"There you go again!" cried the doctor, unconsciously using Watty Links's expression. "You've made your blood boil, and it wants cooling down." "Then I'll drink some water or suck a lump of ice," said Steve bitterly. "I can't take physic now." "Nonsense, you excitable young donkey!" cried the doctor. "I meant a mental sedative draught. I want you to hear reason, if you will listen to me." "I don't want to listen; I only want to be alone, sir." "Yes, to get into a stupid, morbid state, when a little bit of brave surgery--moral surgery--on your part would set all right." "There _you_ go again, sir!" cried Steve querulously. "One minute you want to give me pills and a draught, the next you want to begin cutting me to pieces." The doctor burst out laughing. "That's right," cried Steve, "laugh at me; I deserve it;" and at that moment he wished that he was a little child again, so that he could go and hide himself away, and relieve his feelings by crying fit to break his heart. But he did not say to himself "cry"; he put it as "blubber like a great girl." "Be quiet, my lad; and, believe me, I can feel for you and want to help you. I'm a doctor, and I talked metaphorically, as, of course, you know. By moral surgery I meant one brave bit of mastery over self, and cutting the trouble right out. There's no hiding the fact; you, as a gentleman's son, ought not to have been found fighting with the ship's boy, and under such ludicrous circumstances; now, ought you?" "No, I suppose not," replied Steve; "but--" "Never mind the `buts,' my lad. You own that you are in the wrong?" "Yes." "Then go and wash your face and brush all that fluff off your jacket. Then pluck up, and like a man go in to the captain; keep cool--you'll be cooler by that time--and tell him exactly how it all was; say you are sorry, and--Don't keep on shaking your head like that, sir; you'll be doing some injury to your spinal column." "But I can't go and tell him that, after the way in which he looked and spoke to me." "Yes, you can, sir." "No." "There you go, shaking your head again. Tell him you were in the wrong." "That I'll be a good boy, and won't do so any more." "Well, is there anything to be ashamed of in that, sir?" "I couldn't do it--I wouldn't do it." "Then you're a coward." "No, I'm not," retorted Steve angrily. "You are--a miserable moral coward; and I thought you had more pluck in you--more of the honest, manly pluck of an English boy who is brave enough to own to a fault." "I'm not a coward," muttered Steve. "I'd show you if there was any occasion," and he stood frowning.