ached the gate.

"Look here!" said he. "Here's a letter that I've got by the Polly Pike
from one of your old patients that you gave over for a dead man long
ago."

"From the other world, of course," said the Doctor.

"No, not exactly, though it's from Labrador, which is about the last
place the Lord made, I reckon."

"What, from Dick Wilson?"

"Sartin," said the Skipper.

"And how is he?"

"Alive and hearty. I tell you what, Doctor, physicking and blistering
are all well enough, may be; but if you want to set a fellow up when
he's kinder run down, there's nothing like a fishing trip to Labrador,
'specially if he's been bothering himself with studying, and writing,
and such like. There's nothing like fish chowders, hard bunks, and sea
fog to take that nonsense out of him. Now, this chap," (the Skipper
here gave me a thrust in the ribs by way of designation,) "if I could
have him down with me beyond sunset for two or three months, would come
back as hearty as a Bay o' Fundy porpoise."

Assuring him that I would like to try the experiment, with him as
skipper, I begged to know the history of the case he had spoken of.

The old fisherman smiled complacently, hitched up his pantaloons, took a
seat beside us, and, after extracting a jack-knife from one pocket, and
a hand of tobacco from the other, and deliberately supplying himself
with a fresh quid, he mentioned, apologetically, that he supposed the
Doctor had heard it all before.

"Yes, twenty times," said the Doctor; "but never mind; it's a good story
yet. Go ahead, Skipper."

"Well, you see," said the Skipper, "this young Wilson comes down here
from Hanover College, in the spring, as lean as a shad in dog-days. He
had studied himself half blind, and all his blood had got into brains.
So the Doctor tried to help him with his poticary stuff, and the women
with their herbs; but all did no good. At last somebody advised him to
try a fishing cruise down East; and so he persuaded me to take him
aboard my schooner. I knew he'd be right in the way, and poor company
at the best, for all his Greek and Latin; for, as a general thing, I've
noticed that your college chaps swop away their common sense for their
larning, and make a mighty poor bargain of it. Well, he brought his
books with him, and stuck to them so close that I was afraid we should
have to slide him off the plank before we got half way to Labrador. So
I just told him plainly that it would n't do,