Part I Chapter 2 Doctor Dolittle's Return by Hugh Lofting
THE CATS'-MEAT-MAN'S ADVICE
I went into the garden to think. I always seemed to be able to think better in that great garden of the Doctor's than anywhere else. I wandered down towards the new library and from there into the Zoo. This quiet spot, enclosed by high walls on which the peach-trees grew, had once been a very busy place. Here we had kept the Rat and Mouse Club, the Home for Cross-bred Dogs, and all the other institutions for animals' comfort and happiness. They were all deserted now, with nothing but a few early swallows skimming over the grass which the old lame horse had nibbled short and neat and trim.
I felt very sad. Nothing seemed the same without the Doctor. I began pacing to and fro, thinking about my problem. I heard the latch in the garden door click. I turned. There stood Matthew Mugg, the Cats'-meat-Man.
"Oh, hulloa, Matthew!" I cried. "I'm glad to see you."
"My, Tommy!" said he. "You do look serious. Anything the matter?"
"Yes, Matthew," I said. "I've got to get a job-must make some money. Need it for housekeeping."
"Well, what kind of a job do you want?" he asked.
"Any kind, Matthew," said I—"any kind that I can get."
"'Ave you been to your father about it? Why can't you 'elp 'im in 'is business and earn money that way?"
He started walking back and forth at my side.
"Yes, I've been to see my parents. But it wasn't much use. Father's business is too small for him to need an assistant—even if I were any good at shoemaking, which I'm not."
"Humph!" said the Cats'-meat-Man. "Let me think."
"You see," I said, "it can't be a job which will take me away from here. There is too much that I must attend to—the garden and the rest. And besides, there's the Doctor's return. I wouldn't be away from here at the moment he gets home for anything in the world. You haven't told any one about our trip to the moon, have you, Matthew?" He tapped his pipe out against the heel of his boot.
"Not a word, Tommy, not a word." "That's right, Matthew. It must be kept an absolute secret. We have no idea what he will be like to look at when he arrives. We don't want newspapermen coming around and writing up reports."
"No," said Matthew. "That would bring the whole world clattering at the gates. Everybody would want to 'ave a look at the man from the moon."
"Quite so, Matthew; that's another reason why I have to have a job. I don't know what the Doctor may need when he gets here. He may be sick; he may need special kinds of food. And I haven't a penny in the house."
"I know, I know," said Matthew, shaking his head. "Money, money, money, what a curse it is!—as the good man said himself. Can't seem to do nothing without it though. But look 'ere, Tommy, you shouldn't 'ave no trouble findin' a job. 'Cause you got eddication, see?"
"Well, I've some education, Matthew. But what good does it do me here in Puddleby? If I was able to get away and go to London, now, that would be different."
"Oh, listen," said the Cats'-meat-Man. "You boys all think you 'ave to go to London to make yer fortunes—same as Dick Whittington. But young men what 'as eddication can make a good livin' 'ere in Puddleby. You can read and write and do 'rithmetic. Why can't you be a clerk in the Puddleby Bank, or a secketary, or somethin' like that?';
"But, Matthew," I cried, "don't you see? I'd have to stay at work in the town after it was dark—in the winter months anyhow. And as you know the Doctor told me to watch the moon for signals of his coming down. Of course it is true the animals take their turns too, watching for the smoke signals. But I would have to be there even if I'm sleeping, so that I could be called at once if—er—if—"
I don't exactly know why I broke off without finishing what I had to say. But I suppose my voice must have sounded uncertain, puzzled and upset; because Matthew suddenly looked up from refilling his pipe and said:
"But, Tommy, you ain't worried, are yer?—I mean, about the Doctor's returnin'. You feel sure 'e is comin' back from the moon?"
"Oh, yes," I said. "I suppose so."
"Suppose so!" cried Matthew. "Why, of course 'e will, Tommy! John Dolittle's one of them men what never comes to 'arm. 'E'll get back all right. Don't you worry."
