V "You are ridiculous," said his sister, and walked out of the room.
So, as time went on, the Doctor got more and more animals; and the
people who came to see him got less and less. Till at last he had no one
left—except the Cat's-meat-Man, who didn't mind any kind of animals.
But the Cat's-meat Man wasn't very rich and he only got sick once a
year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a
bottle of medicine.
Sixpence a year wasn't enough to live on—even in those days, long ago;
and if the Doctor hadn't had some money saved up in his money-box, no
one knows what would have happened.
And he kept on getting still more pets; and of course it cost a lot to feed
them. And the money he had saved up grew littler and littler.
Then he sold his piano, and let the mice live in a bureau-drawer. But the
money he got for that too began to go, so he sold the brown suit he wore
on Sundays and went on becoming poorer and poorer.
And now, when he walked down the street in his high hat, people would
say to one another, "There goes John Dolittle, M.D.! There was a time
when he was the best known doctor in the West Country—Look at him
now—He hasn't any money and his stockings are full of holes!"
But the dogs and the cats and the children still ran up and followed him
through the town—the same as they had done when he was rich.
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