“You say you’re a doctor?”
“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.
“Next door to one,” said the solicitor, who was sewing a patch on his trousers, as he looked up approvingly.
“You might call ’im a sailor, if you liked,” said another seaman, “but that wouldn’t make him one. All I can say is I never ’ad enough time or money to get in the state you was both in when you come aboard.”
If the forecastle was incredulous, the cabin was worse. The officers at first took but little notice of them, but feeling their torn and tattered appearance was against them, they put on so many airs and graces to counteract this that flesh and blood could not endure it quietly. The cook would allude to his friend as Mr. Thomson, while the A. B. would persist in referring, with a most affected utterance, to Dr. Carson.
“Cook!” bawled the skipper one day when they were about a week out.
Dr. Carson, who was peeling potatoes, stepped slowly out of the galley and went toward him.