fistes—no red herrin—no nuttin! You want to kill poor Roly Poly, Sar! You want to ’prive de world o’ de cook what makes de booflifulest dishes as you nebber see, Sar! You want to make skeleton o’ poor nigger to put in glass-case, Sar! Nebber heard o’ sich numanity! sick barbararity—sich cruelty to anmals! Where de debble you spect to go when you die?”

“Well, if you don’t like to follow my prescriptions, it’s no use coming for my advice, don’t you see,” remarked the Doctor.

“Follow your scriptions?” replied his patient, losing all respect for his companion in the intensity of his indignation. “Follow a shark’s grandmutter, Sar. What, eat nuttin but arrow-root? nassy slop!—pooty joke indeed. Drink nuttin but barley water?—washy stuff! Tink you catch me at it. Be bled and physicked, and run up and down deck six times a day for harp an hour—what a preposterosterous impossumbility.”

“You will get much worse if you don’t, and possibly you may die, don’t you see,” observed Tourniquet.

“Die, Massa!” cried the fat cook, looking horrified at the idea, and rubbing his stomach with an increased energy. “Oh, sich a debble ob a pain! Die Massa! Poor Roly Poly die? Sich a boofliful cook die! Quite unnatral, Massa. Oh, sich a debble ob a pain! What become o’ de poor fellars who eat him nice puddins, and soups, and all dat? Nebber hab no beckfast; nebber hab no lunch; nebber hab no dinner; nebber hab no tea; nebber hab no supper; never hab no nuttin! What become o’ ebry body? What become o’ ship? Same o’ you say Roly Poly die! Nobody do nuttin widout him; cook be most important ofcer in ship. Roly Poly be booflifulest cook as nebber was. Same o’ you say Roly Poly die!”

“Well you will find out the difference by-and-bye, don’t you see,” said the Doctor; and, turning on his heel, he left his patient to his own reflections.

“Him no more doctor dan a jackmorass,” muttered the fat cook, as he waddled to another part of the ship, making the most ludicrous grimaces, and rubbing his stomach with an activity, that for him, was quite surprising. On his way he met with Loop, the young midshipman, who had lately distinguished himself by his love of mischief, and fondness for tricks. The lad, with a very demure face, approached Roly Poly.

“How do you do, Roly Poly?” he inquired, looking into his face as if he was wonderfully interested in the result of his question.

“Oh, sich a debble ob a pain!” replied the fat cook, with a most melancholy visage, continuing the up and down motion of his hand.

“You look very ill, very ill indeed,” observed the boy. “What an extraordinary change! I should scarcely have known you. You must be in a very dangerous state, Roly Poly. You ought to be in your hammock. You ought to be making your will—you ought to be saying your prayers.”

“Oo, oo, oo!” blubbered out the fat cook, lengthening his face as he listened to the remarks of his companion. “You tink I die, Massa Loop?”

“I am much afraid you will be as dead as a herring before you can look about you,” replied Loop.

“Oo, oo, oo!” The other continued. “Doctor say I die: you say I die: spose I must die. Oo, oo, oo!——“

“We are all mortal,” observed the youth, with a grave countenance; “and all, sooner or later, must leave this sublunary world. Cooks cannot be spared any more than midshipmen.”

“Oo, oo, oo!” cried Roly Poly.

“Is there any thing I can do for you?” anxiously inquired the midshipman;—“any consolation I can afford, before your cold remains are consigned to the deep.”

“Oo, oo, oo!” continued the fat cook.

“You must have fortitude to bear the blow,” said Loop, with a countenance that would have done credit to a judge. “Let this be your consolation, that although your body will be devoured by the first shark that ventures in its way——”

“Oo, oo, oo, oo!” vehemently sobbed the sick man, interrupting the sentence before it was half finished.

“You ought now to think of your sins,” continued his tormentor. “It is never too late to repent, you know; and I should earnestly advise you to confess all the injuries you have done your fellow-creatures by imposing upon their stomachs the villanous specimens of your cookery you have from time to time set before them. Confess upon what pipe-clay and train-oil system you made your puddings,—confess the abominable trash you put together to manufacture into soups;—confess how many you have poisoned with your atrocious cocoa—confess——”

It is possible that the young midshipman might have said much more, but Roly Poly, who had listened to his injunctions at first with astonishment, and next with rage, lost all consideration for his approaching dissolution, and his yellow eyeballs flashed with fury. “What de debble you mean you fellar!” thundered out the enraged cook, approaching his companion, who wisely kept out of arms’ reach. “What de debble you mean ob pipe-clay and train-oil? What you mean ob bominable trash—what you mean ob poison wid trocious cocoa? You mean to sult me, Sar? You tink I put up wid your imprance, Sar? You spose I low one man to peak sick horble tings o’ nodder man.”

“Man!” exclaimed the youth, as he edged away from his pursuer,—“You don’t call yourself a man, surely? You know you’re nothing else but an old blacking bottle, turned inside out.”

“Blacka bottle!” shouted Roly Poly, while his face became livid with rage, and he looked utter annihilation at his insulter, “Blacka bottle! I blacka bottle you, I catch you!” and he waddled after the midshipman as fast as his fat legs would carry him, intent upon vengeance.

Loop kept dodging him about from one place to another, saying the most aggravating things he could think of, till the perspiration rolled down the black cheeks of the infuriated cook, and he seemed completely exhausted by his exertions. Roly Poly sat down at the foot of one of the masts to rest himself, breathing all sorts of threatenings against his tormentor; while the young midshipman, laughing at the success of his trick, nimbly ascended the yards, and took up a position just over the head of the victim of his mischief. The latter was congratulating himself that he was left at peace, and was endeavouring to recover the tranquillity of his temper, when he became conscious of something dropping down upon him; putting his hand to his woolly head, he discovered it was being covered with pitch, and, looking up, beheld Master Loop snugly balanced aloft, amusing himself by pouring from an old bucket some of the fluid that had polluted his person.

It would be in vain attempting to delineate the passion of the fat cook at this discovery. Furious with rage, he caught up a small hand-spike that lay near, and poised it in his hand with the intention of throwing it at his tormentor. Loop saw what he was about to do, and immediately, as rapidly as possible, moved from his position, and kept changing from place to place, with a quickness that baffled the fat cook’s aim; but when he had ascended to a greater height, and was passing from one point to another with a velocity that seemed impossible to be imitated, his foot slipped, and with a scream that made all on deck aware of his danger, he fell headlong into the sea.

The Albatross was proceeding at a moderate rate, and was about fifty miles off the coast of Spain. Oriel Porphyry was conversing with Zabra on the quarter-deck, when he noticed the accident. He, with others, rushed to the side; and,