en up, and the principal surgeons declared that our poor
doctor was in sound health, because they found him unsound in his
opinions.

The three surgeons took their departure, the eldest saying with a grim
smile to Thompson, "It may correct some errors, and prepare you for next
invaliding day. Shall I send you my book, `De Natura Pestium et
Pestilentiarum?'"

The jolly doctor, with a smile equally grim, thanked him, and formally
declined the gift, assuring him "that at the present time, the ship was
well stocked with emetics."

Now, the good doctor was a wag, and the captain, for fun, a very monkey.
The aspirant for invaliding sat himself down again at one end of the
table, as the captains did at the other. Wine, anchovies, sandwiches,
oysters, and other light and stimulating viands were produced to make a
relishing lunch. Captain Reud threw a triumphant and right merry glance
across the table on the silent and discomfited doctor. The servant had
placed before him a cover and glasses unbidden.

"Bring the doctor's plate," said the captain. The doctor was passive--
the plate was brought, filled with luxuries, and placed directly under
his nose. The temptation was terrible. He had been fasting and
macerating himself for eight or nine days. He glared upon it with a
gloomy longing. He then looked up wistfully, and a droll smile mantled
across his vast face, and eddied in the holes of his deep pock-marks.

"A glass of wine, doctor?" The decanter was pushed before him, and his
glass filled by the servant. The doctor shook his head and said, "I
dare not, but will put it to my lips in courtesy."

He did so, and when the glass reached the table it was empty. He then
began gradually to unwind his huge woollen comforter, and when he
thought himself unobserved, he stole the encumbrance into his ample
coat-pocket. He next proceeded to toss about, with a careless
abstraction, the large masses of cold fowl and ham in his plate, and, by
some unimaginable process, without the use of his knife he contrived to
separate them into edible pieces. They disappeared rapidly, and the
plate was almost as soon empty as the wine-glass.

The green shade, by some unaccountable accident, now fell from his eyes,
and, instead of again fixing it on, it found its way to the pocket, to
keep company with the comforter. Near him stood a dish of delicious
oysters, the which he silently coaxed towards his empty plate, and sent
the content