The Professor was a benevolent little fellow, with a high opinion of his medical skill; so he proceeded to the cabin, and brought forth a bottle containing a beverage much more potent than that in which Adam was accustomed to drink the health of Eve when in the garden of Eden. He first applied to Hercules; and holding the neck of the bottle in close proximity to his lips, earnestly exhorted him to try the infallible remedy of absorption, assuring him that it was a sovereign cure for his ailment in particular, as well as for nearly every other ill in this sublunary state of existence. But Hercules, grinning "horribly a ghastly grin," turned quickly away, and gave expression to his abhorrence of the proposition in loud and boisterous sounds, which seemed to come from the very bottom of a soul intimately acquainted with sorrow.
The kind-hearted Professor then proceeded to the Long Green Boy, who was rapidly projecting out and drawing back his head in a horizontal direction, and giving utterance to a succession of sounds which resembled a small hurricane of hiccoughs. The verdant youth cast a look of disgust at the sparkling fluid, and waving his hand impatiently, turned away, and continued in the awkward but faithful performance of his part in the exercises of the morning. Moses gave the Professor a look of indignation, while Old Grizzly so far forgot himself as to advise the benevolent little fellow, in the emphatic phraseology usually employed by the sons of Belial, to locate himself in a certain remote quarter of the universe not proper to be mentioned to "ears polite."
The Professor then entreated M. T. Pate to imbibe from the bottle containing his catholicon. But poor Pate was busily engaged in the performance of sundry remarkable and difficult evolutions; thrusting out and drawing in his head with unexampled vigor.
"He is trying to swallow his own head," said Toney, taking the Professor aside and pointing to Pate.
"And actually seems to entertain the most sanguine hopes of succeeding in his hazardous undertaking," said the Professor.
"What undertaking?" asked Tom Seddon, who just then came on deck.
"He is seeking to swallow his own cocoanut," said the Professor.
"Who?" asked Tom.
"M. T. Pate," said the Professor. "Look at him! I am apprehensive that he will succeed."
"You could not induce any of them to imbibe?" said Toney.