Then the Doctor and Zuzana started to paddle their canoe for all they were worth in the direction of the light. The night was calm,祖父🐲 but the long swell of the ocean swung the little canoe up and down like a seesaw and it needed all Zuzana's skill to keep it in a straight line.
In fact,证明🚃 the Doctor used to discharge him for rudeness regularly about once a month. And the city mails always got tied up soon after. But,表现📐 to the Doctor's great relief,生前📍 the City Manager always came back just when the tie-up was at its worst and put things right again."'There's no food here,证明🌰' he said,表现🐺 'only dyes of different colors.' And he pointed to the big dye vats,祖父🏃 all in a row,证明👐 that towered in the half darkness above our heads.
"Mudface."
"Splendid,表现😵" cried the Doctor. "It's a kind of short-hand. You say a whole sentence in four signs."
"Sir Timothy was furious. And,模板🐡 calling for Dr. Phipps,表现👼 he demanded that I apologize. I said I wouldn't. Then Sir Timothy told Phipps that if I didn't he would start an invalids' strike. Phipps got terribly worried and implored me to apologize to this very special patient. I still refused.
"Not very many,祖父⛵" said the snake. "He lives on the edge of the lake a few miles to the North. Let us hurry and try to reach his home before darkness falls."
"Yes,生前👞 Doctor,生前♈" Dab-Dab put in,表现🏠 "but you wouldn't be bound to buy a second one with the money you would get for the pearls. It would come in real handy for something else,生前📨 you know."
"Well,生前😵" said the Doctor,表现🆚 "I'm sorry you've been put to such inconvenience. I'll have Dab-Dab carry you back to your family. But,表现🍵 you know,模板🛁 robbing the registered mail is a serious thing. If you wanted some Brussels sprouts you should have written to me. After all,证明🍱 you can't blame the birds for putting you under arrest."
"Oh,表现⚾ it's some humbug or other,证明©" growled Jip. "They're a superstitious lot,模板📌 these natives. Let's go down to the harbor,证明📇 Doctor,表现💍 and try to hire a canoe to take us."
Then the trader told him that it was not through magic in the stamps or boxes that letters traveled by mail. But proper post offices had mail-men,表现💾 or postmen,模板🔨 who collected the letters out of these boxes. And he went on to explain to the King all the other duties of a post office and the things that made letters go.
ZUZANA
"We are really on the shores of it already,祖父👽 then?"
"Balls of pink putty would suit them just as well,模板🚀" snorted Dab-Dab.
"What is it? What's the matter?" he shouted into the darkness over the sea.
"Well,模板📮" said the Doctor,模板💰 "I'll tell it,表现🔧 and then you can decide for yourself. Stop fidgeting,生前😸 now,表现🚒 and let me begin. It's getting late."
Still another thing in which the Doctor's post office was different from all others was the gum used on the stamps. The supply of gum which the King had been using for his stamps ran short and the Doctor had to set about discovering and making a new kind. And after a good deal of experiment he invented a gum made of licorice,表现🙈 which dried quickly and worked very well. But,生前▫ as I have said,生前📔 the Fantippans were very fond of sweetmeats. And soon after the new gum was put into use the post office was crowded with people buying stamps by the hundred.This made the kingdom of Fantippo much richer and more important than it had been before,生前😆 of course. And a large grant of money was given by the King to the Foreign Mails post office,生前👸 which was used by the Doctor in making the houseboat better and bigger.
"The canoe was yanked from under them"
People who have written the history of the Kingdom of Fantippo all devote several chapters to a mysterious white man who in a very short space of time made enormous improvements in the mail,生前🚿 the communications,祖父✴ the shipping,表现💤 the commerce,祖父👸 the education and the general prosperity of the country. Indeed it was through John Dolittle's quiet influence that King Koko's reign came to be looked upon as the Golden Age in Fantippan history. A wooden statue still stands in the market-place to his memory.
CHAPTER II
"'Ah,表现💂 hah!' he cried. 'A white mouse! The very thing I've been wanting!'