their feet, with their tails--with everything. Sometimes they don't
WANT to make a noise. Do you see now the way he's twitching up one
side of his nose?"

"What's that mean?" asked the Doctor.

"That means, 'Can't you see that it has stopped raining?'" Polynesia
answered. "He is asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use their
noses for asking questions."

After a while, with the parrot's help, the Doctor got to learn the
language of the animals so well that he could talk to them himself and
understand everything they said. Then he gave up being a people's
doctor altogether.

As soon as the Cat's-meat-Man had told every one that John Dolittle was
going to become an animal-doctor, old ladies began to bring him their
pet pugs and poodles who had eaten too much cake; and farmers came many
miles to show him sick cows and sheep.

One day a plow-horse was brought to him; and the poor thing was
terribly glad to find a man who could talk in horse-language.

"You know, Doctor," said the horse, "that vet over the hill knows
nothing at all. He has been treating me six weeks now--for spavins.
What I need is SPECTACLES. I am going blind in one eye. There's no
reason why horses shouldn't wear glasses, the same as people. But that
stupid man over the hill never even looked at my eyes. He kept on
giving me big pills. I tried to tell him; but he couldn't understand a
word of horse-language. What I need is spectacles."

"Of course--of course," said the Doctor. "I'll get you some at once."

"I would like a pair like yours," said the horse--"only green. They'll
keep the sun out of my eyes while I'm plowing the Fifty-Acre Field."

"Certainly," said the Doctor. "Green ones you shall have."

"You know, the trouble is, Sir," said the plow-horse as the Doctor
opened the front door to let him out--"the trouble is that ANYBODY
thinks he can doctor animals--just because the animals don't complain.
As a matter of fact it takes a much cleverer man to be a really good
animal-doctor than it does to be a good people's doctor. My farmer's
boy thinks he knows all about horses. I wish you could see him--his
face is so fat he looks as though he had no eyes--and he has got as
much brain as a potato-bug. He tried to put a mustard-plaster on me
last week."

"Where did he put it?" asked the Doctor.

"Oh, he didn't put it anywhere--on me," said the horse. "He only tried
to. I kicked him into the duck-pond."

"Well, well!" sa