"You young reprobate! What, with both?" said the captain, grinning. "Yes sir," for I now began to feel myself safe; "and Mr and Mrs O'Toole, and Mr Cornelius O'Toole, who has red hair, and Mr Phelim O'Toole, who has a black eye,--and the poultry, and the pigs, and the boat's crew." "And where was the boat all this time?" "Sleeping with us, too, sir." I then shortly detailed what had happened to me, which amused the captain much. "And so," he continued, "after all, you have brought off the sand. I really commend your perseverance." A bucket of sand was handed up, and Mr Farmer contemptuously filtered it through his fingers; then turning to me wrathfully, exclaimed, "How dare you bring off for sand, such shelly, pebbly, gritty stuff as this, sir?" "If you please, sir, I had no hand in putting it where I found it, and I only obeyed orders in bringing it off." For I really felt it to be very unjust to be blamed for the act of nature, and especially as three lives had been endangered to procure a few buckets of worthless earth. The captain thought so too; for he said to Mr Farmer, very coldly, "I think you should have ascertained the quality of the sand before you sent for it; and I don't think that you should have sent for it at all towards nightfall, and at the beginning of ebb tide. Youngster, you shall dine with me to-day, and give me a history of the O'Tooles." CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. AN INVALIDING SUIT--THE CARDS WELL PLAYED, AND BY A TRUMP--THE ODD TRICK, HOWEVER, IN MUCH DANGER--THE DOCTOR FINESSES WITH A GOOD HEART, BUT DIAMONDS ARE CUTTING ARTICLES. Two days had elapsed after my incursions upon the "wild Irishers," during which our surgeon had kept himself closely to his cabin, when he wrote a letter on service to the captain, requesting a survey upon his self-libelled rotundity of body. The captain, according to the laws of the service, "in that case made and provided," forwarded the letter to the port-admiral, who appointed the following day for the awful inspection. As I said before, the skipper and his first-lieutenant had laid down a scheme of a counter-plot, and they now began to put it into execution. Immediately that Dr Thompson had received his answer, he began to dose himself immoderately with tartarised antimony and other drugs, to give his round and hitherto ruddy countenance the pallor of disease. He commenced getting up his invaliding suit.