. All aboard!’”

•   •   •

The old parrot, Polynesia, had up to this looked bored throughout the whole of Mudface’s story. But now she became so interested in the turtle’s seafaring talk she suddenly broke out into one of her sailors’ songs:

“Sailing, sailing,

Over the bounding main—”

Her voice was very scratchy. And Cheapside growled, “Oh dry up, me old Pollywog! – Voice needs oiling. – You won’t never get back into opera again. – What’ll you bet me they don’t run into rocks afore they’ve gone two miles?”

“Now, now,” said the Doctor. “We want to hear the story, please.”

•   •   •

“Well,” said Mudface, “the rest is islands, you might say – islands, islands and more islands. I’ve told you there were many groups in those times, John Dolittle, which have since disappeared entirely.

“We crossed the Atlantic Ocean at almost its narrowest point. We left from somewhere around what you now call the Bight of Benin, in Africa; and – as near as I can judge – we hit across towards the big bulge of Brazil, in South America.

“In stages the raven led us from one lot of islands to another. They were all different; but practically none had any life on it except sea-birds, shellfish, crabs and the like. One or two islands had high volcanoes still smoking in their centres; and on these islands not even clams or seaweeds were to be seen. Here we anchored offshore, only to get a rest. But underground – or undersea – rumblings kept us awake all night, reminding us of the Deluge earthquakes; and we were glad to get away from them as soon as we could.

“Some of these island-groups were much farther than others. And on one tiresome stretch we crossed about eight hundred miles without seeing land. This was the only stage in the whole trip where our luck seemed to go back on us.

First, the wind dropped altogether; and only hard work at the paddles kept us going at all. Then the wind swung about and blew right in our teeth. A storm was gathering.

“Belinda and I got out and swam, towing the craft with ropes. But even that did little more than hold us still, where we were. One blessing was that heavy rains fell which we gathered in palm-leaves – and so partly restocked our drinking supply. But the seas became enormous in size – waves seventy and eighty feet high. And there were times when we thought our outrigger would fall apart.

“But on the third day the dirty weather suddenly cleared; the wind changed in our favour; and, as twilight came on, the setting sun showed us a single lovely island not more than fifteen miles ahead.

“During the storm, which we had come through, our pelicans of course had not been able to catch any fish for us. And even if they had, it is doubtful if Gaza could have eaten it. For she was again in a state of terrible weakness – from the wild tossing of our little ship. In the half-dark we found a bay on the island’s south shore where we could anchor in calm shelter.

“Next morning, leaving Eber to act as nurse for Gaza while she rested, we went ashore to hunt up any new sorts of food we might find.

“This island seemed larger than any we had seen so far. And we were very glad – especially the raven – to discover it was a regular homing place for sea-birds. You have no idea how happy we were when they told us that the next lap of our journey would be our last – about three hundred miles, they said. Beyond this there were no more islands to rest on; but if we could make that distance in one trip, we would sight the continent of South America, the country which these birds came from in the early part of the year.

“We had arrived, it seemed, when springtime (a season new since the Flood) was beginning in those latitudes. Nesting was going on at a great pace. In the early sunlight the island’s steep sides had sea-birds, in thousands, sitting on nests built on the rocky ledges of the cliffs.

“Remembering that poor Gaza had not tasted an egg in months, we asked the mother-birds to give us some. They refused. Then the raven explained that we were escaping from the cats (old enemies of all birds) and that we had been fighting them half-way across the world. On hearing this, the birds changed their minds and willingly gave us one fresh-laid egg from each nest. This amounted to many dozens.

“And so we were able to make a change in Gaza’s diet which got her completely well again in a very short time.

“On this island too we found a good spring of cold drinking water, bubbling up out of the rock. We emptied our water-skin of its last supply – which had grown stale and smelly – and refilled it with this sparkling flow from the spring.

“Fearing more bad weather or other delays, the raven hustled us on again. We stayed only a day and a half on the island while we repaired our boat.

“She had taken an awful battering from that storm. The best we could do was to unbraid the old ropes at the worn places and plait them over again. We had drawn the boat up on the narrow beach at the foot of the cliff, to make working around her easier for us. Said the raven, as we finished re-binding the faggots,

“‘Let’s hope these lines will hold all right. Mighty important! If we run into tough weather again it’ll be pretty near impossible to fix ’em in a rolling sea. Well, we’ll hope for the best. Tow her out through the surf, Turtles. – All aboard for the last lap!’

“After we had paddled out from the island and set our patched sail on a westerly course, we were given an unexpected send-off by the sea-birds which I, for one, will never be able to forget. The cliff must have been a good four hundred feet high – with nesting ledges in the rock all the way up. Suddenly those millions of birds rose onto their toes, flapping their wings to us and calling goodbye in their shrill voices. The noise was deafening. And in a flash those fanning wings, like magic, turned the whole island a spotless white, from sea to sky.

“I glanced at Gaza. She was sucking a raw egg at the moment. But when that cry of farewell broke forth, tears ran down her face. And I was near enough to hear her murmur,

“‘Goodbye, birds of the sea, goodbye! May your nesting-home stay forever yours – yours alone – an island of peace!’”

• • • • •

•   12   •

America!

“It turned out that the last lap was to be the easiest of our whole ocean crossing. The wind never again blew against us – though it did sometimes drop altogether.

“We made, I reckon, something between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles a day. Anyhow, in the middle of the second afternoon, I thought I felt some kind of a change in the air. The wind was now fitful – a sort of gentle breeze, blowing in short spurts from north, south, east or west; sometimes deathly still; sometimes hot; sometimes chilly. There was complete silence in our little ship. To the westward a light haze blotted out the farthest skyline. I was puzzled – expecting almost anything. Suddenly the raven croaked,

“‘What are you jerking your head around like that for, Mudface?’ (I had no idea he had been watching me.)

“‘I don’t know,’ I said. I’ve never seen the ocean this way before. It’s something new anyhow, and I don’t know what. The wind seems to have gone a bit crazy; even coming from the west. I calculate we should now be less than a hundred miles from land – if what they told us at the island is right. But that low mist ahead shuts off the last stretch we should be able to see. – And there’s a current too, or rip tide, pushing us along towards the south-west. What do you make of it?’

“‘It is mysterious, all right,’ he grunted. ‘Feels like a new climate to me.’

“‘And what in heaven’s name does that feel like?’ asked Belinda. ‘Will you two stop chattering mysteries. – And talk a little sense for a change?’

“‘Certainly,’ said the raven – ‘as soon as I can make sense of it myself. .. . Oh, look! Look at the girl!’

“Gaza was indeed behaving almost as peculiarly as the wind. She was drawing in deep breaths. She rose slowly from the floor like someone sleep-walking; and, coming over to Eber, grasped him firmly by the shoulder. He gave a startled jump and asked,

“‘What is it, Gaza? What’s the matter?’

“‘Eber dear,’ she whispered, ‘flowers! The wind is from the west – from behind that haze. What is it hiding, that mist on the skyline?’ And again she breathed deeply. Her eyes sparkled. She seemed almost in a trance; and we could barely hear her words:

“‘Jasmine,’ she murmured at length, ‘violets and sweet-brier … lilies of the valley … lilacs – all the flowers the Queen loved – and, above all, magnolias. I had almost forgotten that they ever bloomed!’

“Then once more the wind’s mood changed – not steadily blowing in any direction now, but swirling round in gentle cyclones. And the far-off mist began to lift and roll away.

