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Now, read the story to find out if Dr Dolittle could find some way to take care of
himself and his pets.

It happened one day that the Doctor was sitting in his kitchen talking with the Cat’s-

meat-Man who had come to see him with a stomach-ache.

‘Why don’t you give up being a people’s doctor, and be an animal-doctor?’ asked the
Cat’s-meat-Man.

The parrot, Polynesia, was sitting in the window looking out at the rain and singing a
sailor-song to herself. She stopped singing and started to listen.

‘You see, Doctor,’ the Cat’s-meat-Man went on, ‘you know all about animals—much

more than what these here vets do. That book you wrote—about cats, why, it’s
wonderful! I can’t read or write myself—or maybe I’d write some books. But my wife,
Theodosia, she’s a scholar, she is. And

she read your book to me. Well, it’s
wonderful—that’s all can be said—
wonderful. You might have been a cat
yourself. You know the way they think.
And listen: you can make a lot of money

doctoring animals. Do you know that?
You see, I’d send all the old women
who had sick cats or dogs to you. And if

they didn’t get sick fast enough, I could
put something in the meat I sell ’em to
make ’em sick, see?’

‘Oh, no,’ said the Doctor quickly. ‘You

mustn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean real sick,’ answered
the Cat’s-meat-Man. ‘Just a little something to make them
droopy-like was what I had reference to. But as you say, maybe What kind
it ain’t quite fair on the animals. But they’ll get sick anyway, of a person do

because the old women always give ’em too much to eat. And you think Cat’s-
Just a Minute!
look, all the farmers round about who had lame horses and meat-Man is?
weak lambs—they’d come. Be an animal-doctor.’

When the Cat’s-meat-Man had gone the parrot flew off the

window on to the Doctor’s table and said, ‘That man’s got vets: short for ‘veterinarians’,
people who specialise in
sense. That’s what you ought to do. Be an animal-doctor. treating animals’ health and
Give the silly people up—if they haven’t brains enough to medical issues

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