Текст книги "Kings and Emperors"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
“Aye, you were the most clueless sort of ‘new-come,’” Shirke said, and they both laughed over long-gone Midshipmen’s pranks. “I simply wished to see if you still held a grudge against me.”
“You were never a Rolston, just a prankster,” Lewrie replied. “Like you say, it was all youthful skylarking, and no harm done, to my body or my mind.”
“Good!” Shirke said, offering his hand. They shook; then Shirke drew on his cigarro for a minute. “Whatever did happen with Rolston, after old Captain Bales broke him to a common seaman?”
“He made Able, grew a beard, and was one of the mutineers in my crew at the Nore, under a false name,” Lewrie said. “I saw him drowned in chains, as we transferred prisoners once we made our escape. Very … eerie, it was.”
“Didn’t help him along, did you?” Shirke asked, wide-eyed.
“Let’s just say that a lot of eerie things happened with the Proteus frigate, her odd launch, the drowning of her Chaplain, how her first Captain went mad, and swore the ship was out to kill him?”
“Good Lord, a spook ship?” Shirke exclaimed.
“She was t’be Merlin, but she stuck fast on the ways when they called out ‘success to the Proteus,’” Lewrie told him, feeling a bit of a chill run up his spine, even long years after. “An Irish sawyer and his son laid hands on her forefoot, whispered something, and off she went. Her first Captain and Chaplain were Anglo-Irish cater-cousins, and when they boarded one night, the Captain said the man-ropes stung him like wasps, makin’ them both fall into the water. Never found the Chaplain’s body, then the Captain went ravin’ mad a day or two after. I never had a speck of bother from her, but, maybe that’s because some say I’m touched with a lucky cess.”
“And, maybe Proteus killed Rolston,” Shirke slowly said, with his brows knitted in awe. “He was a murderer, and dis-loyal to her! Gives me the shivers to even think about that!”
“There were some, me included, who thought her touched by the old pre-Christian gods,” Lewrie told him. “A better name might’ve been HMS Druid, or Wizard. Ye ever cross hawses with her, doff yer hat to her and speak respectful,” he suggested with a wink.
“Rather stand well aloof to windward,” Shirke confessed. “Well, it’s good to see an old companion from the old days, and know that he ain’t out to gut me. I hope to get under way by tomorrow’s dawn, weather permitting. I’ll dine you in when we drop anchor at Cádiz.”
“Hope ye like Spanish cuisine, Jemmy,” Lewrie said, offering his hand one more time. “It ain’t all bad.”
“On your way, Alan, and good luck,” Shirke said in parting.
* * *
Once back aboard Sapphire, and padding round his great-cabins in stockinged feet as he prepared for bed, Lewrie felt a strong urge to reminisce. Yes, he’d been the worst sort of fool when he first went aboard old Ariadne in 1780, sulky, feeling wronged that his father had shoved him into the Navy, just to lay his hands on an inheritance from his late mother’s side to clear his many debts, with him all far away and un-knowing how he’d been cheated. He’d been a right pain, and not for his nautical ignorance, but for his arrogant, cynical, and selfish attitude, feeling surrounded by slack-wit fools or un-feeling brutes.
Fond memories of my Midshipman days? he thought; Not hardly! I can laugh about it, now, but it wasn’t all that much fun. Jemmy Shirke, well. Hadn’t given him a thought in ages! I’ve no hard feelings. His pranks were cruel fun, but he meant nothing by them.
He had released Pettus and Jessop from duty and had the cabins to himself; just him and Chalky. He poured himself a wee dollop of brandy at the wine-cabinet, took the lone lit candle into his sleeping space, and found Chalky waiting for him with his front paws tucked under his chest, slit-eyed with drowsiness. That didn’t last for long. The cat rose and arched his back, going on tip-toes to stretch.
Lewrie finished his brandy, set the glass atop one of his sea-chests, snuffed the candle, and rolled into bed, with Chalky crawling up one leg to his chest to demand pets.
