“Look out!—Here he comes!”
This time flight seemed the only course. The policeman had seen the culprit disappear into the shrubbery. Breaking into a run, he gave chase.
“Don’t stop, Doc!” cried Cheapside. “Grab your clothes and get out the other side—Becky! Hey, Becky! Keep that policeman busy a minute.”
The Doctor did as he was told. Seizing his clothes in a pile as he rushed through the shrubbery, he came out at the other end like an express train emerging from a tunnel. Here Cheapside met him and led him across a lawn to another group of bushes. Behind this he hurriedly got into his clothes. Meanwhile Becky kept the policeman busy by furiously pecking him in the neck and making it necessary for him to stop and beat her off.
However, she could not of course keep this up for long. And if John Dolittle had not been an exceptionally quick dresser he could never have got away. In one minute and a quarter, collar and tie in one hand, soap and towel in the other, he left his second dressing-room on the run and sped for the gate and home.
The loyal Cheapside was still with him; but the sparrow was now so convulsed with laughter that he could scarcely keep up, even flying.
“I don’t see what you find so funny about it,” panted the Doctor peevishly as he slowed down at the gate and began putting on his collar. “I had a very narrow escape from getting arrested.”
“Yes, and you’d have gone to jail, too,” gasped Cheapside. “It’s no light offence, washing in this country. But that wasn’t what I was laughing at.”
“Well, what was it, then?” asked the Doctor, feeling for a stud in his pocket.
“The Reverend Dingle took me for a nightingale!” tittered the Cockney sparrow. “I must go back and tell Becky that. So long, Doc! You’ll be all right now. That bobby’s lost you altogether.... After all, you got your bath. See you in Puddleby next month.”