When the skipper hauled alongside the sick man, he found that the doctor, having bled him, was preparing to blister his head, the ship's barber at the time being occupied in very sedulously shaving it. The patient was fast putting himself upon an equality to contend with his supernatural visitant, by making a ghost of himself. He was in a high fever and delirious,--unpleasant things in the West Indies! All the captain could get from him was, "The devil--flashes of fire--milk cow--horrible teeth--devil's cow--ship haunted--nine yards of blue flame--throw cow overboard--go to heaven--kicked the pail down--horns tipped with red-hot iron," and other rhapsodies to the same effect. From the man the captain went to the cow; but she was looking excessively sleek, and mild, and amiable, and eating her breakfast with the relish of an outside mail-coach passenger. The captain shook his head, and thought himself the most persecuted of beings. When this self-estimated injured character gained the quarter-deck, he commenced ruminating on the propriety of flogging Joseph Grummet; for, with the loss of his cow's milk, he had lost all due sense of human kindness. But, as the Lords of the Admiralty had lately insisted upon a report being forwarded to them of every punishment that took place, the number of lashes, and the crime for which they were inflicted, the Honourable the Captain Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban thought that a report would look rather queer running thus: "Joseph Grummet, captain of the waist, six dozen, because my cow gave no milk," or "because private-marine Snickchops saw a ghost," or "for selling the midshipmen sundry bottles of milk;" and this last imagination reminded him that there was one of this highly-gifted class walking to leeward of him. "Mr. Littlejohn!" said the captain with a voice that crawled over the nerves like the screeching of an ill-filed saw. Small Jack touched his hat with more than usual respect to the exasperated officer, and then, stepping to windward, humbly confronted him. The captain was too angry for many words; so, looking fearfully into the happy countenance of the reefer, and pointing his fore-finger down perpendicularly, he laconically uttered, "Milk this morning?"--"Yes, sir." "Good?" The well-breakfasted midshipman licked his lips, and smiled. "Grummet?"--"Yes, sir." "Tell the boatswain's mate to send him aft."--"Ay, ay, sir."