The Letter of Marque Read Online Free PDF Page A

waistcoat; and Davidge sent word that the Admiral's cutter would be alongside in five minutes.
    The Admiral's cutter came to the larboard side to avoid all ceremony, and with an equal lack of pomp Stephen was handed down the side like a sack of potatoes. 'It is very kind of you to invite me too, sir,' he said, 'but I am ashamed to appear in such garments: never a moment did I have to shift since I arrived."
    'You are very well as you are, Doctor, very well indeed. It is only myself and my ward Polly, whom you know, and Admiral Schank, whom you know even better. I had hoped for Admiral Henry, who is very much in the medical way, now that he is at leisure; but he was bespoke. Left his best compliments, however, and I have his latest work for you, a very pretty book.'
    The pretty book was called An Account of the Means by which Admiral Henry has Cured the Rheumatism, a Tendency to Gout, the Tic Douloureux, the Cramp, and other Disorders; and by which a Cataract in the Eye was removed, and Stephen was looking at the pictures while Polly, an enchanting young person whose black hair and blue eyes brought Diana even more strongly to mind, played some variations on a theme by Pergolesi, when Admiral Schank woke up and said 'Bless me, I believe I must have dropped off. What were we saying, Doctor?'
    'We were speaking of balloons, sir, and you were trying to recollect the details of a device you had thought of for doing away with the inconvenience, the mortal inconvenience, of rising too high.'
    'Yes, yes. I will draw it for you.' The Admiral, known throughout the service as Old Purchase because of his ingenious cot that could be inclined, raised, lowered, and moved from point to point by the man who lay in it, even a feeble invalid, with the help of double and triple pulleys, and many other inventions, drew a balloon with a network of lines round the envelope and explained that by means of a system of blocks it was designed to diminish the volume of gas and thus its lifting-power. 'But, however, it did not answer,' he said. 'The only way of not going too high, like poor Senhouse, who was never seen again, or Charlton, who was froze, is to let out some of the gas; and then if the day cools you are likely to come down with shocking force and be dashed to pieces, like poor Crowle and his dog and cat. Was you ever in a balloon, Maturin?'
    'I was in one, sure, in the sense that the car contained me; but the balloon was sullen and would not rise, so I was obliged to get out and my companion was wafted off alone, landing three fields away, just inside the County Roscommon. Though now they are grown so fashionable again, I hope to make another attempt, and to observe the soaring flight of vultures close at hand.'
    'Was yours a fire-balloon or one filled with gas?'
    'It was meant to be a fire-balloon, but the turf was not as dry as it should have been and that day there was a small drizzle wafting across the whole country, so though we blew like Boreas we could never make it really buoyant.'
    'Just as well. If you had gone up, and if the envelope had taken fire, as they so often do, you would have spent your last few seconds regretting your temerity. They are nasty, dangerous things, Maturin; and although I do not deny that a properly anchored gas-balloon let up to say three or four thousand feet might make a useful observation-post for a general, I do believe that only condemned criminals should be sent up in them.'
    A pause, and Admiral Schank said, 'What has happened to Aubrey?"
    'Admiral Russell has taken him into the library to show a model of the Santissima Trinidad.'
    'Then I wish he would bring him back again. It is several minutes past supper-time - Evans has already looked in twice - and if I am not fed when I am used to being fed, your vultures ain't in it: I tear my companions and roar, like the lions in the Tower. I do hate unpunctuality, don't you, Maturin? Polly, my dear, do you think your guardian is took poorly? The clock