Read Online Desolation Island by Patrick O’Brian - Free Book Online

blackguarding the Home Office man like a trooper - lovely bosom trembling, ha, ha! I came in for a couple of broad-sides - wish there had been more -amorous intrigues, ha, ha, ha!'
    'You are impertinent, sir. You forget yourself. I insist upon your answering my question, instead of indulging yourself in this blackguardly manner.'
    In the pleasures of his warm and luscious imagination the Admiral had indeed forgotten himself, but these words brought him violently back to the present. He turned pale, and half rising from his seat he cried, 'Let me remind you, Dr Maturin, that there is such a thing as discipline in this service.'
    'And let me remind you, sir,' said Stephen, 'that there is such a thing as respect for one's word. And furthermore, I have to observe that your manner of speaking of this lady would be gross in a libidinous pot-boy. In your mouth it is offensive to the highest degree. Bread and blood, sir, I have pulled a man's nose for less. Good day to you, sir:
    you know where to find me.' He walked out of the room, collided with a clerk who was in the act of opening the door, and thrust past him into the corridor.
    'Send for a file of Marines,' roared the Admiral, now scarlet in the face.
    'Yes, sir,' said the clerk. 'Here is Sir Joseph, to know whether Dr Maturin is still within. The Marines directly, sir.'
    Leaving by the little green confidential door that gave on to the park, Stephen felt his anger die away as weariness came down off him like a pall, extinguishing the fire and with it all concern. Yet he had not walked eastwards a quarter of a mile before he became aware that his knees and hands were trembling, and that his nerves jangled intolerably, as though they had been flayed: he walked faster, towards the Grapes and the square bottle on his mantelshelf.
    Mrs Broad, taking the sun at her door, saw him at the far end of the street; she read his face when he was still quite a long way off, and as he turned in she called out in her fat, cheerful voice, 'You are just in time for a late breakfast, sir. Now pray go in and sit in the parlour; there is a pure fire, drawing sweet. Your letters are upon the table; Lucy will fetch you the paper; and the coffee will be up this directly minute You could do with your breakfast today, sir, I am sure, going out so early on an empty stomach, and the streets so damp.'
    He made some objection: but no, he might not go upstairs - his room was being turned out - there were pails and brooms that he might trip on in the dark - so there he sat staring at the fire, until the scent of fresh-brewed coffee filled the room, and he turned his chair to the table.
    His post consisted of The Syphilitic Preceptor, with the author's compliments, and the Philosophical Transactions. After two strong cups that quelled the trembling, he automatically ate what Lucy set before him, the whole of his attention being set upon a paper by Humphry Davy on the electricity of the torpedo-fish. 'How I honour that man,' he murmured, taking up another chop. And there was that quacksalver Mellowes again, with his pernicious theory that consumption was caused by an excess of oxygen. He read the specious nonsense through, to confound the arguments one by one. 'Have I not already ate a chop?' he asked, seeing the chafing-dish renewed.
    'It was only a little one, sir,' said Lucy, laying another upon his plate. 'Mrs Broad says there is nothing like a chop for strengthening the blood. But it must be ate up while it's hot.' She spoke kindly but firmly, as to one who was not quite exactly: Mrs Broad and she knew that he had eaten nothing on his journey, that he had taken neither supper nor breakfast, and that he had lain in his damp shirt.
    Deep in toast and marmalade, he demolished Mellowes root and branch; and noticing the indignation with which his hand had underlined the whole claptrap peroration, he observed, 'I am not dead.'
    'Sir Joseph Blaine to see you, sir, if you are at leisure,' said Mrs Broad, pleased