“Oh, doctor, that it hasn’t!” cried the lad. “And I’m sure that I want no physicking.”
“I think I know best, sir. If you were in robust health there would be none of that display of irritability of temper that you evince. You as his messmate must have noticed this irritability, Mr Murray?”
“Constantly, sir,” said that individual solemnly. “Oh you!” growled Roberts fiercely. “Just you wait!”
“There!” cried the doctor triumphantly. “You are proving the truth of my diagnosis, Mr Roberts. Come to me before night, and I will give you what you require. There, you have given me ample reason for strongly resenting your language, Mr Roberts, but now I fully realise the cause I shall pass it over. You require my services, sir, and that is enough.”
“I don’t require them, sir,” cried the lad, boiling over with passion now. “I was hurt a good deal over the expedition, but now that’s better; there’s nothing whatever the matter with me; and you are taking advantage of your position and are about to force me to swallow a lot of your horrid stuff. I won’t, though; see if I do!”
“You see, Mr Murray,” said the doctor, smiling in a way which irritated one of his hearers almost beyond bearing, “he is proving all I have said to the full. There, be calm, Roberts, my dear boy; we have left the horrible river and coast behind, and a few days out upon the broad ocean will with my help soon clear away the unpleasant symptoms from which you have been suffering, and—”
“Not interfering, am I, doctor?” said a voice which made the two lads start round.
“Not in the least, Anderson; not in the least. Mr Roberts here is a trifle the worse for our run up that muddy river, but I shall soon put that right with our trip through the healthier portions of our globe.”
“Through the healthier portions of the globe, doctor!” said the chief officer. “Why, what do you mean?”
“Mean? Only that the West Coast of Africa is about as horrible a station as unhappy man could be placed in by the powers that be, while now we are going where—”