Rattlin the Reefer Part 16

The captain winced. It was a thrust with a double-edged sword. He was what we now call, an exquisite, in person, and one to whom the idea of chewing tobacco was abhorrent, whilst he was actually and distressingly troubled with the infirmity hinted at. For a moment, the suavity of his manner was destroyed, and he forgot the respect due to the dying.

"d.a.m.n the tobacco box--and d.a.m.n that--never mind--no, no, doctor, you had better order the box to be buried with you, for n.o.body _could_ use it after you; but if I might presume so far--might use the very great liberty to make a selection, I would request, entreat, nay, implore you to leave me the whole _suit of clothes_ in which you are now standing; and if you would be so considerate, so kind, so generous, by G.o.d I'll have them stuffed and preserved as a curiosity."

"Captain Reud, you are too good. Mr Staples," turning helplessly to his a.s.sistant, "get me immediately an effervescing draught. Excuse my sitting--I am very faint--you are so kind--you quite _overcome_ me."

"No, not yet," said the captain in a dry tone, but full of meaning. "I may perhaps by-and-by, when you know more of me; but now--O no!

However, I'll do my best to make you grateful. And I'm sorry to acquaint you, that the admiral has put off the survey till twelve o'clock to-morrow, when I trust that you will be as well _prepared_ as you are now. Don't be dejected, doctor, you have the consolation of knowing, that if you die in the meantime, all the annoyance of the examination will be saved you. In the interim, don't forget the old clothes--the invaliding suit. My clerk shall step down with you into the cabin, and tack a memorandum on, by way of codicil, to your will: don't omit those high-quartered, square-toed shoes, with the bra.s.s buckles."

"If you would promise to wear them out yourself."

"No, no; but I promise to put them on when I am going to invalid; or to lend them to Mr Farmer, or any other friend, on a similar occasion."

"I hope," said Mr Farmer, "that I shall never stand in the doctor's shoes."

"I hope you never will--nor in Captain Reud's either."

The gallant commander turned from yellow to black at this innuendo, which was, for many reasons, particularly disagreeable. Seeing that he was bagging to leeward, like a west-country barge laden with a haystack, in this sailing-match of wits, he broke up the conference by observing, "You had better, doctor, in consideration of your weakness, retire to your cabin. I certainly cannot, seeing my near prospect of your invaluable legacy, in any honesty wish you better."

With all due precautions, hesitations, and restings, Dr Thompson reached his cabin, and I doubt not as he descended, enervated as he was, but that he placed, like O'Connell, a vow in heaven, that if ever Captain Reud fell under his surgical claws, the active operations of Dr Sangrado should be in their celerity even as the progress of the sloth, compared with the despatch and energy with which he would proceed on the coveted opportunity.

When he was alone he was overheard to murmur, "Stand in my shoes--the ignorant puppies! I shall see one of them, if not both in their shrouds yet. Stand in my shoes! it is true the buckles are but bra.s.s; but they are shoes whose latchets they are not worthy to unloose."

There was then another day for the poor doctor, of fasting, tartarised antimony, and irritating eye-salve. And the captain, no doubt in secret understanding with the admiral, played off the same trick. The survey was deferred from day to day, for six days, and until the very one before the ship weighed anchor. It must have been a period of intense vexation and bodily suffering to the manoeuvring doctor.

Each day as he made his appearance at noon in the captain's cabin, he had to wait in miserable state his hour and a half; or two hours, and then to meet the gibing salutation of the captain, of; "Not dead yet, doctor?" with his jokes upon the invaliding suit. The misery of the deception, and the sufferings that he was forced to self-impose to keep it up, as he afterwards confessed, had nearly conquered him on the third day: that he was a man of the most enduring courage to brave a whole week of such martyrdom, must be conceded to him. Had the farce continued a day or two longer, he would have had the disagreeable option forced upon him, either of being seriously ill, or of returning _instanter_ to excellent health.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

VALID REASONS FOR INVALIDING--THE PATIENT CURED IN SPITE OF HIMSELF--AND A LECTURE ON DISEASE IN GENERAL, WITH A PARTICULAR CASE OF INSTRUMENTS AS EXPOSITORS.

At length the important day arrived on which the survey did a.s.semble.

