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The Doctor, whose business was also sensitive, nodded; and then he said, “But for all that, the story’s old, Dick Turnbull — older than you or I, my jolly good friend.”

“And best forgotten,” interposed the host of the George.

“Ay, best forgotten; but that it’s not like to be,” said the Doctor, plucking up courage. “Here’s our friend the Captain has heard it; and the mistake he has made shows there’s one thing worse than its being quite remembered, and that is, its being half remembered. We can’t stop people talking; and a story like that will see us all off the hooks, and be in folks’ mouths, still, as strong as ever.”

“Ay; and now I think on it, ’twas Dick Harman that has the boat down there — an old tar like myself — that told me that yarn. I was trying for pike, and he pulled me over the place, and that’s how I came to hear it. I say, Tom, my hearty, serve us out another glass of brandy, will you?” shouted the Captain’s voice as the waiter crossed the room; and that florid and grizzled naval hero clapped his leg again on the chair by its wooden companion, which he was wont to call his jury-mast.