A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said: "What can I get you, sir ?" [Picture: Man feeling ill] "Get me out of this," was the feeble reply.
And they ran him up quick, and propped him up, over to leeward, and left him.
For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain's biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth.

He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing-stage he gazed after it regretfully.
"There she goes," he said, "there she goes, with two pounds' worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven't had." He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could have put it straight.
So I set my face against the sea trip.

Not, as I explained, upon my own account.

I was never queer.

But I was afraid for George.