and took a deal of notice of everything new and uncommon. But, for all
that, the poor fellow was so sick, and pale, and peaking, that we all
thought we should have to heave him overboard some day or bury him in
Labrador moss."

"But he did n't die after all, did he?" said I.

"Die? No!" cried the Skipper; "not he!"

"And so your fishing voyage really cured him?"

"I can't say as it did, exactly," returned the Skipper, shifting his
quid from one cheek to the other, with a sly wink at the Doctor. "The
fact is, after the doctors and the old herb-women had given him up at
home, he got cured by a little black-eyed French girl on the Labrador
coast."

"A very agreeable prescription, no doubt," quoth the Doctor, turning to
me. "How do you think it would suit your case?"

"It does n't become the patient to choose his own nostrums," said I,
laughing. "But I wonder, Doctor, that you have n't long ago tested the
value of this by an experiment upon yourself."

"Physicians are proverbially shy of their own medicines," said he.

"Well, you see," continued the Skipper, "we had a rough run down the
Labrador shore; rainstorms and fogs so thick you could cut 'em up into
junks with your jack-knife. At last we reached a small fishing station
away down where the sun does n't sleep in summer, but just takes a bit