"Come here, close, Doctor, I want to tell you something." He looked quite sensible for a moment. "Sister Mamie and I aren't—well, you understand?—but it's a secret—only you know." And then suddenly he shouted: "Je-rusalem! see those green beetles on the wall. Get me some morphia, quick, man—they're after me!" And he started into the incoherent rambling of alcoholism.
I wondered if his statement were true—and for the first time the idea of making something out of the trip occurred to me. Toillet was evidently a sick man—his possessions and expenditure showed money, and I promptly decided to cultivate his wife more carefully.
Currie returned alone. "She is sitting on the boat-deck with the 'Old Man,'" he reported, "who's making very hot running, and the Chief on the bridge is lookin' mighty sick."
We decided to give our patient a dose of morphia to get him some sleep if possible, and then we had a chat about him in the dispensary.
"They haven't been on board long," he said. "but there's only one bottle of brandy left. The chief steward's holdin' that up for 'medical comforts.'"
