Chapter V

In about ten days from the date of his purchase, and not before, Brag was informed by his captain, Bung, that “The Psyche” was “ready for sea;” the aforesaid Bung, being an exception to the general rule of nautical honesty and fair-dealing, having successfully persuaded Jack into the absolute necessity of stocking and victualling her, as if she were going to make a fresh voyage to the Pole, in order to discover that there is nothing to find out.

It was curious enough to see the boaster caught in his own snare: his last step had compelled him really to do all, or most of the things about which he had, through the previous years of his life, only talked; there was really the yacht,--the captain and crew were really there,--really there was his own man, (butler and valet;) there were really all the essentials for luncheon, and its consequences; and there was Lady Lavinia doing the honours, and issuing her invitations to make up the party for the first cruise; those to whom she sent her missives being too glad to get afloat, even with her ladyship.

Brag liked it very much; it seemed somehow that he was beginning to realize all his visions; but as there are drawbacks to all pleasures, so in _his_ case there occurred one, which at first appeared insurmountable. Jack went on board about twelve o’clock. It was a fine fresh day, and everything looked propitious for a trip.

When he got on the deck of “The Psyche,” the mainsail, which had been shaken out, began to flap and flutter, and Jack surveyed it with an awe not to be described: he looked ahead, and saw one or two yachts plunging head foremost into the rising billows, and then riding over their curling heads in a manner which filled him with the most terrible apprehensions.

“It blows uncommon hard, Bung,” said Jack.

“Nice breeze as ever was, sir,” said the captain.

“Those vessels out there, are bobbing up and down a good deal;--a’n’t they?” said Jack.

“Pitches a few sir,” said Bung. “When we gets further out, the swell will be longer. We may, perhaps, get a bit of a twister off Spithead, if it holds as it does now: but Psyche’s an uncommon dry boat.”

Into the fair-weather mind of Brag, the idea of her ever being wet, had never yet entered.

“Oh!” said Brag, “a dry boat, and no mistake.”

“Not a bit o’ one, sir,” said Bung. “She was a little crank last year: but I’ve got a ton or two more ballast just a-midships, which, as I calculate, makes her all right.”

“Umph!” said Brag, who kept his eyes fixed upon the boom, which gave evident signs of liveliness, as the wind took the sail.

“The ladies are coming aboard, sir,” said Hickman, Jack’s new servant,--“quite a treasure,” who had lived with Captain Chipstead as long as that gallant officer could contrive to keep him, and who was, therefore, a perfect master of his art in his present capacity.

“Are they?” said Jack. “What a lot!”

Accordingly, the boat containing these fair creatures, pulled alongside; and Jack, standing at the gangway, handed on to the deck of his yacht, Lady Lavinia Newbiggen, Miss Hastings, Lady and Miss Wattle, Captain Hazleby,--a sort of lover of the latter,--Miss Lumsden, intimate associate of Miss Hastings, and Dr. Munx, Lady Olivia’s physician in ordinary; not one of which amiable and respectable individuals, with the exception of Lady Lavinia and her niece, were in any very particular degree known to Jack, and not one of them caring whether he were hanged or not, the next day, _their_ object being, to carry on their respective flirtations, enjoy the cruise, and satisfy the appetite it most probably would create, by the demolition of his luncheon.

Selwyn was too good a dramatist not to have conceived a sort of under plot, in which he was himself to perform the principal part. Scarcely had the first detachment of _Houris_ set their feet on board, before Selwyn and his friend Mr. Buckthorne, whom he brought with him, in order to make his own appearance nothing particular, were at the side.

“Oh, Mr. Selwyn,” said Lady Lavinia, “I didn’t know we were to have the pleasure of your society.”

“_I_ asked _him_ to come,” said Jack; “all right, and no mistake.”

The emphasis which Jack so studiously placed upon the monosyllable “him,” tended in some degree to enlighten her ladyship as to his notions of the free-and-easy style in which she introduced her, by _him_, uninvited party; however, there they were. Bung came up to Jack, and enquired if he expected any more company.

“’Pon my life! I don’t know,” said Jack, for once quite out of his element:--“does anybody know if anybody else is coming?”

A dead silence succeeded to the question.

“Shall we cast off from the buoy, sir?” said Bung.

“What boy?” said Jack; “I don’t expect no boys.”

Whereupon his guests laughed a little.

“I mean, sir,” said the captain, touching the rim of his hat, “are you ready to start?”

“Oh! yes,” said Brag, getting rather soured at finding that nobody paid the slightest attention to anything he said. “I’m ready;--only mind the wind.”

“Forward there,” cried Bung,--and no sooner were the words out of his mouth than Hickman jumped up the companion and cried, “Bung, Bung!--hold hard:--the ice and the pines isn’t come aboard; nor not one of the perigoos (as he pronounced it.) I say, make the signal 1906 for the ices; 2014 for the pines--numeral four, and blue-pierced white, at the gaff, with a gun, for the perigoos:--I can’t sail without the perigoos.”

“Oh! no,” said Jack, not knowing what on earth or water it meant--“we can’t go without the perrigoose, for fear of accidents; I won’t go out to sea without the perrigoose.”

“What’s the use,” said Bung to Hickman, “o’ you talking to me of making signals?--it’s as much as my life’s worth. Mr. Brag isn’t a member of the squadron: how can I use them ’ere signals? If I did, the yachtmen, as sure as we stand here, would load them ’ere carronades which poke their noses out of the iron railings in front of the ‘_Clubbus_,’ and blow us to _h_attoms.”

