‘Time something happened anyway,’ said he. ‘Dum me if it ain’t been too hot even for the sharks to show themselves. I allow the “’Liza Robbins” ain’t over sweet just now.’ ‘No, I’d rather be you than your brother to-day, Crimp.’ ‘Sorry to hear from the captain,’ said he, ‘that Sir Wilfrid’s got the notion in his head that he’s growed in the night till he’s too tall to stand upright.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and I hope his craze may end at that.’ ‘There’s but one cure for the likes of such tantrums,’ said he. ‘And pray what is that, Mr. Crimp?’ ‘Fright. Git the hair of a chap that’s mad to stand on end, and see if his crazes don’t fly clean off out of it like cannon balls out of a broadside of guns.’ ‘Ay, but fright, as you call it, might drive my poor cousin entirely mad, Mr. Crimp.’ ‘No fear,’ he answered. ‘Tell ’ee what I’ll ondertake to do. What’s the hour now?’ ‘Call it six o’clock,’ said I. ‘Well, I’ll ondertake by half-past six to have Sir Wilfrid running about these ’ere decks.’ ‘And what’s the prescription, pray?’ ‘Why, there’s a scuttle to his cabin, ain’t there?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘An’ it lies open, I allow, a day like this. Werry well. Give me ten minutes to go forrards and black my face and dress up my head according to the notion that’s in my mind; then let me be lowered by a bowline over the side. I pops my head into the scuttle and sings out in a terrible woice, “Hullo, there, I’m the devil,” I says, says I, “and I’ve come,” says I, “to see if ye’ve got any soul left that’s worth treating for.” And what d’ye think he’d do at sight of me? Why run out of his cabin as fast as his legs ’ud carry him.’ ‘More likely let fly a pistol at you,’ I exclaimed, laughing at the look of self-complacency with which the sour little fellow eyed me. ‘However, Mr. Crimp, we’ll leave all remedies for Sir Wilfrid alone till we see what yonder shadow to the southward is going to do for us,’ and so saying I stepped below to change my coat for dinner. CHAPTER XXVIII. A TERRIBLE NIGHT. Miss Laura arrived at the dinner table. She was pale with the heat. She toyed with a morsel of cold fowl and sipped seltzer and hock. ‘The dead calm,’ said I, ‘gives you a young lady’s appetite.’ ‘I am here,’ she answered, ‘because I do not know where else to be.’ ‘You are here,’ said I, ‘because you are good and kind, and know that I delight in your society.’