“At last we saw it – land! But none of us spoke: we were struck too breathless by the picture slowly getting clear before our eyes. Land growing higher and higher, and as we crept nearer the curtain of haze lifted. From the level of the sea, upward and upward, to where the mountains sloped into the white clouds, it was all colours. – Land, fertile land in blossom – land as it had been before the coming of the Flood!

“Still not one of us said a word – just gazed and gazed. Then suddenly Gaza sprang forward and, grasping the mast at the head of the boat, she began singing. .. . And oh, how she sang!

“King Mashtu had boasted that this slave, whom he had brought from foreign lands to entertain the ladies of his queen’s court, had the loveliest voice in all the world.

“She began very, very softly – little more than a murmuring hum. I had not heard her sing since we turtles listened from our prison-pond across the zoological park of Shalba. Now, as the mist kept fading and the strengthening wind blew us closer to America, we saw that this great land stretched to the right and left of our course as far as the eye could reach. And slowly Gaza’s voice grew and grew to its full glory. Eber moved forward and put his arm gently about her waist.

“Presently the raven (who always wanted to be a singer himself) was so carried away by the beauty of her voice that he joined in. But his croaking was so dreadfully out of tune that we all, Gaza included, broke into laughter. Then we all sang, just anyhow. Gaza came back from the bow and threw her arms around my neck while Eber did the same to Belinda. The spell was broken and there was general hubbub.

“And so, laughing, singing, and joking, we landed in America.”

• • • • •

•   13   •

The Raven Explores
a New World

There was complete quiet while Mudface stopped and took a drink of muddy water from his dish on the floor. I rested my wiggling pencil and stretched my hand to get the cramp out of it; meanwhile I glanced round the faces of the audience.

They were not an easy crowd to talk to, by any means. (Those hundreds of monkey-carpenters were a restless lot.) But it was clear that the turtle had got them all interested now – no matter what they might have been before. Even the rowdy sparrow, Cheapside – still of course pretending to be asleep – had, I noticed, one eye open and was listening with all his attention. As for the rest of them, they were clearly impatient for the turtle to go on.

“My, oh my!” the Doctor sighed as the turtle was finishing his drink. “What a thrill that must have been for you! To discover a new world. While we, with our little page of history, have always given honour to Columbus.”

“Oh, well, Doctor,” said Mudface, wiping his mouth with the back of his right claw, “you must remember that what I am telling you came just after the Deluge. – Also don’t forget Christopher Columbus had no raven to fly ahead and guide him.

“We had barely landed before the raven took me aside and said, ‘I’m off on a big trip, old-timer. You and your wife must take care of the youngsters for a while; because someone has got to find out if they’ve any enemies here, same as they had at home. Sure, we’ve seen no people as yet. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. There was supposed to be a desert where the ocean is now, eh? And Mashtu always claimed that America belonged to him. But very few travellers, I think, got as far as this. And no one who set out to cross the Atlantic Desert ever returned to Shalba…. Sounds queer, what? Anyway it’s got to be looked into.’

•   •   •

“Well, he was gone some months.

“Before he got back to us I was beginning to be homesick for the countries I’d left behind. Can’t say just why. But I suppose home is always home. I found myself wondering how everyone was getting on back there … Yes, maybe that was it: age. I belonged to the Old World – while these young people were interested only in building a new one.

“I talked it over with Belinda; and I found that she agreed with me – for once – completely.

“‘Why, of course we can’t stay here – for keeps,’ she said. ‘I too want to know how my friends are getting on. Gaza and Eber are doing splendidly here. Whenever you’re ready, Mudface.’

“So, we turtles had it all planned to say goodbye as soon as the raven showed up. We made no preparations at all. Seagoing turtles, when they decide to take a journey, just get up and go. It is only Men who pack a lot of bags and things and lie awake nights before, trying to remember what they have forgotten. All we want is water and – or – mud.

“The raven came. And I have never known him to have so much to chatter about. You should have been there, Doctor. He was chock-full of science.

“Of course we were interested. But we were also anxious to tell him the news that we were going back home. However, he jabbered on and on. Why was this country, he asked, so much further recovered than the ruined land we’d left behind? – Because, he answered himself, the Big Wave (when the poles of the Earth shifted and the Mediterranean burst through the mountains at Gibraltar) cut the new Atlantic Ocean on its way. It didn’t come straight across west. The Gulf Stream had something to do with that. And by the time the Wave had cut right across the Atlantic Desert it had, it seemed, spent most of its strength. Never got far inland this side, on account of the big mountains – the Andes and the Rockies – but just footled along on a more or less north-south line and washed the poisonous sea salt off the land, instead of pushing it on inland and westward.”

Mudface paused a moment, smiling. “Oh, that raven and his science! I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

“Well, well,” said the Doctor, “I suppose it was exciting for him to have discovered why the land was undamaged by the Flood.”

“Yes,” said Mudface, “but he wasn’t through yet. I asked him if he’d seen any cats.”

“‘There are a few native ones – like the lynx in the north and the jaguar in the south. But none of the deadly fellows, like Bengal tigers and African lions – no real man-eaters. Still it surprised me there were any at all.’

“‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Now, there’s something my wife and I would like to talk over with you…. Belinda, Belinda! – I’d swear she was here a minute ago. That’s strange…. Belinda, Belinda! … Where are you?’

“No answer.

“‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to the beach-shack and see if I can find her.’

“Half-way to the shack I met Belinda – in a great state of excitement.

“‘Oh, husband,’ she gasped. ‘She’s going to have a baby – Gaza! Isn’t that simply lovely? I just found out. – Ah, I’m not saying I didn’t suspect it before. But now it’s certain. You remember I told you that when human beings started throwing mud at one another, it’s a sure sign they’re in love…. Oh,’ (she gasped again) ‘I’m all of a twitter! – Glad I could give you the wonderful news alone, without the raven hearing it yet. Because of course we can’t leave now – not before the baby’s born, can we?’

‘“Why not?’ I asked.

“‘Good gracious!’ she cried. ‘Who’s going to look after the child, if I’m not here? Gaza never had one before. And besides, it will be the first American baby. Men-folk don’t know anything about raising children. What if anything should happen to it – colic, foot-and-mouth disease…?’

“I thought heavily a while before answering. For me, it had always been only Eber who must be saved from the Deluge, from the tigress – from the meat-eaters. The girl, well, she was only necessary to keep him company.

“I was still in favour of a peopleless Earth. Man, with his wars and all, had made such a mess of the world! And now my wife was asking me to help build a new race of Men!

“Belinda must have read my thoughts. For presently she said very gently,

“‘Husband, have you forgotten your words to Noah? You promised we’d rescue Eber so that he could start a world of his own, a world of happiness. Tell me, how can that be done if Gaza has no sons. Have you forgotten that we risked our lives over and over again to keep these two young people safe from that she-devil tigress and a hundred other dangers?’

“But still, for a moment, I gave her no answer.

“And suddenly a picture glowed before my eyes: the picture of all we turtles had suffered that those two might live. What use would it be now if new dangers destroyed their sons as soon as we left. And I said,

“‘Belinda, we’ll see it through. Whatever may come of it, as your brother, Wag, warned us, none can tell. But, homesick as I am, I’ll stay with you till the first American is born in his own land…. You’re sure it will be a boy?’

