But he broke in, cursing the doctor in a feeble voice, but heartily. “Doctors is all swabs,” he said; “and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with yellow jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes⁠—what do the doctor know of lands like that?⁠—and I lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I am not to have my rum now I’m a poor old hulk on a lee shore. My blood’ll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab,” and he ran on again for a while with curses. “Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges,” he continued in the pleading tone. “I can’t keep ’em still, not I. I haven’t had a drop this blessed day. That doctor’s a fool, I tell you. If I don’t have a drain o’ rum, Jim, I’ll have the horrors; I seen some on ’em already. I seen old Flint in the corner there, behind you; as plain as print, I seen him; and if I get the horrors, I’m a man that has lived rough, and I’ll raise Cain. Your doctor hisself said one glass wouldn’t hurt me. I’ll give you a golden guinea for a noggin, Jim.”