LITMIR.BIZ

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in again.

      ‘They never left him so much as his shirt,’ said the pieman to his wife, coming back into the kitchen.

      ‘Well, my dear,’ said she, placidly wiping her hands upon her apron and looking through the door to where the regular customers were making their division, ‘I hope they have not cut his throat, that’s all. Or if they have, that they done it at a decent distance from the house, poor wandering soul.’

       Chapter Three

      JACK BYRON sat in Thacker’s coffee-house, staring vacantly before him: he was almost alone in the place, apart from the waiters, and he sat there as steadily and silently as if he had been part of the furniture. The clock in front of him said half-past seven, and the big calendar beside it bore the ominous name Friday, newly changed that morning.

      The door opened, and an elderly man in a black coat and a periwig walked in: he nodded to Jack, who bowed, although for the moment he did not recognise him. It was Mr Eliot, the surgeon of the Wager, to whom Keppel had presented Jack some days before. ‘So you have not gone down to Portsmouth yet?’ he said, with some surprise.

      ‘No, sir,’ said Jack.

      ‘Are you not cutting it uncommon fine?’ asked the surgeon.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said Jack, who was all too vividly aware of the racing hours and the horrifying speed with which Saturday, his last day in England, was rushing towards him.

      The surgeon, in spite of Jack’s short answers and unhappy face, sat down by him, and said, ‘I am up myself only because of my infernal mate, and I shall take the mail-coach down this evening.’ He explained that he was very particular in his choice of assistants, that he could not bear the confident, half-licked cubs that were usually wished upon him by the Navy Office – had even paid one to go away out of the Wager and transfer himself elsewhere – and that he was now waiting for a young man who had been strongly recommended to him as a person of a truly scientific cast of mind. ‘Such a rare creature, these days,’ said Mr Eliot. ‘It was quite different when I was young.’ Here a group of officers came in, brown-faced men whose voices reverberated in the big room, filling it with sound; another naval surgeon came just behind them, Mr Woodfall of the Centurion, and he stopped by Mr Eliot to wish him good day and to tell him that Mr Anson had been to the Admiralty already.

      Mr Anson, the captain of the Centurion and the commodore of the squadron, appeared as if by magic as the surgeon spoke his name, stood there for a moment, looking for someone, and then walked away: in spite of his preoccupation and state of dismal worry, Jack looked with the closest attention at his commanding officer, a tall man, upright, with the head of a Roman emperor, though tanned and weather-beaten – a plainly dressed man: blue coat, buff waistcoat, hat with the King’s cockade and nothing more, a plain steel-hilted sword.

      ‘Let us have a pot of chocolate together,’ said Mr Eliot to Mr Woodfall. ‘Hey there. Ho. Ahoy. A pot of chocolate here.’ The older waiters at Thacker’s were used to being called as if they were three miles off in an impenetrable fog, but the new ones were rendered nervous by it, and were sometimes obliged to give up their places. ‘As I was telling our young friend here,’ continued Mr Eliot, ‘a decent surgeon’s mate is scarcely to be found in these degenerate days.’ He went on to speak of the desirable qualities of the young man who was to come: learned, even to the point of knowing some Greek, skilled, and above all interested in his profession, in its widest aspects, in its philosophical implications – qualities all too rare in the common run of modern surgeon’s mates. ‘Where,’ he cried, ‘will you find a young fellow nowadays who will purchase a dead baboon at the cost of his suppers for six months, and preserve its vitals in spirits of wine for the pure love of anatomy? Best rectified spirits of wine at eighteenpence the Winchester quart.’

      ‘Ah,’ said his colleague mournfully, ‘where indeed? But have you not left it very late, my dear sir?’

      ‘For such a paragon it is worth it,’ said Mr Eliot. ‘And so you would say if you had seen the fellow the Navy Office sent me last month – a very mere rake indeed. Besides,’ he added confidentially, ‘I though it prudent to wait until my brother-in-law and our friend Bartholomew were both on the board of examiners – it is their turn now, you know – in case of any little difficulty with this young man’s qualifications. His indentures are regular, but he has not quite served out his time. I prefer to take him to the Hall myself, see him examined and certificated, take him to the Navy Office, see to his warrant directly, and so carry him down to Portsmouth, all in one.’

      ‘Well,’ said Mr Woodfall, getting up, ‘I wish you joy of him. I am sure a good mate is a wonderful comfort to a man, particularly on a voyage …’ He walked away, puffing and holding his arms wide apart to indicate the extraordinary length of the intended voyage.

      ‘Come, Mr Byron, another cup of chocolate?’ said Mr Eliot; and looking at him more keenly he asked, ‘Are you feeling quite well?’

      ‘Oh, I’m well enough, thankee, sir,’ said Jack wearily; then suddenly, unburdening himself, he said, ‘The truth of the matter is that I have lost my friend, and your talking about a philosophical cove dissecting things brought him so clearly to my mind, I could cry like a girl. Upon my honour I could. Toby would dissect you anything you like, a baboon, or a horse, or a mole. Anything. I sit here all day long in case he should find his way – I’ve left instructions at the house, of course. He had only been one day in London. Blast and crush me down,’ cried Jack, wiping his eye, ‘you talk about your fellow knowing some Greek: why, Toby Barrow was speaking it as quick as I speak English when he was only ten; and Latin too, like a bench of infernal bishops, rot them all.’

      ‘Quietly now, Mr Byron; do not curse the bishops so. Perhaps I could help you, if you would tell me clearly what has happened.’

      His listened attentively, and he was advising Jack to apply to the magistrate at Bow Street and to the Mansion House when a thin young man with knock knees and a cheese-coloured face was brought up to him by the waiter: this person carried a bridal posy in one hand and a letter in the other. ‘Be not severe,’ he said, putting the letter into Mr Eliot’s hand. ‘Severity were out of place,’ he said, with an arch simper, and left them gazing after him.

      The youth, Mr Eliot’s supposed assistant, had escaped from his family’s control and had married; and this was the bride’s brother to bring the news that the paragon did not choose to go round the world any more.

      Mr Eliot took no notice of this other than by checking an oath and saying, ‘Perhaps we are as well shot of him: his father told me that he was attached to some odious wench. But as I was saying, the magistrate at Bow Street has proper officers for this kind of enquiry: I will step in at his office, if you wish, and find whether they have any news.’

      ‘It is exceedingly good in you, sir,’ said Jack, ‘particularly when you have been so disappointed –’ nodding towards the letter.

      ‘As for that, I say nothing: it is no use running your head against a brick wall. I cannot unmarry the fellow; and by not giving vent to my vexation I shall certainly feel less of it. Did you say that your friend was properly indentured?’

      ‘Yes, sir; his paper is still at the house. It has a chart of a mole’s innards on the back of it, though.’

      Mr Eliot stood for a moment in thought. ‘I shall have to see what they have at the Navy Office,’ he said. ‘I shall have to see what they have to offer me. Though if they have nothing better than the common run of ‘prentice sawbones, I shall sail without one. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again,’ he said, nodding very firmly and moving off. ‘But,’ he said, coming back, ‘if your friend should be found before we sail, I may be able to serve him.’

      Jack sat down again and leant back against the partition of his box; he was feeling tired and stupid, for he had scarcely been to bed these three nights past; and as well as searching the vast expanse of London he had been obliged to go down to the

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