"Then, pray, whence comes the fresh milk you sell every morning to the young gentlemen?"--"Please your honour, I took two or three dozen of bottles to sea with me on a kind o' speculation." "Grummet, my man, I am afraid this will turn out a bad one for you. Go and show your hands to the doctor, and he'll ask you a few questions." So Joseph Grummet went and expanded his flippers before the eyes of the surgeon. They were nearly as large and as shapely as the fins of a porpoise, and quite of the colour. They had been tanned and tarred till their skin had become more durable than bootleather, and they were quite rough enough to have rasped close-grained wood. "I don't think our friend could have milked your cow, Captain Fitzalban," said the doctor; "at least, not with his hands: they are rather calculated to draw blood than milk." Joseph rolled his eyes about and looked his innocence most pathetically. He was not yet quite out of danger. Now there was every reason in the world why this cow should give the captain at least a gallon of milk per diem--but one, and that he was most anxious to discover. The cow was in the best condition; since she had been embarked, the weather had been fine enough to have pleased Europa herself; she had plenty of provender, both dry and fresh. There were fragrant clover closely packed in bags, delicious oat-cakes--meal and water, and fine junks of juicy plantain.--The cow throve, but gave no milk! "So you brought a few dozen bottles of milk to sea with you as a venture?" continued the man of medicine in his examination.--"I did, sir." "And where did you procure them?"--"At English Harbour, sir." "May I ask of whom?"--"Madame Juliana, the fat free Negro woman." "Now, my man," said the doctor, looking a volume and a half of Galen, and holding up a cautionary fore-finger--"now, my man, do not hope to deceive _me_. How did you prevent the acetous fermentation from taking place in these bottles of milk?" The question certainly was a puzzler. Joe routed with his fingers among his hair for an answer. At length he fancied he perceived a glimmering of the doctor's meaning; so he hummed and ha-ed, until, the doctor's patience being exhausted, he repeated more peremptorily, "How did you prevent acetous fermentation taking place in these bottles of milk?" "By paying ready money for them, sir," said the badgered seaman boldly. "An excellent preventative against fermentation certainly," said the captain half smiling. "But you answer the doctor like a fool." "I was never accused of such a thing, please your honour, before, sir," said tarrybrecks, with all his sheets and tacks abroad. "Very likely, my man, very likely," answered the captain, with a look that would have been invaluable in a vinegar manufactory. "How did you prevent this milk from turning sour?" "Ah, sir!" said Grummet, now wide awake to his danger: "if you please, sir, I humbly axes your pardon, but that's my secret."