No answer was made to this.  It was like the old story of belling the cat; but there was no Douglas so bold as to try the experiment on Master Jacko, who at any time was a powerful animal, and would, it was naturally inferred, make a tenfold effort when his teeth were the objects of attack.

“Even suppose we could tie the poor unfortunate victim,” said the quarter-master, “who knows how to pull out these great big teeth?  We might break his jaw in the operation.”

There was a long pause.

“I dare say,” at length cried one of the party, “that the doctor’s mate, who is a good-natured gentleman, would be so kind as to tell us how we can manage this affair.”

A deputation of the monkey’s friends was accordingly despatched to present a humble petition to the surgeon’s assistant, praying that he would be graciously pleased to lend his professional aid in saving the jaw, and perhaps the life, of one of the most diverting vagabonds in his Majesty’s service.

Fortunately, the assistant medico was not one of those priggish puppies who, having little professional knowledge to balance their own inherent stupidity, fancy it necessary to support their dignity by the agency of etiquettes alone.  He was, on the contrary, a young man of skill, good sense, and right feelings, who cared nothing at all about his dignity when he could be of any use; or rather, who left it to take care of itself, without thinking of anything but his business.  To tell the truth, he was so much a lover of his art that he felt secretly tickled with the idea of a new operation, and experienced on the occasion that peculiar pleasure, known, it is said, only to the faculty, when a complicated and difficult case falls into their hands.  He had just mixed a glass of grog, after the day’s work was done, and was eyeing the beverage with that sort of serene anticipation which the sober certainty of waking bliss is sure to produce, when the deputation made their appearance, having first sent in the boy, whose arm was still in a sling from the bite of the monkey.

“Are you in a hurry?” said the doctor, on hearing the novel petition; for he had nestled himself into the corner of the berth, with one foot on the bench, the other on the table, and his glass of “half-and-half” glowing like amber between his eye and the solitary glim of those profound regions, those diamond mines from which the Hoods and the Hardys of times past and times present have been drawn up to the very tip-top of their profession.

“Yes, sir,” replied the spokesman of the party.  “There is no time to be lost, for the captain, who is in a great rage, says, if we don’t extricate the monkey’s grinders, overboard he goes to a certainty.”

“Extricate is not the word, you blockhead; extract, I suppose you mean.  Besides, I fancy it is not his grinders which the captain has ordered to be removed, but his eye-teeth, or tusks, as they may fairly be called.”