“Don’t do that, captain,” said Jack; “anything reasonable I don’t mind. If the perrigoose is absolutely necessary, have it aboard; but no tricking--no affront to the squadron--no: all straight up, right down, and no mistake.”

“Why, sir,” said Hickman in a whisper to Jack, “there’s more come aboard than you told me of; and if you haven’t something more in the way of provisions, they’ll be all out of sorts.”

“Out of sorts!” said Jack--“not if they are like me the other day when I came over here: they’ll be a deuced sight more out of sorts the more they eat--eh?--right down, straight up, and _no_ mistake.”

“Why, sir,” said Hickman in the same subdued tone, “I have been at this work with the captain now three or four years--that is, you know, sir, as long as he could stand it,--and I know the whole--what I call the whole scale and bearing of this sort of thing. They all hate the sea as much as I, and, begging your pardon, _you_ do; but it’s a something to do: and then the young gentlemen, and the young ladies, like it; and the old ones like it--but they like the consolations below, sir,--the luncheon--all that, rely upon it. You’ll forgive me, sir; if you want the thing to go off well, you’ll make Bung hoist 1906--2014, and hoist blue-peter at the gaff, with a gun.”

“Hoist Peter where?” said Jack.

“At the gaff, sir,” said Hickman, “where we generally run up the ensign.”

Jack’s small mind was now so entirely overloaded with ices, pines, and perrigoose, (unknown to him by that name,) that he saw in his servant’s proposition about the signal, nothing but an option between hanging an ensign in the army, or Blue Peter, whom he had established in his mind as being one of his crew, so nicknamed by his shipmates.

It is notorious that servants _will_ have their way, and Psyche was not suffered to get way upon her, until, in defiance of signal-making, Mr. Hickman had sent ashore for his ices, his pines, and his perigeux pies, which duly arrived in half an hour, much to the surprise of Jack, who did not know a French _paté_ by that name. Hickman enjoyed exceedingly the innocence of his master; and having been, as Jack would have said, “put up” to the necessity of having an increase of provisions by the strangers,--who had a much greater influence over Hickman than Jack himself had, from having been friends of Captain Chipstead--he resolved upon having a strong reinforcement of _comestibles, coute qui coute_.

At last, everything being ready, Bung gave the word to cast off--“Haul taut the sheet;” and away ran “The Psyche” out of the harbour like an arrow from a bow.

“To the Nab? sir,” said Bung to Brag.

“Oh! in course,--Oh, yes, go to the Nab,” said Jack.

She rounded out beautifully. The ladies were in ecstasies; nothing could be more charming. Clear of the harbour, she began to feel the breeze.

“You’ll take the helm, sir, won’t you?” said Bung to Brag.

“No,” said Jack, “no--nothing, thank you, before luncheon.”

“Stand by there.” “Aye, aye, sir”--“About she goes!” Flap--slap went the mainsail: shiver--shake--round went the boom: off went Jack’s hat--he hadn’t yet hoisted a cap: splash came a sea--whisked over her bows: the ladies laughed. Bung cried--“Steady now:--there, there--that’ll do. Belay there, Jim. On with that hatch. Clear away there. Mind your eye, Jack.”

And then Psyche began to pitch and knock up the spray, much to the surprise of her sporting owner, who was however speedily released from the embarrassment of being unhatted by the provident Hickman, who brought him up a cap, such as he ought to have worn at starting.

“Delightful breeze!” said M^{r.} Buckthorne to Jack, who was holding on, like grim Death, by the companion, looking in the face as white as a sheet.

“Very nice indeed,” said Jack.

Dash came another bright silvery spray over her bows, which flew on high, and sparkled in the sun like a dancing rainbow.

“Oh, my!” said Jack, “that’s uncommon severe, eh!--and no mistake.”

“Lord love you, sir!” said Bung, “she’s like a duck in the water. Here’s a stiff-’un coming; see how she’ll rise to that.”

And, sure enough, a great white horse came foaming and splashing along, and over it she went! Glorious confirmation of her duck-like qualities.

“By Job!” said Jack, holding on, “we are well out of that.”

“Bung,” cried the doctor, “here comes a twister.”

And before the words were out of his mouth, a good toppling wave struck her nearly a-midships--Bung giving the doctor, who had been a constant companion of Chipstead in his voyages, one of those cunning looks which are perfectly understood amongst the initiated, as he gave Psyche a “yaw,” up into the wind, in order to make the beautiful pneumatic exhibition which followed, for the benefit of her new owner.

This, however, was more than Jack could stand, and after this shake he made a rapid disappearance. He descended to the cabin, not however half so much affected by the mere physical effects of the motion as by his moral apprehension that nothing short of a miracle could save them from perdition.

Upon the next tack they ran away beautifully--not to poor Brag’s eyes, who having thrown himself horizontally upon one of the well-stuffed sofas in his cabin, and having made himself rather better, thought that nothing ever could restore “Psyche” to the gentle upright position in which she rode so easily when he bought her: and what added to his misery was, hearing the mirthful conversation of his unknown guests, none of whom had left the deck, or abandoned the delights of participating in the pleasures of the day.

Just as Jack was getting what he called a little easy and comfortable--barring his constant apprehensions of some dreadful calamity,--his ears were assailed by Lady Lavinia’s voice, calling upon him loudly and repeatedly, to know when they were to have luncheon. He could not disobey the summons of the noble Orlebar with whom he sought an alliance, and he therefore roused himself. Hickman advised him to bathe his temples with cold water, and drink brandy; both of which he did;--a mode of taking brandy and water which a particular friend of his would have pronounced the very best mode of administering the beverage. However, Jack was completely beaten, and it was with the greatest difficulty Hickman could get him to sit right up, and no mistake! while, by his command, he summoned the guests to their repast.

