"'How have you slept, doctor?'
"'How do you feel on the whole, this morning?'
"'I trust I see you well?'
"At first he merely growled and grunted, but at last getting fully exasperated he would suddenly turn round and roar out:
"'Oh, good-morning! Good-morning! Good-morning! Hang the whole lot of you!'"
"Capital!" cried Grant. "Give us just one more doctor's yarn, Captain Leeward."
"Well, then, this next one hinges upon an admiral as well as a doctor. This gallant officer was always fancying himself ill, though there was never anything of the slightest importance the matter with him, and was never happy unless his fleet-surgeon, a dear little Irishman, paid him a daily visit and ordered medicine.
"A certain pill used to be prescribed, and was found to be most efficacious.
"But one day the admiral, or 'Ral', as he was called for short, gave a great dinner-party, and many mighty magnates, gentlemen and ladies as well, came off shore. Among the guests was, of course, the Irish fleet-surgeon.
"During the dinner the admiral somewhat inopportunely called out: