Doctor Dolittle's Return by Hugh Lofting

Author:Hugh Lofting [Lofting, Hugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Animals, Childrens, Classics, Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9781718748859
Google: qjnBtgEACAAJ
Amazon: 161203537X
Publisher: Bottom of the Hill Publishing
Published: 2012-04-01T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

3. OTHO BLUDGE'S PRISONER

"Now, all this time," the Doctor continued, "the Moon Man was calling me in every so often to treat him for his rheumatism. I had fitted up a sort of makeshift laboratory for myself. Of course I had not many chemicals. All the medicines I had with me were what I had brought in the little black bag. But I had found a whole lot of useful drugs and things in the trees and rocks--such as quinine, zinc for making zinc ointment, and a whole lot more.

"Well, although my laboratory was a very rough and poor one, I was soon able to find out how to deal with his trouble. He was eating too much starch, for one thing. I changed his diet. I compounded some medicines for him. So long as he did what I told him, he got along very well. In fact, in the end I fancy I knew more about moon foods and what they did to the human body than he did.

"There was one special kind of melon he was very fond of. It was called goy-goy. This I had found was very bad for him. I had told him not to eat it. But, like a child--he was very childlike in many ways--he just wouldn't leave it alone. Finally I got quite severe with him. I ordered him not to touch it. He promised he wouldn't. But the next time he called me in about his rheumatism I saw, by the peelings that lay around him, that he had been eating goy-goy again.

"Well, this was when I was wondering if I could carry down to the earth some of those sensible ideas about diet, long life and peaceful living which had panned out so well in the moon. I saw no reason why they shouldn't work with us--partly, at all events. I was a little homesick too, I imagine. Anyway I was anxious to get down here and start experimenting with those ideas.

"So when, for the sixth or seventh time, Otho sent for me to attend to him--and again I found that he had been eating the forbidden goy-goy--I began to wonder if my staying on the moon any longer would be of much use. I especially felt this way now, because I had nearly completed my observations of the moon's seasons. The moon, you see, revolves in a small circle round the earth once a month; while the earth, carrying the moon with it, swings in a much bigger ring around the sun, once a year. The moon, hanging on to the earth, as it were, in this long journey would be bound to show effects and differences, not only with her own changing seasons, but with ours too. I particularly wanted to make some observations at the earth's equinoxes--that is, in our Spring and Autumn. This of course meant staying up there a whole year. That year was now nearly over.

"Very well, then: this time Otho Bludge was a pretty sick Moon Man.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.