It is not an agreeable subject to dwell upon, but as the mishap affords a new illustration of Jack’s absurdities--only imagine a man having been dreadfully, and being still considerably, sick, oppressed and agitated by a certain quantum of alarm, and labouring moreover under the influence of an unsavoury smell of pitch, moreen-damask, savoury viands, and fresh paint, having to preside at a table which was dancing the hays, and help a squashy French pie, made by a Cowes confectioner. In addition to this, Jack had to behold the destruction of flocks of fowls, hams, tongues, and sundry more delicate things, by people whom he had never seen before, and who were, unluckily for him, what are called good sailors.

Things went on pretty well; Lady Lavinia encouraged him,--for she really liked him: pop went the champagne corks--(splash came a sea down the companion):--more fowls; more _moussu_--more seas:--and it was pleasant to observe how careful Captain Hazleby was of Miss Wattle, who could hardly keep her seat in her chair without his assistance. Selwyn too, who in the confusion of the moment had contrived to get near Miss Hastings, was equally attentive to _her_; while Dr. Munx, a great favourite with Lady Lavinia, kept prescribing repeated draughts of Jack’s champagne, which her ladyship kept swallowing, weeping a little as the day wore on, and saying to herself, audibly enough to be heard by Jack--“How my poor dear Henry would have liked such a day as this!”

The beauty of the day, however, began to fade away; the bright sky was overcast with clouds, and a meteorological contest took place between the wind and the rain. It became impossible for the ladies to return to the deck, and indispensably necessary to shut the cabin skylights. This was extremely agreeable to Jack, whose health, under existing circumstances, required the admission of a very considerable quantity of oxygen, and who, when the cucumber-frame was put over what he called the square hole in the floor, felt as one may suppose a sparrow feels, under the receiver of an air-pump during the process of exhaustion.

“The wind has all died away,” said Mr. Buckthorne, when he returned from the deck. “Here we are, off St. Helens, and, as Bung says, when we shall get away nobody can tell.”

“But what are we to do?” said Jack, to whom every novelty of circumstance presented some new peril.

“Stay where we are, I presume,” said Dr. Munx.

This produced a laugh. Dr. Munx was pleased, and called for some more champagne.

Psyche began to roll a little, and her wet mainsail to flap heavily.

“What the deuce is that noise?” said Jack.

“The mainsail flapping,” said Buckthorne.

“Why do they let it flap?” said Jack.

“Because,” said the facetious Munx, “they can’t help it.”

Another laugh.

“Well then, I suppose it’s all right,” said Jack, “and no mistake:--but a’n’t we rolling about, a good deal?”

“That’s because there’s no wind; the rain has beaten it dead hollow,” said Buckthorne.

This last reason killed the last of Jack’s hopes. When he found his light and lively yacht spanking and splashing through the water--pitching into one wave and rising over the next--he felt himself dreadfully unwell. Hickman, his servant and counsellor, then observed that it _did_ blow fresh, and that there _was_ a good deal of sea on, upon which Jack took to praying that the wind would, what he called, “go down,” and make Psyche easier. His petition to Æolus, it seems, had been heard, and the breeze had subsided into a calm; and now, when the great object of all his wishes was actually obtained, Psyche was ten times more uneasy than she was before.

The state of affairs was very considerably changed by the change of weather: the ladies ceased smiling; Lady Lavinia felt drowsy; the men kept peeping and peering up the companion. The heavy tread of the crew upon the wet deck, and their muttered conversations, combined to excite the most melancholy feelings in Jack’s mind, whose amiable assurance was so greatly weakened by the state of his health, that he could not rally and stand up against the off-hand replies and retorts, “not always courteous,” of the doctor.

“Hickman,” said Mr. Buckthorne to the servant, “have you got any cards on board?”

“I believe there are two or three packs, sir,” replied Hickman.

Well, muttered Jack to himself, I think he might as well have asked _me_ that question.

“We may have a little _Ecarté_,” said Captain Hazleby.--(These words conjured up in Jack’s mental eye the vision of Stiffkey and the I. O. U.)--“Lady Lavinia, what say you to a hand?”

“I don’t think I can see the cards,” said her ladyship, alluding to the darkness of the day.

I should wonder if you could, thought Jack, after drinking all that champagne.

“Oh! don’t play cards,” said Munx. “How long shall we be getting back?”

“Bung says,” replied Buckthorne, “we shall never get back, if a breeze doesn’t spring up. There’s no chance of _that_, while the rain holds; and even if it _should_ should come to blow a little, the wind will be right in our teeth, so we shall have to beat up.”

“Well but,” said Jack, “can’t we get out and go ashore, and walk home!”

This produced a general roar, which roused Lady Lavinia from her serene slumber; and for her ladyship’s benefit the question was repeated by Dr. Munx in his happiest style.

“Oh,” said her ladyship, “you are so droll!--this is the sort of thing he is continually saying.--It quite kills me.”

“No,” said Buckthorne--“as matters look now, the chances are we shall sleep on board: at all events we sha’n’t get back till ten or eleven.”

“That’s a bore,” said Hazleby. “I’m engaged to a most agreeable dinner at seven.”

“And we,” said Miss Wattle, “are going to Lady Thunderum’s ball.”

“Oh! so am I,” said Buckthorne, “and all of us, I conclude; but we can’t command the elements.”

