"Oh-h-h!"

"Now don't you see? I cut a hole in the pudding and slipped the box in,
and then made a stopper of the pudding I had cut out, and corked up the
hole with the box inside."

"I begin to see now," said Murray. "A pill-box full of poison to kill
the shark that swallows the poison."

"I don't care whether it kills the fish or no as long as I get rid of
the stuff."

"Now you are getting confused again. Why should you try to poison a
shark like this? What good would it do--what difference would one shark
make out of the thousands which infest the sea?"

"Oh, Franky, what a Dummkopf you are, as the Germans say!"

"Don't care what the Germans say, and I dare say I am a stupid-head, for
I can't make out what you are driving at."

"You can't? Why, I'm going to make the shark take the poison instead of
taking it myself."

"But what poison?"

"Old Reston's: the two blue pills. Then I shall pitch the bottle of
horrible draught overboard. I don't care what becomes of that so long
as it sinks to the bottom."

"Oh, I see plainly enough now," said Murray.

"And pretty well time, my boy! Wasn't it a capital idea?"

"No," said Murray bluntly. "Stupid, I say."

"Not it, old chap. Don't you see that it is liver medicine?"

"I suppose so."

"Well, sharks have livers. They fish for them in the Mediterranean,
take out the livers, and boil them down to sell for cod liver oil."

"Then that's a lie," said Murray. "Perhaps it's being a lie made you
think of it."

"Why?"

"Because you'll have to tell the doctor a lie when he asks you if you
took the medicine."

"But he won't ask."

"He will, for certain."

"How do you know? Did he ever ask you?"

"Well, no," said Murray thoughtfully; "I can't say that he did. He
never gave me any, only touched me up a bit when I was hurt."

"Then don't you be so jolly knowing, my fine fellow," cried Roberts.
"You can't tell if he hasn't doctored you, and I'm quite sure about it,
for I know well from nasty experience of his ways that he will not
bother one with questions as you think. He gives the fellows physic to
take, and just asks them next day how they feel."

"Well, that's what I say," cried Murray triumphantly. "Isn't that just
the same?"

"No, not a bit of it. He just asks them how they feel next day; that's
all. He takes it for granted that they have swallowed his boluses and
draughts. He'll ask me to-morrow how I feel, and I shall tell him I