Of course such an entirely new thing as this required a great deal of learning and working out before it could be made to run smoothly. Something new, some fresh problem, cropped up every day. But although the Doctor, at all times a busy man, was positively worked to death, he found it all so interesting that he didn't mind. But the motherly Dab-Dab was dreadfully worried about him; for indeed at the beginning he seemed never to sleep at all.
Certainly in the whole history of the world there never was another post office like the Doctor's. For one thing, it was a houseboat post office; for another, tea was served to everybody—the clerks and the customers as well—regularly at four o'clock every afternoon, with cucumber sandwiches on Sundays. Paddling over to the Foreign Mails post office for afternoon tea became quite the fashionable thing to do among the more up-to-date Fantippans. A large awning was put over the back entrance, forming a pleasant sort of veranda with a good view of the ocean and the bay. And if you dropped in for a stamp around four o'clock, as likely as not you would meet the King there, and all the other high notables of Fantippo, sipping tea.
"The houseboat post office of No-Man's-Land"
Another thing in which the Doctor's post office was peculiar was its pens. Most post offices, the Doctor had found, always had abominably bad pens that spluttered and scratched and wouldn't write. In fact very many post offices even nowadays seem to pride themselves on their bad pens. But the Doctor saw to it that his pens were of the very best quality. Of course, in those times there were no steel pens. Only quills were used. And John Dolittle got the albatrosses and the seagulls to keep for him their tail feathers which fell out in the moulting season. And of course, with such a lot of quills to choose from, it was easy to have the best pens in the post office.
Still another thing in which the Doctor's post office was different from all others was the gum used on the stamps. The supply of gum which the King had been using for his stamps ran short and the Doctor had to set about discovering and making a new kind. And after a good deal of experiment he invented a gum made of licorice, which dried quickly and worked very well. But, as I have said, the Fantippans were very fond of sweetmeats. And soon after the new gum was put into use the post office was crowded with people buying stamps by the hundred.
At first the Doctor could not understand this sudden new rush of business—which kept Too-Too, the cashier, working overtime every night, adding up the day's takings. The post office safe could hardly hold all the money taken in and the overflow had to be put in a vase on the kitchen mantelpiece.