The monkey has now in his jaws more than a hundred grains of calomel, and unless you get it from him, he will die to a certainty!" Literally, the quantity Jacko had purloined, had it been prescribed, would have been ordered in these terms:-- Rx Hydrargyri submuriatis, 3ij.

(Take of calomel 120 grains!) This appeal, which was quite intelligible, caused an immediate rush of the men aloft; but the monkey, after gulping down one of the lumps, or twenty-four grains, shot upwards to the top, over the rail of which he displayed his shaven countenance, and, as if in scorn of their impotent efforts to catch him, plucked another lump from his cheek, and swallowed it likewise, making four dozen grains to begin with.

The news spread over the ship; and all hands, marines inclusive, most of whom had never been farther in the rigging than was necessary to hang up a wet shirt to dry, were seen struggling aloft to rescue the poor monkey from his sad fate.

All their exertions were fruitless; for just as the captain of the maintop seized him by the tail, at the starboard royal yard-arm, he was cramming the last batch of calomel down his throat! It would give needless pain to describe the effects of swallowing the whole of this enormous prescription.

Every art was resorted to within our reach in the shape of antidotes, but all in vain.