Monty catches some sort of head cold three days into the voyage and collapses into histrionics, which Percy only encourages with doting concern. Since he’s given up spirits, Monty has leaned in even harder to his addiction to attention. His good ear is blocked up by the chill, rendering him almost entirely deaf, though I think not as deaf as he pretends to be when I mention a remedy I read in An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases, in which a head cold can be doused by rolling up an orange’s peel and shoving it up both nostrils. When he refuses to listen but continues to moan,
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