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a23404f
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E tempo di andare, signore>>, disse Parker, con Pullings e Rossall pronti a sollevare il loro comandante fuoribordo. <>, disse Jack. <> Esitarono; poi, colta la nota appassionata nella sua voce e sul suo viso, passarono sulla corvetta e si trattennero all'impavesata. Il vento era girato e soffiava ora da terra; il cielo si andava schiarendo a oriente; erano fuori del Ras du Point, al di la delle secche, e l'acqua al ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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4a0eca7
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I am not master of words to tell you, Jack, the value of an exceedingly remote island to a naturalist, an uninhabited fertile volcanic island covered with a luxuriant vegetation, with no vile rats, dogs, cats, goats, swine, introduced by fools to destroy an Eden, an island untouched...
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Patrick O'Brian |
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d3c7bba
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Years had passed, and years had a bad name: a verse of Horace floated into his mind: Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes; eripuere jocos, Venerem, convivia, ludum... and for a moment he tried to make a tolerable English version; but his The years in passing rob us of our delight, of merriment and carnal love, of each in turn, all sport and dining out... did not please him and he abandoned the attempt.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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08369fa
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It would be strange if the weather-gage had to be explained to so old a sea-dog; though I must confess that there was a time when I confused it with that thing which creaks on the roof, showing which way the wind is blowing. Yet could you not obtain this valuable gage by some less arduous means than running a hundred miles and hiding behind a more or less mythical island which no one has ever seen, and that in the dark, a perilous proceedin..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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afecad6
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Jack prese la lettera, borbotto uno <> e si ritiro. Torno poco dopo, piu alto, piu dritto nella persona, il volto raggiante. <> Afferro la mano di Stephen, fissandolo con infinita benevolenza. <> Si guardo intorno in uno stato di frastornata felicita, poi estrasse il violino dalla cust..
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marriage
happiness
love
make-peace
betrayal
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Patrick O'Brian |
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a1a6de4
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Stephen observed, 'I have seen many examples of the seaman's volatility, but none equal to this. When you recall the last week, culminating in the events of yesterday - no longer ago than yesterday itself - when you recall the silent, anxious and I might almost say haunted faces, the absence not only of the usual laughter but even of quips and small-wit, and the collective sense of impending, ineluctable doom, and when you compare that with..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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520a739
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The last man crossed the deck: the clinking ship's company was dismissed, and Jack said to the signal-midshipman, 'To Dryad: Captain repair aboard at once.' He then turned to Rowan and said, 'You may part company as soon as I hear from Captain Babbington whether the transports are in Cephalonia or not; then you will not lose a moment of this beautiful leading breeze. Here he is. Captain Babbington, good day to you. Are the transports in Cep..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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2f108cb
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They emerged from the tropical vegetation, greeted by a general cheer. Stephen advanced, carrying his hurly: he was feeling particularly well and fit; he had his land-legs again, and no longer stumped along, but walked with an elastic step. Jack came to meet him, and said in a low voice, 'Just keep your end up, Stephen, until your eye is in; and watch out for the Admiral's twisters,' and then as they neared the Admiral, 'Sir, allow me to na..
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maturin
cricket
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Patrick O'Brian |
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bb3658f
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The sight of that familiar hand struck Jack with astonishing force, and for a moment he could have sworn he heard her voice: for this moment it was as though he were in the breakfast-parlour at Ashgrove Cottage, in Hampshire, half the world away, and as though she were there on the other side of the table, tall, gentle, lovely, so wholly a part of himself. But the figure on the other side of the table was in fact a rather coarse rear-admira..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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fb5a1d5
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Jack, Harding and all those who had any pride in the ship's beauty and her seamanlike appearance had done virtually everything in human power to make it impossible for any candid eye, however severe, to find fault with her: they knew that the Admiral could not honestly say that her yards were not exactly squared, nor could he complain that the hens had flung their litter about the deck (a not unusual grievance when there was nothing else to..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0faa8d6
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Nelson once said that love of his country served him for a greatcoat.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f7f052b
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Stephen Maturin sipped his scalding coffee, the right Mocha berry, brought back from Arabia Felix in the pilgrim dhows, and considered. He was naturally a reserved and even a secretive man: his illegitimate birth (his father was an Irish officer in the service of His Most Catholic Majesty, his mother a Catalan lady) had to do with this; his activities in the cause of the liberation of Ireland had more; and his voluntary, gratuitous alliance..