“‘Bless you, Mudface!’ said she. ‘What else could it be?’”

• • • • •

•   14   •

The Farm

“Well, the great day came, the day when the first new human arrived in the New World. When I say first human, I mean of course, the first as far as we knew. Because who can tell, with all the history books swept away, how many deluges there were before the one I saw?”

“Quite so,” the Doctor muttered thoughtfully. – “A very interesting consideration.”

“Nor can we say, John Dolittle, how many more world-floods yet may come – to start Earth’s life all over again.

“Anyhow, this baby was no ordinary child. Yes, it was a boy, all right; a most charming young person. He was tough and strong from the start – like his father. And he had a smile that would charm the birds off the trees – like his mother. He was named Aden.

“We all fell madly in love with him – you couldn’t help it. Even the raven, who said that children to him were nothing but a nuisance – even he, when he thought no one was listening, used to sing lullabies in that cracked voice of his over the cradle. And he did clownish antics to amuse the little one – who enjoyed the performance with no end of giggles and gurgles.

“And, I have to confess, I was nearly as bad, myself. The baby seemed to take as great a liking to me as I did to him. When he was grown large enough to crawl, he tried to climb up onto my back.

“So, I told them how, by making a little fenced play-yard with a sunshade over it, and tying it firmly on top of me the baby could be set safely inside it. This was done. And I would take him for rides around the country.

“Secretly, once in a while, I even paddled him out into the shallower water; and took him on little exploring cruises round the lagoons and lakes that lay inland from the beach. He loved these water-trips most of all. And he came to feel that I was his personal property and slave – a sort of mixture of nursemaid, play-yard, perambulator and his own private boat.

“But it was Belinda herself who was the worst of all. The way she fussed over that child from morning to night, you’d think it was her baby instead of Gaza’s.

“And it was really my wife’s fault that we stayed in America for so long, instead of only the week or two which we had planned.

“At last the raven said to me in private.

“‘Listen, I know how hard it is for you to leave all this. – I mean, for instance, Gaza over there: a picture of contentment – calm and happy eh?… But I’ll bet you one thing.’

“‘What’s that?’ I asked.

“‘She’s going to have another – and soon.’

“‘Going to have another what?’

“‘Another baby of course.’

“‘What makes you think that?’

“‘Oh, I’m not talking any highfalutin stuff like Belinda,’ said the raven. ‘But I’ve just noticed that folks on farms always has lots of kids – maybe it’s the fresh air or something. It stands to reason she’ll have another. And when she does, Brother Turtle, where will we be with Aunt Belinda? I tell you, when Gaza has two babies to look after, well, we’re here for life, if you don’t put your foot down. Two years we’ve been loafing round here like nursemaids. The Old World may have changed a lot in two whole years. – Have you spoken to Belinda yet?’

“‘Oh yes, Raven. But I got nothing but the old excuses. I’ve argued and argued with her.’

“‘Well, don’t argue with her. – She’s a woman. Y’ ought to know better, at your age. Bound to lose. Don’t argue with her: talk to her. Just say: the party is leaving for Shalba Wednesday at eight in the morning. That’s all.’

“‘Yes, I know you’re right,’ I said. ‘I better speak to my wife tonight – firmly. Maybe it’ll be too late if I – by the way, will you help me – to, er, persuade her?’

“‘Bless your heart!’ he laughed. ‘Of course I will. Myself, I’m getting a little sick of the roses round the door in America If it wasn’t for that kid – ’

•   •   •

‘Well, poor Belinda! I fancy she’d been having some of those suspicions about Gaza again. In any case, I’ve no doubt that if I hadn’t had my friend to back me up, I’d have given in once more. But the raven just said off-hand-like – after we had talked a while of this and that,

“‘Heigh ho! It’s my bed-time. – Oh, I almost forgot: Mudface and I are leaving for Africa day after tomorrow, Wednesday. You care to come along with us? – Oh, my Sunday tail-feathers, just look at the way that baby sleeps over there! My, but he’s a healthy one! – Good-night.’

“And before Belinda had a chance to answer him at all, he was on his way down the stairs. I went with him to see him out at the farm-house door. But before he left we stopped in at the kitchen to tell Eber and Gaza.

“It took me only a minute or so to make them understand in our sign-language that we were leaving for Africa. Gaza cried a little. But Eber told me that, although they would both miss us terribly, our news was not a surprise to him. He had told his wife many times that, sooner or later, we would want to go back to our old home. It was only natural.

“And that was that! I felt a great weight lifted from my mind as I bade the raven good-night and arranged with him to meet again the following day.

“The time went quickly. A grand feast was prepared at the farm to celebrate our going away. Eber asked if we would come back sometime to visit them – and we said we hoped so. However, I’m afraid that no one at the party was very gay – except little Aden, who was hardly old enough yet to know what was going on.

“The next day we went down to the shore. My wife and I waded out into the swirling blue-green water of the sea, while the raven took to the air above. Eber and his family waved to us from the sands. I do not like goodbyes. And I was especially glad that this looked like being a short one. I think everyone, including even the raven, felt the same way about that farewell.

“But it was little Aden – barely big enough to talk at all – who changed it into something different. Suddenly he realized at last that we were leaving him, that he was losing his old animal friends. He burst into tears and stretched his chubby hands out towards us.

“‘Linda!’ he called. ‘Do not go! Aden wants you, Linda.’

“Then I noticed that my wife was crying silently as, beside me, she breasted the heaving swell of the ocean in a desperate kind of way. But she did not look back at little Aden – I think she was afraid to.

“And then, after all, I found myself wondering: why did she weep? Suddenly, in the way she often did, she answered my thoughts aloud:

“‘Oh husband, husband,’ she sobbed, ‘they’re so helpless – really! Even if they have more brains than we have, and so can run a world in what seems a better way, they have not our animal sense to know when danger is near – though it’s true we cannot tell how we know. They’re helpless against the stormy seas – which we can cross like stepping over a log; they’re helpless against starvation, when we can go without food for weeks; they’re helpless against the wild beasts of the jungle. And because, sooner or later, my Aden will go down – fighting – where you or I would come through alive, I am crying, husband – crying because I know we’ll no longer be there to protect him with our – our animal sense.’

“It broke my heart to see the way she half turned to look back at the human family on the beach – then thought better of it and firmly ploughed on, eastward, towards the Old World.

“‘Somehow I feel certain,’ she said, ‘that we’ll never see them again. Other men are bound to come and discover this great land. And what then? Some new Mashtu will arise and crush the little world of peace and friendliness they’re building – crush all the kindly faith in justice and honesty which Gaza is teaching the little one…. Tell me, even if we came back, who could find my Aden for me then … my baby?’

“For the moment I had no answer, no word of comfort to give her. But presently I said,

“‘Belinda, my dear, I know we have never spoken openly of these things before. But perhaps it was all planned this way. Maybe the Some One, whose power was greater than Mashtu’s, never intended that Man should die out in this Deluge; and He set you and me, the peaceful turtles, across the path to save Man from complete destruction. If that’s so, we succeeded, didn’t we?… Look forward to seeing Shalba’s lovely countryside again. All’s well, they say, that ends well. Come, come! Cheer up!’

“But she just swam on, giving me no answer – trying only to hide her tears. I too felt very gloomy.

