midnight
`` But I wonder , Doctor , that you have n't long ago tested the value of this by an experiment upon yourself . '' `` Physicians are proverbially shy of their own medicines , '' said he . `` Well , you see , '' continued the Skipper , `` we had a rough run down the Labrador shore ; rainstorms and fogs so thick you could cut 'em up into junks with your jack-knife . At last we reached a small fishing station away down where the sun does n't sleep in summer , but just takes a bit of a nap at midnight . Here Wilson went ashore , more dead than alive , and found comfortable lodgings with a little , dingy French oil merchant , who had a snug , warm house , and a garden patch , where he raised a few potatoes and turnips in the short summers , and a tolerable field of grass , which kept his two cows alive through the winter . The country all about was dismal enough ; as far as you could see there was nothing but moss , and rocks , and bare hills , and ponds of shallow water , with now and then a patch of stunted firs . But it doubtless looked pleasant to our poor sick passenger , who for some days had been longing for land .