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"`Oh, oh! my dear man, I guessed what it was that ails you. But never fear, I'll cure you in a jiffy. You're troubled with smoke-worms. That's it. And they are very dangerous things if you don't get rid of them, mind that. You see this invaluable stuff which I hold in my hand. If you want to get cured you must take six bottles of it.
So I got out my oars pretty sharp, and began to pull away towards Spithead, thinking to get clear of them, and to carry my freight ashore as I'd engaged to do. But I soon found that the smoke-worms weren't quite so ready to part company with me, and as my boat began to gather way, they began to swim after her. The big fellow led, and all the others followed.
I half expected to see the whole troop of wriggling, twisting, forked-tailed smoke-worms coming up the harbour with the last of the flood; but though I looked out till the tide had done, they didn't come, and it's my belief that they knocked themselves about so much against the Needle rocks, that they put about and went down Channel; and all I can say is that I hope that every one of 'em was drowned or came to some other bad end out at sea, and that I may never as long as I live have such a night as the one I spent after taking Doctor Gulliman's physic.
Well, as the tide was sending me along nicely, I didn't get out the oars again, but sat in the boat meditating like, when all of a sudden I felt myself very queer in the inside, and pains came on just for all the world as if I had swallowed a score or two of big mackerel, and they were all kicking and wriggling about in my bread-basket. `They are the smoke-worms the doctor told me about, thinks I. `They don't like the taste of his stuff, that's the truth of it. Well, I felt queerer and queerer, and Southsea Castle began to spin round and round, and the kickers went dancing up and down, and the ships in the harbour were all turning summersets, and every sort of circumvolution and devilment you could think of took place.
Thinks I to myself, `There's something in that doctor's stuff, there's no doubt about that, though whether its worth a shilling a bottle is another matter. Just then I felt more queer than ever. `Heugh! heugh! There was a rattling and a kicking, and such commotion in my inside, and up came what I soon knew was the smoke-worms right out of my mouth, and overboard they went as I put my head over the gunwale.