cracker,' you understand me. But hear this:
Ka-ka oi-ee, fee-fee?"

"Good Gracious!" cried the Doctor. "What
does that mean?"

"That means, `Is the porridge hot yet?'--in
bird-language."

"My! You don't say so!" said the Doctor.
"You never talked that way to me before."

"What would have been the good?" said
Polynesia, dusting some cracker-crumbs off her
left wing. "You wouldn't have understood me
if I had."

"Tell me some more," said the Doctor, all
excited; and he rushed over to the dresser-drawer
and came back with the butcher's book and a
pencil. "Now don't go too fast--and I'll write
it down. This is interesting--very interesting
--something quite new. Give me the Birds'
A.B.C. first--slowly now."

So that was the way the Doctor came to know
that animals had a language of their own and
could talk to one another. And all that afternoon,
while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the
kitchen table giving him bird words to put down