“‘Lord save us!’ cried the duck. ‘How does it make up its mind?’”
“I was going to make him one,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, do be sensible!” cried Dab-Dab. “Where would you get all the wood and the nails to make one with?—And besides, what are we going to live on? We shall be poorer than ever when we get back. Chee-Chee’s perfectly right: take the funny-looking thing along, do!”
“Well, perhaps there is something in what you say,” murmured the Doctor. “It certainly would make a nice new kind of pet. But does the er—what-do-you-call-it really want to go abroad?”
“Yes, I’ll go,” said the pushmi-pullyu who saw at once, from the Doctor’s face, that he was a man to be trusted. “You have been so kind to the animals here—and the monkeys tell me that I am the only one who will do. But you must promise me that if I do not like it in the Land of the White Men you will send me back.”
“Why, certainly—of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “Excuse me, surely you are related to the Deer Family, are you not?”
“Yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu—“to the Abyssinian Gazelles and the Asiatic Chamois—on my mother’s side. My father’s great-grandfather was the last of the Unicorns.”
“Most interesting!” murmured the Doctor; and he took a book out of the trunk which Dab-Dab was packing and began turning the pages. “Let us see if Buffon says anything—”