“Oh, I’ve known John Dolittle for years and years,” said Matthew as we made our way out of the market-place.  “But I’m pretty sure he ain’t home just now.  He’s away on a voyage.  But he’s liable to be back any day.  I’ll show you his house and then you’ll know where to find him.”

All the way down the Oxenthorpe Road Matthew hardly stopped talking about his great friend, Doctor John Dolittle—­“M.  D.”  He talked so much that he forgot all about calling out “Meat!” until we both suddenly noticed that we had a whole procession of dogs following us patiently.

“Where did the Doctor go to on this voyage?” I asked as Matthew handed round the meat to them.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he answered.  “Nobody never knows where he goes, nor when he’s going, nor when he’s coming back.  He lives all alone except for his pets.  He’s made some great voyages and some wonderful discoveries.  Last time he came back he told me he’d found a tribe of Red Indians in the Pacific Ocean—­lived on two islands, they did.  The husbands lived on one island and the wives lived on the other.  Sensible people, some of them savages.  They only met once a year, when the husbands came over to visit the wives for a great feast—­ Christmas-time, most likely.  Yes, he’s a wonderful man is the Doctor.  And as for animals, well, there ain’t no one knows as much about ’em as what he does.”

“How did he get to know so much about animals?” I asked.

The cat’s-meat-man stopped and leant down to whisper in my car.

“He talks their language,” he said in a hoarse, mysterious voice.

“The animals’ language?” I cried.

“Why certainly,” said Matthew.  “All animals have some kind of a language.  Some sorts talk more than others; some only speak in sign-language, like deaf-and-dumb.  But the Doctor, he understands them all—­birds as well as animals.  We keep it a secret though, him and me, because folks only laugh at you when you speak of it.  Why, he can even write animal-language.  He reads aloud to his pets.  He’s wrote history-books in monkey-talk, poetry in canary language and comic songs for magpies to sing.  It’s a fact.  He’s now busy learning the language of the shellfish.  But he says it’s hard work—­and he has caught some terrible colds, holding his head under water so much.  He’s a great man.”

“He certainly must be,” I said.  “I do wish he were home so I could meet him.”

“Well, there’s his house, look,” said the cat’s, meat-man—­“that little one at the bend in the road there—­the one high up—­ like it was sitting on the wall above the street.”

We were now come beyond the edge of the town.  And the house that Matthew pointed out was quite a small one standing by itself.  There seemed to be a big garden around it; and this garden was much higher than the road, so you had to go up a flight of steps in the wall before you reached the front gate at the top.  I could see that there were many fine fruit trees in the garden, for their branches hung down over the wall in places.  But the wall was so high I could not see anything else.