“Have you nothing new to give us, Mr. Selwyn, in the literary way?” asked Miss Lumsden, who knew she could not better please her friend Fanny than by bringing her lover forward.

“Oh! do--do--pray, do! Read us something, Mr. Selwyn, or recite,” said Munx; “anything by way of amusement.”

“I have got my last poem in my pocket, by mere chance,” said Selwyn. “I have often promised Lady Lavinia to read it; this, I think, would be a good opportunity.”

“Oh, dear!” said Munx.

“What say you, Lady Lavinia?” said Lady Wattle,--“They say you are sovereign here.”

“Our great captain’s captain,” said Munx.

“Why,” exclaimed Jack, “that’s out of Othello.”

“In it, if you please,” said Munx.

The very recollection of Othello, coupled with the dread that Dr. Munx might have last seen it at Lewes, threw poor Jack into a fresh confusion.

“Oh! yes,” said Lady Lavinia, “as Mr. Selwyn _is_ here, he may as well make himself agreeable, if he can.”

“Aunt!” said Fanny, in a soft but reproachful tone.

“I shall be too happy,” said Selwyn, producing from his pocket the manuscript, which, having had some experience of the uncertainty of yacht voyages, he had brought with him, in the hopes of obtaining an opinion of such acknowledged judges of literary merit as Lady Lavinia and Dr. Munx.

Selwyn accordingly moved himself out of the corner in which he had been sitting, and poking across the cabin at an angle of forty-five degrees, caught hold of a dancing chair, and placing it at the bottom of the table, seated himself, and began his last pet favourite work.

“Lady Lavinia,” said Dr. Munx, “I do _not_ think you are well. Sudden changes come over your countenance--affected by the motion; clouds swimming before your eyes--giddiness in your head?”

“Exactly so,” said her ladyship.

“I must take you under my care, Lady Lavinia,” said the doctor. “Put you through a three years’ course of my infinitesimal medicines, which will enable me to form a just estimate of your ladyship’s constitution.”

“Isn’t that rather a long time to wait?” said Hazleby.

“No,” said Munx, “the new school have determined to do nothing in a hurry. The human frame and constitution are much too delicate to be handled so roughly as the present race of physicians handle them. In fact, we have discovered that all medicines are injurious that are visibly effective, and that unless administered after the new fashion, they eventually increase the complaints for which they are given; hence we argue (and our success has been established), that it is better to do nothing than do mischief.”

“There I quite agree with the doctor,” said Lady Wattle.

“When I say, nothing,” said Munx, “I speak, of course, comparatively. Our system, in fact, is composed of a combination of what, to the vulgar, appear most ridiculous contradictions: for instance, a great deal of poison kills a man,--_ergo_, a little poison will do him good;--therefore we take care to give him sufficient poison to produce a disorder which we know we can cure, in order to prevent his having some other disorder which we equally well know we cannot.”

“Yes but, Doctor,” said Hazleby, “the delicacy of your proceedings in the poison line is very striking. My sister-in-law called in one of your school, unknown to the family physician, and after pecking at the pin’s-head pills of the new school for a month she got ashamed of her duplicity, told Doctor Fang the whole history of her defection, and quackery, and showed him a box containing materials for working out the new and infallible system which were to last her for a twelvemonth, expressing to him at the same time the mingled dread and veneration with which the magical remedies inspired her. Fang smiled, and taking the box, emptied its contents into his hand, and swallowed the whole of them at one gulp before the face of his recreant patient, to her infinite horror and astonishment.”

“That is more than anything you could possibly have said, confirmatory of the safety of our principles,” said Munx. “Our success I tell you does not depend upon the application of a remedy homœopathically, so much as upon the minuteness of the dose; the effects of which are the greater as it approaches the finite bounds of dilution.”

“I perceive,” said Buckthorne, “that the Poor-law Commissioners have regulated their proceedings upon precisely the same system. According to their _dictum_,--‘The less a man eats and drinks the fatter and stronger he gets.’ Minute medicaments, in the shape of half-ounces of Dutch cheese and half-pints of water, ‘approaching, as near as possible, the finite bounds of dilution,’ are most judiciously substituted for the vulgar beef and beer which the Allopathic asses of other days administered to the old and weak and infirm, in the hope of nourishing age, and strengthening infirmity.”

“Quite right, quite right,” exclaimed the Doctor. “The Allopathic system exactly defined.--The gross masses of beef, the lengthened potations of beer, exactly correspond with the powerful remedies hitherto prescribed, which, we have now so satisfactorily ascertained, produce of themselves, symptoms which did not characterize the original malady.”

“I agree with you there,” said Buckthorne. “The original symptoms were hunger and thirst, the beef and beer overcame those, and replaced them by very different ones.”

“The whole thing resolves itself into this one principle,” said Munx,--“minuteness of application.”

“Why,” said Hazleby, “your practice reminds me of the Duke of Buckingham--reading “power” for “love.” _You_ say,--

Your power is great because it is so small,

to which I add, like his Grace,--

Then were it greatest were it none at all!”

“What,” said Lady Lavinia, “do you call a minute application?”

“Why,” said Munx, “it is difficult to explain to your ladyship. The only admissible vehicles for homœopathic medicine are amadine, the saccharine basis of milk, and alcohol reduced to a certain specific gravity at 60° of Fahrenheit.”

“What a lovely name for a medicine,” said Lady Wattle. “Amadine!--I think if I had a daughter born now, I would christen her Amadine.”

