"Let him talk," said Mr. Thomson, hurriedly drawing his friend away from the irate skipper. "Let him talk."
"I'll put you both in quod when we get to Hong-kong," said the skipper. "Meantime, no work, no food; d'ye hear? Start and cook the breakfast, Mr. Doctor; and you. Mr. Lawyer, turn to and ask the boy to teach you an A. B's duties."
He walked back to the cabin; and the new cook was slowly pushed toward the galley by the second officer, the new A. B., under the same gentle guidance, being conducted back to the forecastle.
Fortunately for the new seamen the weather continued fine, but the heat of the galley was declared by the new cook to be insupportable. From the other hands they learned that they had been shipped with several others by a resourceful boarding-house master. The other hands, being men of plain speech, also said that they were brought aboard in a state of beastly and enviable intoxication, and chaffed crudely when the doctor attributed their apparent state of intoxication to drugs.
"You say you're a doctor?" said the oldest seaman.
"I am," said Carson, fiercely.
"Wot sort of a doctor are you, if you don't know when your licker's been played with, then?" asked the old man, as a grin passed slowly from mouth to mouth.
"I suppose it is because I drink so seldom," said the doctor, loftily. "I hardly know the taste of liquor myself, while as for my friend Mr. Thomson, you might almost call him a teetotaler.