Fillebrowne, now … what t’make of him? Lewrie wondered.
It struck him as odd that Fillebrowne showed no curiosity at the mention of Thom Charlton, Benjamin Rodgers, or his First Officer in Myrmidon, Stroud. The man had tolerated Shirke, Hayman, and himself, and their tales of past experiences, offering none of his own, almost seeming impatient with their supper conversation.
We aren’t good enough for his sort, Lewrie decided, yawning; He thinks himself so far above the bulk o’ Mankind, I wonder if he has a single friend he thinks worthy.
“I just don’t like the bastard, puss,” Lewrie whispered to the cat, stroking its chops and under its neck as Chalky sprawled even closer and began to rumble. “And he doesn’t like anybody. He’s an amateur at this business, and I doubt the Navy was his decision. What’s a second or third son t’do, if your family says ‘go find your career, or else’? Good God, he might’ve been pressed, the same as me! I still don’t like him, though. Don’t trust him, either.”
Chalky belly-crawled up nearer his chin and began to lick and head swipe.
“G’night, Chalky. I love you, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mondego Bay was aswarm with troop transports and supply ships when the convoy bearing General Spencer’s five thousand men arrived, and the few piers in Figueira da Foz had been claimed by the first arrivals, the army under General Sir Arthur Wellesley. Most of his troops and supplies were ashore and encamped, so their convoy vessels could go close to the shore and ferry everything to a broad, deep hard-packed beach. All of Sapphire’s boats, and the larger cutters or launches from Newcastle, Assurance, and Tiger were put to the task.
“Hmpfh!” Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott said with a snort after looking the scene over with his telescope. “Are we landing an army, or a parcel of visitors to Brighton? Look there, sir, at those soldiers skylarking.”
Lewrie raised his own glass to one eye and beheld what looked to be utter chaos. Dozens of ship’s boats were stroking shoreward to the beaches, soaring as they met the moderate waves of surf, and all crammed with piles of crates, kegs and barrels of rations, and infantrymen sitting upright between the oarsmen with their muskets held vertically ’twixt their tight-squeezed knees. But in the surf, pale and naked men were splashing, swimming, floating, or standing in thigh-deep water to let the incoming waves break over them. Further up the beach, barely dressed and bare-chested men were basking or footballing as if the entire army was having a Make and Mend day of idleness.
“One can only hope that French soldiers are as thin and spindly as ours,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “They look as pale as spooks.”
“They’re in the boats’ way!” Westcott groused.
“Uhm, no, I don’t think so,” Lewrie disagreed after a longer look. “Someone’s planted posts and flags along the beaches to clear a long stretch where the boats can land. The swimming areas are outside of that. Damme! Someone in our army half knows what he’s doing, for a change! The whole affair looks … organised.”
“Oh, now that you point it out, I see it,” Westcott said in a much milder voice, sounding as if he was disappointed that he could not have himself a good rant.
“Ye know, I’ve never been to Brighton,” Lewrie admitted. “I’ve taken the waters at Bath, but they say that saltwater bathing is good for you. Half-freezin’ your arse in the Channel, well. The seas here surely are warmer. I’m tempted t’take a dip, myself.”
“As I recall, though, sir, you cannot swim,” Westcott reminded him.
“I said ‘dip,’” Lewrie replied, “not ‘plunge.’ Wade, perhaps, and let the surf have its way with me, with my feet firmly planted in the sand. On such a warm day, well, it looks refreshin’.”
He swung his telescope back to the boats as they hobby-horsed the last fifty yards or so to ground their bows in the sand, rising on the incoming wave, surging onward as it broke and foamed round them. Sailors leapt out to walk the boats over the last incoming surge and steady them as the soldiers began to debark over the bows. Soldiers from other units came down from the low dunes and barrow overwashes to help the boat crews unload and stack crates, bundles, and kegs ashore.