“Why,” said Munx, “that--I--the word is a good word,--it is classical and euphonious, but the material,--the English,--the vulgar name of the article it designates,--is starch.”

Here a laugh, at the expense of her ladyship, gave poor Fanny hopes that the subject would drop, and that Selwyn, who had been now for some time seated, book in hand, ready to begin his poem, would have an opportunity of delighting their ears with his mellifluous voice.

“Starch, sugar of milk, and spirits of wine, and water,” said Munx, “are the vehicles. The medicines must be made in a laboratory sheltered from the sun’s rays, yet so ventilated as not to be liable to the odious odours which so dangerously distinguish the atmosphere of an apothecary’s shop: the scales to weigh them must be so sensitively delicate, as to turn with the hundredth part of a grain, and the largest vessel in the laboratory need only be a minim measure graduated to a hundred drops.”

“You should send to Lilliput, Doctor, to get practitioners,” said Hazleby. “I wish Swift were alive, to give us a history of your proceedings.”

“The race is not always to the Swift,” said Munx, facetiously. “Our principle is admirable: we administer nothing but dried vegetables, or imperceptible minerals. Only look at our tinctures; when it comes to that, we get our extracts, mix them with spirits of wine, and stop them up in little bottles. What do we do with those tinctures--make them by taking out of our little bottles little bits of our invaluable mass--half the size of a poppy seed--add alcohol in the proportion of twenty minims to one grain of the mash; let it stand in a warm room, let the pellucid liquor drop out of it,--keep it. That’s the secret for tinctures.”

“Ah!” said Jack, who thought it was absolutely necessary in his own yacht to say something, “that’s it,--eh? straight up, right down, and no mistake.”

“Then for regulating their modifications,” said Munx: “eleven grains of sugar of milk, diligently triturated for an hour with one of the medicament, whatever it is, added again, to eleven grains of sugar of milk, and triturated for another hour, produces another degree of attenuation; while one hundred drops of gin and water--we call it alcohol--Hodges, Booth, or spirits of wine, as circumstances require, mingled with a grain of the medicament;--ninety-nine minims to one of the combination--expands the quality of the medicament another degree, and so on for every subsequent dilution. The degrees of expansion and attenuation are regularly adapted to the disease and constitution of the patient.”

“Well,” said Buckthorne, “it is something to know that you pretend to pay so much attention to circumstances as that.”

“The table of expansions is a very curious and scientific paper,” said Munx. “The degrees run thus,--the highest point to which the calculation is carried being one grain.

1. First _deg. of expansion_ A hundredth part.
2. Second Ten-thousandth.
I. Third A millionth.
II. Sixth Billionth.
III. Ninth Trillionth.
IV. Twelfth Quadrillionth.
V. Fifteenth Quintillionth.
VI. Eighteenth Sextillionth.
VII. Twenty-first Septillionth.
VIII. Twenty-fourth Octillionth.
IX. Twenty-seventh Nonillionth.
X. Thirtieth Decillionth.

And then for the intervening expansions we stick certain dots and scribbles on the little bottles, which are perfectly intelligible to the initiated.”

“I declare, Lady Lavinia,” said Lady Wattle, “I never heard anything so satisfactory in my life: one grain of predicament, no bigger than a poppy-seed, to be expanded to a decillionth. What elasticity it must give to the system.”

“Elasticity!” said Munx; “the sensations produced by an adherence to the system are indescribable; and then the convenience,--a whole dose, if liquid, is absorbed by five grains of sugar of milk, and if in powder, may be converted into an ample draught by a single dew-drop.”

“Bravo! Doctor,” said Hazleby: “a noble remedy. But now in a case of a violent accession of inflammatory symptoms, eh? what would you do _then_? use your infinitesimals,--eh? You might as well play a boy’s squirt into a burning powder-mill.”

“Oh,” said Munx, “I do not admit the possibility of anything of the sort you imagine, while the patient is under the regimen of the Homœopathic school.”

“Regimen,” said Lady Lavinia. “What! must not we eat or drink during the time we are swallowing the pins’ heads and poppy seeds?”

“You may eat everything,” said Munx, “everything,--fish, flesh, and fowl, (except ducks, geese, pork, veal, and shell-fish,) eggs, weak black-tea, and cocoa, are good. Milk you may have, and fruits boiled that are not acid. Drink toast-and-water, barley-water, weak brandy-and-water--one eighth brandy; no wine, certainly no spices, no green-tea, no coffee, no salads, no malt-liquor, and, above all, no parsley, no onions, and no raw fruit of any kind;--duck, is death; pork--poison; and parsley, perdition. One decillionth of a parsley leaf settles you; in fact, parsley, pork, and perfumes, are destructive.”

Jack, who, having seen Munx eat most ravenously of veal pie, ham, and salad, watched him swallow glass after glass of his champagne, and beheld him munching pineapples as if they were turnips, could stand this absurdity no longer,--“Well, Doctor,” said he, “how do you find this mode of training and feeding suit your own book?”

“Oh,” said Munx, “it perfectly coincides with the doctrines I have advocated in my book which I have published on the subject.”

“Not a bit of _that_,” said Jack: “I won’t have _that_ at no price. I mean, how does it agree with you yourself?”

“Oh!” said Munx, “I--I don’t attend to the rules myself: I have no constitutional disposition to any particular disease. I--that is--I----”

“I think,” said Jack, “pine-apples is raw fruit; and the pie, which you have eat half of, is veal; the ham shews plenty of bone, the salad-bowl, which was before you, is empty; and, as far as the champagne goes----”

“By the way,” said Munx, who was the most impudent of all pretenders--Jack himself not excepted, “I hope it isn’t all gone.”

