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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 501 ***
+
+
+
+
+_THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE_
+
+[Illustration: “A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh”]
+
+
+
+
+    THE
+    _Story of_
+    DOCTOR DOLITTLE
+
+    _BEING THE
+    HISTORY OF HIS PECULIAR LIFE
+    AT HOME AND ASTONISHING ADVENTURES
+    IN FOREIGN PARTS. NEVER BEFORE PRINTED._
+
+    _TOLD BY HUGH LOFTING_      _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    _Published by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY at 443 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK._
+
+    _A.D. 1920_
+
+    WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING
+
+    BY HUGH WALPOLE
+
+
+
+
+    _Copyright, 1920, by_
+    FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+    _All rights reserved, including that of translation
+    into foreign languages_
+
+    First Printing,     Aug.   24, 1920
+    Second Printing,    Dec.   17, 1920
+    Third Printing,     April  16, 1921
+    Fourth Printing,    July    7, 1921
+    Fifth Printing,     Sept.   1, 1921
+    Sixth Printing,     Oct.   26, 1921
+    Seventh Printing,   Dec.    5, 1921
+    Eighth Printing,    April   3, 1922
+    Ninth Printing,     Aug.   18, 1922
+    Tenth Printing,     Nov.   28, 1922
+    Eleventh Printing,  April   2, 1923
+
+
+    PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+    ALL CHILDREN
+
+    CHILDREN IN YEARS AND CHILDREN IN HEART
+    I DEDICATE THIS STORY
+
+
+
+
+_INTRODUCTION TO THE TENTH PRINTING_
+
+
+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
+to-day. 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 on page 153 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.
+
+
+
+
+_CONTENTS_
+
+
+    INTRODUCTION                          vii
+    CHAPTER                              PAGE
+        I PUDDLEBY                          1
+       II ANIMAL LANGUAGE                   7
+      III MORE MONEY TROUBLES              19
+       IV A MESSAGE FROM AFRICA            29
+        V THE GREAT JOURNEY                37
+       VI POLYNESIA AND THE KING           47
+      VII THE BRIDGE OF APES               55
+     VIII THE LEADER OF THE LIONS          67
+       IX THE MONKEYS’ COUNCIL             75
+        X THE RAREST ANIMAL OF ALL         81
+       XI THE BLACK PRINCE                 91
+      XII MEDICINE AND MAGIC               99
+     XIII RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS        111
+      XIV THE RATS’ WARNING               117
+       XV THE BARBARY DRAGON              125
+      XVI TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER           133
+     XVII THE OCEAN GOSSIPS               141
+    XVIII SMELLS                          149
+      XIX THE ROCK                        159
+       XX THE FISHERMAN’S TOWN            167
+      XXI HOME AGAIN                      174
+
+
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+
+  “A little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh”           _Frontispiece_
+                                                                  PAGE
+  “And she never came to see him any more”                           3
+  “He could see as well as ever”                                    14
+  “They came at once to his house on the edge of the town”          15
+  “They used to sit in chairs on the lawn”                          19
+  “‘All right,’ said the Doctor, ‘go and get married’”              23
+  “One evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair”             24
+  “‘I felt sure there was twopence left’”                           31
+  “And the voyage began”                                            35
+  “‘We must have run into Africa’”                                  41
+  “‘I got into it because I did not want to be drowned’”            44
+  “And Queen Ermintrude was asleep”                                 48
+  “‘Who’s that?’”                                                   52
+  “Cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the branches
+        to greet him”                                               61
+  “John Dolittle was the last to cross”                             65
+  “He made all the monkeys who were still well come and be
+        vaccinated”                                                 68
+  “‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty
+        monkeys?’”                                                  70
+  “Then the Grand Gorilla got up”                                   76
+  “‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up its
+        mind?’”                                                     85
+  “He began reading the fairy-stories to himself”                   96
+  “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight”      109
+  “‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”                       114
+  “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?’”    119
+  “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”                                          127
+  “‘Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s someone in there!’”           136
+  “‘You stupid piece of warm bacon!’”                              153
+  “‘Doctor!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it!’”                             160
+  “And she kissed the Doctor many times”                           170
+  “The Doctor sat in a chair in front”                             176
+  “He began running round the garden like a crazy thing”           178
+
+
+
+
+_THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE_
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE
+
+
+
+
+_THE FIRST CHAPTER_
+
+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 favorite pets were Dab-Dab the
+duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the
+owl Too-Too.
