Thus there were two debates at this time proceeding with much heat, and with just so much acrimony as to make them highly interesting. With the noble posts it was one to two, that is, our captain, the Daphneite, had drawn upon him the other two captains, both of whom were Phyllisites. When a man has to argue against two, and is not quite certain of being in the right either, he has nothing for it but to be very loud. Now men, divine as they are, have some things in common with the canine species. Go into a village and you will observe that when one cur begins to yelp, every dog's ear catches the sound, bristles up, and every throat is opened in clamorous emulation. Captain Reud talked fast as well as loud, so he was nearly upon a par with his opponents, who only talked loud. At the other end of the table the odds were two to one, which is not always the same as one to two; that is, the two older surgeons were opposed to the youngest. These three were just as loud within one note--the note under being the tribute they unconciously paid to naval discipline--as the three captains. Both parties were descanting upon plagues. "I say, sir," said the little surgeon, who was the eldest, "it is _not_ infectious. But here comes Dr Thompson." Now the erudite doctor, from the first, had no great chance. Captain Reud had determined he should not be invalided. The two other captains cared nothing at all about the matter, but, of course, would not be so impolitic as to differ from their superior officer--an officer, too, of large interest, and the Amphytrion of the day; for when they had performed those duties for which they were so well fitted, their medical ones, they were to dine on the scene of their arduous labours. The eldest surgeon had rather a bias against the doctor, as he could not legally put M.D. against his own name. The next in seniority was entirely adverse to the invaliding, as, without he could invalide too, he would have to go to the West Indies in the place of our surgeon. The youngest was indifferent just then to anything but to confute the other two, and prove the plague infectious. "But here comes Dr Thompson--I'll appeal to him," said non-infection; but the appeal was unfortunate, both for the appealer and the doctor. The latter was an infectionist; so there was no longer any odds, but two against two, and away they went. Our friend in the wide coat forgot he was sick, and his adversaries that they had to verify it; they sought to verify nothing but their dogmas. They waxed loud, then cuttingly polite, then slaughteringly sarcastic and, at last, exceeding wroth. "I tell you, sir, that I have written a volume on the subject." "Had you no friend near you," said Dr Thompson, "at that most unfortunate time?" "I tell you, sir, I will never argue with anyone on the subject, unless he have read my Latin treatise `De Natura Pestium et Pestilentiarum.'"