After some hesitation the men agreed to this; the photographer was summoned and joined the party on its way to the floating pest-house.

It was not a pleasant place in which they found Tom Slater, for the cabin of the fishing-boat was neither light nor airy, but Eliza had done much to make it agreeable.  The sick man was propped up in his bunk and playing solitaire, but he left off his occupation to groan as the new-comers came alongside.

When the cause of the visit had been made known, however, he rebelled.

“I won’t pose for no camera fiend,” he declared, loudly.  “It ain’t decent and I’m too sick.  D’you take me for a bearded lady or a living skeleton?”

“These men think you’re stalling,” Dr. Gray told him.

“Who?  Me?” Slater rolled an angry eye upon the delegation.  “I ain’t sick, eh?  I s’pose I’m doing this for fun?  I wish you had it, that’s all.”

The three members of the committee of investigation wisely halted at the foot of the companionway stairs where the fresh air fanned them; they were nervous and ill at ease.

Drawing his covers closer, Slater shouted: 

“Close that hatch, you bone-heads!  I’m blowing away!”

The photographer ventured to remonstrate.

“It’s mighty close in here, Doc.  Is it safe to breathe the bugs?”

“Perfectly safe,” Gray assured him.  “At least Miss Appleton hasn’t suffered yet.”

As a matter of fact the patient betrayed no symptoms of a wasting illness, for his cheeks were ruddy, he had eaten three hearty meals each day, and the enforced rest had done him good, so the committee saw nothing about him to satisfy their suspicions.  But when Tom weakly called upon them for assistance in rising they shrank back and one of them exclaimed: 

“I wouldn’t touch you with a fish-pole.”

Eliza came forward, however; she permitted her charge to lean upon her while she adjusted the pillows at his back; but when Dr. Gray ordered him to bare his breast and arms Slater refused positively.  He blushed, he stammered, he clutched his nightrobe with a horny hand which would have required a cold chisel to loosen, and not until Eliza had gone upon deck would he consent to expose his bulging chest.

But Miss Appleton had barely left the cabin when she was followed by the most timid member of the delegation.  He plunged up the stairs, gasping: 

“I’ve saw enough!  He’s got it, and got it bad.”

A moment later came the dull sound of the exploding flashlight, then a yell, and out of the smoke stumbled his two companions.  The spokesman, it appeared, had also seen enough—­too much—­for with another yell he leaped the rail and made for shore.  Fortunately the tide was out and the water low; he left a trail across the mud flat like that of a frightened hippopotamus.

When the two conspirators were finally alone upon the deck they rocked in each other’s arms, striving to stifle their laughter.  Meanwhile from the interior of the cabin came the feeble moans of the invalid.