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5a4c2fe
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STEPHEN, STEPHEN, STEPHEN!' Jack's voice came along the corridor, growing louder and ending in a roar as he thrust his head into the room. 'Oh, there you are. I was afraid you had gone off to your stoats again. The carrier has brought you an ape.' 'What sort of an ape?' asked Stephen. 'A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. It had a can of ale at every pot-house on the road, and it is reeling drunk. It has been offering itself to Babbingt..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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51abd78
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Boccherini,
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Patrick O'Brian |
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54503ca
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Many complaints about his lack of discipline - independence - disobeying orders. No future in the service for that kind of officer, above all with St Vincent at the Admiralty. And then I fear he may not attend to the fifth commandment quite as he should.' The girls' faces took on an inward look as they privately ran over the Decalogue: in order of intelligence a little frown appeared on each as its owner reached the part about Sunday travel..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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c99c04c
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They were not much to look at, he reflected, as the whip from the yardarm hoisted up their meagre belongings: three or four were decidedly simple, and two others had that indefinable air of men of some parts whose cleverness sets them apart from their fellows, but not nearly so far as they imagine.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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7bc3630
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You remember the Gordon riots, and all the tales about the Jesuits being behind the King's madness and many other things. By the way, Stephen, those Fathers were not Jesuits, I suppose? I did not like to ask straight out.' 'Of course not, Jack. They were suppressed long ago. Clement XIV put them down in the seventies, and a very good day's work he did. Sure, they have been trying to creep back on one legalistic pretext or another and I dare..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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54a401d
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Most men find [peace] entirely unlike what they had expected - like love...
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life
love
peace
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f07f922
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Sir,' said Stephen, 'I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them - I look upon good novels - as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints. Had I not read Madame de La Fayette, the Abbe Prevost, and the man who wrote Clarissa, that extraordinary feat, I should be very much p..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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347add5
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Even the best-conducted women [...] have an aversion for the impotent," [...] so one should conceal one's wounds and hide the crippling deficiencies of life - poverty, misfortune, sickness, ill-success. People begin by being touched and moved to tenderness by their friends' distress; presently this changes to pity, which has something humiliating about it; then to a masterful giving of advice; and then to scorn."
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Patrick O'Brian |
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13820ac
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Almost all voyages, from that of Noah's Ark to the sending of the ships to Troy, have been marked by interminable delays, with false starts and turning wind and tide; perhaps the schooner Ringle was too slim and slight to count as a worthy adversary, because she gently sailed her anchor out of the ground and then bore away a little east of north with a wind that allowed her to spread every sail she possessed, other than those reserved for f..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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827e9b4
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His assistants left him pretty well alone, apart from attending to his dressings, for not only was he a dangerous patient, stubborn, dogged and even violent if attempted to be dosed according to any system but his own, but he was also their superior in naval and in medical rank, being a physician and the author of highly-esteemed works on seamen's diseases, an officer much caressed by the Sick and Hurt Board: furthermore he was no more cons..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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47c6075
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HE WHO DARES NOTHING
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Patrick O'Brian |
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3b63ef1
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Here Captain Babbington let fall his courses and some pretty severe remarks about the sloth of the midshipmen at the larboard gaskets, a sloth that foretold the ruin of the Navy within a very short lapse of time. He had just uttered this prophecy, which he had first heard from Jack at the age of twelve, when a tall shadow fell across the deck, and turning he saw the original prophet himself, looking nervous, apprehensive, uneasy, timid, a s..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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23e46bd
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Stephen, what is the French for a double sister-block, coaked? With a pair of them and a proper hold-fast, I could raise the Temple.' 'A double sister-block, coaked? The Dear alone can tell. I do not even know what it is in English.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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5362f54
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and I warn you that at the least attempt you will find yourself incarcerated at Bitche. At Bitche, sir, and incarcerated.' Jack felt that he was on the verge of a flashing piece of repartee, of one of the best things he had ever said in his life: 'then indeed I should be bitched', or 'that would bitch my chances, I am sure', or something more brilliant still; but the want of a true colloquial link between the English bitch and the French ch..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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915c211
