grieve. A year ago he would have wept in secret over the news.
Now he went about with a solemn face and a bounding heart. A few
months more and then--

And then, almost within sight of goal, Sergeant Fugler had broken
down. Everyone knew that Fugler drank prodigiously; but so had his
father and grandfather, and each of them had reached eighty.
The fellow had always carried his liquor well enough, too.
Captain Pond looked upon it almost as a betrayal.

"I don't know what folks' constitutions are coming to in these days,"
he kept muttering, on this morning of November the 3rd, as he sat on
the muzzle of Thundering Meg and dangled his legs.

And then, glancing up, he saw the Doctor coming from the town along
the shore-wall, and read evil news at once. For many of the
Die-hards stopped the Doctor to question him, and stood gloomy as he
passed on. It was popularly said in the two Looes, that "if the
Doctor gave a man up, that man might as well curl up his toes then
and there."

Catching sight of his Captain on the platform, the Doctor bent his
steps thither, and they were slow and inelastic.

"Tell me the worst," said Captain Pond.

"The worst is that he's no better; no, the worst of all is that he
knows he's no better. My friend, between ourselves, it's only a
question of a day or two."