But Jack Aubrey was a neat creature by temperament and rigorous training, and he ( Read more... )

Jack was taller than Queenie and far more than twice as heavy; and having been in the wars for a great while and much battered, he now looked older. He was in fact seven years her junior, and there had been a time when he was a very little boy whose ears she boxed for impertinence, uncleanliness and greed, and whose frequent nightmares she would ( Read more... )

Returning to the cabin he darted an accusing eye at the coffee-pot. But Killick, during the few moments he could spare from eavesdropping near the master's day-cabin, had for his part observed the Doctor's motions - as unscrupulous as ever where coffee and certain sweetmeats were concerned - and another pot was already on its way.Coffee, water and ( Read more... )

'I cannot but admit that when he gets up and speaks of corruption in the dockyards and improper material being used on men-of-war he is sometimes regrettably intemperate ( Read more... )

He had put Stephen ashore in many and many a place, generally by night; and the anguish, even in a dead-calm sea, of watching his unsteady, lurching journey down the side, though helped by gravity and devoted hands, had added years to his apparent age: any innovation, however barbarous, was worth the relief of seeing him sitting there with his ( Read more... )

If I had I should tell you a poem out of that dear man Geoffrey Chaucer, the way women in general have one consuming desire, the desire for command. A very true reflection, you are to observe. And he made some tolerably severe remarks on marriage, the sorrow and woe there is in marriage.' He paused for some kind of response: all that could be made ( Read more... )

Stephen knew of old that it was useless to call out against the weakness of mere superstition: no sailor he had ever known, even the most eminent, even a full admiral in all the glory of gold lace, had ever been moved an inch by reason, however eloquent. He therefore came to a halt, said, 'Fare thee well, dear Jack, and may all the luck in the ( Read more... )

'Why, Stephen, there you are,' called Jack from the breakfast-room, hearing him on the stairs. 'Good morning to you. What an early worm you are to be sure. I trust you slept? You was quite fagged out ( Read more... )

'Yet he might also be described as the officer who, commanding a fourteen gun brig, took a thirty-two-gun Spanish xebec-frigate and carried her into Mahon in the year one; who cut out the French frigate Diane in a boat-attack on the heavily guarded port of Saint-Martin; and who, most recently, returning with his squadron from a most active cruise ( Read more... )

When Jack came in he found him sitting before a tray of bird's skins and labels. Stephen looked up, and after a moment said 'To a tormented mind there is nothing, I believe, more irritating than comfort. Apart from anything else it often implies superior wisdom in the comforter. But I am very sorry for your trouble, my dear ( Read more... )