"These men think you're stalling," Dr. Gray told him.
"Who? Me?" Slater rolled an angry eye upon the delegation. "I ain't sick, eh? I s'pose I'm doing this for fun? I wish you had it, that's all."
The three members of the committee of investigation wisely halted at the foot of the companionway stairs where the fresh air fanned them; they were nervous and ill at ease.
Drawing his covers closer, Slater shouted:
"Close that hatch, you bone-heads! I'm blowing away!"
The photographer ventured to remonstrate.
"It's mighty close in here, Doc. Is it safe to breathe the bugs?"
"Perfectly safe," Gray assured him. "At least Miss Appleton hasn't suffered yet."
As a matter of fact the patient betrayed no symptoms of a wasting illness, for his cheeks were ruddy, he had eaten three hearty meals each day, and the enforced rest had done him good, so the committee saw nothing about him to satisfy their suspicions. But when Tom weakly called upon them for assistance in rising they shrank back and one of them exclaimed:
"I wouldn't touch you with a fish-pole."