“Inky black, Smithers, inky black. I shall poison that fellow some day. But I say, my dear boy, the brewery.”
“What about it?”
“What about it? Why, it would be splendid. I mean to say it is a grand idea. I’ll get the major to let me do it.”
“My dear doctor,” said Captain Smithers, laughing, “I’m afraid if you did brew some beer, and supply it to the men, fancy would go such a long way that they would find medicinal qualities in it, and refuse to drink a drop.”
“Then they would be a set of confoundedly ungrateful scoundrels,” said the doctor, angrily, “for I should only use malt and hops.”
“And never serve it as you did the coffee that day, doctor?”
“Well, well, I suppose I must take the credit of that. I did doctor it a little; but it was only with an astringent corrective, to keep the poor boys from suffering from too much fruit.”
“Poor boys! eh, doctor? Come, come, you don’t think my brave lads are a set of scoundrels then?”
“I said before, not all—not all,” replied the doctor.
“Ah, doctor,” said Captain Smithers, “like a good many more of us, you say more than you mean sometimes, and I know you have the welfare of the men at heart.”