"Humph!" said Mr. Thoms, "there's something in that." And when he went for'ard old Brooks was as proud as a dog with two tails! Though he usually spent the second dog-watch daily in proving that Thoms was no sailor, this endorsement of his theory flattered him greatly. "I've been mistook in the second," he said, as Thoms went aft. "He's got 'orse sense, after all. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd make a sailor some day." And Thoms reported the catastrophe to Watchett. "Drowned himself?" roared the captain; "drowned himself? And who's responsible if you ain't?" He came on deck in a great rage and scanty pyjamas and mustered the crew aft, and roared at them for full ten minutes as if it was their fault. When he had relieved his mind he asked if there was anyone who could throw light on the matter, and old Brooks was shoved to the front. He explained his views on calentures. "Never 'eard of 'em," said Watchett. "And I think, sir, as Tidewell 'ere 'as the symptoms." "I haven't," said Tidewell, indignantly. "Wild laughin' is a known symptom, sir, and Tidewell was laughin' 'orrid in the second dog-watch," insisted Brooks; "I'd put him in irons, sir." But Watchett was not prepared to go so far in prophylaxis. "If any of you 'as any more symptoms I'll flog 'im and take the consequences," he declared. He went below again unhappily, for he wasn't quite a brute after all. "This is a mighty unpleasant thing," he said to poor Mrs. Watchett, who cried when she heard the news. "It's a mighty unfortunate affair. Gribbs was the smartest man in the whole crowd and worth two of the others." But still the great and terrible calm lasted, and the morning was as hot as yesterday and the sea shone like polished brass and lapped faintly like heavy oil against the glowing iron of the sister barques. At dawn, which came up like a swiftly opening flower out of the fertile east, the vessels were just too far apart for hailing, and Watchett signalled the news to the _Star of the South_. "Lost a man overboard!" said Ryder. "That's strange; I wish to Heaven we'd found him!" When he told his wife she seemed extraordinarily callous. "Serves him right," she said. And it was wonderful how the crew of the _Star_ took the news. They had never seemed so cheerful. They grinned when Watchett came aboard. "This is an 'orrid circumstance," said Watchett. "I never lost a man before, not even when I was wrecked in the _Violet_. And this a dead calm!" "Your men aren't happy," said Mrs. Ryder, "and you don't try to make 'em. If I give you three seven-pound tins of marmalade and some butter, will you serve it out to them?" [Illustration: "'YOUR MEN AREN'T HAPPY,' SAID MRS. RYDER."] But Watchett shook his head angrily. "I'll not cocker no men up," he declared; "not if they all goes overboard and leaves me and the missis to take 'er 'ome. And what's marmalade against 'eat like this?" He mopped a melancholy brow and sighed.