The policeman stood there looking at me for a moment, and then ’e began to laugh till he couldn’t stop ’imself.

“Love-a-duck!” he ses, at last, wiping his eyes.  “I wish I’d seen it.”

“Must ha’ looked like a fat mermaid,” ses the landlord, wagging his silly ’ead at me.  “I can just see old Bill sitting in the mud a-combing his ’air and singing.”

They ‘ad some more talk o’ that sort, just to show each other ’ow funny they was, but they went off at last, and I fastened up the gate and went into the office to clean myself up as well as I could.  One comfort was they ’adn’t got the least idea of wot I was arter, and I ’ad a fancy that the one as laughed last would be the one as got that twelve quid.

I was so tired that I slept nearly all day arter I ’ad got ’ome, and I ’ad no sooner got back to the wharf in the evening than I see that the landlord ’ad been busy.  If there was one silly fool that asked me the best way of making mud-pies, I should think there was fifty.  Little things please little minds, and the silly way some of ’em went on made me feel sorry for my sects.

By eight o’clock, ’owever, they ’ad all sheered off, and I got a broom and began to sweep up to ’elp pass the time away until low-water.  On’y one craft ’ad come up that day—­a ketch called the Peewit—­and as she was berthed at the end of the jetty she wasn’t in my way at all.

Her skipper came on to the wharf just afore ten.  Fat, silly old man ’e was, named Fogg.  Always talking about ’is ’ealth and taking 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.”