on. And of all the sufferers, perhaps the least deserving, but
surely the most pitiable, was the London clerk. He was used to
another life, to houses, beds, nursing, and the dainties of the
sickroom; he lay there now, in the cold open, exposed to the
gusting of the wind, and with an empty belly. He was besides
infirm; the disease shook him to the vitals; and his companions
watched his endurance with surprise. A profound commiseration
filled them, and contended with and conquered their abhorrence.
The disgust attendant on so ugly a sickness magnified this
dislike; at the same time, and with more than compensating
strength, shame for a sentiment so inhuman bound them the more
straitly to his service; and even the evil they knew of him
swelled their solicitude, for the thought of death is always the
least supportable when it draws near to the merely sensual and
selfish. Sometimes they held him up; sometimes, with mistaken
helpfulness, they beat him between the shoulders; and when the
poor wretch lay back ghastly and spent after a paroxysm of
coughing, they would sometimes peer into his face, doubtfully
exploring it for any mark of life. There is no one but has some
virtue: that of the clerk was courage; and he would make haste to
reassure them in a pleasantry not always decent.

'I'm all right, pals,' he gasped once: 'this is the thing to
strengthen the muscles of the larynx.'

'Well, you take the cake!' cried the captain.

'O, I'm good plucked enough,' pursued the sufferer with a broken
utterance. 'But it do seem bloomin' hard to me, that I should be
the only party down with this form of vice, and the only one to