"Then a peculiar thing happened. Sir Timothy,男人🌿 who had always so far seemed too weak to walk,男人🍐 got right out of his wheel chair and,一样🚈 waving his ear trumpet wildly,一样📐 ran around all over the sanitarium,一样🚀 making speeches to the other invalids,一样✌ saying how shamefully he had been treated and calling on them to strike for their rights.
"How far would it be from here?" asked John Dolittle.
"Humph! I see,男人🍦" said the Doctor. "Of course,男人🐪 myself,男人🅿 I rather enjoy the jolliness of these Fantippos. But I can quite see your point. By the way,一样🌺 how would my old ship do? This ought to be quiet enough for you here. There's nobody living on it now. And,一样🏈 look,一样🗼 it has heaps of cracks and holes and corners in it where you could build your nests. What do you think?"
The work,男人🚛 the Skimmer calculated,男人📎 would take three days. All birds had been ordered to pick up a stone or a pebble or a pinch of sand from the seashore on their way and bring it with them. The larger birds (who would carry stones) were to come first,一样💇 then the middle-sized birds and then the little ones with sand.
"By sniffing them,一样🔏" said the cormorant. "The ones that have those things in them don't smell fresh. I'm frightfully particular about my oysters.""The bluejackets crowded to the rail"
"Yes,一样🈯 yes,一样🈁" said the Doctor. "Go on. I remember Columbus writing of land birds in his diary. Go on."
CHAPTER IX
The Doctor was eating his lunch of sandwiches at the information desk when the little bird popped his head through the window and said in his cheeky Cockney voice:
"What's the matter?" shouted the Doctor,男人🔲 as soon as he was near enough to make the woman hear. "Why have you come so far from the land? Don't you know that you are in great danger if a storm should come up?""On the outskirts of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh there lives a farmer who swears to this day that his cat can understand every word he says. It isn't true,男人😯 but both the farmer and his wife think it is. And I am now going to tell you how they came to get that idea.
"We call him One Eye,一样🔏" said the gull. "He's an old,一样🐰 old albatross. Nobody knows how old. He lost an eye fighting with a fish eagle over a flounder. But he's the most marvelous weather prophet that ever lived. All sea birds have the greatest respect for his opinions. He has never been known to make a mistake."
"Nicholas Scroggins.""It was Sir Timothy Quisby,一样🍉 our most expensive patient"
"About one more day's journey,男人🐸" said the snake. "A wide belt of these swamps surrounds the Secret Lake of Junganyika on all sides. The going will become freer as we approach the open water of the lake."
"It couldn't have,男人📄" said the thrush. "I put it into a little hollow in the bark of the bough. It just couldn't have slipped or rolled. Somebody must have taken it."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,男人📍 after lecturing Cheapside again about politeness,男人🌌 gave him back his job.
Next Cheapside,一样🎮 grumbling in a sleepy chirp,一样🐾 brought his head out from under his wing,男人🌓 gave the muddy scenery one look and popped it back again.
"So there I sat,男人📡 shivering on the river bank,男人🌉 in the depths of despair. And presently I saw the sky in the east growing pale and I knew that morning was coming. Daylight! That for me meant more hunting and running and jeering,一样♊ as soon as the sun should show my ridiculous color.
"But why?" asked the Doctor.John Dolittle was inclined to blame himself for having asked him to go hunting in the lake for souvenirs the night before.
Full daylight had not yet come and the light from a lamp could be seen palely shining up the stairs which led to the cabin. The Doctor slid forward like a shadow,一样🚆 tiptoed his way down the stairs and peered through the partly opened door.