“Our feelings – indeed the whole business – was strange, making no sense. The ocean, wide-spread before us, looked unhomelike now, bleak and dull. Could it be, I asked myself, that living with a human family had changed us? Yet was it not ourselves who had made possible the busy happiness of life for those people we were leaving behind? Had we, the independent turtles, become a little like the warm-blooded men-folk – through years of living with them? We had grown homesick for the Old World; yet this parting now seemed like leaving our own family.

Suddenly a little cheerfulness reached us from above, from the after-sunset sky – where you could hardly pick out anything but the Evening Star. It was the hoarse bawling voice of the raven; but it made us feel less lonely.

“‘Hulloa, down there, Turtles! Set the course south-east by east. – Should be a fine night, by the look of it. You’ll hear from me again in the morning.’

“And that, John Dolittle, is the end of my history of the Deluge.”

•   •   •

No one spoke for nearly five minutes after the turtle came to a stop. The Doctor himself just stared at the floor, far away in thought, as though, it seemed, all the questions he had meant to ask had gone clean from his mind.

At last, with a sort of start, he pulled himself together and spoke.

“Pray excuse me, Mudface,” said he, “for not even thanking you for the most interesting story I’ve ever listened to. There are many questions I would like to ask but I will have to run through all the notebooks with Stubbins to recall them. That would keep you up too late now. You have already talked longer than usual tonight. Please take your medicine and go to bed right away. You know, I am sure, how grateful I am to you.”

“I was glad to tell it, Doctor,” was all the turtle answered. “Good-night!”

• • • • •

•   15   •

We Paddle Down
the Secret Lake

Turtletown, as Cheapside had called it, was closing up. Great quantities of medicine for Mudface had been mixed and stored in the bunkhouse. John Dolittle had asked our visiting monkey-carpenters to pull down most of the smaller shacks, because he feared that with bad weather they would most likely fall apart and become unsightly wrecks after we had gone. But the turtle’s big shelter-shed had been strengthened to last a long time.

The monkeys then became the street-cleaning squad, cleared away the rubbish of the old buildings, swept the trash from the roadways and tidied up generally.

“I can’t see the use of going to all this trouble, Doc,” said Cheapside. “There certainly ain’t goin’ to be no visitors coming up to see old Mudpie’s Castle-in-the-Fog for quite a while yet.”

“Never mind,” said John Dolittle. “The turtle may be muddy; but he likes to have things orderly and neat. I know, because when I got my post-office birds to build the island for him long ago, he was delighted with the way they finished it off before they left.”

“Yes, and the blinkin’ earthquake nearly finished it off too,” grunted the sparrow. “This may be the top of the world, all right. But in my ’umble hopinion, the Deluge ain’t over yet in these ’ere parts. The Earth still seems rollin’ around, ’avin’ tummy-aches, you might say. Remember them ruins of the old ’ouses we saw, comin’ up ’ere? Why, what’s the matter, Doc?”

“My goodness, I nearly forgot!” said the Doctor.

“Forgot what?” asked Cheapside.

“Why, his garden,” said the Doctor. “Mudface loves nothing better than a nice garden – the same as I do. I must attend to it right away…. Excuse me a moment, please.”

The Doctor hustled off and questioned many of the monkey-leaders. Well, they not only brought kernels which would grow into fine shady palms – and bulbs that would become plants – but they actually got all the seeds from which the turtle’s medicine was made. So, when these were planted, John Dolittle did not have to worry about his patient ever running short of what he had ordered for him.

While all this was going on I was digging down into our fire-proof safe under the office-floor. I was trying to sort out, from all those notebooks, the questions which the Doctor wanted to ask the turtle. But what a job! Were there ever so many notebooks – filled from cover to cover?

After three hours of work I hadn’t got very far; and Polynesia went to fetch the Doctor himself. He glanced through my work and said,

“The whole record does you great credit as a secretary, Stubbins.” He sat on the floor almost buried in notebooks. “But great heavens, to weed all the questions I want out of this library would take weeks, maybe months! Let’s just pick out the most important – and hope for the best, shall we? I really don’t see what else we can do.”

So that evening, when we gathered once more in the turtle’s shelter, John Dolittle fired off question after question; and Mudface, if he could, shot the answers back just as fast – or shook his head – if he couldn’t answer.

It was nearly all about science – about what changes the Deluge had made in the world. Some of the audience were deeply interested: others not at all. But we all stayed up till long past midnight. And everyone, by the end of it, was so weary that there was no talking whatever, after we bade the turtle good-night and made our way home to bed.

In the bunkhouse we found a visitor waiting for us. It was one of those wild ducks that so often carried messages between the Doctor and his family in Puddleby. This duck had come to tell him that the old horse in the stable near the “zoo” had complained that his roof was leaking badly.

“All right,” said John Dolittle. “We are leaving here for Puddleby right away. Thank you very much for your trouble. Remember me to the birds in my garden, please – if you get back before we do.”

•   •   •

The next day, when all was in readiness for our leaving, Mudface asked the Doctor if he might swim down to the lower end of the lake to see us off. John Dolittle was delighted with the compliment and readily said yes.

“Who knows?” he laughed – “on the way I may remember a few more questions which I forgot last night. I may not get another chance after this for a long time.”

So, late in the afternoon we all left the landing at the foot of the long road which led down from what was left of Turtletown at the island’s top and started off. The fog over the Secret Lake was not bad; though once in a while it would roll up thick and heavy, close to the canoe and we were glad to have a guide with us. Mudface knew his way across this lake (hundreds of miles wide at the centre) in the pitch-dark. He took no notice of the cloak of mist about us, just staying close enough to the Doctor’s stern-paddle, so that we should not lose touch with one another.

“Tell me, Mudface,” said the Doctor after we had gone about a mile, “how did King Mashtu come to get all this power you spoke of?”

“Through the children – mostly,” said the turtle quietly.

“The children?’ cried the Doctor in surprise. “I don’t understand.”

“Well,” Mudface answered, “King Mashtu was all in favour of education. But instead of educating the children in the right way, in honesty and fairness, this king saw that an easier way to power for himself was to educate them the wrong way.

“Oh, Mashtu was clever. He taught those youngsters never to doubt his word. Then, when they were old enough to vote for him, he slyly put over his scheme for a one-man government for Shalba. – That is, a government run really by a single person. He knew that even though many were allowed to take part in running the country, one and one only should be the head. His word must be the law. And he lived and dreamed of one plan alone: that he, Mashtu, should be that head. He counted the days till he should be elected not only the head of the government, but King of Shalba.”

“Mudface,” asked the Doctor through the clammy fog – “I believe of course every word that you are telling me – but how did you come to learn all this yourself? You were a prisoner in a zoo.”

“Well, Doctor,” said the turtle, “Noah spoke often of the times before the Deluge. You remember he was the only one, besides yourself, to learn animal language. He too was a prisoner; though, as the head zoo-keeper, he was treated well. The old man had a habit of talking to himself. But, being afraid of spies, he always spoke in animal language – even in his sleep. So of course no one understood him, except the animals…. He did not like Mashtu or anything about him.”

“Ah, I see,” said the Doctor.

“Also,” Mudface went on, “much of what I’ve told you I learned long after it happened – from Eber and Gaza, when they were building up their new language. Belinda and I got to understand it quite well. And we would enjoy, by the hour, hearing Eber and Gaza chat over past times.”

