V

Then the Doctor missed his high hat; for it had been blown into the sea during the storm. So Dab-Dab went out to look for it. And presently she saw it, a long way off, floating on the water like a toy-boat.

When she flew down to get it, she found one of the white mice, very frightened, sitting inside it.

“What are you doing here?” asked the duck. “You were told to stay behind in Puddleby.”

“I didn’t want to be left behind,” said the mouse. “I wanted to see what Africa was like⁠—I have relatives there. So I hid in the baggage and was brought on to the ship with the hardtack. When the ship sank I was terribly frightened⁠—because I cannot swim far. I swam as long as I could, but I soon got all exhausted and thought I was going to sink. And then, just at that moment, the old man’s hat came floating by; and I got into it because I did not want to be drowned.”

So the duck took up the hat with the mouse in it and brought it to the Doctor on the shore. And they all gathered round to have a look.

“That’s what you call a ‘stowaway,’ ” said the parrot.

Presently, when they were looking for a place in the trunk where the white mouse could travel comfortably, the monkey, Chee-Chee, suddenly said,

“Sh! I hear footsteps in the jungle!”

They all stopped talking and listened. And soon a black man came down out of the woods and asked them what they were doing there.

“My name is John Dolittle⁠— M.D. ,” said the Doctor. “I have been asked to come to Africa to cure the monkeys who are sick.”

“You must all come before the King,” said the black man.