Kitabı oku: «The Story of Doctor Dolittle / История Доктора Дулиттла. Уровень 1», sayfa 5
“What is it, Polynesia?” asked the Doctor and looked up from his book.
“I was just thinking,” said the parrot. Then she went on looking at the leaves.
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about people,” said Polynesia. “People make me sick. They think they’re so smart. The world is thousands years old now, isn’t it? And the only thing in animal-language that people know is that when a dog wags his tail he means ‘I’m glad!’ You are the very first man to talk like us. Oh, sometimes people annoy me very much. And they think animals are dumb! I knew a bird once who could say ‘Good morning!’ in seven different ways. And this is without once opening his mouth. He could talk every language, even Greek. An old professor with a gray beard bought him. But he didn’t stay. He said the old man didn’t talk Greek right. He just couldn’t stand listening to him teach the language wrong. I often wonder what he does now. That bird knew more geography than people will ever know. People! If people ever learn to fly—like any common bird—they will never shut their mouth about that!”
“You’re a wise old bird,” said the Doctor. “How old are you really? I know that parrots and elephants sometimes live very, very long.”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Polynesia. “It’s either a hundred and eighty-three or a hundred and eighty-two. Truly, I saw a lot in my life-time!”
The Third Chapter
More Money Troubles
Soon the Doctor began to make money again. His sister, Sarah, bought a new dress and was happy.
Some of the animals who came to him were so sick that they had to stay at the Doctor’s house for a week. And when they were getting better they used to sit in chairs outside.
Often the animals liked the Doctor and his house so much that they did not want to go away. Even after they got well, they asked if they could stay with him. And henever had the heart to refuse them5. So in this way he went on getting more and more pets.
Once in the evening he was sitting on his garden wall and smoked a pipe. An Italian street musician was passing by. A monkey on a string followed him. The Doctor saw at once that the monkey’s collar was too tight. The monkey was dirty and unhappy. So he took the monkey away from the man, gave him some money and told him to go. The man got awfully angry and said that he wanted to keep the monkey. But the Doctor told him that if he didn’t go away he would punch him on the nose. John Dolittle was a strong man, though he wasn’t very tall. So the Italian went away saying rude things, and the monkey stayed with Doctor Dolittle. The monkey had a good home now, and the other animals in the house called him “Chee-Chee”. That is a common word in monkey-language, meaning “ginger.”
