“You might get that of your nurse also, if she happens to be still alive,” mocked Bickley.  “As for his Lordship, I don’t think he will raise any objection when he sees the certificate I will give you about the state of your health.  He is a great believer in me ever since I took that carbuncle out of his neck which he got because he will not eat enough.  As for me, I mean to come if only to show you how continually and persistently you are wrong.  But, Arbuthnot, how do you mean to go?”

“I don’t know.  In a mail steamer, I suppose.”

“If you can run to it, a yacht would be much better.”

“That’s a good idea, for one could get out of the beaten tracks and see the places that are never, or seldom, visited.  I will make some inquiries.  And now, to celebrate the occasion, let us all have another glass of port and drink a toast.”

They hesitated and were lost, Bastin murmuring something about doing without his stout next day as a penance.  Then they both asked what was the toast, each of them, after thought, suggesting that it should be the utter confusion of the other.

I shook my head, whereon as a result of further cogitation, Bastin submitted that the Unknown would be suitable.  Bickley said that he thought this a foolish idea as everything worth knowing was already known, and what was the good of drinking to the rest?  A toast to the Truth would be better.

A notion came to me.

“Let us combine them,” I said, “and drink to the Unknown Truth.”

So we did, though Bastin grumbled that the performance made him feel like Pilate.

“We are all Pilates in our way,” I replied with a sigh.

“That is what I think every time I diagnose a case,” exclaimed Bickley.

As for me I laughed and for some unknown reason felt happier than I had done for months.  Oh! if only the writer of that tourist tale of the South Sea Islands could have guessed what fruit his light-thrown seed would yield to us and to the world!

I made my inquiries through a London agency which hired out yachts or sold them to the idle rich.  As I expected, there were plenty to be had, at a price, but wealthy as I was, the figure asked of the buyer of any suitable craft, staggered me.  In the end, however, I chartered one for six months certain and at so much per month for as long as I liked afterwards.  The owners paid insurance and everything else on condition that they appointed the captain and first mate, also the engineer, for this yacht, which was named Star of the South, could steam at about ten knots as well as sail.