"dolit10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lofting Hugh)

THE SECOND CHAPTER

ANIMAL LANGUAGE

IT happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking
with the Cat's-meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.

"Why don't you give up being a people's doctor, and be an animal-doctor?"
asked the Cat's-meat-Man.

The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window
looking out at the rain and singing a sailor-song to herself.
She stopped singing and started to listen.

"You see, Doctor," the Cat's-meat-Man went
on, "you know all about animals--much more
than what these here vets do. That book you
wrote--about cats, why, it's wonderful! I can't
read or write myself--or maybe _I_'D write some
books. But my wife, Theodosia, she's a scholar,
she is. And she read your book to me. Well,
it's wonderful--that's all can be said--wonderful.
You might have been a cat yourself. You
know the way they think. And listen: you can
make a lot of money doctoring animals. Do
you know that? You see, I'd send all the old
women who had sick cats or dogs to you. And
if they didn't get sick fast enough, I could put
something in the meat I sell 'em to make 'em
sick, see?"

"Oh, no," said the Doctor quickly. "You
mustn't do that. That wouldn't be right."

"Oh, I didn't mean real sick," answered the
Cat's-meat-Man. "Just a little something to
make them droopy-like was what I had reference
to. But as you say, maybe it ain't quite
fair on the animals. But they'll get sick
anyway, because the old women always give 'em too
much to eat. And look, all the farmers 'round
about who had lame horses and weak lambs--
they'd come. Be an animal-doctor."

When the Cat's-meat-Man had gone the
parrot flew off the window on to the Doctor's table
and said,