“Hickman,” said Buckthorne, “have you got any more champagne in ice?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hickman, to the utter dismay and confusion of Jack, who found himself in almost as helpless a position in his own boat as a constitutional king with a cabinet full of overbearing ministers.

“Depend upon it,” said Munx, “my dear Lady Lavinia, if you pursue a regular course of these medicines for eight or ten years, you will imperceptibly find your life extended. I merely state that abstinence”--(“Mind, Hickman, don’t pour the champagne over”)--“and that future generations will bless the discoverers of so magnificent an accession to the world of science in its most important department.”

A pause ensued. Fanny, the timid--yet, when love-prompted, the bold advocate of wit and genius, again said--“Aunt, Mr. Selwyn is ready to begin his poem which you asked him to read to us.”

“By the way, Lady Lavinia,” said Hazleby,--“I beg your pardon, one moment, Mr. Selwyn;--will you tell me what is the beginning of that beautiful little song of Lady Fanny’s which she sang us last week--something about ‘Fly, dearest Mary’--eh?”

“I remember,” said Lady Lavinia; “it was very pretty. I don’t recollect the words, or the music. Sing it to us, Hazleby--do!”

“I can-_not_ sing,” said Hazleby. “I wonder if Chipstead’s guitar is on board. Hickman!”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Is there a guitar on board?”

“No, sir.”

“Mind, when we come again, to remind your master to have a guitar,” said Hazleby: “one can’t do without a guitar. We must have a guitar. Miss Wattle sings to the guitar, and so do I. Don’t you recollect that charming little air that you gave us the last time we sailed together? It was moonlight--all calm: and so bright.”

“You never sing when you are asked,” said Lady Wattle.

“Upon my word, I would now,” said Hazleby, “but somehow I wetted my feet getting on shore last night, and have got a dreadful cold.”

“Well then,” said Fanny, “perhaps Mr. Selwyn will begin to read?”

“I shall be too glad,” said Selwyn, drawing his chair a little closer to the table.

“I don’t mind, however,” said Hazleby, “for once. Upon my word,--if I break down, don’t abuse me. I think I could manage to croak out a little thing which has just been published. I beg a thousand pardons, Selwyn!--I will not detain you five minutes. Hem, hem!”

“That’s just the way,” said Fanny in a whisper to Miss Lumsden. “It is all jealousy of poor Mr. Selwyn: Captain Hazleby wouldn’t sing under an hour’s pressing at any other time.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Miss Lumsden.

“Now then,” said Jack,--“go along, if it kills you.”

The look Hazleby gave Jack, if he could have perfectly seen, or entirely comprehended it, would unquestionably have extinguished him.

“Well,” said Hazleby, “_commençons donc_.”

The Colonel has married Miss Fanny,
And quitted the turf and high play:
They’re gone down to live with his granny
In a sober and rational way.
Folks in town were all perfectly scared
When they heard of this excellent plan,
For nobody there was prepared
To think him a sensible man.

For Fanny two years he’d been sighing,
And Fanny continued stone-cold,
Till he made her believe he was dying;
And Fan thought herself growing old.
So, one very fine night, at a _fête_,
When the moon shone as bright as it can,
She found herself left _tête-à-tête_
With this elegant sensible man.

There are minutes which lovers can borrow
From Time, ev’ry one worth an age;
Equivalents each to the sorrow
They sweetly combine to assuage.
’Twas so on this heart-stirring eve;
He explained ev’ry hope, wish, and plan:
She sighed, and began to believe
The Colonel a sensible man.

He talk’d about roses and bowers,
Till he dimm’d her bright eye with a tear;
For though “Love cannot live upon flowers,”
Miss Fan. had four thousand a-year.
’Twas useless, she felt, to deny;
So she used her bouquet for a fan;
And averting her head, with a sigh,
Gave her heart to the sensible man.

“Bravo! bravo!” echoed through the cabin; and everybody was, or seemed to be, delighted except Fanny, who kept her eyes fixed upon Selwyn with an anxiety too characteristic of the interest she took in his proceedings.

“Capital!” said Buckthorne. “Whose words are they?”

“I can guess,” said Lady Wattle.

“I can-_not_,” said Lady Lavinia.

“Tell us!” said Buckthorne.

“Do!” said Jack, who only said so, because he _would_ say something.

“They are _so_ pointed,” said Lady Wattle.

“And _so_ personal,” said Munx, “there’s no mistaking the allusion. Name, name!”

“No,” said Hazleby, “I really cannot; I am pledged.”

“Never mind pledges,” said Munx; “tell us!”

“Do!” “do!” “do!” “do!” said all the party, excepting Fanny and Selwyn, whose thoughts were turned on very different things at the moment.

“Well,” said Hazleby,--“I suppose we are safe.”

“I hope so,” said Jack.

“All tiled,” said Hazleby--“only don’t betray me; because I hate breaking a confidence in these matters, let the person be whom he may.”

“Not a syllable,” said one:--“Close as wax,” said another:--“Silent as the grave,” said a third.

“Well then,” said Hazleby,--“only I must whisper, because I should not like it to be known beyond our little party;--they are by----”

“Yourself!” said Buckthorne.

“No,” said Hazleby, “they are _not_; but under seal, recollect--they are written by my man Dickinson, who, although _I_ say it, who should not, is, perhaps, in French blacking and fashionable song writing, superior to any man of his _metier_ I ever met with. He makes a mint of money by his muse; and I am too happy to encourage him in his poetical pursuits: but this is of course, as I have before said, all _entre nous_.”

