‘Yes, I thank you. They are used to my ways here. Perfect, if only the woman of the house did not take it upon herself to play the physician, merely because I keep my bed some hours every day. “No, ma’am,” I say to her, “I will not drink Godfrey’s Cordial, nor try Ward’s drop. I do not tell you how to dress this salmagundi, for you are a cook; pray do not tell me how to order my regimen, for as you know, I am a medical man.” “No sir,” says she, “but our Sarah, which she was in just the same case as you, having been overset at the bear-baiting when six months gone, took great adwantage from Godfrey; so pray, sir, do try this spoonful.” Jack Aubrey was just the same. “I do not pretend to teach you to sail your sloop or poop or whatever you call the damn machine; do not therefore pretend –”  But it is all one. Nostrums from the fairground quack, old wives’ remedies – bah! If rage could reunite my sinews, I should be as compact as a lithosperm.’

Sir Joseph had intended to suggest the waters of Bath, but now he said, ‘I hope your friend is well?’

HMS Surprise – Patrick O’Brian