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A sailor, who may be absent for years, throws impossible strains on his wife. If she is a woman of any degree of temperament at all there is of course the question of chastity; and in either case there is that of command or perhaps I should say of decision.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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2abf4f8
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A conquering race, in the place of that conquest, is rarely amiable; the conquerors pay less obviously than the conquered, but perhaps in time they pay even more heavily, in the loss of the humane qualities. Hard, arrogant, profit-seeking adventurers flock to the spoil, and the natives, though outwardly civil, contemplate them with a resentment mingled with contempt, while at the same time respecting the face of conquest - acknowledging the..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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a85700f
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Insects might still delude Maturin and pierce his skin, but at this late stage it was difficult for women to do so.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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2add3c8
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Although his intimacy with Stephen Maturin did not allow him to ask questions that might be judged impertinent, it was of such a rare kind that he could ask for money without the least hesitation. "Have you any money, Stephen?" he said, the Marine having vanished in the trees. "How I hope you have. I shall have to borrow the Marine's guinea from you, and a great deal more besides, if his message is what I dearly trust. My half-pay is not du..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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444673a
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all the others were unbeneficed clergymen: two had been ushers in schools for young gentlemen, and thought any other life preferable to that, even on shipboard;
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Patrick O'Brian |
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51bfc5e
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Two blue jackets, sir, one pea jacket, two pair of blue trousers, two pair of shoes, six shirts, four pairs of stockings, two Guernsey frocks, two hats, two black Barcelona handkerchiefs, a comforter, several pair of flannel . . .' he blushed and in a low voice said 'drawers. And two waistcoats; as well as one bed, one pillow, two blankets and two hammocks,
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Patrick O'Brian |
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7946fd9
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There was something disagreeable, and somehow reptilian, about the cold, contained way Stephen took up his stance, raised his pistol, looked along the barrel with his pale eyes, and shot the head off the king of hearts.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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6bd85cd
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One of the miseries of medical life is that on the one hand you know what shocking things can happen to the human body and on the other you know how very little we can really do about most of them. You are therefore denied the comfort of faith.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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84f11c1
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Well, my lord, the one was something that dropped on my head - a piece of mortar-shell, I imagine; but luckily I was in the water at the time, so it did little damage, only tearing off a handsbreadth of scalp. The other was a sword-thrust I did not notice at the moment, but it seems it nicked some vessel, and most of my blood ran out before I was aware. Dr Maturin said he did not suppose there was more than three ounces left, and that mostl..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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ef73c87
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Now listen, Jack, will you? I am somewhat given to lying: my occasions require it from time to time. But I do not choose to have any man alive tell me of it.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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257d740
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Do you mean to fight with her?' 'I mean to sink, take, burn or destroy her,' said Jack, a smile flashing across his face.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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0bdb3a6
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expressed myself badly. What I meant was that if he could induce others to believe what he said, then for him the statement acquired some degree of truth, a reflection of their belief that it was true; and this reflected truth might grow stronger with time and repetition until it became conviction, indistinguishable from ordinary factual truth, or very nearly so.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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2cdead7
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Stephen had no great love of the English government in its dealing with Ireland; in fact he had actively conspired against it. But he was deeply attached to individual English men and women, and in any case he did not like anyone to abuse the country but himself.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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1a6699a
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The operation, performed on an immensely obese, timid patient, was far more intricate than they had expected; yet finally it was done, and not only was it successful in itself, but there was a real likelihood that the man might live.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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4c25997
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Stephen's intense irritation lasted all the time he was climbing into the maintop, and this so took away from his dread and his habitual caution that Jack said, 'What a fellow you are, Stephen. When you choose you can go aloft like' - he was about to say 'a human being' but changed this before it quite left his gullet to 'like an able seaman.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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cab8941
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If she is still there in the morning - if she has not run into the lee of Norfolk Island - and if there is no extraordinary change in the weather, I shall have to heave to. To stop,' he added, for a person who could call a cutter a ship after so many years at sea might need even simpler terms explained.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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1581ea6