This announcement was received with infinite delight by the company, excepting again poor Fanny, who fancied that what Captain Hazleby said was not true, and that the words were his own; the history of his literary valet having been invented extempore, for the purpose of wounding Selwyn’s feelings, and casting a reflection upon mercenary poets, as severe as those of Lord Byron, and quite as certain of being followed up by his taking whatever he could get for his own compositions. Fanny was probably right, and Hazleby had made the important sacrifice of his vanity for the gratification of his ill-nature.

“How kind you are,” said Lady Wattle, “to sing to us.”

“Very kind, indeed,” said Dr. Munx: “it was because nobody asked him; if we had pressed him, he wouldn’t have opened his mouth.”

“His minim-box you mean, Doctor,” said Buckthorne, “in the eighth degree of expansion.”

“Well, Mr. Selwyn,” said Fanny, “will you begin? Maria and I are anxiously waiting.”

“I am ready,” said Selwyn.

“One moment, Selwyn,” said Buckthorne. “Hickman, you must have some cards on board? look in that locker,--by the door. I know there were some.”

“What are you going to do with cards, now, Mr. Buckthorne?” said Fanny.

“Why, Miss Hastings,” said Buckthorne, “Hazleby and I can go on quietly with our game while Selwyn reads.”

“I should like to join you,” said Lady Lavinia; “or, at all events, I’ll bet, and advise.”

“My dear aunt!” said Fanny.

“It is getting rather dark,” said Selwyn, whose patience was rapidly evaporating. “Are there any candles to be had?”

“Candles, Hickman!” cried Hazleby.

“None on board, sir,” said Hickman.

“My dear Brag,” said the Captain to Jack, “where are your candles?--never forget candles!--why we shall be in the dark for four hours before we get ashore. Bung,” continued the vivacious cavalier, “where are we? Does it rain much?”

“Mizzling, sir,” said Bung. “We are abreast of Stokes Bay, and as near as may be mid-channel. I think we shall have a spirt of wind presently.”

“Now, Mr. Selwyn!” said Miss Lumsden.

“My dear Miss Lumsden,” said Buckthorne, “do wait till Hickman finds the cards.”

“It is getting dark,” said Fanny.

“Oh,” said Buckthorne, “there must be a light somewhere. Why we shall be like so many children playing blind-man’s buff.”

“What a charming little party, Lady Wattle, you gave us Tuesday,” said Lady Lavinia, “those dear mazurkas. Mr. Brag, I tell you what--you must give us a ball.”

“I have no house,” said Jack.

“Lady Wattle will lend you hers,” said Lady Lavinia, “and I’ll invite the people.”

“And I will manage the supper for you,” said Hazleby.

“You are very kind; but----”

“But nothing,” said Lady Lavinia. “You acknowledge me your sovereign,--I must be obeyed.”

“Can’t find any cards, sir, anywhere,” said Hickman.

“Deuced provoking,” said Buckthorne. “It can’t be helped.”

“But now, Mr. Selwyn,” again said Fanny.

Selwyn opened his manuscript, and having hemmed thrice to beget attention, began--

“The silver moon on----”

“I beg pardon,” said Buckthorne; “but I think the breeze seems to be springing up. I’ll just step on deck. I’m getting fidgetty about dinner.” Selwyn made way for him, and up the ladder he skipped.

Selwyn recommenced--

“The silver moon on----”

“One moment, my dear fellow,” said Hazleby, “before you begin. I’ll just step up, too: we can hear you extremely well on deck: but it is getting infernally close; that was always the worst of this yacht,--a kind of fusty smell.”

“Well,” said Lady Lavinia, “I really _do_ think it is very oppressive. Fanny dear, does it rain? I think I should like a little air myself.”

“I thought you wished to hear Mr. Selwyn read his poem?” said Fanny.

“So I did,” said her ladyship; “but it was not so hot then.”

“Can’t you tell us a funny story, Mr. Selwyn?” said Munx.

“Ah, do!” said Lady Wattle. “I don’t mean one of your own, because you don’t write funny things; but one----”

“I know no stories,” said Selwyn. “I--if you wish me to read----”

“Oh, go on,” said Miss Lumsden; “they will be glad enough to listen when once you begin.”

“Well,” said Selwyn, “as _you_ please.”

“The silver moon on----”

“I say, by Jove!” cried Buckthorne, putting his head down the companion, “there’s a ship on fire in Portsmouth harbour!”

“A fire!” cried one: “A ship!” cried another: “A ship on fire!” cried a third. “I hope it’s a long way off,” cried Jack. “Oh! how dreadful!” said Lady Lavinia. “Splendid sight!” said Lady Wattle. And away they all scrambled up to see this magnificent spectacle, sweeping everything before them, nearly upsetting the unhappy author in the rush, and leaving the cabin tenanted only by him and Fanny.

“I am quite ashamed of my aunt,” said Fanny, “and disgusted with the rest of the party: their conduct towards you is inexcusable.”

“Never mind,” said Selwyn; “if I have _your_ pity, I am satisfied.”

“My aunt very much mistakes my character,” said Fanny, “if she imagines that, by endeavouring to lower you in your own estimation, she can lower you in mine; such a course is foolish in the extreme,--an insult to the object of our esteem only increases our interest in him.”

“I am repaid for all that has passed,” said Selwyn. “I _am_ esteemed?” He took Fanny’s hand,--pressed it,--it was not withdrawn. “Loved?” whispered he. A gentle pressure of his hand by Fanny, was the practical answer to this deciding question. It _was_ given, and she sank back on her seat, and burst into tears.

