“We all thought it a fine joke at first, but the airs them two chaps give themselves was something sickening.  Being in bed all day, they was naturally wakeful of a night, and they used to call across the fo’c’sle inquiring arter each other’s healths, an’ waking us other chaps up.  An’ they’d swop beef-tea an’ jellies with each other, an’ Dan ‘ud try an’ coax a little port wine out o’ Harry, which he ’ad to make blood with, but Harry ’ud say he hadn’t made enough that day, an! he’d drink to the better health of old Dan’s prognotice, an’ smack his lips until it drove us a’most crazy to ’ear him.

“Arter these chaps had been ill two days, the other fellers began to put their heads together, being maddened by the smell o’ beef-tea an’ the like, an’ said they was going to be ill too, and both the invalids got into a fearful state of excitement.

“‘You’ll only spoil it for all of us,’ ses Harry, ’and you don’t know what to have without the book.’

“‘It’s all very well doing your work as well as our own,’ ses one of the men.  ‘It’s our turn now.  It’s time you two got well.’

“’Well? ses Harry, ’well?  Why you silly iggernerant chaps, we shan’t never get well, people with our complaints never do.  You ought to know that.’

“’Well, I shall split, ’ses one of them. “‘You do!’ ses Harry, ’you do, an’ I’ll put a ’ed on you that all the port wine and jellies in the world wouldn’t cure.  ’Sides, don’t you think the skipper knows what’s the matter with us?’

“’Afore the other chap could reply, the skipper hisself comes down, accompanied by the fust mate, with a look on his face which made Harry give the deepest and hollowest cough he’d ever done.

“‘What they reely want,’ ses the skipper, turning to the mate, ’is keerful nussing.’

“’I wish you’d let me nuss ’em,’ ses the fust mate, ’only ten minutes—­ I’d put ’em both on their legs, an’ running for their lives into the bargain, in ten minutes.’

“‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ ses the skipper; ’what you say is unfeeling, besides being an insult to me.  Do you think I studied medicine all these years without knowing when a man’s ill?’

“The fust mate growled something and went on deck, and the skipper started examining of ’em again.  He said they was wonderfully patient lying in bed so long, an’ he had ’em wrapped up in bedclo’es and carried on deck, so as the pure air could have a go at ’em.  We had to do the carrying, an’ there they sat, breathing the pure air, and looking at the fust mate out of the corners of their eyes.  If they wanted anything from below one of us had to go an’ fetch it, an’ by the time they was taken down to bed again, we all resolved to be took ill too.

“Only two of ’em did it though, for Harry, who was a powerful, ugly-tempered chap, swore he’d do all sorts o’ dreadful things to us if we didn’t keep well and hearty, an’ all ’cept these two did.  One of ’em, Mike Rafferty, laid up with a swelling on his ribs, which I knew myself he ’ad ’ad for fifteen years, and the other chap had paralysis.  I never saw a man so reely happy as the skipper was.  He was up an down with his medicines and his instruments all day long, and used to make notes of the cases in a big pocket-book, and read ’em to the second mate at mealtimes.