y and started going off all different ways--North, East, South
and West, looking like tiny grains of black sand creeping across the
wide, blue sky.

"My gracious!" said Gub-Gub in a hushed voice. "What a height! I
wonder they don't scorch their feathers--so near the sun!"

They were gone a long time. And when they came back it was almost
night.

And the eagles said to the Doctor,

"We have searched all the seas and all the countries and all the
islands and all the cities and all the villages in this half of the
world. But we have failed. In the main street of Gibraltar we saw
three red hairs lying on a wheel-barrow before a baker's door. But
they were not the hairs of a man--they were the hairs out of a
fur-coat. Nowhere, on land or water, could we see any sign of this
boy's uncle. And if WE could not see him, then he is not to be
seen.... For John Dolittle--we have done our best."

Then the six great birds flapped their big wings and flew back to their
homes in the mountains and the rocks.

"Well," said Dab-Dab, after they had gone, "what are we going to do
now? The boy's uncle MUST be found--there's no two ways about that.
The lad isn't old enough to be knocking around the world by himself.
Boys aren't like ducklings--they have to be taken care of till they're
quite old.... I wish Chee-Chee were here. He would soon find the man.
Good old Chee-Chee! I wonder how he's getting on!"

"If we only had Polynesia with us," said the white mouse. "SHE would
soon think of some way. Do you remember how she got us all out of
prison--the second time? My, but she was a clever one!"

"I don't think so much of those eagle-fellows," said Jip. "They're
just conceited. They may have very good eyesight and all that; but
when you ask them to find a man for you, they can't do it--and they
have the cheek to come back and say that nobody else could do it.
They're just conceited--like that collie in Puddleby. And I don't
think a whole lot of those gossipy old porpoises either. All they
could tell us was that the man isn't in the sea. We don't want to know
where he ISN'T--we want to know where he IS."

"Oh, don't talk so much," said Gub-Gub. "It's easy to talk; but it
isn't so easy to find a man when you have got the whole world to hunt
him in. Maybe the fisherman's hair has turned white, worrying about
the boy; and that was why the eagles didn't find him. You don't know
everything. You're just talking. You are