"Of course everyone was excited. Jack had to take hold and give orders. He shut his wife and youngster up in their cabin, ordered us all out of the saloon except the steward, and set to work on young Siddons, who was lying on the table with a towel under his head. Mr. Bloom, who had been rushing to and fro making friends with the Second, the Third, and even the donkey man, in a frenzied attempt to get information about the coal which was to be sold the next day, now favoured me with a heart-to-heart talk on the subject of professional etiquette. It was a mistake, in his opinion as an experienced ship's officer, for the Captain to be a surgeon as well. It was time we took a firm stand. Owners should be informed that this primitive and obsolete state of affairs could be no longer tolerated. Now when he was sailing under the Cuban flag, they always carried a surgeon. Compelled to by law. Of course one couldn't let a man die for lack of attention; but if he was in Captain Evans' shoes, he would send in a report with a formal protest appended. Do everything courteously and in due form but--be firm! That was the trouble with sea-going officers--they were not firm with their employers. He himself, he was frank to say, had often given owners a piece of his mind, and no doubt he had suffered for it. And why? Simply because he got no support. Now he knew I wouldn't take any silly offence if he mentioned a personal matter, but really for Captain Evans to send an engineer ashore in a boat was in the highest degree unprofessional. It was a job for an executive officer, obviously. Not that he wished to criticise--far from it--but _verb. sap_ as they say at Oxford and Cambridge. A word to the right man, mind you, was worthy any amount of useless argument with--well, he wouldn't mention any names, but I knew what he meant, no doubt.
"How long this enchanted imbecile would have continued his monologue I shouldn't care to say, if Jack had not called me down to help get young Siddons into his bunk. The collar-bone, broken more than once at football, would knit nicely, he said, and he had put a couple of neat stitches in the gash over the eye. Made him shout, Jack admitted as he washed his hands with carbolic soap, but what was a little pain compared with being disfigured for life? He reckoned it would heal up and leave no more than a faint scar. What did I reckon he was doing, eh? Funny for him to leave the boat. Very unusual. What did I think?