a nut that made the voice beautiful for singing; a water-weed
that stopped cuts from bleeding; a moss that cured snake-bite; a lichen
that prevented sea-sickness.

The Doctor of course was tremendously interested. Well into the early
hours of the morning he was busy going over the articles on the table
one by one, listing their names and writing their properties and
descriptions into a note-book as Long Arrow dictated.

"There are things here, Stubbins," he said as he ended, "which in the
hands of skilled druggists will make a vast difference to the medicine
and chemistry of the world. I suspect that this sleeping-honey by itself
will take the place of half the bad drugs we have had to use so far.
Long Arrow has discovered a pharmacopaeia of his own. Miranda was
right: he is a great naturalist. His name deserves to be placed beside
Linnaeus. Some day I must get all these things to England--But when," he
added sadly--"Yes, that's the problem: when?"

THE FOURTH CHAPTER. THE SEA-SERPENT

FOR a long time after that Cabinet Meeting of which I have just told
you we did not ask the Doctor anything further about going home. Life
in Spidermonkey Island went forward, month in month out, busily and
pleasantly. The Winter, with Christmas celebrations, came and went, and
Summer was with us once again before we knew it.

As time passed the Doctor became more and more taken up with the care
of his big family; and the hours he could spare for his natural history
work grew fewer and fewer. I knew that he often still thought of his
house and garden in Puddleby and of his old plans and ambitions; because
once in a while we would notice his face grow thoughtful and a little
sad, when something reminded him of England or his old life. But he
never spoke of these things. And I truly believe he would have spent the
remainder of his days on Spidermonkey Island if it hadn't been for an
accident--and for Polynesia.

The old parrot had grown very tired of the Indians and she made no
secret of it.

"The very idea," she said to me one day as we 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 suggeste