Doctor. Ten pounds is my fee!
But nine pounds nineteen shillings eleven pence three farthings I will take from thee.
The Bessy. There’s ge-ne-ro-si-ty!
The Doctor sings—
I’m a doctor, a doctor rare,
Who travels much at home;
My famous pills they cure all ills,
Past, present, and to come.
My famous pills who’d be without,
They cure the plague, the sickness [179] and gout,
Anything but a love-sick maid;
If you’re one, my dear, you’re beyond my aid!
Here the Doctor occasionally salutes one of the fair spectators; he then takes out his snuff-box, which is always of very capacious dimensions (a sort of miniature warming-pan), and empties the contents (flour or meal) on the Clergyman’s face, singing at the time—
Take a little of my nif-naf,
Put it on your tif-taf;
Parson rise up and preach again,
The doctor says you are not slain.
The Clergyman here sneezes several times, and gradually recovers, and all shake him by the hand.
The ceremony terminates by the Captain singing—