"Dab-Dab looked over his shoulder"
Somewhat puzzled, the Doctor first read the letter, while Dab-Dab, who was still badgering him about taking a holiday, looked over his shoulder. The letter said:
"Dear Doctor: I am sending you, inclosed, some pretty pebbles which I found the other day while cracking open oysters. I never saw pebbles of this color before, though I live by the seashore and have been opening shellfish all my life. My husband says they're oyster's eggs. But I don't believe it. Would you please tell me what they are? And be careful to send them back, because my children use them as playthings and I have promised them they shall have them to keep."
Then the Doctor put down the letter and, taking his penknife, he cut the seaweed strings that neatly held the oyster shells together. And when he opened the shells he gave a gasp of astonishment.
"Oh, Dab-Dab," he cried, "how beautiful! Look, look!"
"Pearls!" whispered Dab-Dab in an awed voice, gazing down into the Doctor's palm. "Pink pearls!"
"My! Aren't they handsome?" murmured the Doctor. "And did you ever see such large ones? Each one of those pearls, Dab-Dab, is worth a fortune. Who the dickens is this that sent them to me, anyhow?"
And he turned to the letter again.
"It's from a spoonbill," said Dab-Dab. "I know their writing. They are a sort of a cross between a curlew and a snipe. They like messing around lonely seacoast places, hunting for shellfish and sea worms and stuff like that."