"What do you want?" he asked, thrusting the pearls into his pocket.
"I want a postal order for ten shillings," said the man. "I am going to send some money to my sick wife."
The Doctor made out the postal order and took the money, which the man handed through the window.
"Here you are," he said.
Then the man left the post office and the Doctor watched him go.
"That was a queer-looking customer, wasn't he?" he said to Dab-Dab.
"He was, indeed," said the duck. "I'm not surprised his wife is sick, if she has a husband with a face like that."
"I wonder who he is," said John Dolittle. "It isn't often we have white men coming in here. I don't much like the looks of him."
The following day the pearls were wrapped up again the way they had arrived, and after a letter had been written by the Doctor explaining to the spoonbill what the "pebbles" really were, they were sent off by registered parcel post to the Harmattan Rocks.
The bird chosen to take the package happened to be one of the thrushes that had brought the Brussels sprouts from England. These birds were still staying in the neighborhood. And though a thrush was a somewhat small bird to carry parcel post, the package was a very little one and the Doctor had nobody else to send. So after explaining to the thrush that registered mail should be guarded very carefully by postmen, the Doctor sent the pearls off.