Dr Tom jingled the glasses, and there was something in them when the sound ceased.
'Try your best,' said Dr Tom. 'I'll give you a couple of real good startling pars about this voyage if you'll get it in the daily.'
'And you'll not tell the other fellows?'
'No. I'll not breathe a word to 'em,' said Dr Tom.
'Then I'll risk it. Now for the news.'
The doctor related a couple of rather spicy incidents that had occurred during the voyage from London, and the shipping reporter chuckled over them.
'I reckon these will get that poem in, doc.' The whisky had made him familiar in his speech. Sure enough Dr Tom succeeded in his object, and when his skipper read the poem in the Morning Light next morning, he went about Sydney saying things, and, encountering the happy doctor, vowed he would not take him back in his ship.
'I have no ambition to sail again in your old tub,' said Dr Tom. 'My fortune is made.' So Dr Tom remained in Sydney, found his fortune was not made, and eventually came to Swamp Creek.
As Dr Tom sat meditating over his fortunes, or what remained of them, he thought of many things.
He thought of the first mate on the ship he had left in Sydney, and who had cleared out at the same time as himself. He had never liked that mate, he was a bad lot, and Dr Tom had at one time serious thoughts of dosing him and giving him to the sharks.