"Don't you remember how we had to pinch and scrape to pay the butcher's bill in Puddleby? And how are you going to get the sailor the new boat you spoke of--unless we have the money to buy it?"
"I was going to make him one," said the Doctor.
"Oh, do be sensible!" cried Dab-Dab.
"Where would you get all the wood and the nails to make one with?--And besides, what are we going to live on? We shall be poorer than ever when we get back. Chee-Chee's perfectly right: take the funny-looking thing along, do!"
"Well, perhaps there is something in what you say," murmured the Doctor. "It certainly would make a nice new kind of pet. But does the er-- what-do-you-call-it really want to go abroad?"
"Yes, I'll go," said the pushmi-pullyu who saw at once, from the Doctor's face, that he was a man to be trusted. "You have been so kind to the animals here--and the monkeys tell me that I am the only one who will do. But you must promise me that if I do not like it in the Land of the White Men you will send me back."
"Why, certainly--of course, of course," said the Doctor. "Excuse me, surely you are related to the Deer Family, are you not?"
"Yes," said the pushmi-pullyu--"to the Abyssinian Gazelles and the Asiatic Chamois --on my mother's side. My father's great- grandfather was the last of the Unicorns."
"Most interesting!" murmured the Doctor; and he took a book out of the trunk which Dab-Dab was packing and began turning the pages.
"Let us see if Buffon says anything--"
"I notice," said the duck, "that you only talk with one of your mouths. Can't the other head talk as well?"
"Oh, yes," said the pushmi-pullyu. "But I keep the other mouth for eating--mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being rude. Our people have always been very polite."
When the packing was finished and everything was ready to start, the monkeys gave a grand party for the Doctor, and all the animals of the jungle came. And they had pineapples and mangoes and honey and all sorts of good things to eat and drink.
After they had all finished eating, the Doctor got up and said, "My friends: I am not clever at speaking long words after dinner, like some men; and I have just eaten many fruits and much honey.
But I wish to tell you that I am very sad at leaving your beautiful country. Because I have things to do in the Land of the White Men, I must go. After I have gone, remember never to let the flies settle on your food before you eat it; and do not sleep on the ground when the rains are coming. I--er--er--I hope you will all live happily ever after."
When the Doctor stopped speaking and sat down, all the monkeys clapped their hands a long time and said to one another, "Let it be remembered always among our people that he sat and ate with us, here, under the trees.
For surely he is the Greatest of Men!"
And the Grand Gorilla, who had the strength of seven horses in his hairy arms, rolled a great rock up to the head of the table and said, "This stone for all time shall mark the spot."
And even to this day, in the heart of the Jungle, that stone still is there. And monkey- mothers, passing through the forest with their families, still point down at it from the branches and whisper to their children, "Sh! There it is-- look--where the Good White Man sat and ate food with us in the Year of the Great Sickness!"
Then, when the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to go back to the seashore.
And all the monkeys went with him as far as the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him off.
