g medicine to
do it good. He came up to me slow like, and, when 'e stopped and asked
me about the rheumatics, the broom shook in my 'and.

"Look here," I ses, "if you want to be funny, go and be funny with them
as likes it. I'm fair sick of it, so I give you warning."

"Funny?" he ses, staring at me with eyes like a cow. "Wot d'ye mean?
There's nothing funny about rheumatics; I ought to know; I'm a martyr to
it. Did you find as 'ow the mud did you any good?"

I looked at 'im hard, but 'e stood there looking at me with his fat baby-
face, and I knew he didn't mean any harm; so I answered 'im perlite and
wished 'im good night.

"I've 'ad pretty near everything a man can have," he ses, casting anchor
on a empty box, "but I think the rheumatics was about the worst of 'em
all. I even tried bees for it once."

"Bees!" I ses. "_Bees!_"

"Bee-stings," he ses. "A man told me that if I could on'y persuade a few
bees to sting me, that 'ud cure me. I don't know what 'e meant by
persuading! they didn't want no persuading. I took off my coat and shirt
and went and rocked one of my neighbour's bee-hives next door, and I
thought my last hour 'ad come."

He sat on that box and shivered at the memory of it.

"Now I take Dr. Pepper's pellets instead," he ses. "I've got a box in my
state-room, and if you'd like to try 'em you're welcome."

He sat there talking about the complaints he had 'ad and wot he 'ad done
for them till I thought I should never have got rid of 'im. He got up at
last, though, and, arter telling me to always wear flannel next to my
skin, climbed aboard and went below.

I knew the hands was aboard, and arter watching 'is cabin-skylight until
the light was out, I went and undressed. Then I crept back on to the
jetty, and arter listening by the Peewit to make sure that they was all
asleep, I went back and climbed down the ladder.

It was colder than ever. The cold seemed to get into my bones, but I
made up my mind to 'ave that twelve quid if I died for it. I trod round
and round the place where I 'ad seen that purse chucked in until I was
tired, and the rubbish I picked up by mistake you wouldn't believe.

I suppose I 'ad been in there arf an hour, and I was standing up with my
teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, when I 'appened to look
round and see something like a white ball coming down the ladder. My
'art seemed to stand still for a moment, and then it began to beat as
though it w