Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/167

 The captain could do nothing but stare at the closed door, while Jerry, perceiving nothing entertaining in that, stared at the captain, who suddenly exploded out in his great sea voice:

"An apothecary, an analyzing apothecary! What in the devil's name does he mean by that?"

Jerry still looked at the captain. Certainly he had never beheld any one more unlike an apothecary. By the widest stretch of his imagination he could not picture the captain mixing drugs or making experiments.

"It's my opinion" he said, and then hesitated.

"Yes?" thundered the captain, with an eagerness that seemed to welcome any opinion.

"—well, it's my opinion, sir, that Doctor Syn is off his head—mad, sir."

"And it's my opinion, potboy," said the captain, as if he valued his own opinion as highly as Jerry Jerk's, "it's my opinion that he's nothing of the kind. He's feigning madness. He had to do something, you see, to get out of the room, so he called me something that he knew would take my breath away for the moment, knowing me to be dense, and he succeeded, for if any man was unqualified to be an apothecary, I'm the fellow. An analyzing apothecary!"

Then the captain sat down in the armchair and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and Jerry was obliged to join in, though he didn't know what he was laughing at. At length he stopped and became