“Of course, of course,” the Doctor answered. “I just wondered how turtles who always – and sensibly – mind their own business, I wondered – naturally – how you came to know so much about public affairs in bygone days: government, politics and all that, you know. Your memory is marvellous. Thank you. Pray go on.”

“King Mashtu!” sighed Mudface. “He could have done so much good had he wished. But he was a puzzle no one ever understood…. Ah, well, he’s gone now. Yet while he lived I don’t suppose any man was more admired – or more hated.”

And of a sudden, just as I had expected, this strange story broke off; the turtle was silent; the fog, in true Lake Junganyika fashion, had lifted without warning. And there, quite close on our port bow, lay the ruined buildings we had seen before.

“There they are, Doc!” cried Cheapside. – “The half-drowned slums we saw on our way in…. Jiminy crickets! I’ve run across some ramshackle waterfronts in me day: but never nothing like this…. Lumme, what a mess!”

I saw the Doctor in the stern (up to this he had been nothing more than an occasional voice behind a wall) look down at Mudface who swam near by. The turtle, treading water with his hind feet, stretched his neck up as high as he could to see the buildings better.

“Shalba!” he gasped. “I know every alley, every stone in it. But how comes it here at the surface of the lake? Last time I trod its streets it lay beneath two hundred feet of water – at the bottom of Junganyika! This is magic, John Dolittle.”

“No,” said the Doctor gently. – “No, no magic, old friend. I’m sure it’s just the earthquake, the same one that buried you. They do these queer things sometimes. It has heaved the floor of the lake up, at this end, in almost one piece, so the buildings show above the water. That is all.”

“Shalba!” muttered the turtle again. “Shalba arisen from the Past, arisen from the Deluge…. Shalba arisen from the dead!”

• • • • •

•   16   •

The Treasure Vault

“I would be grateful, Mudface,” said the Doctor presently, “if you could show us something of the city before we leave. – But I don’t want you to over-tire yourself, you understand.”

“Certainly,” said the turtle. “Come!” And he led the way.

On the poorer alleyways leading us into the town, the buildings were no different from those we had seen on our first and hasty visit. The streets were really canals, full of water, which lapped in and out of broken windows. The houses – small shops and the like – were nearly all of them partly ruined at least.

We did notice, however, as we paddled on, how many of them were at the same level. This, as the Doctor had said, must have been because the lower end of the lake’s floor had been pushed up in one piece – without splitting the town in halves.

After winding through many side-streets and narrow lanes, Mudface presently led us out upon a wide open space. At first sight, it might have been a market, a public park or something of the kind. The buildings surrounding it were in a much better state.

“This was called Victory Square,” said the turtle. “Once the middle of it was filled with lovely flowering-trees, fountains and park benches.

“All the buildings you see around it now were put up when Mashtu came back from his last great war – against the Dardellians. It was built to commemorate that famous victory. Every house in this square was a part of the King’s home. These on the left were the Royal Stables. Next to them were the quarters for the King’s Guard; and, beyond, you see what is left of the Royal Kitchens – they were almost as big as a town in themselves. Most of the rest were offices and government buildings.

“And that big place, with the crumbled towers, facing us, was the Royal Palace itself, where King Mashtu lived in a splendour such as the world had never seen before.”

I find it hard to give anyone a picture in writing of what the turtle was showing us. Certainly the man who laid it out was a true artist, a great architect. The square was unbelievably large – certainly, I would say, a mile from end to end; and more than half a mile wide. The stone used must have been granite, or some other very hard form of rock, to have lasted all those thousands of years.

Even now (though there were gaps of ruins here and there in the close, even rows of buildings which surrounded the pleasure-park) enough of the vast planning still showed a beauty and magnificence which simply took our breath away.

The Doctor knew a good deal about ancient architecture; but, he told me later, the style of these buildings was like none he had ever seen – and gave him no idea of their age. The palace at the far end of the Square of Victory particularly held our attention. The outside of it, at least, seemed perfect – except for one of the high slender towers which had crumbled away a little, near the top. It still looked what it had been: the proud and splendid home of a king long dead.

“Stubbins,” said the Doctor at last in a voice strangely hushed, “just look at that huge main doorway! Did you ever see such carved stonework?”

The palace seemed to stand slightly higher than the rest of the square. For, even at that distance, we could see a half-dry strip of ground, showing in the front – and, above that, a wide terrace which ran completely round the palace.

Suddenly Mudface spoke again; and the way his voice startled us both, made us realize how long we had stared, almost in a trance, at this enchanted monument of the Past.

“That piece of dry land,” said he, “in front of the palace should mean that its ground-floor will be all right for us to get in. Would you like me – if it’s possible – to guide you through Mashtu’s home, John Dolittle?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” laughed the Doctor. “I’d like nothing better. Who would miss a chance of seeing the palace of a king who lived before the Flood?”

So the turtle swam across the square while we, very interested and all excited, paddled close behind him. Reaching the strip of land before the big door, we got out and tied up our canoe. A wide flight of steps led to the top of the terrace and the main entrance.

Mudface’s great body (it looked like some big, mud-spattered van) was already scrambling up the royal steps – even before we had the canoe made safe by its painter-rope. As we hurried to follow him into the palace, I noticed that all our company were very grave and silent. They reminded me – for some reason – of a company of children being taken into church for an extra special service.

Inside, the light was very dim; and it took our eyes a moment or two to get used to the gloom – though we had by no means come from full sunshine outside. Presently, however, our surroundings began to take shape in the half-dark.

We seemed to be in a sort of passage. The confusion of the furniture and such was dreadful. A film of mud or slime covered everything.

The great turtle lumbered his way down the corridor. John Dolittle and I stuck close to his heels. Mudface, with his great muscles, shoved everything aside, no matter how heavy, making a pathway for the rest of us to follow.

We came out presently into a high, enormous room. The dim ceiling must have been a hundred feet above the floor-level. The clutter and confusion were not so bad here – though in places a rafter or beam had fallen from the roof. At the end of this tremendous chamber a high-backed chair stood all alone upon a low, raised platform.

This time the Doctor went ahead of our guide. He took his penknife from his pocket and gently scraped the slime from the arm of the big chair. Beautiful green stone was at once uncovered beneath the thin coating of mud.

I was close enough behind John Dolittle to hear him whisper, “Good heavens, it’s pure jade! I suspected, from the shape, it wasn’t wood. – Must have cost a fortune. Solid jade, the whole chair! And the polish and colour are just as good as when it was first carved…. This seat, Mudface, was of course the Royal Throne?”

“Yes,” said the turtle. “This room was called the Throne Room or the Royal Hall of Audience. It was here that King Mashtu sat in council and in judgment. And often – but – oh my gracious! Look, Doctor – over there – the Treasure Vault!… Why – why, it’s open!”

Mudface was usually a very calm animal. It took a lot to upset or disturb him. That was why both the Doctor and I turned quickly at the excited tone of his voice. He was staring across the big hall at a door which led into another smaller room. The wall above it had a crack running from the Audience Hall’s high ceiling right down to the top of this door’s frame. Plainly the door itself had been damaged, instead of left open by chance. For we could see that the frame, into which it had fitted, had broken down at the top; it was this that had burst it open, inward. The door was enormously thick and strong. Six heavy hinges had once held it in place; but now, all askew, it hung by only one.

“Come, John Dolittle,” said the turtle. “I think you will wish to see what lies within that broken door.”

