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 broken up, and the principal surgeons declared that our poor doctor was in sound health, because they found him unsound in his opinions.
The three surgeons took their departure, the eldest saying with a grim smile to Thompson, “It may correct some errors, and prepare you for next invaliding day. Shall I send you my book, ‘De Natura Pestium et Pestilentiarum?’”
The jolly doctor, with a smile equally grim, thanked him, and formally declined the gift, assuring him “that at the present time, the ship was well stocked with emetics.”
Now, the good doctor was a wag, and the captain, for fun, a very monkey. The aspirant for invaliding sat himself down again at one end of the table, as the captains did at the other. Wine, anchovies, sandwiches, oysters, and other light and stimulating viands were produced to make a relishing lunch. Captain Reud threw a triumphant and right merry glance across the table on the silent and discomfited doctor. The servant had placed before him a cover and glasses unbidden.
“Bring the doctor’s plate,” said the captain. The doctor was passive—the plate was brought, filled with luxuries, and placed directly under his nose. The temptation was terrible. He had been fasting and macerating himself for eight or nine days. He glared upon it with a gloomy longing. He then looked up wistfully, and a droll smile mantled across his vast face, and eddied in the holes of his deep pock-marks.