By eight o'clock, 'owever, they 'ad all sheered off, and I got a broom
and began to sweep up to 'elp pass the time away until low-water. On'y
one craft 'ad come up that day--a ketch called the Peewit--and as she was
berthed at the end of the jetty she wasn't in my way at all.

Her skipper came on to the wharf just afore ten. Fat, silly old man 'e
was, named Fogg. Always talking about 'is 'ealth and taking medicine to
do it good. He came up to me slow like, and, when 'e stopped and asked
me about the rheumatics, the broom shook in my 'and.

"Look here," I ses, "if you want to be funny, go and be funny with them
as likes it. I'm fair sick of it, so I give you warning."

"Funny?" he ses, staring at me with eyes like a cow. "Wot d'ye mean?
There's nothing funny about rheumatics; I ought to know; I'm a martyr to
it. Did you find as 'ow the mud did you any good?"

I looked at 'im hard, but 'e stood there looking at me with his fat baby-
face, and I knew he didn't mean any harm; so I answered 'im perlite and
wished 'im good night.

"I've 'ad pretty near everything a man can have," he ses, casting anchor
on a empty box, "but I think the rheumatics was about the worst of 'em
all. I even tried bees for it once."

"Bees!" I ses. "_Bees!_"

"Bee-stings," he ses. "A man told me that if I could on'y persuade a few
bees to sting me, that 'ud cure me. I don't know what 'e meant by
persuading! they didn't want no persuading. I took off my coat and shirt