“The fo’c’sle had been turned into hospital about a week, an’ I was on deck doing some odd job or the other, when the cook comes up to me pulling a face as long as a fiddle.

“‘Nother invalid,’ ses he; ‘fust mate’s gone stark, staring mad!’

“‘Mad?’ ses I.

“‘Yes,’ ses he.  ‘He’s got a big basin in the galley, an’ he’s laughing like a hyener an’ mixing bilge-water an’ ink, an’ paraffin an’ butter an’ soap an’ all sorts o’ things up together.  The smell’s enough to kill a man; I’ve had to come away.’

“Curious-like, I jest walked up to the galley an’ puts my ‘ed in, an’ there was the mate as the cook said, smiling all over his face, and ladling some thick sticky stuff into a stone bottle.

“‘How’s the pore sufferers, sir?’ ses he, stepping out of the galley jest as the skipper was going by.

“’They’re very bad; but I hope for the best,” ses the skipper, looking at him hard.  ‘I’m glad to see you’ve turned a bit more feeling.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ ses the mate.  ’I didn’t think so at fust, but I can see now them chaps is all very ill.  You’ll s’cuse me saying it, but I don’t quite approve of your treatment.’

“I thought the skipper would ha’ bust.

“‘My treatment?’ ses he.  ‘My treatment?  What do you know about it ?’

“’You’re treating ’em wrong, sir,’ ses the mate.  ‘I have here’ (patting the jar) ’a remedy which ‘ud cure them all if you’d only let me try it.’

“‘Pooh!’ ses the skipper.  ’One medicine cure all diseases!  The old story.  What is it?  Where’d you get it from?’ ses he.

“‘I brought the ingredients aboard with me,’ ses the mate.  ’It’s a wonderful medicine discovered by my grandmother, an’ if I might only try it I’d thoroughly cure them pore chaps.’

“‘Rubbish!’ ses the skipper.

“‘Very well, sir,’ ses the mate, shrugging his shoulders.  “O’ course, if you won’t let me you won’t.  Still I tell you, if you’d let me try I’d cure ’em all in two days.  That’s a fair challenge.’

“Well, they talked, and talked, and talked, until at last the skipper give way and went down below with the mate, and told the chaps they was to take the new medicine for two days, jest to prove the mate was wrong.

“‘Let pore old Dan try it first, sir,’ ses Harry, starting up, an’ sniffing as the mate took the cork out; ’he’s been awful bad since you’ve been away.’

“‘Harry’s worse than I am, sir,’ ses Dan; ’it’s only his kind heart that makes him say that.’

“‘It don’t matter which is fust,’ ses the mate, filling a tablespoon with it, ‘there’s plenty for all.  Now, Harry.’

“‘Take it,’ ses the skipper.

“Harry took it, an’ the fuss he made you’d ha’ thought he was swallering a football.  It stuck all round his mouth, and he carried on so dredful that the other invalids was half sick afore it came to them.

“By the time the other three ’ad ’ad theirs it was as good as a pantermime, an’ the mate corked the bottle up, and went an’ sat down on a locker while they tried to rinse their mouths out with the luxuries which had been given ’em.