Beyond them, lines of four-wheeled waggons and carts with two man-tall solid wooden wheels stood waiting. The half-battalion that had just set foot on shore stacked their arms up by the waggons, and began to carry all those goods to the waggons, where civilian Portuguese drivers and carters began the loading, under the supervision of British officers in shakoes or elegant bicorne hats.
It struck Lewrie that this landing was better organised than any he’d seen before, at Toulon, at Blaauberg Bay two years before at the invasion of the Dutch Cape Colony, certainly that shoddy mess at Buenos Aires. He suspected that the initial landing of General Wellesley’s army a day or two before had been just as efficient. Someone had given a long thought upon how to get troops, guns, waggons, and horses ashore quickly and smoothly, ready for battle the day after if necessary.
And all those waggons and carts … They were definitely not British Army issue, for upon a longer look, he could not discern more than four that looked similar, as if local towns in Portugal built their own styles. They were all the colours of the rainbow, as well, much like the lot that Sapphire had shot to smouldering kindling on the coast road from Málaga to Salobreña.
That must’ve cost Wellesley a pretty penny, Lewrie thought.
When they had landed General Spencer’s small army at Ayamonte, or Puerto de Santa María, the cost of hiring or leasing Spanish carts and waggons was as dear as purchasing them outright, and Spencer was as tight as the worst penny-pinching miser when it came to dipping into his army chest, practically weeping over every spent shilling. This General Wellesley, it seemed, had a much fatter purse, and was not averse to spending freely to keep all his supplies close by the heels of his soldiers, ready for issue or use.
“They’ll have their supplies in the waggons and be ready to march off in the next hour,” Lewrie predicted, lowering his telescope. “That regiment’s other half-battalion will be ashore with ’em by then, tents, cookpots, and all. We may have all of Spencer’s force off the ships by the start of the First Dog this afternoon.”
“Who knew our army had it in them, sir?” Westcott said in sour wonder. “Is this one of Sir John Moore’s famous reforms?”
“Could be,” Lewrie whimsically replied. He turned away from the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks, put his hands in the small of his back, and peered upward at the long, streaming commissioning pendant for a hint of the wind direction, had a look seaward for signs of a change in the weather, then turned to look back at the beaches. The sea seemed a bit more boisterous further North of the bay, at Cape Mondego, but the bay itself, rather open to the prevailing Westerlies, looked safe, so far, for boat-work, and the surf that growled on the beaches was not too high.
Sea-bathing; it was tempting even if he could not swim a lick. The day was hot, and it wasn’t even close to Noon. He had already shed his uniform coat and hat, but still felt sweltering in waist-coat, shirt, neck-stock, breeches, and boots. The King, “Farmer George,” had begun the fad and made Brighton what it was today, with thousands of people of all classes who thought it fashionable to dunk themselves in perishing-cold water. He’d liked the springs at Bath; they were heated.
George the Third’s as batty as yer old maiden aunt, Lewrie told himself; Perhaps he was daft back then when he took his first dip!
“Signal from Admiral Cotton’s flagship, sir!” Midshipman Kibworth piped up. “Oh! Sorry, sir. It’s Newcastle’s number, and Captain Repair On Board, not Captains.”
“Dinin’ Jemmy Shirke in, is he?” Lewrie quipped. “Well, I’ve seen Jemmy eat with a knife and fork before, and he does it elegant. Oh, this’ll be embarrassin’. All our boats are away helpin’ with the landings, and Newcastle doesn’t have a raft available.”
Lewrie went to the larboard side of the quarterdeck to watch the show. Newcastle’s signal halliards sprouted a series of flags that repeated the flagship’s hoist. They remained aloft for a moment, then were struck down to be replaced with a single flag; the Unable.
“Oh, poor bastard!” Westcott whispered under his breath.
Cotton’s flagship sent a new hoist aloft, jerking swiftly to be two-blocked. It was Explain, spelled out.
“No … Boat … Available,” Midshipman Kibworth slowly spelled out, referring to his code book. “Request … Send … Boat.”