+
+[Illustration: “And she never came to see him any more”]
+
+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 parlor 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SECOND CHAPTER_
+
+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 every one 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 plow-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 plowing the Fifty-Acre Field.”
+
+“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “Green ones you shall have.”
+
+“You know, the trouble is, Sir,” said the plow-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!”
+
+[Illustration: “He could see as well as ever”]
+
+Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and the
+plow-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.
+
+[Illustration: “They came at once to his house on the edge of the town”]
+
+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 gray 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.”
+
+
+
+
+_THE THIRD CHAPTER_
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: “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 toothache 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
+every one 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
+any one. 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.
+
+[Illustration: “‘All right,’ said the Doctor, ‘go and get married’”]
+
+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?”
+
+[Illustration: “One evening when the Doctor was asleep in his chair”]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FOURTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 some one
+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.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘I felt sure there was twopence left’”]
+
+So early the next morning the Doctor went down to the sea-shore. 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.’”
+
+[Illustration: “And the voyage began”]
+
+“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 colors, 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FIFTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 ship-wrecked. 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.’”
+
+[Illustration: “‘We must have run into Africa’”]
+
+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 to-morrow 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.
+
+[Illustration: “‘I got into it because I did not want to be drowned’”]
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SIXTH CHAPTER_
+
+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.”
+
+[Illustration: “And Queen Ermintrude was asleep”]
+
+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, “to-night, 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 darkies.”
+
+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 any one.
+
+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.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘Who’s that?’”]
+
+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 to-night 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEVENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 cocoanuts,
+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.
+
+[Illustration: “Cheering and waving leaves and swinging out of the
+branches to greet him”]
+
+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 gray-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.
+
+[Illustration: “John Dolittle was the last to cross”]
+
+
+
+
+_THE EIGHTH CHAPTER_
+
+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, marmosettes, gray 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.
+
+[Illustration: “He made all the monkeys who were still well come and be
+vaccinated”]
+
+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.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘_ME, the King of Beasts_, to wait on a lot of dirty
+monkeys?’”]
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE NINTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 Traveler, 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_?”
+
+[Illustration: “Then the Grand Gorilla got up”]
+
+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 cocoanuts!” 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 Marmosettes 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.”
+
+
+
+
+_THE TENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 traveled 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?”
+
+[Illustration: “‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up
+its mind?’”]
+
+“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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 cocoanuts. 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
+cocoanuts.
+
+“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.
+
+[Illustration: “He began reading the fairy-stories to himself”]
+
+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, some one 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE TWELFTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 to-night 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 color. 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 traveled
+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 color—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 color 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 armor 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 any one. 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-colored, were a manly gray!
+
+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 color 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 Good-by 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!”
+
+[Illustration: “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of
+sight”]
+
+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 any one they liked so well as Doctor John
+Dolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.
+
+And after they had called Good-by 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: “‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”]
+
+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 traveling 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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
+favorite 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?”
+
+[Illustration: “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking
+ship?’”]
+
+“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 to-morrow 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.... Good-by! We are now going to
+look for a good place to live on this island.”
+
+“Good-by!” 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 Good-by 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 to-night. And before I let you go
+home, you must make your friends send me a trunk-full 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
+to-morrow-night—and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till the
+ship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”
+
+“What, until to-morrow 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.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”]
+
+“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.”
+
+
+
+
+_THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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
+tourquoise 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 some one in there!”
+
+They all kept still a moment. Then the Doctor said,
+
+[Illustration: “‘Sh!—Listen!—I do believe there’s some one in there!’”]
+
+“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 some one 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 some one
+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 color 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.”
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 some one 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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 wheelbarrow 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.”
+
+[Illustration: “‘You stupid piece of warm bacon!’”]
+
+“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-distant 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 raincoats; 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 quarreling!” 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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER_
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: “‘Doctor!’ he cried. ‘I’ve got it!’”]
+
+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 sea-weed.
+
+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 snuff-box. And
+it was full of Black Rappee!
+
+
+
+
+_THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER_
+
+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.”
+
+[Illustration: “And she kissed the Doctor many times”]
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAST CHAPTER_
+
+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 traveling 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.
+
+[Illustration: “The Doctor sat in a chair in front”]
+
+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
+horseradish which had grown three feet high in the corner by the
+garden-wall.
+
+[Illustration: “He began running round the garden like a crazy thing”]
+
+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 drafty.
+
+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!”
+
+[Illustration: THE END]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+Page 79, period added at end of sentence (had not seen before.)
+
+Page 119, single closing quote added to caption about rats.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 501 ***