into the crowd and got away. But he was still a long distance
from Puddleby and had to come right across the whole breadth of
England.

He had a terrible time of it. Whenever he passed through a town
all the children ran after him in a crowd, laughing; and often
silly people caught hold of him and tried to stop him, so that he
had to run up lamp-posts and climb to chimney-pots to escape from
them. At night he used to sleep in ditches or barns or anywhere
he could hide; and he lived on the berries he picked from the
hedges and the cob-nuts that grew in the copses. At length, after
many adventures and narrow squeaks, he saw the tower of Puddleby
Church and he knew that at last he was near his old home. When
Chee-Chee had finished his story he ate six bananas without
stopping and drank a whole bowlful of milk.

"My!" he said, "why wasn't I born with wings, like Polynesia, so
I could fly here? You've no idea how I grew to hate that hat and
skirt. I've never been so uncomfortable in my life. All the way
from Bristol here, if the wretched hat wasn't falling off my head
or catching in the trees, those beastly skirts were tripping me
up and getting wound round everything. What on earth do women
wear those things for? Goodness, I was glad to see old Puddleby
this morning when I climbed over the hill by Bellaby's farm!"

"Your bed on top of the plate-rack in the scullery is all ready
for you," said the Doctor. "We never had it disturbed in case
you might come back."

"Yes," said Dab-Dab, "and you can have the old smoking-jacket of