Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother--doubtless a
difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
the day by either Willis or his brother.
To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
risking their own.
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