“Very fine!” said one of the party on deck; “--strong flame,--burns fiercer!”

“Where’s Fanny?” exclaimed Lady Lavinia.

“She is below,” said Selwyn, standing on the deck, close to her ladyship, a position to which he had attained by a sudden spring up the companion, having been “signalled” by a wave of Fanny’s hand to leave her on the instant, lest the fire-worshippers might return and find them _tête-à-tête_; a discovery most unquestionably the prelude of a scene, the points of which would have received a wonderful accession of force from the appearance of Fanny in tears.

The party remained on deck, watching the “splendid spectacle,” which, instead of a ship on fire, proved eventually to be nothing but the flame from a brick-kiln near Alverstoke, until it began again to rain: they then hurried down again, and huddled themselves up in corners,--the darkness nearly complete, the wags worn out, and Jack himself fast asleep. Two only of the party were happy, and they only happy, because they were together.

Several attempts at renewing a conversation were made, and failed. Buckthorne’s watch was a repeater, and the principal recreation during the voyage, was making it strike half-hours, and quarters, three-quarters, and whole hours, which it periodically continued to do until three-quarters past ten; at which period a slight increase of bustle “’pon deck” gave indication of an approach to Cowes; and just as the church clock was striking eleven, the anchor was let go, and “The Psyche” brought up; the Yacht Club-house distant three-quarters of a mile, which, considering the wind was blowing fresh from the southward, was all that could be done for her.

“Well, here we are,” said Buckthorne, “at last.”

“Where?” said Jack.

“At Cowes,” replied Buckthorne.

“Why, it is miles off,” said Jack, looking at the lights of the town.

“No,” said Buckthorne; “a mile, perhaps.”

“And how are we to get there?” said Jack.

“In the boat,” was the answer.

“Bung,” said Hazleby, “it rains deuced hard still. Hadn’t you better make the night signal for umbrellas?”

“Can’t, sir,” said Bung, and he whispered something to Hazleby.

“Oh, ah!” said Hazleby; “I forgot _that_.”

“No, I wish I did,” said Jack, who had overheard the captain’s subdued observation that “Mr. Brag did not belong to the Club.”

In the midst of this discussion, it was found that the boat could only take the party at two trips. It was pitch-dark, a good deal of sea on, and the rain beating right out of the harbour into the faces of the pleasure-hunters on their return from the chase. Then came the squabbling as to who should go first:--the ladies, of course,--then two gentlemen were to be selected; and while the decision was under debate, Hazleby and Buckthorne summarily decided the question by stepping into the boat and shoving off; and it is difficult to say which heart was the more agitated, that of Selwyn or Jack Brag, as they stood watching the boat, till it became a black speck upon the dark blue waves with which it seemed to struggle for existence. Selwyn almost wept to think that all he loved in the world was exposed to the discomfort and inconvenience of such a night, without his being with her to share her ills; and Jack trembled to think, that in another half-hour or so he should himself be doomed to a similar expedition.

_His_ turn came. In about an hour the boat returned; and although Jack had made sundry sly suggestions about staying on board till the morning, and talked somewhat largely of cold and rain, he was utterly defeated by the care and civility of Lady Lavinia, who sent back by the boat, boat-cloaks and umbrellas in plenty,--the latter being, however, rendered entirely useless by the force of the wind.

Away they went, much after the fashion of their predecessors, save that it blew harder and the sea was rougher,--a combination of circumstances which produced upon Jack a sensation to which he had hitherto been a stranger:--it was not sickness--it was not fear,--but it was a happy mixture of both, by which he was attacked. Every pitch brought, as the old women say, his heart into his mouth; and as the boat’s bow dipped into the trough of the sea, he grasped the gunwale at his side, as tightly as possible, hoping to produce some beneficial effect, without any clearly-defined notion as to what it might be.

In getting out, Jack “missed his tip” in a jump, and first took to earth in three feet water; and was eventually lugged out and carried on shore on the back of one of his crew,--Munx observing that, although he had proclaimed himself to be remarkably hungry during their passage from “Psyche,” he was not exceedingly _dry_!--a joke of Jack’s own, for the commission of which by the Doctor, he would have been gratified to see him gibbeted. The _friends_, however, parted, each talking of the delightful day they had spent, and all separately voting the whole affair the most unequalled and unqualified bore.

Delightful or dreadful as it might have been to some, or all of the party, Brag himself was made perfectly miserable. His detestation of the sea he had overcome in order to do the thing properly; all his prudential precautions as to finance had been broken through, in order to carry the great point of putting himself practically on a footing with those with whom he wished to associate,--and, above all, to secure the prize to which he had all through life looked so anxiously, “a titled wife.”

What is the result? He gets his yacht--_she_ makes his party; his man, transferred from a ruined spendthrift, prepares the banquet; his unknown guests feast at his charge,--talk of things he does not comprehend,--of people he never saw,--until, seeing him completely overpowered by their _nonchalance_, they dispense with even the common courtesy of consulting _him_, or asking him for anything they may happen to want, referring wholly to the servant whom he had hired, as if he had been so hired for their sole use and accommodation.

During the whole day Jack had never rallied: pale and sad, the pert prig of other times remained both sick in body and mind, full of wrath which he dared not express, and of repentance which he was ashamed to admit; and when he got himself dried, rubbed, and put to bed, he began to think that a theoretical pretender was at all events a cheaper and better thing than a practical one.