He started to leave the cabin, when he suddenly brought up “all standing,” as the captain would have said, with a sharp exclamation of pain.
“What is it, sir?” demanded that veteran with some concern. “Your figurehead looks like you had some sort of a pain.”
“It is nothing. Just a sharp twinge of my old trouble, rheumatism,” explained the great man. “The damp air of the Basin may have brought it on.”
“Anchor right where you are!” exclaimed the captain, and before Mr. Jukes could say another word, he had darted into the “drug-store” and was back with a bottle full of a villainous-looking black liquid.
“My rheumatiz’ and gout remedy,” he explained.
“Yes, but I am under medical treatment. I——”
“Keel-haul all your doctors. Throw their medicine overboard,” burst out the captain. “Try a few applications of Cap’n Ready’s Rheumatiz and Gout Specific. Cap’n Joe Trotter of the Flying Scud cured himself with two bottles. Take it! Try it! Rub it in twice a day, night and morning, and in a week you’ll be as spry as a boy, as taut and sound as a cable.”
“Well, well, I’ll try it,” said the magnate good-naturedly in reply to Captain Toby’s outburst of eloquence; “how much is it?”
“One dollar, guaranteed to work if used as directed, or your money back,” rattled on the captain, pocketing a bill which Mr. Jukes peeled off a roll that made Captain Toby open his eyes.
And so, burdened with a bottle of the “Rheumatiz and Gout Specific,” and with the memory of the first person he had ever met who was not willing to accept his bounty, the shipping magnate stepped ashore from the Venus.