"But supposing the Moon Man won't let him come?" I said.
"It'll take a good deal more than a bloomin' Moon Man to stop John Dolittle from gettin' away if 'e wants to."
"Well, but—er—Matthew," I said, "I sometimes wonder if he does want to come back."
Matthew's eyebrows went up higher than ever.
"Want to come back!" he gasped. "What d'yer mean?"
"Matthew Mugg," I said, "you know the Doctor cannot be judged the same as other folk. I mean, you never can tell what he'll do next. We found a very curious state of affairs in the moon. It is a year now since he has been gone. I haven't said anything about it to the animals in the house here, but the last few weeks I've begun to wonder if John Dolittle has not perhaps decided to stay on the moon—for good."
"Oh, what an idea, Tommy!" said he. "Why would 'e want to do that? From what you told me about the moon, it didn't sound like a pleasant place at all."
"It was not an unpleasant place, Matthew. It was very strange and creepy at first. But when you got used to it—no, you could not call it unpleasant. Dreadfully lonely, but the most peaceful place either the. Doctor or I had ever seen."
"Well, but, Tommy, you don't mean to tell me that a busy man like John Dolittle would throw up all the things 'e's interested in 'ere on the earth and settle down on the moon, just for the sake of peace and quiet?"
"He might, Matthew," I answered sadly. "I've often remembered, since I left him, something he said when we first learned about the Moon Council, from the whispering vines up there. 'Our world,' he said, 'down on the earth is dog eat dog. Fighting, fighting all the time. Here in the moon they manage things better. Life is arranged and balanced. Even the plants and trees are not allowed to crowd one another out. The birds, instead of eating up the bees and insects, eat up the extra seed of the plants and flowers so they will not spread too fast.' You see, Matthew, the Great Council of Moon Life planned and watched over everything so that peace reigned—in an almost perfect world. You can understand how such a state of things would appeal to a man like John Dolittle. Don't you see what I mean?"
"Er—yes, partly," muttered Matthew. "Go on."
"What I'm afraid of is this," I said. "We had the same difficulty with him on Spidermonkey Island. When he found that he was doing a fine work there, getting the Indians to give up war and become civilized—in a very special way, without money and all that—he wanted to stay there. Said the island and the people couldn't get on without him—that no work he had ever done in Puddleby or anywhere else could compare with what he was doing in Spidermonkey. All of us, Prince Bumpo, Long Arrow the Indian naturalist and myself, begged him to leave. And I'm sure he never would have left if it hadn't been for me. He felt it was his duty to get me back to my parents. If I could have stayed on the moon with him he would have come back here for the same reason. But after I got kidnapped by the Moon Man and shipped out on the giant moth he won't have to worry about me. And there is nothing to stop him from staying as long as he likes—if he thinks he's doing more good up there than he can down here. Now do you see?"
"Yes, but what I don't see is, 'ow 'e can be doing any good up there."
"Why, by looking after the Moon Man, Matthew. The Doctor had often told me that Otho Bludge, the only man in the moon and the President of the Life Council, was the greatest human being that ever lived. He might be ignorant according to the ideas of a country bumpkin or a nine-year-old schoolboy down here—he could hardly be otherwise, born in the Stone Age as he was; but his was the brain that worked out the Moon Council and all that it did. And his was the hand that held it together and kept it working. His great trouble, as I've told you, was rheumatism. 'Stubbins,' the Doctor said to me, 'if anything ever happens to Otho Bludge I fear it will be the end of the Council. And the end of the Council must mean that all this great work they have built up for happy peaceful living will fall apart and crumble away.'"
Matthew frowned.
"Well, but still I can't imagine, Tommy," said he, "that the Doctor would chuck up all 'is connections down 'ere just for the sake of plants and insects and birds on the moon. After all, this is the world what 'e was born in."
