Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo. Hugh Lofting

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СКАЧАТЬ least one good house.”

       “'Listen,' he said to them”

      Thereupon he persuaded me and Bumpo to build a house according to his, Swizzle's and Toby's directions. Toby, always a fussy, bossy little dog, had a whole heap of ideas, mostly for the benefit of the small dogs who were to come. You would think they were surely the most important. And when we finally had it finished I am bound to say the Dogs' House was quite an unusual building. All doors were made to open just with a lift of the nose-latch and a push. The fireplaces were built especially wide, so that at least a dozen dogs could find room to lie in front of each one. All sofas (of which there were many) were made low enough so that the smallest dogs could jump up onto them with ease, and were furnished with special oilcloth upholstery and cushions, so that they could be easily cleaned if they got muddied up with dirty paws. Drinking bowls were to be found in every room. It was against the rules to leave bones lying around the floor, but a bone-rack (rather like an umbrella stand) was provided for the members near the front door. And here the dogs could leave their bones on going out and find them again on coming in—if they hadn't been borrowed in the meantime.

      Meals were served in a special dining room, where dishes were set out on very low tables; and a grand sideboard buffet with steps to it, where members could go up and make their own choice of cold meats, was an important and popular feature. This department—the supplying of bones and meat to the dogs' kitchen—Matthew Mugg took charge of. Matthew considered himself an expert in dogs and this side of the zoo held great interest for him.

      Then there was a special sort of dogs' gymnasium, which Jip called the Roughhouse Room. It had trapezes, balls hung on strings and other special apparatus for dog exercise and dog gymnastics. And here wonderful wrestling contests, tug-o'-war matches, tag games and sham fights were staged almost every night. The Doctor, Bumpo and I were often invited down to see these sports, which were very good fun to watch, as were also the races and leaping contests which Jip arranged in the dogs' gymnasium.

      The Home for Cross-Bred Dogs was, I think, one of the happiest institutions that John Dolittle ever established. Of course, as the Doctor had said, there was to begin with a long list of dogs who had always wanted to be attached to his household. Among these almost the first to turn up at the club were Grab the bulldog and Blackie the retriever, whom John Dolittle had rescued from Harris's animal shop a long time ago.

      But in addition to this class there was the much greater number of Jip's friends and acquaintances. Naturally a very charitable dog, Jip loved to go out and hunt round the streets for homeless vagabonds. Every day he would bring home one or two, till very soon the club had about as many members as it would hold. And even when the Doctor told him he would have to stop, he would, if he found a particularly deserving case, as he called it, sneak in with him after dark and see that at least he got a square meal off the sideboard buffet and a night's lodging. From the outside the gate to the zoo could only be opened by a secret latch. This was worked by pulling a string carefully hidden in a ditch. All members of the zoo were specially instructed in this by the Doctor and made to promise not to give the secret away. And I am bound to say they were very conscientious about it. During the whole of the zoo's career no outsider ever learned the secret of the gate. But when Jip brought his “deserving cases” home after dark he always made them turn their backs while he pulled the secret latchstring.

      As soon as it became known in dog society that John Dolittle had formed a club many dogs who had perfectly good homes of their own just left them and came here—for no other reasons than that they preferred living with the Doctor and because they loved the gymnasium and the good company. And more than one angry owner called at the Doctor's house and was all for having him arrested because, he said, he had lured his dog away from him.

       “'But, look here,' said the white mouse”

      Of course the cost of the upkeep of the new zoo was considerable, especially for the supply of food for the Home for Cross-Bred Dogs. And about six weeks after it had been established Dab-Dab and Too-Too came to me, both looking very serious.

      “It is just as I thought it would be,” squawked Dab-Dab, throwing out her wings in a gesture of despair. “We are already practically at the end of our money again. I don't know how many thousand pesetas it was you brought back with you, but it's nearly all gone. Too-Too and I have been going over accounts and we calculate we have about enough to last for another week. Jip has no sense. The Doctor is bad enough himself, goodness knows, the way he spends money—just regardless. But nobody in the world would be rich enough to keep all the stray mongrels Jip has been bringing in the last few weeks. Well, here we are, penniless again. I don't know what we're going to do, I'm sure.”

THE SEVENTH CHAPTER THE BADGER'S TOOTH

      OF course, when I came (with Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Polynesia) to the Doctor to report the condition of the family bank account he, as usual, took the matter very lightly.

      “Don't bother me with such things now,” he said. “Some money will come in somehow, I have no doubt—it generally does. I'm dreadfully busy.”

      But though we managed to collect a few pounds which were due him from people who published his books on natural history, that did not last us long. And soon we were as badly off as ever. Dab-Dab was terribly angry and kept insisting that the Doctor get rid of the zoo, which was almost as expensive to run as all the rest of the household put together.

      But John Dolittle was right; something did turn up, and, curiously enough, it turned up inside the zoo itself and saved that institution from extinction as well as the Dolittle household from bankruptcy. This is how it happened: one night, just as the Doctor was going to bed after a hard day's work with his new book on oceanography, a member of the Badgers' Tavern knocked on the door asking to see him. He said he had a terrible toothache and wanted the Doctor, if he would, to look at it once. This, of course, the Doctor did. He was very clever at animal dentistry.

      “Ah!” said he. “You've broken a corner off that tooth. No wonder it hurts. But it can be fixed. Open your mouth a little wider, please.... That's better—why, how curious! Did I ever fill any teeth for you before?”

      “No,” said the badger. “This is the first time I've come to you for treatment of any kind. I'm very healthy.”

      “But you have gold in your teeth,” said the Doctor. “How did that come there if you haven't been to some dentist?”

      “I'm sure I don't know,” said the badger. “What is gold?”

      “Look, I'll show you in the mirror,” said the Doctor. “Stubbins, give me that hand glass, will you, please?”

      I got it and brought it to the Doctor, who held it in front of the badger's face while he pointed to a place in his teeth with a small instrument.

      “There,” said John Dolittle, “you see that yellow metal sticking between your teeth? That's gold.”

       “Buying their Sunday dinner from a large rat”

      “Oh!” said the badger, peering into the mirror, very pleased with his own handsome reflection. “I and my wife were digging a hole out by Dobbin's Meadow and we chewed up a whole lot of that stuff. That's what I broke my tooth on.”

      Polynesia, СКАЧАТЬ