• • • • •

•   17   •

Crown of the World

Again, much too thrilled with expectation to talk, we followed our guide. He made light work of the rafters that lay in our way. Some of the stuff was terrific in weight. But, as Cheapside used to say, once Mudface pulled his head inside his shell and shoved, well, even if it was St. Paul’s Cathedral, it had to move. And as he worked forward, the turtle talked to us about the little room we were making for:

“King Mashtu kept the crown jewels in there. That’s why it was called the Treasure Vault. Ten soldiers of the Royal Guard kept watch here every hour of the day and night. Mashtu had sent searchers all over the countries he had conquered to get the best locksmith in the world. He was found; and brought to Shalba, after the messengers had hunted for two whole years. He did a grand job for the King – made the vault – and its doors – the strongest ever built.”

“Yes,” the Doctor put in, peering ahead, “I’d say he certainly did.”

“No thieves could get in,” the turtle went on – “even supposing they could go to work with ten soldiers on guard. This locksmith was an old man. The King promised him all sorts of pay and presents for his work – a fine house of his own to live in, in his old age and all that. But when the work was finished Mashtu had him killed instead. You see, Mashtu was afraid the locksmith might give away the secrets of the vault, or keep an extra key to the locks, so his friends could help themselves to the treasure and money stored there.”

“But,” asked the Doctor, “where – how – did Mashtu get all this money and treasure? For a vault, that room should be fairly large, judging by the size of the door.”

“Well,” the turtle answered, “some came through taxing his own people. But most of it he took from the kings and princes he captured or killed on the battlefield. He was crazy about money – not for itself so much – but he needed it to make war – more and more wars. And he didn’t care how he got it.”

We were standing before the door itself.

“Here we are, Doctor,” said Mudface. “The boy can crawl in under at the left-hand lower corner. I’ll have to stay behind a moment till I can push the whole door down flat. – Even then the entrance will be only just wide enough for my shell to pass through.”

I got down on my knees and started to creep in under the door, the animals waiting in line behind to follow me. To say that I was “thrilled” would give you no idea of the tingle that ran down my spine. I was Captain Kidd and all the buccaneers of history rolled in one. For me it was the moment of a lifetime.

The light was poorer still inside; and I called back for Too-Too (the owl who could see in the dark) to come forward and help my groping steps. The Doctor, also crawling on his knees, took hold of my left foot so we should not lose touch with one another.

But here again it was only a minute or so before we got used to the darker room – or at least could see well enough to make out most things pretty plainly. Against the four walls, all around, stood heavy chests. But within the vault – except for the broken door – everything seemed orderly, in place and neat. Of course there was that thin coating of mud everywhere which told the story of long, long neglect. – Ghosts seemed moving and whispering everywhere.

Soon the Doctor rose from his knees and examined the whole room with great care.

“My goodness, Stubbins,” he murmured presently – “King Mashtu’s Treasure Vault! Almost gives you the creeps, doesn’t it? There must be no end to the secrets that have laid hidden within these four walls – for no one knows how many thousands of years. Because every paper that was important or valuable to the State would have been brought down here for safe-keeping…. Er – er, I wonder what that is.”

His gaze had shifted now from the strong-boxes round the walls to the centre of the room.

There, about the height of a man’s chest, it stood all by itself; and it looked like a cabinet of some kind. It wasn’t large; but its sides were solid, so you could see nothing through them. But the top was grated; and through this you could look down inside.

For the first time the Doctor took a box of matches from his pocket and struck a light. Cheapside was perched upon my shoulder. Silently the three of us peered in through the grating. The bottom of the cabinet was partly filled with sand which had sifted in. But, in a circle, points of some half-buried metal were sticking up. I wondered was my imagination working overhard in this spooky room; but I felt almost sure that that half-hidden thing down there might be a crown!

“Huh!” chirped Cheapside. “Looks like old King Mashtu’s top-hat, if you ask me, Doc. – Heaven defend us!” he added as the match burned out in the Doctor’s fingers and a thunderous crash filled the room. – “What’s that noise? Sounds as if the roof was fallin’ in.”

We turned quickly. But it was only Mudface. Dimly we could see he had pushed the heavy door right down and was now trampling slowly over it into the vault.

Said he, as he came up to the Doctor,

“That old locksmith’s work was better even than I’d calculated. I thought I’d never break that last hinge.”

“Well now, old Muddy-puddy,” said Cheapside, “how about tryin’ yer muskles on one of these ’ere treasure-chests? They look as though they might ’ave somethin’ in ’em better than dried apricots.”

At that, without a word, the turtle put the shoulder of his shell against one of the big chests. He took a good grip on the floor with his hind feet. And then he shoved. He was squeezing the heavy metal box against the wall.

Soon we heard a sharp crack. The lock gave way; the chest simply fell apart. And a great pile of gorgeous jewels and gold coins flowed over him upon the floor.

“Crikey!” muttered the sparrow. “Would you look at that? Golden sovereigns the size of saucers. Why, with just one of these ’ere trunks a bloke could buy out the Bank of England! – And look at the pearls, diamonds – rubies like hens’ eggs – enough jools to give you the drools. Hold me up, Tommy, I feels a faintin’ spell comin’ on. Now, Doc, you can live on Easy Street the rest of your life.”

“But it’s papers I’m looking for, Cheapside,” said John Dolittle – “documents, you know, which will tell me about the world in Noah’s time. What would I do with pearls and rubies?”

“Oh, I wasn’t digesting you should wear ’em round yer neck, Doc,” said the sparrow. “But this is real money! There’s a fortune lyin’ at your feet.”

Dab-Dab waddled forward across the room.

“Now, Doctor,” said she, as though she were talking to a naughty boy, “I know I’ve been through all this with you before. But do try – for once – to be sensible. Have we ever had enough money for the housekeeping in Puddleby? You’re always going broke. Now tie up a handkerchief full of those large rubies. The weight will be nothing in the canoe. Then we’ll never have to worry about money again. Please!”

“No, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You don’t know what you’re asking me. All this treasure has been stolen, taken from conquered kings and murdered princes. These gold coins cry out with the voice of suffering – of innocent men, of women and even children slaughtered in war. Money! Bah, it is the curse of the world!”

His voice rose almost to a shout as he pointed to a string of glistening diamonds near his foot.

“No, no, Dab-Dab!” he repeated. “This treasure stays where I found it. These precious stones have blood on them!”

The white mouse crept forward and examined the diamonds with his microscopic eyes. Then he looked up at Dab-Dab and gravely shook his head.

“I don’t see any blood on them.”

The duck shrugged her wing-shoulders helplessly and turned away; while Polynesia the parrot, who was standing near, raised her old eyebrows and murmured wearily, “What else did you expect?”

“Too bad, too bad, Dab-Dab, me old darling,” chirped the ever-cheerful Cheapside. “But this little pile would sure have bought you a nice lot of sardines. – Well, well, easy comes: easy goes.”

•   •   •

“Mudface,” asked the Doctor, “do you know what this is in the stand over here in the middle of the room?”

“Ah, that?” said the turtle. “Yes, it was called the Crown of the World. After the King’s last victory – over the Dardellians – many false-hearted men came to Mashtu with a very gorgeous gold crown and asked could they crown him King of the World. They said he now owned pretty much the whole of the Earth and therefore he deserved it.

“But there was still one people left unconquered. They were called the Zonabites; and their country – which wasn’t large – was a long way off from Shalba. They were mountain-folk and tough fighters. Mashtu had had a try at them before; and found them a hard nut to crack. They had thrown his troops back – almost the first time that a Shalbian army had been beaten.