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spy
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0b9df8f
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That must be my surgeon coming aboard. You will like him; a reading man too, most amazing learned; a full-blown physician into the bargain, and my particular friend. But I must tell you this, Yorke; he is wealthy - ' In point of fact Captain Aubrey had little idea of his surgeon's fortune, apart from knowing that he owned a good deal of hilly land in Catalonia with a tumbledown castle on it. But Stephen had done pretty well out of the Mauri..
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maturin
natural-philosopher
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0acc340
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all that wretched schoolmastering.' 'On some it acts like a poison, making them unfit for the society of grown men.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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4cc3884
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wet the swab,
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f151030
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These Danes have always been a very froward people. Do you know, Jack, what they did at Clonmacnois? They burnt it, the thieves, and their queen sat on the high altar mother-naked, uttering oracles in a heathen frenzy. Ota was the strumpet's name. It is all of a piece: look at Hamlet's mother. I only wonder her behaviour caused any comment.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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82e62c6
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How did the Easter Islanders use you?' asked Stephen. 'Oh, pretty well, sir, on the whole; they are not an ill-natured crew, though much given to thieving: and I must admit they ate one another more than was quite right. I am not over-particular, but it makes you uneasy to be passed a man's hand. A slice of what might be anything, I don't say no, when sharp-set; but a hand fair turns your stomach. Howmsoever, we got along well enough. I spo..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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aa6e129
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lugubrious
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Patrick O'Brian |
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b8ea933
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The boomerang did all that Riley had said of it and more: at one point, having returned, it rose and floated above the Aboriginal's head in a slow circle before descending into his hand. Stephen and Martin gazed at the object in astonishment, turning it over and over in their hands. 'I cannot understand the principle at all,' said Stephen. 'I should very much like to show it to Captain Aubrey, who is so very well versed in the mathematics a..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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aeeaf78
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For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it; but he gave way with a tolerable show of civility
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Patrick O'Brian |
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df478aa
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The nymphs in green? Delightful girls.' 'It is clear you have been a great while at sea, to call those sandy-haired coarse-featured pimply short-necked thick-fingered vulgar-minded lubricious blockheads by such a name. Nymphs, forsooth. If they were nymphs, they must have had their being in a tolerably rank and stagnant pool: the wench on my left had an ill breath, and turning for relief I found her sister had a worse; and the upper garment..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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6356d4e
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I tell you what, Stephen,' he said as they walked along, 'I know the constraint of having your captain in your bosom - all sitting straight, no belching, no filthy stories - so I have ordered up a case of our eighty-seven port. I hope you do not mind it?' 'I mind it very much indeed. Pouring that irreplaceable liquid into my messmates is impious.' 'But they will appreciate the gesture: it will take some of the stiffness away. I cannot tell ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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ba1f65d
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I am so happy,' observed Jack, after a moment; and indeed he could be seen swelling with it. 'But what was that about beer?' 'I asked whether we were still in the beer region, or domain, that part of the ocean in which the beer we bring from home and which we serve out daily at the absurd and criminal rate of a gallon - a gallon: eight pints! - a head, is still available. Has the beer not yet given way to the even more pernicious grog?' 'I ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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abf5937
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I wonder you can speak with such levity about my daughter. I have always treated yours with proper respect.' 'You called them a pair of turnip-headed swabs once, when they were still in long clothes.' 'For shame, Jack: a hissing shame upon you. Those were your very own words when you showed them to me at Ashgrove before our voyage to the Mauritius. Your soul to the Devil.' 'Well, perhaps they were. Yes: you are quite right - I remember now ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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4eb19cb
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ukase.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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9ce7bcb
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Lord Nelson's maxim 'Never mind manoeuvres: always go straight at 'em.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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601e1df
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Would you expect a mutiny?' 'Mutiny in the sense of outright revolt and refusal of command? No. But from some of the people I expect muttering, discontent, ill-will; and nothing makes work slower or more inefficient or more unsafe than ill-will and its perpetual quarrels.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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7a46457
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cunt-splice
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Patrick O'Brian |
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e30f043
