"Humph!" murmured the Doctor,手机🔎 as he thoughtfully brushed the toast crumbs off the bed clothes. "But why did they pick you to bring the message?"
For a long time Dab-Dab,手机🚯 the motherly housekeeper,入侵者🚜 had been trying to get the Doctor to take a holiday from his post office business.
And this was how the first letter was sent off by the Swallow Mail: King Koko himself came one morning and,在线🎈 putting his large face in at the information window,入侵者📬 asked:
"What a splendid idea!" cried Gub-Gub. "I'll tell my story to-morrow night. I know a good one. Now go ahead,入侵者😋 Doctor."Toward the end of the pile the Doctor came across a very peculiar thick envelope,入侵者📦 all over mud. For a long time none of them could make out a single word of the letter inside,入侵者🚟 nor even who it was from. The Doctor got all his notebooks out of the safe,入侵者👈 compared and peered and pored over the writing for hours. Mud had been used for ink. The signs were made so clumsily they might almost be anything.
The following day the pearls were wrapped up again the way they had arrived,火柴⚡ and after a letter had been written by the Doctor explaining to the spoonbill what the "pebbles" really were,在线◻ they were sent off by registered parcel post to the Harmattan Rocks.
Tea was served at once; and His Majesty seemed so delighted at renewing this pleasant custom that John Dolittle was loath to break the news to him that he must shortly resign from the Foreign Mail Service and sail for England. However,入侵者🔭 while they were chatting on the veranda of the houseboat a fleet of quite large sailing vessels entered the harbor. These were some of the new merchant craft of Fantippo which plied regularly up and down the coast,在线🚀 trading with other African countries. The Doctor pointed out to the king that mails intended for foreign lands could now be quite easily taken by these boats to the bigger ports on the coast where vessels from Europe called every week.
So they went down to the water's edge and asked several of the canoesmen to take them over to No-Man's-Land. But every one they asked got dreadfully frightened and refused to talk when the Doctor told them where he wanted to go. They wouldn't even let him borrow their canoes to go there by himself.
CHAPTER VI
"Then I'll open the door,手机🎳" said the Doctor,手机🐱 "so you can coil part of yourself in the passage. This room is a bit small."
"Come along,火柴👅" said Dab-Dab,入侵者📗 picking the wretched culprit up in her big webbed feet. "I'll take you back to the mainland. And you can thank your lucky stars that it's the Doctor who is in charge of this post office. It's to jail you really ought to go.""With the greatest of pleasure,在线😖" said the cormorant.
"Oh,手机💾 quite,在线🔧 quite. I understand perfectly,火柴🌟" said the Doctor,手机💂 poking salt into his egg with a bone egg-spoon. "I am dreadfully sorry. But why didn't Speedy bring the message himself?"
After twenty minutes had gone by John Dolittle began to get worried,在线🔖 because the Skimmer,火柴🐖 with his tremendous speed,入侵者🎉 should have had time to get there and back long ago.
"I watched Morland's face as the beggar said this. And the expression that came into it told me I had not brought the great man here in vain.
"There you are,在线😝 Doctor,在线💴" said Dab-Dab. "The trick's done. Now you can get all the pearls you want."
"Ah,火柴🐞 but it's a story that nobody else could tell,火柴🆓" said John Dolittle.
"A rare Fantippo stamp"NO-MAN'S-LAND
The black men were at once freed from their chains and brought on to the man-o'-war. Then the slave ship was taken in tow by the Violet. And that was the end of Mr. Bones's slave trading.
But at last,在线📰 after a tremendous lot of work,火柴🎈 copying out afresh,在线🐥 guessing and discussing,在线🔸 the meaning of the extraordinary letter was pieced together,手机💡 and this is what it said:
And to Dab-Dab's horror,入侵者🐝 the Doctor tore a clean piece off the farmer's letter,手机👊 scribbled a reply,入侵者📡 wrapped the pearl up in it and handed it to the swallow.Then spies from those neighboring countries who had always been robbing and warring upon this land began to sneak around the rocks in canoes. And,在线📅 of course,火柴🎑 very soon the secret was out.
"'Oh,手机👞 la,在线🚍 la,手机😯 la!' said she,火柴♋ smirking. 'You wouldn't expect any self-respecting person to keep company with a blue mouse,手机📣 would you?'