The old fellow had a secret pleasure in frightening me as much as he could. "Really, Mr Simple, you ax so many questions," he would say, as I accosted him while he was at his station at the _conn_, "I wish you wouldn't ax so many questions, and make yourself uncomfortable--`steady so'--`steady it is;'--with regard to Yellow Jack, as we calls the yellow fever; it's a devil incarnate, that's sartain--you're well and able to take your allowance in the morning, and dead as a herring 'fore night. First comes a bit of a headache--you goes to the doctor, who bleeds you like a pig--then you go out of your senses--then up comes the black vomit, and then it's all over with you, and you go to the land crabs, who pick your bones as clean and as white as a sea elephant's tooth. But there be one thing to be said in favour of Yellow Jack, a'ter all. You dies _straight_, like a gentleman--not cribbled up like a snow-fish, chucked out on the ice of the river St. Lawrence, with your knees up to your nose, or your toes stuck into your arm-pits, as does take place in some of your foreign complaints; but straight, quite straight, and limber, like a _gentleman_. Still Jack is a little mischievous, that's sartain. In the _Euridiscy_ we had as fine a ship's company as was ever piped aloft--`Steady, starboard, my man, you're half a pint off your course;'--we dropped our anchor in Port Royal, and we thought that there was mischief brewing, for thirty-eight sharks followed the ship into the harbour, and played about us day and night. I used to watch them during the night watch, as their fins, above water, skimmed along, leaving a trail of light behind them; and the second night I said to the sentry abaft, as I was looking at them smelling under the counter--`Soldier,' says I, `them sharks are mustering under the orders of Yellow Jack;' and I no sooner mentioned Yellow Jack, than the sharks gave a frisky plunge, every one of them, as much as to say, `Yes, so we are, damn your eyes.' The soldier was so frightened, that he would have fallen overboard, if I hadn't caught him by the scruff of the neck, for he was standing on the top of the taffrail. As it was, he dropped his musket over the stern, which the sharks dashed at from every quarter, making the sea look like fire--and he had it charged to his wages, 1 pound 15 shillings, I think. However, the fate of his musket gave him an idea of what would have happened to him, if he had fallen instead of it--and he never got on the taffrail again. `Steady, port--mind your helm, Smith--you can listen to my yarn all the same.' Well, Mr Simple, Yellow Jack came, sure enough. First the purser was called to account for all his roguery. We didn't care much about the land crabs eating him, who made so many poor dead men chew tobacco, cheating their wives and relations, or Greenwich Hospital, as it might happen. Then went two of the middies, just about your age, Mr Simple; they, poor fellows, went off in a sad hurry; then