Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander

'I would do anything in my power to give you pleasure,' said Jack heavily. The words our money had stabbed very deep.

'Dr Maturin, I am so glad you were able to come,' cried Mrs Harte, turning towards the door. 'I have a very learned lady to introduce you to.'

'Indeed, ma'am? I rejoice to hear it. Pray what is she learned in?'

'Oh, in everything,' said Mrs Harte cheerfully; and this, indeed, seemed to be Laetitia's opinion too, for she at once gave Stephen her views on the treatment of cancer and on the conduct of the Allies – prayer, love and Evangelism was the answer, in both cases. She was an odd, doll-like little creature with a wooden face, both shy and extremely selfsatisfied, rather alarmingly young; she spoke slowly, with odd writhing motion of her upper body, staring at her interlocutor's stomach or elbow, so her exposition took some

Her husband was a tall, moist-eyed, damp-handed man,with a meek, Evangelical expression, and knock-knees: had it not been for those knees he would have looked exactly like a butler. 'If that man lives,' reflected Stephen, as Laetitia prattled on about Plato, 'he will become a miser: but it is more likely that he will hang himself. Costive; piles; ;t flat feet.'

They sat down ten to dinner, and Stephen found that Mrs Ellis was his left-hand neighbour. On his right there was a Miss Wade, a plain, good-natured girl with a splendid appetite, unhampered by a humid ninety degrees or the calls Fof fashion; then came Jack, then Mrs Harte, and on her right Colonel Pitt. Stephen was engaged in a close discussion of the comparative merits of the crayfish and the true lobster with Miss Wade when the insistent voice on his left broke in so strongly that soon it was impossible to ignore it. 'But I don't understand – you are a real physician, he tells me, so how come you to be in the Navy? How come you to be in the Navy if you are a real doctor?'

'Indigence, ma'am, indigence. For all that clysters is not – gold on shore. And then, of course, a fervid desire to bleed for my country.'

'The gentleman is joking, my love,' said her husband across the table. 'With all these prizes he is a very wann man, as we say in the City' nodding and smiling archly.

'Oh,' cried Laetitia, startled. 'He is a wit. I must take care of him, I declare. But still, you have to look after the common sailors too, Dr Maturin, not only the midshipmen and officers: that must be very horrid.'

'Why, ma'am,' said Stephen, looking at her curiously: for so small and Evangelical a woman she had drunk a remarkable quantity of wine and her face was coming out in blotches. 'Why, ma'am, I cut 'em off pretty short, I assure you. Oil of cat is my usual dose.'

'Quite right,' said Colonel Pitt, speaking for the first time. 'I allow no complaints in my regiment.'

'Dr Maturin is admirably strict,' said Jack. 'He often desires me to have the men flogged, to overcome their torpor and to open their veins both at the same time. A hundred lashes at the gangway is worth a stone of brimstone and treacle, we always say.'

'There's discipline,' said Mr Ellis, nodding his head.

Stephen felt the odd bareness on his knee that meant his napkin had glided to the floor; he dived after it, and in the hooded tent below he beheld four and twenty legs, six belonging to the table and eighteen to his temporary messmates. Miss Wade had kicked off her shoes: the woman opposite him had dropped a little screwed-up handkerchief:

Colonel Pitt's gleaming military boot lay pressed upon Mrs Harte's right foot, and upon her left – quite a distance from the right – reposed Jack's scarcely less massive buckled shoe.

Course followed course, indifferent Minorcan food cooked in English water, indifferent wine doctored with Minorcan verjuice; and at one point Stephen heard his neighbour say, 'I hear you have a very high moral tone in your ship.' But in time Mrs Harte rose and walked, limping slightly, into the drawing-room: the men gathered at the top end of the table, and the muddy port went round and round and round.

The wine brought Mr Ellis into full bloom at last; the diffidence and the timidity melted away from the mound of wealth, and he told the company about discipline – order and discipline were of primordial importance; the family, the disciplined family, was the cornerstone of Christian civilization; commanding officers were (as he might put it) the fathers of their numerous families, and their love was shown by their firmness. Firmness. His friend Bentham, the gentleman that wrote the Defence of Usury (it deserved to be printed in gold), had invented a whipping machine. Firmness and dread: for the two great motives in the world were greed and fear, gentlemen. Let them look at the French revolution, the disgraceful rebellion in Ireland, to say nothing – looking archly at their stony faces – of the unpleasantness at Spitheаd and the Nore – all greed, and to be put down by fear.

Mr Ellis was clearly very much at home in Captain Harte's house, for without having to ask the way he walked to the sideboard, opened the lead-lined door and took out the chamber-pot, and looking over his shoulder he went on without a pause to state that fortunately the lower classes naturally looked up to gentlemen and loved them, in their humble way; only gentlemen were fit to be officers. God had ordered it so, he said, buttoning the flap of his breeches; and as he sat down again at the table he observed that he knew one house where the article was silver – solid silver. The family was a good thing: he would drink a toast to discipline. The rod was a good thing: he would drink a toast to the rod, in all its forms. Spare the rod and spoil the child – loveth, chastitheth.

'You must come to us one Thursday morning and see how the bosun's mate loveth our defaulters,' said Jack.

Colonel Pitt, who had been staring heavily at the banker with an undisguised, boorish contempt, broke out into a guffaw and then left, excusing himself on the grounds of regimental business. Jack was about to follow him when Mr Ellis desired him to stay – he begged the favour of a few words.

'I do a certain amount of business for Mrs Jordan, and I have the honour, the great honour, of being presented to the Duke of Clarence,' he began, impressively. 'Have you ever seen him?'

'I am acquainted with His Highness,' said Jack, who had been shipmates with that singularly unattractive hot-headed cold-hearted bullying Hanoverian.

'I ventured to mention our Henry and said we hoped to make an officer of him, and he condescended to advise the sending of him to sea. Now, my wife and I have considered it carefully, and we prefer a little boat to a ship of the line, because they are sometimes rather mixed, if you understand me, and my wife is very particular – she is a Plantagenet; besides, some of these captains want their young gentlemen to have an allowance of fifty pounds per annum.'

'I always insist that their friends should guarantee my midshipmen at least fifty,' said Jack.

'Oh,' said Mr Ellis, a little dashed. 'Oh. But I dare say a good many of the things can be picked up second-hand. Not that I care about that – at the beginning of the war all of us in the alley sent His Majesty an address saying we should support him with our lives and fortunes. I don't mind fifty quid, or even more, so long as the ship is genteel. My wife's old friend Mrs H was telling us about you, sir; and what is more, you are a thorough-going Tory, just like me. And yesterday we caught sight of Lieutenant Dillon; who is Lord Kenmare's nephew, I understand, and has a pretty little estate of his own – seems quite the gentleman, So to put it in a nutshell, sir, if you will take my boy I shall be very much obliged to you. And allow me to add,' he said, with an awkward jocularity, clearly against his own better judgment, 'what with my inside knowledge and experience of the market, you won't regret it. You'll find your advantage, I warrant you, hee, hee!'