The Unknown Shore by Patrick O’Brian Read Free Book Online Page B

something: so when he found that he could not do what I asked, instead of waiting for my advice, he went blundering about like a horse in a hen-coop and had you – I beg you’ll not take it amiss – nominated to the
Wager.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Jack again; and then with a slowly spreading grin he said, ‘While you were talking I had imagined something much worse. After all, Keppel, it does get me to St Helen’s; and I am sure we can manage some kind of a transfer. I must wait upon Lord Albemarle and thank him.’
    ‘You can’t do that,’ said Keppel, ‘for he went off in a passion - ’
    ‘And a coach and six,’ said Ransome.
    ‘What?’
    ‘He went off in a passion
and
a coach and six. Hor, hor.’
    ‘– to Aunt Grooby, and he won’t be back until the end of the month: and’ – Keppel lowered his voice – ‘we sail on Saturday sennight.’
    ‘Saturday week?’ cried Jack, whistling.
    ‘Hush,’ said Keppel, looking round.
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Jack, ‘but it leaves so precious little time.’
    They fell into a low-voiced, highly confidential discussion of the means at their disposal for coping with the situation. This lasted for some considerable time, and they were roused from it only by the repeated cries and nudges of Ransome and Tobias: these gentlemen had, after an unpromising start, taken to one another wonderfully, and Ransome, having learnt that Tobias’ sight-seeing had not yet included the lions at the Tower, now proposed taking him to see them. Nothing could have been calculated to cause Tobias more pleasure, and his eyes shone with anticipation; but for the momenthe was pinned and immobilised, for they were on the inside of the box, and Jack and Keppel, lost in the depths of their planning, blocked the way to these simple joys.
    ‘What is it?’ said Jack impatiently.
    ‘The lions at the Tower,’ said Tobias, ‘ha, ha, the lions, eh, Jack?’
    ‘Which your friend ain’t seen ‘em,’ said Ransome. ‘Won’t you come?’
    ‘Bah,’ said Jack and Keppel, who scorned the lions in the Tower.
    ‘That fellow, Keppel,’ said Jack, looking after their departing backs, ‘that friend of mine, Tobias Barrow, causes me more anxiety than – worries me more than I can give you any conception of.’ He outlined the situation, and went on, ‘… so I left him with Cousin Brocas, and somehow they came to be talking about the government, and parliament, and the House of Lords and all that. Heaven knows why. And I think Cousin B. must have dropped some graceful hints of what an important, high-born, clever cove he was, and what an unimportant fellow Toby was: something of the “beggars can’t be choosers” nature – you know Cousin B’s little ways. Not that he means any harm; but it vexes people, sometimes. Anyhow, Tobias turned upon him. “Never been so roughly handled in all my life,” says Cousin B. “This dreadful creature of yours, Jack,” says he, “said things to me in Latin and Greek, and attacked the constitution in the most hellish way: a most hellish Whig – nay, a republican, God help us. A democratical visionary.” It seems that they fell out over the hereditary principle. “Would you employ an hereditary surgeon?” says Tobias, “A fellow who is to cut off your leg, not because he is an eminent anatomist, not because he is profoundly learned and highly skilled, but because he is merely the eldest son of a surgeon, or the eldest son of a man whose great-great-grandfather was a surgeon? And do you think the laws of the land less important than your infernal leg,” says he, “that they are to be made and unmade by a parcel of men whose only qualification is that their fathers were lords?” ’
    ‘What did he say to that?’ asked Keppel, with a kind of awful glee.
    ‘Why, truly,’ said Jack, ‘I think they gave up argument at that point, and took to calling names. They were hard at it when I came in, and Tobias had a long round ruler in his hand, and