Another short spell of silence—during which we all did a little serious and gloomy thinking. “Oh, well,” said the Doctor, “come, come! Don’t let’s bother about the stiles till we reach them. After all we don’t know for certain that these—er—whoever it is—are definitely unfriendly to us. They may have reasons of their own for working slowly. You must remember that we are just as strange and outlandish to them as they and their whole world are to us. We mustn’t let any idea of that kind become a nightmare. We have only been here, let’s see, not much over two weeks. It is a pleasant land and there is lots to be learned. The Vegetable Kingdom is clearly well disposed towards us. And if we give them time I’m sure that the—er—others will be too, in the end.” [Illustration: “‘_Tommy, you seem to be getting enormously tall_’”] Another matter which came up about this time was the effect of moon food on ourselves. Polynesia was the first to remark upon it. “Tommy,” said she one day, “you seem to be getting enormously tall—and fat, aren’t you?” “Er—am I?” said I. “Well, I _had_ noticed my belt seemed a bit tight. But I thought it was just ordinary growing.” “And the Doctor too,” the parrot went on. “I’ll swear he’s bigger—unless my eyesight is getting queer.” “Well, we can soon prove that,” said John Dolittle. “I know my height exactly—five feet two and a half. I have a two-foot rule in the baggage. I’ll measure myself against a tree right away.” When the Doctor had accomplished this he was astonished to find that his height had increased some three inches since he had been on the Moon. Of what my own had been before I landed, I was not so sure; but measurement made it too a good deal more than I had thought it. And as to my waist line, there was no doubt that it had grown enormously. Even Chee-Chee, when we came to look at him, seemed larger and heavier. Polynesia was of course so small that it would need an enormous increase in her figure to make difference enough to see. [Illustration: “_His height had increased some three inches_”] But there was no question at all that the rest of us had grown considerably since we had been here.