"Humph!" said the Doctor. "That's too bad. Let me think a minute. Oh, I know I'll send for Cheapside."
"Who is Cheapside?" asked Speedy.
"Cheapside is a London sparrow," said the Doctor, "who visits me every summer in Puddleby. The rest of the year he lives around St. Paul's Cathedral. He builds his nest in St. Edmund's left ear."
"Where?" cried Jip.
"In the left ear of a statue of St. Edmund on the outside of the chancel—the cathedral, you know," the Doctor explained. "Cheapside's the very fellow we want for city deliveries. There's nothing about houses and towns he doesn't know. I'll send for him right away."
"I'm afraid," said Speedy, "that a post-bird—unless he was a city bird himself—would have a hard job finding a sparrow in London. It's an awful big city, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's so," said John Dolittle.
"Listen, Doctor," said Jip. "You were wondering just now what to write the Cats'-Meat-Man about. Let Speedy write the letter to Cheapside in bird scribble and you inclose it in a letter to the Cats'-Meat-Man. Then when the sparrow comes to Puddleby for his summer visit the Cats'-Meat-Man can give it to him."
"Splendid!" cried the Doctor. And he snatched a piece of paper off the desk and started to write.
"And you might ask him too," put in Dab-Dab who had been listening, "to take a look at the back windows of the house to see that none of them is broken. We don't want the rain coming in on the beds."