he last agony of strangulation.

All turned, as Palmerston--dashing forward between the music-stands of
the band and scattering them to right and left--flung himself between
Cai and 'Bias at their very feet.

"Masters--masters! I've a-swallowed the stakes!"

CHAPTER XXIV.

FANCY BRINGS NEWS.

"Which," Mrs Bowldler reported to Fancy, who had left her master's
sick-bed to pay a fleeting visit to Palmerston's, "the treatment was
drastic for a growin' child. First of all Mrs Bosenna, that never had a
child of her own, sent down to the cabin for the mustard that had been
left over from the Sailin' Committee's sangwidges, and mixed up a drink
with it and a little cold water. Which the results was _nil_; that is
to say, pecuniarily speakin'. Then somebody fetched along Mr Clogg the
vet. from Tregarrick, that had come over for the day to judge the
horses, and _he_ said as plain salt-and-water was worth all the mustard
in the world, so they made the poor boy swallow the best part of a pint,
and he brought up eighteenpence."

"Saints alive! But I thought you told me--"

"So I did: two solid golden sufferins. And _that_," said Mrs Bowldler,
"was for some time the most astonishin' part of the business. Two solid
golden sufferins: and low!--as the sayin' is--low and behold, eighteen
pence in small silver!"

"Little enough too, for a miracle!" mused Fancy.

"It encouraged 'em to go on. Captain Hocken--he's a humane gentleman,
too, and never graspin'--no, never in his life!--but I suppose he'd
begun to get interested,--Captain Hocken ups and suggests as they were
wastin' time, mixin' table-salt and water when there was the wide ocean
itself overside, to be had for the dippin'. So they tried sea-water."

"My poor Pammy.'"

"Don't you start a-pityin' me," gasped a voice, faint but defiant, from
the bed. "If I die, I die. But I got the account to balance."

"I disremember what sum--er--resulted that time," confessed Mrs
Bowldler; "my memory not bein' what it was."

"Ninepence; an' two threepennies with the soap--total two-and-nine,
which was correct. If I die, I die," moaned Palmerston.

"'Ero!" murmured Fancy, stepping to the bedside and arranging his
pillow.

"You take my advice and lie quiet," counselled Mrs Bowldler.
"You're not a-goin' to die this time. But there's been a shock to the
system, you may make up your mind," she went on, turning to Fancy.
"I'd most forgotten about the soap. That wa