Explain was lowered so quickly that it appeared as if Admiral Sir Charles Cotton had tailed on the halliards himself, and in a fit of dire pique.
“Handy bloody word, ‘Request,’” Lewrie smirked. “Oh, do, pretty please?”
“With sugar on it,” Lt. Westcott added, chuckling.
“Send … ing … Boat,” Kibworth read off, at last.
“Whatever was planned for dinner, Shirke’ll be dinin’ on cold crow, or his own hot tripes, after Cotton rips ’em out for him. Well, things seem t’be goin’ well, and I’ve a book to read,” he added, with a longing look up to the poop deck and his collapsible wood-and-canvas deck chair.
“Then, with you on deck, and the Mids in charge of the Anchor Watch, I think I’ll go below and have a nap, sir,” Westcott said. He tapped two fingers on the brim of his cocked hat by way of salute and departed for the wardroom.
* * *
He read ’til time for his own mid-day dinner, came back to the deck and read some more, and drifted off round three in the afternoon, for the warmth was a soporific, not entirely dispelled by a breeze from offshore. Lewrie was roused by the tinging of Eight Bells being struck at the change of watch at 4 P.M.
There was something heavy and warm on his right thigh, and when he opened one gritty eye, he found Bisquit sitting close by his chair with his head and forelegs draped over him, smelling distinctly doggish, and panting with his tongue lolled out. Lewrie gave Bisquit a pat on the head, and ruffled the fur on his throat and ears. That was a mistake, for Bisquit took it as an invitation to hop up onto his chest and stomach like a hot, hairy blanket, and a heavy one, too.
“Oh no, no, me lad!” Lewrie chid him. “That’ll never do. Get off me.” He struggled to rise, to shove the dog off, but Bisquit was having none of it, whining to stay.
“Here, Bisquit, here, boy!” Midshipman Fywell coaxed, snapping his fingers and whistling. “Want a bite of bisquit?” he asked, producing a corner of a half-consumed ship’s bread from a pocket. That freed Lewrie, though the dog’s quick leap and shove with his rear legs made Lewrie let out an “Oomph!”
“Thankee, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie said, getting to his feet, at last. Bisquit flopped down by the forward railings and crunched away.
“Mister Midshipman Hillhouse’s respects, sir, and he sent me to report that our boats are returning.”
“What, the landings are done?” Lewrie asked, scrubbing sleep from his face with both hands.
“Aye, sir, it appears so,” Fywell went on. “The last boat-loads of soldiers and their supplies went in an hour ago, and the General’s transport … the Agent Afloat aboard her, that is … hoisted a Discontinue about a quarter-hour ago.”
“My respects to Mister Hillhouse, and he’s to make sure that all the scuttlebutts are topped off, Mister Fywell,” Lewrie ordered. “The hands’ll be hellish-thirsty when they return. I’ll be in my cabins. Carry on.”
“Aye, sir,” Fywell replied.
Once in the relative coolness of the great-cabins, Lewrie called for a glass of cool tea, and a pint of wash water. He stripped off to the skin, soaked his washcloth, and swiped his body down from head to his toes to freshen and cool himself. He thought of dressing, but the idea of clothing, especially a wool broadcloth uniform coat, just palled. He padded into his bed-space and donned a light linen dressing robe, then went to fling himself onto the settee with his bare feet up on the brass Hindoo tray table to savour his sweetened and lemoned cool tea, gulping it down and calling for a re-fill.
Chalky joined him for some “wubbies” and head butts, and he felt comfortable, at last. All the sash windows in the stern transom were opened at the top halves, and the jury-rigged screen door to the stern gallery let in a halfway decent breeze, though some of the thin twine looked in need of re-roving over the nails; Chalky was relentless in his urge to get out onto the stern gallery and its railings to hunt sea birds.
“Midshipman o’ th’ Watch, Mister Hillhouse, SAH!” the Marine announced with a stamp of boots and his musket butt.
Lewrie opened his mouth to shout back “Oh, just bugger off!”, but thought better of it, and called back “Enter!” instead.
