nter_ 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 assemble.
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 assertions 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 asserting 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
noble 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 opp