And while they were letting down the anchor, the little boy's mother (who was also the man's sister) came running down to the shore to meet them, laughing and crying at the same time. She had been sitting on a hill for twenty days, watching the sea and waiting for them to return.

And she kissed the Doctor many times, so that he giggled and blushed like a school-girl. And she tried to kiss Jip too; but he ran away and hid inside the ship.

"It's a silly business, this kissing," he said. "I don't hold by it. Let her go and kiss Gub- Gub--if she MUST kiss something."

The fisherman and his sister didn't want the Doctor to go away again in a hurry. They begged him to spend a few days with them. So John Dolittle and his animals had to stay at their house a whole Saturday and Sunday and half of Monday.

And all the little boys of the fishing-village went down to the beach and pointed at the great ship anchored there, and said to one another in whispers,

"Look! That was a pirate-ship--Ben Ali's --the most terrible pirate that ever sailed the Seven Seas! That old gentleman with the high hat, who's staying up at Mrs. Trevelyan's, HE took the ship away from The Barbary Dragon --and made him into a farmer. Who'd have thought it of him--him so gentle--like and all! ... Look at the great red sails! My!"