My officer’s dignity be-damned, he thought.
“Ehm … uh, sir,” Midshipman Hillhouse stammered to find his Captain a’sprawl in a robe. “There has come a signal from Newcastle, sir, an invitation to dine aboard her, at seven of the evening, sir.”
“And I won’t have t’request he send a boat?” Lewrie asked, giving Hillhouse an owlish look.
“Uhm, no, sir,” Hillhouse replied with a smile; though he had not been on deck at the time, he’d been told the tale of Captain Shirke’s embarrassment.
“Very well, Mister Hillhouse,” Lewrie said, “make the reply expressing my thanks and pleasure to attend.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Hillhouse answered, backing out of the cabins and ducking his head, sure to spread his tale of how he’d found the Captain.
“Damn!” Lewrie spat once Hillhouse was gone. “Just when I get cool, Pettus, and now I’ll have t’dress, again!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was marginally cooler that evening when Lewrie scaled the side of HMS Newcastle and doffed his hat in reply to the salute from the side-party. The boats from Assurance and Tiger were alongside with his, and he steeled himself for a few more unpleasant hours with Fillebrowne.
“Welcome aboard, again, Alan,” Captain James Shirke said in greeting, and offering his hand. “Well, it’s done. The army is now ashore, and our boring duty’s done, so I thought we’d celebrate.”
“Pleased to accept your kind invitation, Jemmy,” Lewrie told him. “Ehm, just how big a celebration did ye have in mind?” he japed.
“Well, we’ve no musicians, and no half-clothed dancing girls, but we’ll cope,” Shirke promised. “Let’s go aft and join the others.”
Captains Hayman and Fillebrowne were already there, seated, and they rose when Lewrie and Shirke entered. A cabin servant offered glasses of champagne. “Aah!” Shirke said with pleasure as he drank deep of his, smacking his thick lips in delight. “A hot damned day, was it not? Sit you down, gentlemen, sit you down.”
He plunked into a chair himself, took another sip, and called for a re-fill. “I wish I could find a way to rig one of those Hindoo fans in here. Even with the sash windows open, it’s close and warm.”
“A pankah fan, d’ye mean?” Lewrie asked after a sip or two of his own champagne. “You’ve served in the Far East?”
“No, but I met a fellow who had, and he told me of them. A tax collector with ‘John Company,’” Shirke replied. “Came home a ‘chicken nabob’ after ten years in someplace called Swettypore.”
“That was his joke, I expect,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “Every town, fort, and cantonment in India’s just perishin’-hot, and ye sweat like blazes, even after dark. Sweaty-pore.”
“You served in the Far East, sir?” Captain Hayman asked.
“Not officially,” Lewrie told him with a chuckle. “It was ’tween the American Revolution and the start of the war with France, Eighty-Four to Eighty-Six. The French were urgin’ the local native pirates to raid the shipping routes to China, and I was aboard Telesto, disguised as a merchantman t’keep an eye on ’em, and smack the pirates when we could, under direction from some secretive Foreign Office types. Calcutta to Canton and back, round the Spratly Islands and into the Phillipines. Ye don’t need a pankah boy in turban and his breechclout, Shirke. The Chinese and the pirate kings had these big feather fans and servants standin’ behind ’em, thrashin’ away. There’s no need to rig up the ropes and pulleys … though I’m certain the Navy’d have a ‘down’ on you carryin’ a Turk on ship’s books.”
“I would love to hear about that, sir,” Hayman urged. “It all sounds quite intriguing.”
“Old sailors’ tales?” Lewrie scoffed. “We’re here to celebrate, so I’m told, not hear me spin old yarns.”
“Indeed,” Fillebrowne pointedly said, with a throat-clearing sound, then turned to Shirke. “Just what is it we are celebrating, sir? The end of our convoy duties?”
“That, and our release back to our regular posts in the Med,” Shirke announced. “Ah, me. No chance to hoist even the inferior broad pendant!” he added, rubbing his short-haired pate.
