Kitabı oku: «The Story of Doctor Dolittle / История Доктора Дулиттла. Уровень 1», sayfa 2
Sixpence a year wasn’t enough to live on. He had some saved up money in his money-box and that helped him for a while. But he kept on getting more pets and it cost a lot to feed them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.
Then he sold his piano and let the mice live in a drawer. But the money he got for that too began to go. Then he sold the brown suit he wore on Sundays. And so he went on becoming poorer and poorer.
Now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would say, “There goes John Dolittle! There was a time when he was the best doctor in the West Country. Look at him now. He has no money and no good clothes left!”
But the animals and the children still ran up and followed behind him just as like when he was rich.
The Second Chapter
Animal Language
One day the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen and talking with the meat seller. He came to see him with a stomach-ache.
“Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be an animal-doctor?” asked the meat seller.
The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the rain and singing a song to herself. She stopped singing and started to listen.
“You know all about animals,” the meat seller went on, “much more than what these here vets do. That book you wrote about cats is wonderful! If I could read or write myself, I would too write some books. But my wife, Theodosia, can read so she read your book to me. Well, it’s wonderful—that’s all I can say—wonderful. You know the way cats think as if you were a cat yourself. And listen: you can make a lot of money doctoring animals. Do you know that? I’d send all the old women who had sick cats or dogs to you. And if they didn’t get sick fast enough, I could put something in the meat I sell’em3 to make ’em sick, see?”
“Oh, no,” said the Doctor quickly. “You must not do that. That’s not right.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,” answered the meat seller. “Just a little something to make them look tired. But as you say, maybe it’s not quite fair on the animals. But they’ll get sick anyway, because the old women always give ’em too much to eat. And look, there are many farmers who have lame horses and weak lambs. They would come too. Be an animal-doctor.”
When the meat seller left, the parrot flew on to the Doctor’s table and said,
“That man is right. That’s what you should do. Be an animal-doctor. Silly people don’t have enough brains to see you’re the best doctor in the world. Take care of animals instead—they’ll soon find it out. Be an animal-doctor.”
“Oh, there are plenty of animal-doctors,” said John Dolittle and put the flower-pots outside the window to get the rain.
“Yes, there are plenty,” said Polynesia. “But none of them are any good at all. Now listen, Doctor, and I’ll tell you something. Did you know that animals can talk?”
