“Oh yes, the wives. I don’t think many of them are dead.”
“Doctor!” cried Claude, “you dreadful man!”
“Well, you see,” said the doctor, tapping the edge of his cup with the spoon as if counting, “I’ve been married just exactly fifty-nine times. My ships, messmates, are my wives.”
“Well, you’ve had many a honeymoon,” said Lloyd.
“Ay,” replied Dr Barrett; “and many more I hope to have.”
An able seaman popped his head in past the door curtain at this moment, and drew it out again.
“Don’t duck your head out and in like an old turtle, man,” cried the doctor; “come right in. Anybody sick?”
“Which I didn’t know, sir, the cap’n was ’ere. Nobody sick, but knew ye liked curios, doctor, sir.”
“Well?”
“Well, beggin’ yer parding, sir, likus the cap’n’s, but there be a bird wot our cook calls a sea-swallow a-perchin’ on the main yard. Shall one of us go up and fetch him? He’s mighty sea-sick I knows, and couldn’t fly to save his life.” (Note 1.)