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or there will be wigs on the green.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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5c5878b
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But my dear sir, the United Irishmen were primarily Protestants - their leaders were Protestants. Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy were Protestants. The Emmets, the O'Connors, Simon Butler, Hamilton Rowan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald were Protestants. And the whole idea of the club was to unite Protestant and Catholic and Presbyterian Irishmen. The Protestants it was who took the initiative.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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b620470
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One of the miseries of medical life is that on the one hand you know what shocking things can happen to the human body and on the other you know how very little we can really do about most of them.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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9596402
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He had pursued his strikingly beautiful, spirited, fashionable wife for years and years before marrying her in mid-Channel aboard a man-of-war: for so many years indeed that he had become a confirmed bachelor at last, too old a dog to give up his tricks of smoking tobacco in bed, playing his 'cello at odd untimely moments, dissecting anything that interested him, even in the drawing-room; too old to be taught to shave regularly, to change h..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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d4be640
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the saint told her that more tears were shed over prayers that were granted than ever were shed over prayers that were refused.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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2b9e4b1
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His departure was a sad disappointment to those hands who had been preparing their testimony for the trial. Some of them were old shipmates of Jack's, and they were perfectly ready to swear through a nine-inch plank so long as their evidence led in the right direction: the court would have heard a lively description of the Honourable Sod's furious assault upon the Captain with a brace of pistols, a boarding-axe, a naked sword and a topmast ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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b7ed83e
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There is something wonderfully comfortable about having a lady's legs under one's table, Aubrey.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f2348f2
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Why, sir,' said the lawyer, 'if the persecution were tortious, and if it happened at sea, or even on fresh water or reasonably damp land, the Admiralty court would no doubt have cognizance.' 'Pray, sir,' said Stephen, 'just how damp would the land have to be?' 'Oh, pretty damp, pretty damp, I believe. The judge's patent gives him power to deal with matters in, upon, or by the sea, or public streams, or freshwater ports, rivers, nooks and pl..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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fe5ea39
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he felt the effect of the wine well before his glass was emptied - a very slight swimming in his head, the faint birth of a certain benignity, a willingness to be pleased with his company.
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Patrick O'Brian |
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20b9b09
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Stephen and Higgins began bleeding all hands. They only took eight ounces from each, but this, bowl after bowl, amounted to nine good buckets with foam of an extraordinary beauty: but they had rather more than their fair share of fools who would be fainting, because as the breeze declined and the heat increased a sickly slaughterhouse reek spread about the deck; and one of them (a young Marine) actually pitched into a brimming bucket as he ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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f78c508
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The Surprise's crew, like most seamen, were a hypochondriacal set of ghouls upon the whole, and they loved a surgical operation almost as much as they loved a prize. But whereas the amputation of a shipmate's arm or leg had disadvantages of which they were fully sensible, a trepanning had none: the patient had but to survive to have all his former powers restored - to be as good as new, with the glory of a silver plate and an anecdote that ..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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fb9b5b7
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The ostensible purpose of Mr Wray's visit was to check corruption in the dockyard, and it appeared to Maturin that he would probably be more successful in this than in counter-espionage. Intelligence was a highly specialized concern, and as far as he knew this was Wray's first direct connection with the department. Corruption on the other hand was universal, open to all; and since Wray in his youth had kept a carriage and a considerable est..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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af72012
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just before his arrival his two lieutenants had very nearly come to blows over the meaning of the word dromedary. They were both good seamen and amiable companions, but they were both given to writing verse, Mowett being devoted to the heroic couplet while Rowan preferred a Pindaric freedom, and each thought the other's not only incorrect but devoid of grammar, sense, meaning, and poetic inspiration. At two bells in the afternoon watch this..
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Patrick O'Brian |
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b9343f0
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Well, if he calls that trifling,' said Babbington, nodding at the slung arm and the heavily bandaged leg and the waxen face, 'God help us if ever he tells us we are seriously hurt.' 'Amen,' said Jack. 'William, have you considered the Diane?' 'Yes, sir, and a very pretty ship she is - a fine narrow entry and the most elegant lines, though she is so low in the water she don't appear to advantage.' 'Why, she has twelve or even eighteen months..
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Patrick O'Brian |