etotallers of them this trip. I'm not going to have the
men poisoned with that red hot country arrack, I can tell them."

"It is terrible stuff, I believe."

"Terrible? It's liquid poison, sir! and I don't know that I sha'n't try
and set up a private brewery of my own, so as to supply the poor fellows
with a decent glass of beer."

"Poor fellows! eh, doctor? Why, you said just now they were a set of
scoundrels."

"Well, well, well; I didn't mean all. But look at that fellow Sim--
there's a pretty rascal for you! He's always on the sick-list, and it's
nearly always sham."

"I'm afraid he is a bit of a black sheep," said Captain Smithers.

"Inky black, Smithers, inky black. I shall poison that fellow some day.
But I say, my dear boy, the brewery."

"What about it?"

"What about it? Why, it would be splendid. I mean to say it is a grand
idea. I'll get the major to let me do it."

"My dear doctor," said Captain Smithers, laughing, "I'm afraid if you
did brew some beer, and supply it to the men, fancy would go such a long
way that they would find medicinal qualities in it, and refuse to drink
a drop."

"Then they would be a set of confoundedly ungrateful scoundrels," said
the doctor, angrily, "for I should only use malt and hops."

"And never serve it as you did the coffee that day, doctor?"

"Well, well, I suppose I must take the credit of that. I did doctor it
a little; but it was only with an astringent corrective, to keep the
poor boys from suffering from too much fruit."

"Poor boys! eh, doctor? Come, come, you don't think my brave lads are a
set of scoundrels then?"

"I said before, not all--not all," replied the doctor.

"Ah, doctor," said Captain Smithers, "like a good many more of us, you
say more than you mean sometimes, and I know you have the welfare of the
men at heart."

"Not I, my lad, not I. It's all pure selfishness; I don't care a pin
about the rascals. All I want is to keep them quite well, so that they
may not have to come bothering me, when I want my time to go botanising;
that's all."

"And so we have fewer men on the sick-list than any regiment out here?"

"Tut! tut! Nonsense!"

Just then the ladies came up from the principal cabin, and began to walk
slowly up and down the quarter-deck, evidently enjoying the delicious
coolness of the night air, and the beauty of the sea and sky.

Captain Smithers sat watching them intently for a time, and then, as he
happened to