That his blood was the same blood that had licked Russia and was
going to lick the United States some day, and that if his blood
wasn't able to cure a few trifling cuts, he'd commit hari-kari in
sheer disgrace.
From all of which I concluded that an amateur M.D. is without honour
on his own vessel, even if he has cured himself. The rest of the
crew had begun to look upon me as a sort of mild mono-maniac on the
question of sores and sublimate. Just because my blood was impure
was no reason that I should think everybody else's was. I made no
more overtures. Time and microbes were with me, and all I had to do
was wait.
"I think there's some dirt in these cuts," Martin said tentatively,
after several days. "I'll wash them out and then they'll be all
right," he added, after I had refused to rise to the bait.
Two more days passed, but the cuts did not pass, and I caught Martin
soaking his feet and legs in a pail of hot water.
"Nothing like hot water," he proclaimed enthusiastically. "It beats
all the dope the doctors ever put up. These sores will be all right
in the morning."
But in the morning he wore a troubled look, and I knew that the hour
of my triumph approached.
