rl. If I could
only get some clothes to wear I might easily slip on to the ship amongst
these families, and people would take me for a girl. Good idea!"

So he went off to a town that was quite close, and hopping in through an
open window he found a skirt and bodice lying on a chair. They belonged
to a fashionable black lady who was taking a bath. Chee-Chee put them
on. Next he went back to the seashore, mingled with the crowd there and
at last sneaked safely on to the big ship. Then he thought he had better
hide, for fear people might look at him too closely. And he stayed
hidden all the time the ship was sailing to England--only coming out at
night, when everybody was asleep, to find food.

When he reached England and tried to get off the ship, the sailors saw
at last that he was only a monkey dressed up in girl's clothes; and they
wanted to keep him for a pet. But he managed to give them the slip; and
once he was on shore, he dived into the crowd and got away. But he was
still a long distance from Puddleby and had to come right across the
whole breadth of England.

He had a terrible time of it. Whenever he passed through a town all
the children ran after him in a crowd, laughing; and often silly people
caught hold of him and tried to stop him, so that he had to run up
lamp-posts and climb to chimney-pots to escape from them. At night he
used to sleep in ditches or barns or anywhere he could hide; and he
lived on the berries he picked from the hedges and the cob-nuts that
grew in the copses. At length, after many adventures and narrow squeaks,
he saw the tower of Puddleby Church and he knew that at last he was near
his old home. When Chee-Chee had finished his story he ate six bananas
without stopping and drank a whole bowlful of milk.

"My!" he said, "why wasn't I born with wings, like Polynesia, so I could
fly here? You've no idea how I grew to hate that hat and skirt. I've
never been so uncomfortable in my life. All the way from Bristol here,
if the wretched hat wasn't falling off my head or catching in the
trees, those beastly skirts were tripping me up and getting wound round
everything. What on earth do women wear those things for? Goodness, I
was glad to see old Puddleby this morning when I climbed over the hill
by Bellaby's farm!"

"Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready for
you," said the Doctor. "We never had it disturbed in case you might come
back."

"Yes," said Dab-Dab, "and