Chapter 29 Doctor Dolittle's Zoo by Hugh Lofting
THE COMING OF KLING
For several days after that I saw nothing of Matthew. Moreover, while I was deeply interested in what he had said, I had very little time to think further of his “mystery.” For I was kept exceptionally busy with my ordinary duties as Assistant Manager of the Dolittle Zoo, in general—and in particular with the arrival of Kling.
Kling, who later came to be known among us as “The Detective Dog,” was such an unusual animal that I feel I ought to devote a little space to telling how he came to join the zoo.
One day while Jip was wandering around the streets on his own, as he often did, he came upon a mongrel terrier who was evidently very sick. He was lying in a corner by a wall, groaning pitifully.
“What's the matter?” said Jip, going up to him.
“I've just eaten a rat,” said the dog. “And I have a dreadful stomach-ache.”
“My gracious!” said Jip. “Eating rats at this season! Don't you know any better than that? You should never eat rats when there isn't an R in the month. Why, they're rank poison!”
“What's the R mean?” asked the mongrel, groaning again.
“Why, Rats of course,” said Jip. “Come along to the Doctor at once. He'll soon give you something that will put your stomach right. What's your name?”
“Kling,” said the mongrel. “Thanks, but I'm afraid I'm too ill to walk.”
“All right, Kling,” said Jip. “You wait here and I'll go and get the Doctor.”
Jip dashed away at top speed, muttering to himself that he must speak to John Dolittle about instituting a Dog Ambulance for urgent cases of this kind.
When he got to the house he found that the Doctor was out. So he came to me instead. Together we hurried off at once to the rescue of the sick mongrel.
I saw right away that the patient was pretty far gone and that it would need very prompt treatment to save him. I gathered him up in my arms, sent Jip off to scour the town for the Doctor and hurried back as fast as I could to the house.
There I found that John Dolittle had returned during my absence. I rushed the patient into the surgery where the Doctor immediately examined him.
“It's a case of poisoning,” he said. “Very likely the rat you ate had been poisoned. But we can fix you up all right. You had better stay here for a few days. You can sleep in the parlor—where I'll be able to keep an eye on you. Here, drink this. Now, Stubbins, carry him in to the sofa and put some blankets over him. He has a temperature and mustn't get chilled. Tell me, Kling, how did you come to eat a rat anyway?”
“I was starving,” said the mongrel rather shamefacedly. “Hadn't had a meal in two days.”
“Well, next time,” said the Doctor, “come round to our zoo—The Home for Cross-bred Dogs, you know. You can always get a meal there. But please, don't eat rats.”
Quite early the following morning I heard a most extraordinary noise in the Doctor's bedroom. It sounded as though he were moving every piece of furniture from its usual position and generally turning the place upside down. I was about to go up to see what was the matter, when he opened his door and called to me.
“Oh, Stubbins, have you seen anything of a boot of mine? I can't find it anywhere—the left one.”
“No, Doctor,” I said, “I haven't.”
“It's most peculiar,” said he. “I could have sworn I left it—both of them—beside the bed last night, just where I always take them off.”
My own first duty that morning was of course to see how the new patient, Kling, was getting on. And as soon as I got downstairs I went straight to the parlor. Imagine my astonishment to find the sofa empty and the patient gone!
Utterly puzzled, I wandered out through the French window into the garden. And there, in the middle of the lawn, I found not only Kling, but the Doctor's boot as well—which the new patient was thoughtfully chewing. As I ran to him, the Doctor also arrived, with his remaining boot on one foot and a bright red slipper on the other.
“Good gracious!” said John Dolittle. “You made a quick recovery, Kling. I didn't give you permission to get up yet. What are you doing with my boot?”
There was really no need to ask. Even before the Doctor stooped and picked it up any one could see that the dog had chewed a large hole in the side.
“Dear me!” said John Dolittle. “Just look at that! Now what will I do?”
“Oh, did you want those boots?” said Kling apologetically. “I'm dreadfully sorry, Doctor. I thought they were an old pair you had thrown away.”
“Oh, no,” said the Doctor. “They're my best boots—my only boots, in fact. Listen, Stubbins: after breakfast would you mind running down with this to your father? Give him my compliments and ask him if he would be good enough to patch it while you wait. I've got to go up to town to-night to address a meeting of the Zoological Society, and I can't very well go in red slippers.... But tell me, Kling: how comes it that you still chew boots? You're no longer a puppy, you know.”
“No,” said Kling, “that's true. But I've never got out of the habit since my childhood days. It is strange, I know. My mother always said it meant I was a genius; but my father said it was clearly a sign I was just a plain fool and would never grow up.”
“Well, Kling,” said the Doctor, “I suppose I'll have to get you a pair of shoes of your own to chew. I can't let you have mine, you know. Er—would you prefer brown or black?”
“Brown, please,” said Kling. “They usually taste better. And would you mind if I had them buttoned instead of laced. I find chewing the buttons off almost the best part—very soothing.”
“Certainly,” said the Doctor. “But we may find it hard to get brown buttoned boots in Puddleby. It's not a very up-to-date shopping center, you understand. Perhaps you had better come with me. It's no use my buying you a pair of shoes that doesn't suit you. And I doubt if they will change them after you've tried them on—on your teeth, I mean.”
So that was how John Dolittle added yet another story to his reputation in the neighborhood for eccentricity and craziness. After breakfast, while I took his damaged boot to my father's to be repaired, he took the mongrel Kling to the largest shoe shop in the town to buy him a pair of boots. The salesman was somewhat slow in getting it through his head that the customer (who was wearing slippers) wanted the shoes for the dog and not for himself. And for a whole week afterwards he entertained the neighboring shop-keepers by telling them how the Doctor had requested that all the brown buttoned boots in the shop be set out in a row on the floor; and how this ill-conditioned, half-bred dog had then, at the Doctor's invitation, gone down the line and made his selection.
Kling himself insisted that his rapid recovery from the severe attack of ptomaine poisoning was largely aided by the soothing effect of chewing brown shoe leather. And certainly by that evening he seemed entirely himself and was frisking round the garden as lively as a puppy.
“Chewing a new pair of boots always makes me feel young again,” said he, leaping over the flower beds.
The whole of the Doctor's household as well as all the members of the Home for Cross-bred Dogs and the Dolittle Zoo took to Kling at once. And both the Doctor and I agreed that we had never met a more interesting personality in dogs—in spite of his juvenile fondness for boots. He was a good example of that rule which John Dolittle had more than once maintained: that the mongrels often have more character than the thoroughbreds. And it was, I think, greatly to the credit of our whole establishment that none of the other animals (not even Toby, the privileged) showed the least jealousy over the great popularity that Kling enjoyed from the first day of his joining the zoo.