Philip rose and paced the room in deep thought for several minutes. He cast two or three earnest looks at his brother, and a few longing ones at his glass. In the course of his cogitation, he groaned out more than once an apostrophe to poor “James Barber.” At length he declared his mind was made up.
“Ferd!” he said, “I told you awhile ago to throw your lemonade over the side of the Ship. Don’t. Souse out my grog instead.”
The lieutenant did as he was bid.
“And now,” said Fid the elder, “ring for soda water; for one must drink something.”
Last year it was my own good fortune to sail with Mr. Philip Fid in the “Bombottle” (74). He is not exactly a tee-totaller; but he never drinks spirits, and will not touch wine unmixed with water, for fear of its interfering with his studies, at which he is, with the assistance of the naval instructor (who is also the chaplain), assiduous. He is our first mate, and the smartest officer in the ship. Seton is our surgeon.
One day, after a cheerful ward-room dinner (of which Fid was a guest), while we were at anchor in the Bay of Cadiz, the conversation happened to turn upon Jovial Jemmy’s apparition, which had become the best-authenticated ghost story in Her Majesty’s Naval service. On that occasion Seton undertook to explain the mystery upon medical principles.
“The fact is,” he said, “what the commander of the ‘Arrow’ saw (Ferdinand had by this time got commissioned in his old ship) was a spectrum, produced by that morbid condition of the brain, which is brought on by the immoderate use of stimulants, and by dissipation; we call it Transient Monomania. I could show you dozens of such ghosts in the books, if you only had patience while I turned them up.”
Everybody declared that was unnecessary. We would take the doctor’s word for it; though I feel convinced not a soul besides the chaplain and myself had one iota of his faith shaken in the real presence of Jovial Jemmy’s post-mortem appearance to Fid the younger.
Ghost or no ghost, however, the story had had the effect of converting Philip Fid from one of the most intemperate and inattentive to one of the soberest and best of Her Majesty’s officers. May his promotion be steady!