Page:The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.djvu/359

 were walking on the seashore—"the idea of the famous John Dolittle spending his valuable life waiting on these greasy natives!—Why, it's preposterous!"

All that morning we had been watching the Doctor superintend the building of the new theatre in Popsipetel—there was already an opera-house and a concert-hall; and finally she had got so grouchy and annoyed at the sight that I had suggested her taking a walk with me.

"Do you really think," I asked as we sat down on the sands, "that he will never go back to Puddleby again?"

"I don't know," said she. "At one time I felt sure that the thought of the pets he had left behind at the house would take him home soon. But since Miranda brought him word last August that everything was all right there, that hope's gone. For months and months I've been racking my brains to think up a plan. If we could only hit upon something that would turn his thoughts back to natural history again—I mean something big enough to get him really excited—we might manage it. But how?"—she shrugged her shoulders in disgust—"How?—when all he thinks of now is paving streets and teaching papooses that twice one are two!"

It was a perfect Popsipetel day, bright and hot, blue and yellow. Drowsily I looked out to sea