A Change of Treatment Page #2

"A Change of Treatment" by W. W. Jacobs is a humorous short story that explores themes of social class and human behavior. The narrative revolves around a character who seeks to improve his fortunes through a clever but unconventional solution. With Jacobs’ trademark wit, the story delves into the misunderstandings and comedic situations that arise from the protagonist's attempts to navigate his circumstances. The tale ultimately highlights the absurdities of life and the often unpredictable nature of change.

• Fiction

								

give the deepest and hollowest cough he’d ever done.

“‘What they reely want,’ ses the skipper, turning to the mate, ‘is
keerful nussing.’

“‘I wish you’d let me nuss ’em,’ ses the fust mate, ‘only ten
minutes—I’d put ’em both on their legs, an’ running for their lives
into the bargain, in ten minutes.’

“‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ ses the skipper; ‘what you say is unfeeling,
besides being an insult to me. Do you think I studied medicine all
these years without knowing when a man’s ill?’

“The fust mate growled something and went on deck, and the skipper
started examining of ’em again. He said they was wonderfully patient
lying in bed so long, an’ he had ’em wrapped up in bedclo’es and
carried on deck, so as the pure air could have a go at ’em. We had to
do the carrying, an’ there they sat, breathing the pure air, and
looking at the fust mate out of the corners of their eyes. If they
wanted anything from below one of us had to go an’ fetch it, an’ by the
time they was taken down to bed again, we all resolved to be took ill
too.

“Only two of ’em did it though, for Harry, who was a powerful,
ugly-tempered chap, swore he’d do all sorts o’ dreadful things to us if
we didn’t keep well and hearty, an’ all ’cept these two did. One of
’em, Mike Rafferty, laid up with a swelling on his ribs, which I knew
myself he ’ad ’ad for fifteen years, and the other chap had paralysis.
I never saw a man so reely happy as the skipper was. He was up an down
with his medicines and his instruments all day long, and used to make
notes of the cases in a big pocket-book, and read ’em to the second
mate at mealtimes.

“The fo’c’sle had been turned into hospital about a week, an’ I was on
deck doing some odd job or the other, when the cook comes up to me
pulling a face as long as a fiddle.

“‘Nother invalid,’ ses he; ‘fust mate’s gone stark, staring mad!’

“‘Mad?’ ses I.

“‘Yes,’ ses he. ‘He’s got a big basin in the galley, an’ he’s laughing
like a hyener an’ mixing bilge-water an’ ink, an’ paraffin an’ butter
an’ soap an’ all sorts o’ things up together. The smell’s enough to
kill a man; I’ve had to come away.’

“Curious-like, I jest walked up to the galley an’ puts my ’ed in, an’
there was the mate as the cook said, smiling all over his face, and
ladling some thick sticky stuff into a stone bottle.

“‘How’s the pore sufferers, sir?’ ses he, stepping out of the galley
jest as the skipper was going by.

“‘They’re very bad; but I hope for the best,” ses the skipper, looking
at him hard. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve turned a bit more feeling.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ ses the mate. ‘I didn’t think so at fust, but I can see
now them chaps is all very ill. You’ll s’cuse me saying it, but I don’t
quite approve of your treatment.’

“I thought the skipper would ha’ bust.

“‘My treatment?’ ses he. ‘My treatment? What do you know about it?’

“‘You’re treating ’em wrong, sir,’ ses the mate. ‘I have here’ (patting
the jar) ‘a remedy which ’ud cure them all if you’d only let me try
it.’

“‘Pooh!’ ses the skipper. ‘One medicine cure all diseases! The old
story. What is it? Where’d you get it from?’ ses he.

“‘I brought the ingredients aboard with me,’ ses the mate. ‘It’s a
wonderful medicine discovered by my grandmother, an’ if I might only
try it I’d thoroughly cure them pore chaps.’

“‘Rubbish!’ ses the skipper.

“‘Very well, sir,’ ses the mate, shrugging his shoulders. ‘O’ course,
if you won’t let me you won’t. Still I tell you, if you’d let me try
I’d cure ’em all in two days. That’s a fair challenge.’

“Well, they talked, and talked, and talked, until at last the skipper
give way and went down below with the mate, and told the chaps they was
to take the new medicine for two days, jest to prove the mate was
wrong.

“‘Let pore old Dan try it first, sir,’ ses Harry, starting up, an’
sniffing as the mate took the cork out; ‘he’s been awful bad since
you’ve been away.’

“‘Harry’s worse than I am, sir,’ ses Dan; ‘it’s only his kind heart
that makes him say that.’

“‘It don’t matter which is fust,’ ses the mate, filling a tablespoon
with it, ‘there’s plenty for all. Now, Harry.’

“‘Take it,’ ses the skipper.

“Harry took it, an’ the fuss he made you’d ha’ thought he was
swallering a football. It stuck all round his mouth, and he carried on
so dredful that the other invalids was half sick afore it came to them.

“By the time the other three ’ad ’ad theirs it was as good as a
pantermime, an’ the mate corked the bottle up, and went an’ sat down on
a locker while they tried to rinse their mouths out with the luxuries
which had been given ’em.

“‘How do you feel?’ ses the skipper.

“‘I’m dying,’ ses Dan.

“‘So’m I,’ ses Harry; ‘I b’leeve the mate’s pisoned us.”

“The skipper looks over at the mate very stern an’ shakes his ’ed
slowly.

“‘It’s all right,’ ses the mate. ‘It’s always like that the first dozen
or so doses.’

“‘Dozen or so doses!’ ses old Dan, in a far-away voice.

“‘It has to be taken every twenty minutes,’ ses the mate, pulling out
his pipe and lighting it; an’ the four men groaned all together.

“‘I can’t allow it,’ ses the skipper, ‘I can’t allow it. Men’s lives
mustn’t be sacrificed for an experiment.’

“‘’T ain’t a experiment,’ ses the mate very indignant, ‘it’s an old
family medicine.’

“‘Well, they shan’t have any more,’ ses the skipper firmly.

“‘Look here,’ ses the mate. ‘If I kill any one o’ these men I’ll give
you twenty pound. Honour bright, I will.’

“‘Make it twenty-five,’ ses the skipper, considering.

“‘Very good,’ ses the mate. ‘Twenty-five; I can’t say no fairer than
that, can I? It’s about time for another dose now.’

“He gave ’em another tablespoonful all round as the skipper left, an’
the chaps what wasn’t invalids nearly bust with joy. He wouldn’t let
’em have anything to take the taste out, ’cos he said it didn’t give
the medicine a chance, an’ he told us other chaps to remove the
temptation, an’ you bet we did.

“After the fifth dose, the invalids began to get desperate, an’ when
they heard they’d got to be woke up every twenty minutes through the
night to take the stuff, they sort o’ give up. Old Dan said he felt a
gentle glow stealing over him and strengthening him, and Harry said
that it felt like a healing balm to his lungs. All of ’em agreed it was
a wonderful sort o’ medicine, an’ arter the sixth dose the man with
paralysis dashed up on deck, and ran up the rigging like a cat. He sat
there for hours spitting, an’ swore he’d brain anybody who interrupted
him, an’ arter a little while Mike Rafferty went up and j’ined him, an’
it the fust mate’s ears didn’t burn by reason of the things them two
pore sufferers said about ’im, they ought to.

“They was all doing full work next day, an’ though, o’course, the
skipper saw how he’d been done, he didn’t allude to it. Not in words,
that is; but when a man tries to make four chaps do the work of eight,
an’ hits ’em when they don’t, it’s a easy job to see where the shoe
pinches.”
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