“Mashtu was a villain: but he was no fool. He knew that to make war on the Zonabites, so far from Shalba, would cost a terrible lot of money. Also, being no fool, he guessed that these men wanting to crown him King of the World were only trying to flatter him – to get themselves made generals, or something of the kind. So he spoke his mind to them in plain language.

“‘No,’ he said, ‘I will not be crowned King of the World till the Zonabites are conquered and the whole world is truly mine.’ (That was what he had always wanted.) ‘Till the country of the Zonabites is under the rule of Shalba,’ said he, ‘what you offer me is nothing but a sham and a mockery. And you know it.

“‘What’s more,’ he added, ‘when I am crowned as ruler of the Universe, I don’t want any fancy gaudy thing like that put upon my head. I will have a simple crown, costing nothing, made of bronze, with no jewels in it! Thus, when I am truly Master of Mankind, when the Zonabites are crushed, I will show how little I thought of them – these last miserable enemies who keep Shalba from our dearest desire.’

“All this, Doctor, is written, I believe, in the Shalbian language, around the head-band of the crown in that cabinet.

“Then King Mashtu began to get ready for his war. In spite of the sneering way in which he’d spoken of the Zonabites, his preparations for this war were the greatest in all his history. He spent money like water, fitting out his armies with all the latest deviltries his inventors could think up.

“He built great fleets of ships, down at the mouths of the rivers, to carry his soldiers across the seas to the distant land of the enemy. He meant to take no chances. He had the biggest army gathered together that mankind had ever seen. For this time, he boasted, he was going to wipe the Zonabites out, man, woman and child, so they could never rise again.”

The turtle sighed and stopped speaking a moment. And even in the poor light I thought I saw that half-smile play again around the corners of his wrinkled mouth.

“But five days,” he said presently, “before the Shalbian army was to sail, the Flood came. It began, as I told you, with a gentle rain only. The King ordered the ships to put out to sea anyway; and the captains obeyed and sailed. But every single ship was smashed and sunk by that great wave we’d seen roaring across the Shalba race-track.”

Once more Mudface hesitated, deep in thought and memories. And soon the silence that hung over us there in the dimlit vault was broken by the voice of John Dolittle.

“And so,” he said slowly, “Mashtu did not become complete master of the Earth? He never lived to wear this,” (the Doctor laid his hand on top of the cabinet) “the Crown of the World? But it took a deluge to stop him – from gaining his dearest wish…. I wonder what kind of a world we’d be living in now, if there had been no Flood and – and he had succeeded.”

The Doctor’s voice dropped and slowed down so we could only just hear him. It seemed almost as if he were in a dream, talking softly to himself, his eyes half closed.

“Thanks to you, brave Zonabites! – And, despite all the suffering the Deluge brought, thanks be to heaven for the Flood too! Mashtu all but wore it, the Crown of the World!… Could you get it out of this case for me?”

“Certainly,” said Mudface. He threw his front legs around the slender cabinet and squeezed. The grating in the top popped off and clattered to the floor like a tin plate. The Doctor put his arm down inside and fished up the bronze crown. He cleaned it off a little with his sleeve and examined the strange writing cut into the head-band.

“Dab-Dab,” he said quietly, “we will take this back with us to Puddleby. It is worth nothing, as King Mashtu himself said – just bronze. So I do not feel I am taking stolen goods.”

Without another word he turned and moved towards the door.

Cheapside was still perched upon my shoulder.

“Tommy,” he whispered in my ear as we all started to follow John Dolittle from the room, “that’s the Doc all over, ain’t it? – Look at ’im: knee-deep in diamonds – and all ’e carries home out of a royal treasure vault is an old brass hat! Swap me pink, that I should ever see the day!”

•   •   •

Outside upon the palace terrace we found the sun shining gaily; but it was getting low down, for evening was coming on. We had no idea that we had stayed so long within King Mashtu’s gorgeous home. Remembering the wild duck’s message from the old lame horse in Puddleby, we wasted no time in unhitching the canoe.

The Doctor stowed away the bronze crown with care. He fastened it, like the precious packages of notebooks, to the canoe’s bottom.

“That, Stubbins,” said he, “is in case we have an upset. If the rest of the baggage is lost, the floating, wooden canoe will still save the most precious things for us, as long as they are tied in. – No, no, Gub-Gub, we can’t go back to the palace cellars for your preserved dates, now. – Sorry, no time.”

Then the Doctor, before saying goodbye, gave the turtle his last instructions about the medicine; the foods he should, or shouldn’t eat; and all the things he should do to keep well.

“You will take care of yourself, Mudface, won’t you?” said he. “Don’t forget that the wild birds will always bring your messages to me, if you fall sick again or anything. As for your story, old friend, I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

“I am only too glad that I had the chance to tell it to you, John Dolittle,” said the turtle. “As for thanks, you have done far more for me than I did for you. My heart is sad indeed to see you go. But I know you must.”

The Doctor nodded. “Alas, old friend, I must,” he agreed.

Mudface gazed down into the lake where the evening shadows of the palace towers were beginning to stretch out into the gloom of coming night.

“And yet, Doctor,” he added, “if you do write what I have told you into a book, for all the peoples of today to read – who knows? – maybe war may stop altogether and no leaders like King Mashtu ever arise again.”

The Doctor, silent, thought a moment before he answered.

“Indeed I hope so,” he sighed at last. “At least I promise you the book shall be written, and I will do my best to write it well. How many will take any notice of it: that is another matter. For men are deaf, mind you, Mudface – deaf when they do not wish to hear and to remember – and deafest of all when their close danger is ended with a short peace, and they want to believe that war will not come back.”

He turned suddenly and looked down into the canoe. Everyone was in his place, waiting. The Doctor slipped into the stern and took up the long paddle.

“All right, Stubbins,” he called. “The painter’s free. Shove off!”

And, as I pushed the canoe’s bow out from the steps, I saw Mudface start lumbering down towards the corner of the terrace, where there was a grand view of all the south end of Junganyika. The old fellow meant to see the last of us from the best place.

Hereabouts, where the Secret Lake began draining itself into the river, a strong current swept us on our way. Once clear of the stonework, we let the canoe drift pretty much, saving our strength for the harder work which would come later.

As the lake narrowed still more we saw a sharp bend ahead of us. We knew that, after we had passed that bend, we would no longer be able to see the palace, or the waiting turtle. The Doctor and I turned and looked back.

There he was still, his giant shape standing up on the terrace-corner, black and clear against the evening sky. He waved a right foreclaw at us in farewell. We waved back.

“Goodbye, Mudface!” muttered the Doctor. “Who knows how much you changed the history of the world – in gratitude for the kindness of one man, Eber…. Goodbye to you, good health and good luck!”

I glanced at the mangrove-covered shores; they were nearer. We had rounded the bend. I looked back no more. I knew the turtle was now out of sight.

“You’re right, Doctor,” said Cheapside suddenly. “May – may good luck stay with ’im for – for the rest of his days.”

I glanced quickly at the sparrow. It was not what he had said that made me look at him. But I heard a queer, choking catch come into his voice. And I knew that this vulgar little rowdy of London’s streets – Cheapside, who always made a joke out of everything – was, for perhaps the first time in his life, very close to tears.

