I did not fail to report all that had passed to my mess-mates, and we sailed a few days afterwards for Barbadoes. On the first Sunday of our being at sea, the captain dined in the gun-room with the officers. He soon launched out into his usual strain of lying and boasting, which always irritated our doctor, who was a sensible young Welshman. On these occasions he never failed to raise a laugh at the captain's expense, by throwing in one or two words at the end of each anecdote; and this he did in so grave and modest a manner, that without a previous knowledge of him, any one might have supposed he was serious. The captain renewed his story of the corps of poodles to extract the fuses from the shells. "I hoped," he said, "to see the institution of such a corps among ourselves; and if I were to be the colonel of it, I should soon have a star on my breast." "That would be the dog star," said the doctor, with extreme gaiety. "Thank you, doctor," said the captain; "not bad; I owe you one." We laughed; the doctor kept his countenance; and the captain looked very grave; but he continued his lies, and dragged in as usual the name of Sir Sydney Smith to support his assertions. "If you doubt me, only ask Sir Sydney Smith; he'll talk to you about Acre for thirty-six hours on a stretch, without taking breath; his coxswain at last got so tired of it, that he nick-named him `Long Acre.'" The poor doctor did not come off scot-free; the next day, he discovered that the deck leaked over his cabin, and the water ran into his bed. He began, with a hammer and some nails, to fasten up a piece of painted canvas, by way of shelter. The captain heard the noise of the hammer, and finding it was the doctor, desired him to desist. The doctor replied, that he was only endeavouring to stop some leaks over his bed: the captain said they should not be stopped; for that a bed of _leeks_ was a very good bed for a Welshman. "There, doctor: now we are quits: that's for your dog star. I suppose you think nobody can make, a pun or a pill, in the ship, but yourself?" "If my pills were no better than your puns," muttered the doctor, "we should all be in a bad way." The captain then directed the carpenter not to allow any nails to the doctor, or the use of any of his tools; he even told the poor surgeon that he did not know how to make a pill, and that "he was as useless as the Navy Board." He accused him of ignorance in other parts of his profession; and, ordering all the sick men on deck, rope-ended them to increase their circulation, and put a little life into them.