"And I take it you are not," I said stiffly.
He considered this unworthy of an answer and only smiled. Then the smile died, and again in his eyes I saw distress, infinite weariness, and fear.
As though his thoughts drove him to seek protection, he came closer.
"I'm 'in bad,' doctor," he said. His voice was frightened, bewildered, like that of a child. "I can't sleep; nerves all on the loose. I don't think straight. I hear voices, and no one around. I hear knockings at the door, and when I open it, no one there. If I don't keep fit I can't work, and this trip I got to make expenses. You couldn't help me, could you—couldn't give me something to keep my head straight?"
The need of my keeping his head straight that he might the easier rob our fellow passengers raised a pretty question of ethics. I meanly dodged it. I told him professional etiquette required I should leave him to the ship's surgeon.
"But I don't know him," he protested.
Mindful of the use he had made of my name, I objected strenuously:
"Well, you certainly don't know me."
My resentment obviously puzzled him.
"I know who you are," he returned. "You and I—" With a deprecatory gesture, as though good taste forbade him saying who we were, he stopped. "But the ship's surgeon!" he protested; "he's an awful bounder! Besides," he added quite simply, "he's watching me."