The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle | Page 5

leg," he said--"and another badly cut an' all. I can mend you your boats, Tom, but I haven't the tools nor the learning to make a broken squirrel seaworthy. This is a job for a surgeon--and for a right smart one an' all. There be only one man I know who could save yon crittur's life. And that's John Dolittle."
"Who is John Dolittle?" I asked. "Is he a vet?"
"No," said the mussel-man. "He's no vet. Doctor Dolittle is a nacheralist."
"What's a nacheralist?"
"A nacheralist," said Joe, putting away his glasses and starting to fill his pipe, "is a man who knows all about animals and butterflies and plants and rocks an' all. John Dolittle is a very great nacheralist. I'm surprised you never heard of him--and you daft over animals. He knows a whole lot about shellfish--that I know from my own knowledge. He's a quiet man and don't talk much; but there's folks who do say he's the greatest nacheralist in the world."
"Where does he live?" I asked.
"Over on the Oxenthorpe Road, t'other side the town. Don't know just which house it is, but 'most anyone 'cross there could tell you, I reckon. Go and see him. He's a great man."
So I thanked the mussel-man, took up my squirrel again and started oft towards the Oxenthorpe Road.
The first thing I heard as I came into the marketplace was some one calling "Meat! M-E-A-T!"
"There's Matthew Mugg," I said to myself. "He'll know where this Doctor lives. Matthew knows everyone."
So I hurried across the market-place and caught him up.
"Matthew," I said, "do you know Doctor Dolittle?"
"Do I know John Dolittle!" said he. "Well, I should think I do! I know him as well as I know my own wife--better, I sometimes think. He's a great man--a very great man."
"Can you show me where he lives?" I asked. "I want to take this squirrel to him. It has a broken leg."
"Certainly," said the cat's-meat-man. "I'll be going right by his house directly. Come along and I'll show you."
So off we went together.
"Oh, I've known John Dolittle for years and years," said Matthew as we made our way out of the market-place. "But I'm pretty sure he ain't home just now. He's away on a voyage. But he's liable to be back any day. I'll show you his house and then you'll know where to find him."
All the way down the Oxenthorpe Road Matthew hardly stopped talking about his great friend, Doctor John Dolittle--"M. D." He talked so much that he forgot all about calling out "Meat!" until we both suddenly noticed that we had a whole procession of dogs following us patiently.
"Where did the Doctor go to on this voyage?" I asked as Matthew handed round the meat to them.
"I couldn't tell you," he answered. "Nobody never knows where he goes, nor when he's going, nor when he's coming back. He lives all alone except for his pets. He's made some great voyages and some wonderful discoveries. Last time he came back he told me he'd found a tribe of Red Indians in the Pacific Ocean--lived on two islands, they did. The husbands lived on one island and the wives lived on the other. Sensible people, some of them savages. They only met once a year, when the husbands came over to visit the wives for a great feast--Christmas-time, most likely. Yes, he's a wonderful man is the Doctor. And as for animals, well, there ain't no one knows as much about 'em as what he does."
"How did he get to know so much about animals?" I asked.
The cat's-meat-man stopped and leant down to whisper in my ear.
"HE TALKS THEIR LANGUAGE," he said in a hoarse, mysterious voice.
"The animals' language?" I cried.
"Why certainly," said Matthew. "All animals have some kind of a language. Some sorts talk more than others; some only speak in sign-language, like deaf-and-dumb. But the Doctor, he understands them all--birds as well as animals. We keep it a secret though, him and me, because folks only laugh at you when you speak of it. Why, he can even write animal-language. He reads aloud to his pets. He's wrote history-books in monkey-talk, poetry in canary language and comic songs for magpies to sing. It's a fact. He's now busy learning the language of the shellfish. But he says it's hard work--and he has caught some terrible colds, holding his head under water so much. He's a great man."
"He certainly must be," I said. "I do wish he were home so I could meet him."
"Well, there's his house, look," said the cat's, meat-man--"that little one at the bend in the road there--the one high up--like it was sitting on the wall above the street."
We were now come beyond the edge of the town. And the house that Matthew pointed out was quite