“‘How do you feel?’ ses the skipper.

“‘I’m dying,’ ses Dan.

“‘So’m I,’ ses Harry; ’I b’leeve the mate’s pisoned us.”

“The skipper looks over at the mate very stern an’ shakes his ’ed slowly.

“‘It’s all right,’ ses the mate.  ’It’s always like that the first dozen or so doses.’

“‘Dozen or so doses!’ ses old Dan, in a far-away voice.

“‘It has to be taken every twenty minutes,’ ses the mate, pulling out his pipe and lighting it; an’ the four men groaned all together.

“‘I can’t allow it,’ ses the skipper, ’I can’t allow it.  Men’s lives mustn’t be sacrificed for an experiment.’

“‘’T ain’t a experiment,’ ses the mate very indignant, ’it’s an old family medicine.’

“‘Well, they shan’t have any more,’ ses the skipper firmly.

“‘Look here,’ ses the mate.  ‘If I kill any one o’ these men I’ll give you twenty pound.  Honour bright, I will.’

“‘Make it twenty-five,’ ses the skipper, considering.

“‘Very good,’ ses the mate.  ’Twenty-five; I can’t say no fairer than that, can I?  It’s about time for another dose now.’

“He gave ’em another tablespoonful all round as the skipper left, an’ the chaps what wasn’t invalids nearly bust with joy.  He wouldn’t let ’em have anything to take the taste out, ’cos he said it didn’t give the medicine a chance, an’ he told us other chaps to remove the temptation, an’ you bet we did.

“After the fifth dose, the invalids began to get desperate, an’ when they heard they’d got to be woke up every twenty minutes through the night to take the stuff, they sort o’ give up.  Old Dan said he felt a gentle glow stealing over him and strengthening him, and Harry said that it felt like a healing balm to his lungs.  All of ’em agreed it was a wonderful sort o’ medicine, an’ arter the sixth dose the man with paralysis dashed up on deck, and ran up the rigging like a cat.  He sat there for hours spitting, an’ swore he’d brain anybody who interrupted him, an’ arter a little while Mike Rafferty went up and j’ined him, an’ it the fust mate’s ears didn’t burn by reason of the things them two pore sufferers said about ’im, they ought to.

“They was all doing full work next day, an’ though, o’course, the skipper saw how he’d been done, he didn’t allude to it.  Not in words, that is; but when a man tries to make four chaps do the work of eight, an’ hits ’em when they don’t, it’s a easy job to see where the shoe pinches.”

A LOVE PASSAGE

The mate was leaning against the side of the schooner, idly watching a few red-coated linesmen lounging on the Tower Quay.  Careful mariners were getting out their side-lights, and careless lightermen were progressing by easy bumps from craft to craft on their way up the river.  A tug, half burying itself in its own swell, rushed panting by, and a faint scream came from aboard an approaching skiff as it tossed in the wash.