"Oh yes, doctor."

"Nasty scorching you fellows all had. I quite expected to have some bad
patients--burns and spear wounds. Lucky escapes, all of you. That
Titely was the worst, but the way in which a good healthy sailor's flesh
heals up is wonderful. It's just like cutting into a piece of raw
native indiarubber before it has been fooled about and manufactured up
with brimstone--vulcanised, as they call it. You lads ought to bear it
in mind, in case you get a cut or a chop. All that's wanted is to see
that the wound is thoroughly clean and dry, and then squeeze the sides
up together and the flesh adheres after the fashion of a clean cut in
indiarubber. Ah, I like a good clean cut."

"What!" cried the lads together, as half laughingly they stared at the
speaker in surprise.

"Well, what are you both looking at? I don't mean that I personally
like cuts; but they're pleasant to get healed up--not like bullet wounds
or ragged holes through a fellow."

"No," said Murray; "not like holes."

"Not that I mind a clean bullet hole through the flesh so long as it
does not encounter a bone."

"Exactly, doctor; so long as it does not encounter a bone," said Murray
drily.

"That's where the trouble begins, sir," said the doctor, smacking his
lips and making the two middies exchange glances. "You see, you get a
complicated fracture of the bone with tiny fragments that refuse to show
where they are commencing irritation and that sort of thing."

"Yes, doctor," said Murray drily; "but aren't we getting into an
uncomfortable discussion?"

"No, sir, a most interesting one; but when I spoke it was not all about
injured bones or ordinary shot-holes or cuts; I was saying how glad I
was to be out of that river and mangrove swamp where your West Coast
fever haunts the low lands, and miasmatic emanations are always ready to
pounce upon people and set up tasks for the hardest-worked man in the
ship."

"To do what, doctor?" said Roberts.

"I thought I spoke very plainly, young gentleman; I said set up tasks
for the hardest-worked man in the ship."

"But that sounds as if you--that is to say--I--I--You don't mean
yourself, sir?" said Roberts, in a stammering, half-confused way.

"Not mean myself, sir?" said the doctor angrily. "Why, who else could I
mean?"

"That's what puzzled me, sir," said Roberts, staring. "Frank Murray and
I have always thought--"

"Here, I say," cried Murray, laughing and enjoying the verbal