Chapter 7 Doctor Dolittle's Zoo by Hugh Lofting
THE BADGER'S TOOTH
Of course, when I came (with Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Polynesia) to the Doctor to report the condition of the family bank account he, as usual, took the matter very lightly.
“Don't bother me with such things now,” he said. “Some money will come in somehow, I have no doubt—it generally does. I'm dreadfully busy.”
But though we managed to collect a few pounds which were due him from people who published his books on natural history, that did not last us long. And soon we were as badly off as ever. Dab-Dab was terribly angry and kept insisting that the Doctor get rid of the zoo, which was almost as expensive to run as all the rest of the household put together.
But John Dolittle was right; something did turn up, and, curiously enough, it turned up inside the zoo itself and saved that institution from extinction as well as the Dolittle household from bankruptcy. This is how it happened: one night, just as the Doctor was going to bed after a hard day's work with his new book on oceanography, a member of the Badgers' Tavern knocked on the door asking to see him. He said he had a terrible toothache and wanted the Doctor, if he would, to look at it once. This, of course, the Doctor did. He was very clever at animal dentistry.
“Ah!” said he. “You've broken a corner off that tooth. No wonder it hurts. But it can be fixed. Open your mouth a little wider, please.... That's better—why, how curious! Did I ever fill any teeth for you before?”
“No,” said the badger. “This is the first time I've come to you for treatment of any kind. I'm very healthy.”
“But you have gold in your teeth,” said the Doctor. “How did that come there if you haven't been to some dentist?”
“I'm sure I don't know,” said the badger. “What is gold?”
“Look, I'll show you in the mirror,” said the Doctor. “Stubbins, give me that hand glass, will you, please?”
I got it and brought it to the Doctor, who held it in front of the badger's face while he pointed to a place in his teeth with a small instrument.
“There,” said John Dolittle, “you see that yellow metal sticking between your teeth? That's gold.”
“Oh!” said the badger, peering into the mirror, very pleased with his own handsome reflection. “I and my wife were digging a hole out by Dobbin's Meadow and we chewed up a whole lot of that stuff. That's what I broke my tooth on.”
Polynesia, who was in the surgery at the time, was more interested in this statement of the badger's than was the Doctor. She flew across the room and from one of her hanging rings she peered into the animal's open mouth where John Dolittle was at work on the broken tooth. Then she came back to me and whispered:
“Well, of all things! He's been eating gold. Eating it, mind you—and us as poor as church mice. Tommy, we will speak with this gentleman as soon as the Doctor has done with him.”
John Dolittle did not take long over making his patient comfortable. In spite of his pudgy fat hands he had the quickest and nimblest fingers in the world.
“I have put a dressing in your tooth which will stop the pain for the present and you'll have to come back and see me again to-morrow,” he said as the badger closed his mouth and waddled down off the table. “You must be careful what you chew up when you're digging holes. No teeth will stand biting on metal, you know—not even yours. Good night.”
As the patient left the surgery Polynesia made a sign to me and we followed him.
“Where did you say you were digging this hole?” asked Polynesia as we walked beside him toward the zoo enclosure.
“Over near Dobbin's Meadow,” said the badger; “just a bit to the north of it. We were tunneling into a bank—as much for exercise as anything else. It was a cold day. But we did hope we might find some pig nuts. Also, we need a refuge hole or two up in that direction. Some of these dogs the Doctor has here in such numbers now are getting entirely too cheeky. They never touch us while we are in the zoo, it is true, but if they get wind of us when we're outside they think it is funny to chase us all over the landscape. Our committee down at the Badgers' Tavern thought we ought to have a refuge hole up in that neighborhood.”
“What is a refuge hole?” I asked.
“Oh, it's just a public hole,” said he. “We have them stuck around all over the place. But we all know where they are. They're just holes where any badger can take refuge if chased by dogs. We dig them very deep and sometimes provision them with food in case the dogs should besiege us for a long time. We have to protect ourselves, you know. Our pace is slow.”
“Well, now, look here,” said Polynesia, as we reached the zoo gate, “Tommy and I would like to make an appointment with you for to-morrow morning early—very early. We want to see this place where you broke your tooth. Suppose we62 meet you at the north end of Dobbin's Meadow at, say, 5 o'clock.”
“All right,” said the badger. “But that isn't early for me. This time of year it has been broad daylight for more than a quarter of an hour by five. We don't go by the clock, you know; we go by the sun. We prefer to travel before dawn. I'll meet you there at daybreak.”
The following morning Polynesia had me out of bed and dressing by candle light before the cocks had given their first crow.
“But don't you see, Tommy,” said she, in answer to my sleepy grumbling at this unearthly hour for rising, “it's frightfully important that we get there and do what exploring is necessary before there are people about.”
I found it hard to be enthusiastic, even over the prospect of discovering gold, so early.
“But what are you expecting to find?” I asked. “Do you fancy that old badger has run into a mine? There aren't any gold mines in England.”
“I've no more idea than you have,” said she impatiently. “But just because no gold mines have been discovered so far, that doesn't mean that none ever will be. The fact remains that that blessed animal ran into gold of some kind, or he wouldn't have it sticking in his teeth. Hurry up and get your coat on. I think I see the dawn beginning to show in the East.”
Downstairs Polynesia made me collect a spade from the tool shed and the Doctor's mineral hammer from his study before we started away through the chilly morning twilight for Dobbin's Meadow.
The old badger was there, sure enough, waiting for us. And he promptly lumbered off alongside a hedge to lead us to the place where he had dug the hole. This, when we came to it, proved not to be in the Dobbin property at all, but on the other side of the hedge, in a wide, open piece of heath-land, known as Puddleby Common. It was territory I knew well. Many a time I had hunted over this semi-wild region for birds' nests, mushrooms and blackberries. Here, too, I had often watched with fascination the Gipsy folk pitching their tents and lighting their fires. For this was common ground from which no man had the right to turn them off.