"Really, now?" the doctor went on; "he’s only been there three months. I knew him slightly; he relieved a chap who had beri-beri, or one of those funny tropical diseases—sometimes you swell, sometimes you do the other thing. I forget now which he did before he was invalided home. I did hear; it was quite interesting. So you’re off there? Well, good luck! Are the ’footer’ results in that paper? "D’you want any tips for the Persian Gulf?" he asked presently, when he had finished reading the football news. "Whatever you like to eat, don’t eat it. (You can’t get it, so you needn’t bother to remember that tip.) And if you want gin or whisky, or any comforts like that, chuck them over the side: they may kill the sharks; they won’t kill you. In fact, my dear chap, whatever you like doing and want to do, there’s only one tip to remember if you want to keep fit—don’t do it! "If you get beri-beri," he called after me as I fled, "you might let me know whether you swell or do the other thing." I packed my bag, not in the least disturbed by anyone’s gloomy remarks, and went back to my ship at Portland. My orders came next day. I was to take passage in a P. & O. mail steamer, sailing in twelve days’ time (a luxury I never expected), and join the _Intrepid_ at Aden, where further orders would be given me. A fortnight later I was tumbling and churning through the "Bay" in the P. & O. _Java_, as happy as a king, without a care in the world. A lieutenant named Anderson shared my cabin. He was going out to join the _Intrepid_ as one of her watchkeepers. As, but for him, I should probably never have survived to write the account of what happened to us later on, I will give an idea of what kind of chap he was. First of all, he was known to his chums as "The Baron" or as "Baron Popple Opstein", though why these nicknames ever stuck to him I don’t know.