"Oh, I don't mean that he would forget us all down here, thoughtlessly, or anything like that. You know how utterly unselfish he is. That's just the point. Any other man would think of himself and his home and his own comforts first; and would hurry down to the earth as quick as he could and spend the rest of his life boasting about his great adventures. But not so John Dolittle. If he thinks it is necessary to act as doctor for the Moon Man, he might stay on and on and on. He has for many years now been dreadfully disappointed in human beings and their stupid, unfair treatment of animals. And another thing: we discovered that life seemed to go on to tremendous lengths up there. Some of the talking plants told us that they were thousands of years old—the bees and birds too. And the age of the Moon Man himself is so great that not even the Doctor could calculate it."
"Humph!" said Matthew thoughtfully. "Strange place, the moon."
"I've sometimes wondered," I added, "if the Doctor had some ideas about everlasting life."
"What do you mean, Tommy?—Living for ever?"
"Yes, for the Moon Man—and perhaps for himself, for John Dolittle, as well. That vegetable diet, you know. A world where nobody, nothing dies! Maybe that's what he sees. If the Moon Man is wearing out a little now—but only after thousands of years—and the Doctor thinks it just requires the help of our science and medicine to keep him living indefinitely, I'm afraid, Matthew, terribly afraid, that he would be greatly tempted to stay."
"Oh, come, come, Tommy," said the Cats'meat-Man. "Meself, I think it's much more likely, if 'e 'as discovered the secret of everlastin' life, that 'e'll be wantin' to bring it down to old Mother Earth to try it on the folks 'ere. You mark my words, one of these fine nights 'e'll come tumblin' in on top of you, all full of mooney ideas what 'e wants to try out on the poor British public. You mark my words."
"I hope you're right, Matthew," I said.
"O' course I'm right, Tommy," said he. "We ain't seen the last of our old friend yet—not by a long chalk. And even if 'e 'asn't got no other 'umans to persuade 'im to come back, don't forget 'e 'as Polynesia, 'is parrot, and Chee-Chee the monkey with 'im. They're somethin' to be reckoned with. Why, that parrot, by 'erself, would talk down the whole House o' Lords in any argument! 'E'll come."
"But it is a whole year, Matthew, that he's been gone."
"Well, maybe 'e wanted to see what the Spring and Summer was like up there."
"Yes, he did say something once about wishing to see the difference in the seasons on the moon."
"There you are!" Matthew spread out his hands in triumph. "'E's been gone a twelve-month-seen the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter on the moon. You can expect 'im back any day now, you mark my words. Cheer up, young man. Don't be down-'carted. Now let's get back to this job you was a' thinkin' of."
"Yes, Matthew. We have strayed away from what we started to talk of, haven't we? You must forgive me if I sounded sort of blue and dumpy. But I have been dreadfully worried."
"O' course you 'ave, Tommy—with everything to look after and all. Very nacheral, very nacheral! Now you said you wanted some sort of a job what you could do at 'ome, didn't yer—so as you could keep one eye on the moon like?"
"That's it, Matthew."
"Humph!" grunted the Cats'-meat-Man. "Now let me see ... Yes, I 'ave it! You remember that butcher what I buys my meat from to feed the cats and dogs with?"
"Oh, that round fat man with the little button of a nose?"
"Yes, that's 'im. Old Simpson. Now listen: Simpson couldn't never do figures, see? Always gettin' 'is books mixed up, sendin' wrong bills to people and 'avin' no end of rows with 'is customers. 'E's very sensitive about it. 'Is missus could do 'is figurin' for 'im but 'e won't let 'er, see? Doesn't like to admit that 'e can't add up straight. Now maybe I can persuade 'im to let me bring you 'is books twice a week; and you can put 'em right and make out 'is bills proper for 'im, see?"
"Oh, Matthew," I cried, "that would be splendid if you could!"
"Well, Tommy," said he, "I'll see what can be done. I'll go and 'ave a chat with old Simpson in the mornin' and I'll let you know. Now I got to be off. Don't worry, Tommy, everything's goin' to be all right."