A scratching at the door roused him from his lethargy. He opened the door upon Mr Davey's rubicund face.

'A bite to eat, Cap'n?'

'Aye, thank you, Mr Davey, and I'd be obliged for a new candle.'

'Of course ... if you'll bide a moment ...'

Davey slipped away to return a few moments later. 'Here you are, sir. There's no news I'm afraid, Cap'n ...'

'And not likely to be with this wind,' Drinkwater said morosely as Davey struggled with flint and steel.

'I wouldn't say that, Cap'n. Mr Fagan has a way of poppin' up, as it were. Like jack-in-the-box, if you take my meaning-'

'D'you know him well, then?'

'Well enough, Cap'n,' replied Davey, coaxing the candle into life. 'He takes his lodging in the room yonder. When I gets word I tell the one-legged gennelman.'

'I see. And the customer you received late this afternoon? What was his business?'

Davey winked and tapped the side of his nose. 'A gennelman in a spot o' trouble, Cap'n Waters,' he said, using Drinkwater's assumed name. 'Word gets round, d'ye see, that I sell paregoric elixir ...' Davey enunciated the words with a certain proprietorial hauteur. 'He's afeared o' visiting a quack or a 'pothecary, but mostly o'Job's Dock.'

'Who's dock?' asked Drinkwater, biting into the gristle that seemed the chief constituent of the meat pie Davey had brought him.

'Job's Dock, Cap'n, the venereal ward at St Bartholomew's. He's got himself burnt, d'ye see ...'

'Yes, yes ...' Drinkwater was losing his appetite.

'I stock a supply for the benefit of the seamen ...'

'I understand, Mr Davey, though I did not know tincture of opium was effective against the pox.'

'Ah, but it clears the distemper of the mind, Cap'n, it relieves the conscience ...'

When a man has a bad conscience, Drinkwater thought, the most trivial remarks and events serve to remind him of it. Perhaps Davey's paregoric elixir would remove the distemper of his own mind. He visited the privy and turned instead to the replenished jug of gin. An hour later he fell asleep.