te 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 assert 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."

"And," roared out Captain Templar, "if you would but pass a single hour
in her company--"

"You would assuredly repent of your temerity," said the obstinate
contagionist.

This confusion lasted about a quarter of an hour, a time sufficient, in
all conscience, to invalide a West Indian regiment.

"Well, gentlemen," said Captain Reud, rising a little chafed, "have you
come to a conclusion upon this very plain case? I see the doctor looks
better already--his face is no longer pale."

"I tell you what," said the senior surgeon, rising abruptly with the
others, "since you will neither listen to me, to reason, nor to my book,
though I will not answer for the sanity of your mind, I will for that of
your body. My duty, sir, my duty, will not permit me to invalide you."

"Never saw a healthier man in my life," said the second surgeon.

"Never mind, doctor," said the third, "we have fairly beaten them in the
argument."

The gallant captains burst out into obstreperous laughter, and so the
survey was brok