ses the mate. 'I have here'
(patting the jar) 'a remedy which 'ud cure them all if you'd only let
me try it.'

"'Pooh!' ses the skipper. 'One medicine cure all diseases! The old
story. What is it? Where'd you get it from?' ses he.

"'I brought the ingredients aboard with me,' ses the mate. 'It's a
wonderful medicine discovered by my grandmother, an' if I might only
try it I'd thoroughly cure them pore chaps."

"'Rubbish!' ses the skipper.

"'Very well, sir,' ses the mate, shrugging his shoulders. 'O' course,
if you won't let me you won't. Still, I tell you, if you'd let me try
I'd cure 'em all in two days. That's a fair challenge.'

"Well, they talked, and talked, and talked, until at last the skipper
give way and went down below with the mate, and told the chaps they was
to take the new medicine for two days, jest to prove the mate was wrong.

"'Let pore old Dan try it first, sir,' ses Harry, starting up, an'
sniffing as the mate took the cork out; 'he's been awful bad since
you've been away.'

"'Harry's worse than I am, sir,' ses Dan; 'it's only his kind heart
that makes him say that.'

"'It don't matter which is fust,' ses the mate, filling a tablespoon
with it, 'there's plenty for all. Now, Harry.'

"'Take it,' ses the skipper.

"Harry took it, an' the fuss he made you'd ha' thought he was
swallering a football. It stuck all round his mouth, and he carried on
so dredful that the other invalids was half sick afore it came to them.

"By the time the other three 'ad 'ad theirs it was as good as a
pantermine, an' the mate corked the bottle up, and went an' sat down on
a locker while they tried to rinse their mouths out with the luxuries
which had been given 'em.

"'How do you feel?' ses the skipper.

"'I'm dying,' ses Dan.

"'So'm I,' ses Harry; 'I b'leeve the mate's pisoned us.'

"The skipper looks over at the mate very stern an' shakes his 'ed
slowly.

"'It's all right,' ses the mate. 'It's always like that the first
dozen or so doses.'

"'Dozen or so doses!" ses old Dan, in a faraway voice.

"'It has to be taken every twenty minutes,' ses the mate, pulling out
his pipe and lighting it; an' the four men groaned all together.

"'I can't allow it,' ses the skipper, 'I can't allow it. Men's lives
mustn't be sacrificed for an experiment.'

"''Tain't a experiment,' ses the mate very indignant, 'it's an old
family medicine.'

"'Well, they shan't have any more,' ses the skipper firmly