he sooner I begin the better.

"When I reached my boat, I recollected that I was engaged to go out to
Spithead to bring on shore an officer from one of the ships lying there,
so I stowed away a glass and a can of water, not forgetting the rum and
'lixier, and shoved off. I just paddled down the harbour, for I was in
no hurry, and the ebb was making strong. At last says I to myself, just
as I got off the kickers, `I'll just take a bottle of the 'lixier and
see how I feel after it.' So I got a bottle, and poured it out, and put
in some old rum, just on the top of it, to take the taste away, and then
I took the can of water, but I found that there was a hole at the bottom
of it, and that most of the water had leaked out. So, do you see, I was
obliged to be very careful of the water, and couldn't put much of it at
a time in the glass. If I had, you see, I shouldn't have had any of the
precious fluid, as they calls it, left for another glass. Well, I
tossed off the liquid, and when I had smacked my lips, I began to think
much better of the doctor. His stuff, you see, wasn't so bad after all.
Thinks I to myself, `If one glass is good, two must be better; so,
before I take to the oars again, I'll have another.' Somehow the second
was even better than the first. Then it struck me all of a heap like,
that the doctor said I should take three bottles of his stuff in a day;
so, as it was now getting towards sundown, thinks I, `The sooner I takes
the third the better.'

"Howsomedever, when I came to look at the can, I found that every drop
of water had leaked out, so I had no help for it but to fill the tumbler
up with the rum. I can't say it tasted bad, though it was, maybe,
rather stiffish. Well, as the tide was sending me along nicely, I
didn't get out the oars again, but sat in the boat meditating like, when
all of a sudden I felt myself very queer in the inside, and pains came
on just for all the world as if I had swallowed a score or two of big
mackerel, and they were all kicking and wriggling about in my
bread-basket. `They are the smoke-worms the doctor told me about,'
thinks I. `They don't like the taste of his stuff, that's the truth of
it.' Well, I felt queerer and queerer, and Southsea Castle began to
spin round and round, and the kickers went dancing up and down, and the
ships in the harbour were all turning summersets, and every sort of
circumvolution and devilment you could think of took place. Thinks I