"Any crew of Englishmen would cherish and pet him, and perish for such a beautiful, manly little fellow," exclaimed Hardy, with enthusiasm and admiration in his voice. "He's always kept my crews contented," said Captain Layard, smiling. "Several men have sailed with me every voyage ever since I took Johnny to sea, learning that he was coming again." He looked at the sail to windward that leaned like a black feather in the crimson air, then glanced over the ship's side to judge her pace, and stood for some time near Hardy listening to the music and watching the men dancing. He said, with an abruptness that again surprised Hardy as it had before even startled him during the run down Channel: "Have you ever studied the nervous system?" "No, sir," answered Hardy. "A man is formed of two sides," continued the captain, "and each side has a nervous system of its own. They are independent, and strange things happen in consequence. I remember when I was chief mate of a ship called the _Tartar_ that I stood aft close to the man at the wheel, who exclaimed on a sudden, 'I don't know what's wrong with me, but there's two meanings a-going on in my head.' 'What's that?' I asked. 'This here side,' said he, lifting his right hand from the spoke, and putting it to his forehead, 'is a-talking one sense, which ain't sense, because t'other side's talking in a different way,' and here he touched his left brow, 'and all's confusion,' and then he began to mutter to himself. I thought he was ill, and calling another man to the relief, sent him forward and followed with some brandy, which put his head to rights. I spoke of this matter to a doctor when I got ashore, and he explained the dual system of nerves, and told me that overworked brains would occasionally chatter inconsequentially in each lobe." "How shall a man act when his brain comes to a misunderstanding in that fashion?" asked Hardy, gazing with critical interest at the captain's refined but singular face. "_I_ take brandy," replied Captain Layard, sending a glance aloft, then at the distant sail, then at his little son, who continued to beat in accompaniment to "Sally come up," whilst the sailors sprang about in glowing glee, and the scarlet in the west deepened into a rusty red. "Do you suffer from attacks of the kind, sir?" inquired Hardy. "To tell you the truth," responded the captain, with a peculiar smile, keeping his gaze fastened on the forecastle, "I had one just now. The left side grew importunate in nonsense; the right side was all right, and quite understood that things were wrong. The trouble was preceded by a curious beating of the heart in the ear. It sounded as though a wooden leg was hollowly tramping round the galleries of the brain--thump, thump, thump! It was like the noise of a wooden leg coming into a theatre when some actress of genius has stilled the house into breathlessness by her witchery."