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But Mrs Dockray was not going to be told her duty by any young puppy without so much as an epaulette to his name and did I think a post-captain's wife with nine years' seniority was going to ruin her sprigged muslin in the bilges of my cockleshell? She should tell my aunt - my cousin Ellis - the First Lord of the Admiralty - bring me to a court-martial for cowardice, for temerity, for not knowing my business. She understood discipline and s..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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78e4573
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She is remarkably dry,' he said to Stephen who, preferring to die in the open, had crept up on deck,
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Patrick O'Brian |
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019e0b7
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But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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81c7510
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He was conscientious, he did his duty as he understood it; but he was no seaman.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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c7ec1a7
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Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human;
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Patrick O'Brian |
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7502c59
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My point is that the admirable men of those times, the Cochranes, Byrons, Falconers, Seymours, Boscawens and the many less famous sailors from whom I have in some degree compounded my characters, are best celebrated in their own splendid actions rather than in imaginary contests; that authenticity is a jewel; and that the echo of their words has an abiding value.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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3e3422e
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As you know very well,' said Stephen, 'I am in favour of leaving people alone, however imperfect their polity may seem. It appears to me that you must not tell other nations how to set their house in order; nor must you compel them to be happy. But I too am a naval officer, brother; long, long ago you taught me that anyone nourished on ship's biscuit must learn to choose the lesser of two weevils. On that basis alone I may be said to have n..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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ec2e744
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But it appears to me that for our patient truth is what he can persuade others to believe: yet at the same time he is a man of some parts, and I suspect that were you to attack him through his reason, were you to persuade him to abandon this self-defeating practice, with its anxiety, its probability of detection, and to seek only a more legitimate approval, then we should have no need for belladonna or any other anhidrotic.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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eb01a9e
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He heard a rushing of feet and a great terrible voice calling 'All hands, all hands ahoy! Out or down! Out or down! Rouse and bitt! Rise and shine! Show a leg there! Out or down! Here I come, with a sharp knife and a clear conscience!
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Patrick O'Brian |
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e53432b
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No, no, no,' said Stephen. 'I deprecate violence. My part is to heal rather than to kill; or at least to kill with kindly intent.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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a719d67
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Preserved Killick, Captain Aubrey's steward, an ill-faced, ill-tempered, meagre, atrabilious, shrewish man who kept his officer's uniform, equipment and silver in a state of exact, old-maidish order come wind or high water, and who did the same for Aubrey's close friend and companion, Dr Stephen Maturin, or even more so, since in the Doctor's case Killick added a fretful nursemaid quality to his service, as though Maturin were "not quite ex..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0948320
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A young person for Monsieur Jagiello,' said the guard, with a grin. He stood away from the door, and there was the young person, holding a cloth-covered basket, blushing and hanging her pretty head. The others walked away to the window and talked in what they meant to be a detached, natural way; but few could help stealing glances at the maiden, and none could fail to hear Jagiello cry, 'But my dear, dear Mademoiselle, I asked for black pud..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0d3083e
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Hitherto, Jack had been too busy working up his crew to pay much attention to the education of his midshipmen, but he had looked at yesterday's slips and they, with a very suspicious unanimity, had shown the Sophie in 39deg2I'N, which was fair enough, but also in a longitude that she could only have reached by cleaving the mountain-range behind Valencia to a depth of thirty-seven miles. 'What do you mean by sending me this nonsense?' he ask..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f74d014
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A lane instantly formed in front of Stephen, and he passed through with smiling faces and kind looks on either side of him; he noticed some of the men whose backs he had oiled earlier that morning looked remarkably cheerful, particularly Edwards, for he, being black, had a smile that flashed far whiter in the gloom; attentive hands tweaked a bench out of his way, and a ship's boy was slewed violently round on his axis and desired 'not to tu..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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e795b94
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certainly. Would
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Patrick O'Brian |
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ed4c73b
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Then a small vessel in the lower left-hand corner caught his eye, something in the nature of a pink; she was beating up for the harbour, but it was obvious from the direction of the lady's clothes that the pink would be taken aback the moment she rounded the headland. 'As soon as she catches the land-breeze she will be in trouble,' he said. 'She will never stay, not with those unhandy lateens, and there is no room to wear; so there she is o..
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Patrick O'Brian |