“How do you come to be in Paris?” asked John Dolittle.
“Oh, it’s all Becky’s doing,” grumbled Cheapside, hopping out of the puddle and fluttering his wings to dry them. “I’m satisfied to stay in London, goodness knows. But every Spring it’s the same way: ‘Let’s take a hop over to the Continong,’ says she. ‘The horse-chestnuts will just be budding.’ ‘We got horse-chestnut trees in Regent’s Park,’ I says to ’er. ‘Ah,’ says she, ‘but not like the ones in the Twiddle-didee Gardens. Oh, I love Paris in the Spring,’ she says.... It’s always the same way: every year she drags me over ’ere. Sentiment, I reckon it is. You see, Doc, me and Becky met one another first ’ere—right ’ere in the Twiddle-didee Gardens. I recognised ’er as a London Sparrow—you can tell ’em the world over—and we got talkin’. You know the way those things ’appen. She wanted to build our first nest up there in the Lufer Palace. But I says, ‘No,’ hemphatic. ‘Let’s go back to St. Paul’s,’ I says. ‘I know a place in St. Edmund’s left ear what ’as all the stonework in Paris beat ’ollow as a nestin’ place. Besides,’ I says, ‘we don’t want our children growing up talkin’ no foreign language! We’re Londoners,’ I says: ‘let’s go back to London.’”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Even I guessed you were a London sparrow, before I recognised you, because——”
“Because I was washin’,” Cheapside finished. “That’s true: these ’ere foreign birds don’t run to water much.”
“That’s a fine puddle you have there,” said the Doctor. “I’ve half a mind to ask you to lend it to me. You know, I’ve been trying to get a bath myself ever since I’ve been in Paris—without success so far. After all, even a puddle is better than nothing. When I asked them at the pension where I’m staying could I have a bath, they seemed to think I was asking for the moon.”
“Oh, I can tell you where you can get a bath, Doctor, a good one,” said the sparrow. “Just the other side of that shrubbery over there there’s an elegant marble pond, with a fountain and statues in the middle. You can hang your bath-towel on the statue and use the fountain for a shampoo. Just helegant!—But of course you’d have to do it after dark. Anybody washin’ in Paris is liable to get arrested—not because you ’ad no clothes on, mind you. Oh no, the French is very sensible about that. Look at all these statues: they don’t wear no clothes—and in summertime it’s much cooler for ’em. But washin’? That’s another matter. Over ’ere they’re very suspicious of anybody washin’. Just the same you could manage a tub in the marble pond late at night, easy—because there’s hardly anybody in the gardens then.”
“My gracious! I’ve a good mind to try it, Cheapside,” said the Doctor. “I haven’t had a bath in over a week.”
“Well,” said the Cockney sparrow, “you meet me here at midnight and me and Becky will guide you to the pond and keep a look-out while you get a wash.”
There was a half moon that night. And when, a few minutes before twelve o’clock, John Dolittle came into the Tuileries Gardens with a bath-towel over his arm, the first person he saw was a French policeman. Not wishing to be taken for a suspicious character, he thrust the bath-towel beneath his coat and hurried past the shrubbery as though bent on important business.