are. No, sir, I fly no false colours, and
put no R. N. after my name; but I'm the Queen's servant, by ----! No
mercantile marine about me! Have a wet, sir! It's the right stuff, and I
have drunk enough to know the difference."

Well, as the supper progressed I warmed with the liquor and the food,
and I told my new acquaintance all about my plans and intentions. I
didn't realise how lonely I had been until I found the pleasure of
talking. He listened to it all with much sympathy, and to my horror
tossed off a whole tumbler-full of neat whisky to my success. So
enthusiastic was he that it was all I could do to prevent him from
draining a second one.

"You'll do it, Dr. Munro, sir!" he cried. "I know a man when I see one,
and you'll do it. There's my hand, sir! I'm with you! You needn't be
ashamed to grasp it, for by ----, though I say it myself, it's been open
to the poor and shut to a bully ever since I could suck milk. Yes, sir,
you'll make a good ship-mate, and I'm ---- glad to have you on my poop."

For the remainder of the evening his fixed delusion was that I had come
to serve under him; and he read me long rambling lectures about ship's
discipline, still always addressing me as "Dr. Munro, sir." At last,
however, his conversation became unbearable--a foul young man is odious,
but a foul old one is surely the most sickening thing on earth. One
feels that the white upon the hair, like that upon the mountain, should
signify a height attained. I rose and bade him good-night, with a last
impression of him leaning back in his dressing-gown, a sodden cigar-end
in the corner of his mouth, his beard all slopped with whisky, and his
half-glazed eyes looking sideways after me with the leer of a satyr. I
had to go into the street and walk up and down for half-an-hour before I
felt clean enough to go to bed.

Well, I wanted to see no more of my neighbour, but in he came as I was
sitting at breakfast, smelling like a bar-parlour, with stale whisky
oozing at every pore.

"Good morning, Dr. Munro, sir," said he, holding out a twitching hand.
"I compliment you, sir! You look fresh, ---- fresh, and me with a head
like a toy-shop. We had a pleasant, quiet evening, and I took nothing to
hurt, but it is the ---- relaxing air of this place that settles me. I
can't bear up against it. Last year it gave me the horrors, and I expect
it will again. You're off house-hunting, I suppose?"

"I start immediately after breakfast."

"I ta