In fact, we all had that “let down” feeling which so often follows great excitement. The twilight had become almost real darkness now. A few big stars had appeared and their light made shimmering paths on the gloomy water. We still rested our paddles, knowing that the powerful current must carry us into the river without the help of any guide.

So this was the end of the “lucky voyage.” We had done what we came to do. By rights, everyone in that canoe should have been talking gaily of a well-done job behind us and a well-loved home ahead. But, instead, we were thinking, glumly – all of us, about the same thing: our leaving Mudface behind and alone.

It made no difference that we couldn’t take the great beast with us. In any case the English climate would have been too cold for him. But he had been sick here in his native Africa…. No, it was impossible to feel happy about our lucky voyage when we were leaving him this way.

The mangroves on either hand were closing in now, as we drifted nearer to the river. I knew without him telling me, that John Dolittle felt the most uneasy of us all. Suddenly he spoke,

“Stubbins, what’s that ahead of us, near the opening to the stream? Seems to be coming towards us. Watch, you’ll see the starlight glint on its wet body every once in a while.”

I had long since given up being surprised at his truly marvellous eyesight for long distances. All I answered was,

“Yes, Doctor, there’s something there – and moving. But goodness knows what. – Hard for me to make out anything in this light.”

A moment later he gasped: “By jingo! It looks like a turtle…. But what a size! I’d swear it was Mudface himself, if we hadn’t just left him behind us on the terrace.”

It was plain soon that the creature could see us. It was making straight for our canoe with no shyness or fear at all. It swam swiftly, but so low in the water that little more than its head showed.

Motionless, we all gaped over the side till this strange thing out of the night was practically alongside our bow. Then I saw that it was indeed so like Mudface I could easily have mistaken it for him in full sunlight. It raised its dripping head slowly out of the water and said in turtle language,

“Could you, by any chance, be John Dolittle?”

“Why, yes,” the Doctor answered. “But—”

“Thank goodness!” the turtle interrupted. “I hardly dared to hope that I would find you. Is it true that Mudface met with some accident? Is he still alive? Can you tell me where to find him, please?”

“Yes, Belinda,” said the Doctor, “he is still alive – and very well, too.”

“Bless you, John Dolittle,” said the turtle. “When the sea-birds told me you were here, I prayed I’d be in time to meet you. – But, tell me, how did you know I was Belinda?”

“Well,” said the Doctor smiling, “you always ask your questions in threes – your husband told me so. I’ve never been so happy to meet anyone in my whole life.”

At that, the turtle looked aside, down into the black water. “I’m so ashamed, Doctor,” she whispered.

“But, why?” asked the Doctor.

“For leaving my husband,” she said. “I meant to be gone only a few weeks instead of all this everlasting time. You see, even after years and years away from Gaza and Eber and my baby Aden, I still longed for the human friends I’d left. And when news reached us that wars had started again, even in that beautiful America, I got so upset that, well, I couldn’t sleep.

“I kept thinking of my baby Aden – or his children’s descendants, as it would be by now. Still they were mine. They were fighting the foreigners from Asia. Eber and Gaza must have died of old age. Would the Eberites be beaten and wiped out after all? That tribe too was mine and Mudface’s.

“My husband was too sick for such a journey. I thought it over a long while. Would my animal sense be of any help in saving the tribe – as it had in the past, rescuing Gaza and her husband? At last I made up my mind I’d go and see.” She started to cry a little.

“And so,” she went on through her tears, “when poor Mudface was asleep one night I sneaked away and crossed the ocean once more. I left a message with the snipe who lived near us to tell my husband why I simply had to go.”

“I understand. Cheer up,” said the Doctor.

Belinda went on: “When the sea-birds told me that the giant turtle had disappeared I was almost frantic with worry: I had left the kindest husband in the world alone, when he was sick!… I came back here as fast as I could possibly swim.”

As the turtle stopped for breath I could see she was almost too weary to stay afloat. “But,” she asked the Doctor, “you’re sure he’s all right? He wasn’t injured by this earthquake or whatever it was the sea-birds told me about? Which way did you say I should go to get to him?”

“Straight ahead, Belinda,” said the Doctor. “We left him a few miles back. I imagine, by now, he is on his way to the island my post-office birds built for him a few years ago.

“Thank you,” said she. “I’ll hurry on now, if you’ll excuse me. I seem to be the only creature living that never met you, John Dolittle. Even in America every bird, beast and fish still speaks of you and your kindness. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

Mrs. Mudface was already churning the water like a steamboat, away from the canoe’s side – headed for the island.

“Thank goodness for that,” sighed the Doctor. “I feel better now. Somehow I hated leaving him all alone this time. But Belinda will take good care of him.”

And of a sudden all our own family brightened up. Cheerful chatter broke loose fore and aft and amidships. Cheapside even popped up to the mast-head and shouted after the fast disappearing swimmer.

“Three cheers for Belinda! – Hooray!” He was joined in his noisy outburst by all of us. And at the end of the cheering Polynesia’s voice could be heard singing alone:

“For she’s a jolly good fellow.

Yes, she’s a jolly good fell—Hello!

Oh, Belinda’s a jolly good fell—Hello!”

The Doctor and I broke into outright laughter. For the parrot had set the words to the tune of a sailor’s hornpipe.

Then, like one man with one thought, John Dolittle and I plunged our paddles into the starlit water at the same moment. The canoe shot forward into the river like an arrow (upsetting most of the merry-makers in a laughing heap on top of the baggage). We were on our way downstream, towards the west, towards Puddleby and home.

About
The Book of
Doctor Dolittle

By Hugh Lofting
(1886 – 1947)

Meet Doctor Dolittle, that quirky, loveable doctor and naturalist, who has the wonderful ability to speak with animals. Join him and his crew of animal friends as they journey to strange and distant lands, join a circus, stage a Canary Opera, establish a zoo run by the animals who live there, and even travel to the Moon!

* * * * *

This omnibus contains the first ten Doctor Dolittle books, using the original unexpurgated text of early editions. Due to copyright restrictions, Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary and Puddleby Adventures have been omitted, because they were completed posthumously by other writers. Illustrations have been omitted due to file-size considerations.

* * * * *

British author Hugh John Lofting (14 January 1886 – 26 September 1947) created the character of Doctor Dolittle, one of the classics of children’s literature. The Doctor first appeared in Lofting’s illustrated letters to his children, written from the trenches while he was serving in the British Army during World War I. The stories (a series of twelve books, the final two completed and published posthumously) are set in early Victorian England. The second in the series, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922), won Lofting the prestigious Newbery Medal.

Despite the author’s obviously benign posture, the books became a target of controversy in the 1960’s amid accusations of racism and attitudes of colonialism, and went out of print in the USA for some time. Later editions in the 1980’s were bowdlerized to remove offending content and illustrations. The Doctor and the tales of his adventures are better known today through movie and television adaptations.

(—Extracted and adapted from Wikipedia.)

This ebook was created by ECM for MobileRead.com, May 2018, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

The contents of this book were first published 1920 ~ 1948. Text is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

This collection is based on transcriptions and scans found at Project Gutenberg, Gutenberg Australia, Faded Page, and the Internet Archive. OCR and typographical errors were corrected; punctuation, italics and diacritics formatted; spelling and punctuation regularized to provide consistency. Embedded font “Lilly” by Dana Rice used for titling. Chapter heads are cross-linked to individual Tables of Contents.

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