A good strong canoe had by this time been put at the Doctor's service by the King,文档🐉 who was also having the post office houseboat built at the Doctor's orders.
"Yours very truly,编辑🐍
"He can't read,共享🔨" said the Doctor gloomily.
The Doctor said he never had the slightest idea of what he was eating,共享🐣 but as the mealy mixture was highly digestible and nutritious he did not see why he should mind. To supply his master with water the mouse got nuts,文档🌾 and after gnawing a tiny hole in one end he would chop the nut inside into pieces and shake it out through the hole. Then he would fill the empty shell with water and seal up the hole with gum arabic which he got from trees. The water-filled nuts were a little heavy for him to carry,Excel➰ so Dab-Dab would bring them from the river as far as the outside end of the rat hole,Excel🍖 and the white mouse would roll them down the hole into the prison.
As Zuzana and Begwe rose to go,Excel🦆 for it was beginning to get dark,编辑💳 the Doctor noticed a canoe setting out toward his ship from the shore. And in it,Excel🐘 when it got near,共享📃 he saw King Koko himself,共享👵 coming to the white man's boat with stamps to sell.
So the Doctor's letter was written and addressed to Matthew Mugg,共享👖 Esquire,Excel💳 Cats' Meat Merchant,编辑📗 Puddleby-on-the-Marsh,Excel💶 Slopshire,Excel🌁 England. And it was sent off by Quip-the-Carrier.
"Maybe it's a cow's bone,Excel➖" said he.
Now,共享🐶 it happened one day that the Doctor came to the post office,Excel💕 as usual,Excel👛 at nine o'clock in the morning. (He had to get there at that time,编辑⚡ because if he didn't the postmen didn't start working.) And outside the post office he found Jip,共享📅 gnawing a bone on the pavement. Something curious about the bone struck the Doctor,编辑🔨 who was,编辑🚡 of course,文档👏 being a naturalist,共享🐓 quite a specialist in bones. He asked Jip to let him look at it.
"Maybe it's a cow's bone,文档🐧" said he.
They only got a holiday once a year,编辑🚛 they told John Dolittle,Excel🏥 when a government ship stopped near Cape Stephen and took them back to England for six weeks' vacation,文档🔳 leaving two other men in their place to take care of the light while they were gone.
"Upstairs where the dye vats stood""A ship!" cried the Doctor.
"'Ugh!' says the little girl,共享✉ clutching her brother around the neck. 'What was that,共享🐝 a spook?'
In the meantime the Emir,共享💻 celebrating victory in his palace,编辑🎪 gave orders that the Harmattan Rocks,文档🌗 which were now to be called the Royal Ellebubu Pearl Fisheries,Excel🌀 would henceforth be his exclusive,文档💦 private property,Excel📤 and no trespassing would be allowed. And he sent out six special men with orders to take over the islands and to bring all the pearls to him.
It was a great day at the Doctor's post office when Cheapside,编辑📳 the London sparrow,编辑🚥 arrived from Puddleby to look after the city deliveries for Fantippo.
In a minute Dab-Dab went through the pockets of the man who lay so still upon the floor.So the Doctor's boat was now turned into a nesting ship for the swallows. Calmly she stood at anchor in the quiet waters of Fantippo harbor,Excel✏ while thousands and thousands of swallows built their nests in her rigging,Excel🐕 in her ventilators,Excel🐠 in her portholes and in every crack and corner of her.
"Ah,共享🎷 England!" cried Gub-Gub sentimentally. "What is there more beautiful in life than the heart of a young lettuce in the Spring?"
John Dolittle had thought that he and his friends had gone home to London. But they hadn't. They knew the Doctor would need them and they had just hung around outside the town. And then the Doctor,共享💆 after lecturing Cheapside again about politeness,文档💓 gave him back his job."Oh,Excel📹 bother your feet!" cried Dab-Dab. "Let the Doctor get on with his story."
"The Doctor patted him on the shoulder"
"They're such a nice,文档💖 wholesome,编辑🍇 Christian change,文档🚀" he said,共享💤 "after these 'ere 'eathen hidolaters. And you should just hear Fred sing 'See That My Grave's Kept Green.'"
"Well,文档🚼" said the Jay,Excel📟 "the story was handed down to me by my mother,共享🔆 who heard it from my grandmother,共享🔵 who got it from my great-grandmother,编辑🌺 and so on,共享🌏 way back to an ancestor of ours who lived in America in the fifteenth century. Our kind of birds in those days did not come across to this side of the Atlantic,文档👏 neither summer nor winter. We used to spend from March to September in the Bermudas and the rest of the year in Venezuela. And when we made the autumn journey south we used to stop at the Bahama Islands to rest on the way."Build windows in the prison at once,编辑😚" the Emir said to the guards.
Next Cheapside,文档🆔 grumbling in a sleepy chirp,共享🐰 brought his head out from under his wing,Excel🈚 gave the muddy scenery one look and popped it back again.