The large table in the cabin was duly littered over with paper and medical books, and supplied with pens and ink. Three post-captains in gallant array, with swords by their sides, our own captain being one, and three surgeons with lancets in their pockets, congregated with grave politeness, and taking their chairs according to precedency of rank, formed the Hygeian court. A fitting preparation was necessary, so the captains began to debate upon the various pretensions of the beautiful Phrynes of Cork--the three medical men, whether the plague was contagious or infectious, or both--or neither. At the precise moment when Captain Reud was maintaining the superiority of the attractions of a blonde Daphne against the a.s.sertions of a champion of a dark Phyllis, and the eldest surgeon had been, by the heat of the argument, carried so far as to maintain, in a.s.serting the non-infectious and non-contagious nature of the plague, that you could not give it a man by inoculating him with its virus, the patient, on whose case they had met to decide, appeared.

In addition to the green shade, our doctor had enwrapped his throat with an immense scarlet comforter; so that the reflection of the green above, and the contrast with the colour below, made the pallor of his face still more lividly pale. He was well got up. Captain Reud nodded to the surgeons to go on, and he proceeded with his own argument.

Thus there were two debates at this time proceeding with much heat, and with just so much acrimony as to make them highly interesting. With the n.o.ble posts it was one to two, that is, our captain, the Daphneite, had drawn upon him the other two captains, both of whom were Phyllisites.

When a man has to argue against two, and is not quite certain of being in the right either, he has nothing for it but to be very loud. Now men, divine as they are, have some things in common with the canine species. Go into a village and you will observe that when one cur begins to yelp, every dog's ear catches the sound, bristles up, and every throat is opened in clamorous emulation. Captain Reud talked fast as well as loud, so he was nearly upon a par with his opponents, who only talked loud.

At the other end of the table the odds were two to one, which is not always the same as one to two; that is, the two older surgeons were opposed to the youngest. These three were just as loud within one note--the note under being the tribute they unconciously paid to naval discipline--as the three captains. Both parties were descanting upon plagues.

"I say, sir," said the little surgeon, who was the eldest, "it is _not_ infectious. But here comes Dr Thompson."

Now the erudite doctor, from the first, had no great chance. Captain Reud had determined he should not be invalided. The two other captains cared nothing at all about the matter, but, of course, would not be so impolitic as to differ from their superior officer--an officer, too, of large interest, and the Amphytrion of the day; for when they had performed those duties for which they were so well fitted, their medical ones, they were to dine on the scene of their arduous labours. The eldest surgeon had rather a bias against the doctor, as he could not legally put M.D. against his own name. The next in seniority was entirely adverse to the invaliding, as, without he could invalide too, he would have to go to the West Indies in the place of our surgeon. The youngest was indifferent just then to anything but to confute the other two, and prove the plague infectious.

"But here comes Dr Thompson--I'll appeal to him," said non-infection; but the appeal was unfortunate, both for the appealer and the doctor.

The latter was an infectionist; so there was no longer any odds, but two against two, and away they went. Our friend in the wide coat forgot he was sick, and his adversaries that they had to verify it; they sought to verify nothing but their dogmas. They waxed loud, then cuttingly polite, then slaughteringly sarcastic and, at last, exceeding wroth.

"I tell you, sir, that I have written a volume on the subject."

"Had you no friend near you," said Dr Thompson, "at that most unfortunate time?"

"I tell you, sir, I will never argue with anyone on the subject, unless he have read my Latin treatise 'De Natura Pestium et Pestilentiarum.'"

"Then you'll never argue but with yourself," said the stout young surgeon.

Then arose the voices of the men militant over those of the men curative.

"The finest eye," vociferated our skipper, "Captain Templar, that ever beamed from mortal. Its lovely blue, contrasted with her white skin, is just like--"

"A washerwoman's stone-blue bag among her soapsuds--stony enough."

Here the medical voices preponderated, and expressions such as these became distinct--"Do you accuse me of ignorance, sir-r-r?"

"No, sir-r-r. I merely a.s.sert that you know nothing at all of the matter."

In the midst of this uproar I was walking the quarter-deck with the purser.

"What a terrible noise they are making in the cabin," I observed. "What can they be doing?"

"Invaliding the surgeon," said the marine officer, who had just joined us, looking wise.

"Doubted," said the purser.

"What a dreadful operation it must be," said a young Irish young-gentlemen (all young gentlemen in the navy are not _young_), "but, for the honour of the service, he might take it any how, for the life of him."

"The very thing he is trying to do," was the purser's reply.

But let us return to the cabin, and collect what we can here, and record the sentences as they obtain the mastery, at either end of the table.

"Look at her step," said a captain, speaking of his lady.

"Tottering, feeble, zig-zag," said a surgeon, speaking of one stricken with the plague.

"Her fine open, ivory brow--"

"Is marked all over with disgusting pustules."

"Her breath is--"

"Oh, her delicious breath!"

"Noisome, poisonous, corruption."

"In fact, her whole lovely body is a region of--"

"Pestilent discolorations, and foul sores."