e 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 ear.

"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.

When we reached the house Matthew went up the steps to the front gate
and I followed him. I thought he was going to go into the garden; but
the gate was lock