“We’ll not remain with Admiral Cotton’s squadron?” Captain Hayman exclaimed in surprise, sounding disappointed.
“Once I managed to get aboard the flagship, mind you,” Shirke said, laughing off the embarrassment and causing the rest to laugh with him, “the Admiral told me he’s more than enough ships available to guard the coast, and extract the army should they run into trouble with the French. He’s none too keen on this new ‘Sepoy’ General that London sent down. He gives him good marks for efficiency and organisation in getting his troops ashore, but I gather that he finds General Wellesley to be a very cold and haughty fish, a most rigid and aloof man.”
“Other than Sir John Moore, he’s said to be the best we have, though,” Hayman offered. “I just wish we could have stayed, in case the French came out from Lisbon or Rochefort, and we’d have had a hot action.”
“After Trafalgar, I doubt the French have any stomach for ventures at sea,” Shirke said with a shake of his head. “Thank your lucky stars, sir, that you’re not called to idle all the way down to Lisbon under reduced sail, and barely under steerage way, playing the army’s right flank. It’s a nasty lee shore, and if foul weather blows in on the Westerlies, you could be hard aground and pounded to pieces.”
“And bored to death,” Lewrie stuck in.
“Hear, hear,” Fillebrowne seconded.
“Besides, sirs,” Shirke said with a crafty, sly look, shifting in his chair, “Admiral Cotton as good as told me that he doesn’t want us. The French and Russian ships at Lisbon are his, and his alone, and he means to have them, come Hell or high water, and we’d dilute the share-out of the prize money when he takes them!” Shirke barked in laughter as he told them that. “There may be as many as eight Russian ships of the line anchored in the Tagus River, and there’s a fortune just waiting to be reaped.”
“Hmm, would they be Good Prize, though, I wonder?” Lewrie objected. “Russia ain’t exactly at war with us, unless their boy Tsar, Alexander, has gone as mad as his predecessor. Mean t’say, he shut down all trade with us t’make Bonaparte happy, but—”
“The Russians did send London some official note from Saint Petersburg,” Fillebrowne interrupted, sounding superior and dismissive. “Though people I know in Government have assumed that the Tsar is merely posturing to please Bonaparte, without presenting an actual declaration of war. A top-up, if you please,” he said to a servant.
“Just because he and ‘Boney’ met on that raft at Tilsit, in the middle of the river, doesn’t make them bosom companions,” Shirke said, scoffing. “If France didn’t have Spain and Portugal on their plates at the moment, they might have a go at him! And, we all know by now that Napoleon Bonaparte’s word is worthless. If I were the Tsar, I’d sleep with one eye open.”
“He’ll not be satisfied ’til the whole world’s his,” Hayman agreed. “The man’s rapacious!”
“That’s the second time today I’ve heard that word,” Shirke said with good humour. “Admiral Cotton used it referring to you, Captain Lewrie. S’truth! And don’t look so amazed.”
Lewrie was caught with his mouth open.
“He had the most recent copy of Steel’s, so he knew who commanded all our ships, and he cautioned me to keep a close rein on that ‘rapscallion “Ram-Cat” Lewrie’ from having a go at the ships in the Tagus, either, and he said that you’re ‘a relentless, rapacious reaper of prize money,’ hah hah!”
“Well, I have had good fortune over the years, but I haven’t gone … reaping on purpose,” Lewrie rejoined. “I’ve just had good luck.”
“You aren’t known as the ‘Ram-Cat’ for your choice of pets,” Shirke pointed out. “Good God, cats! Can’t abide them!”
“I thought you were better known as ‘Black Alan,’” Fillebrowne fussily added. “For when you stole those dozen Black slaves to crew your ship.”
“Liberated, not stolen,” Lewrie corrected. “Their idea, too.”
“Stood trial for it,” Fillebrowne went on.
“Honourably acquitted,” Lewrie pointed out.
“You saw that French corvette, and that big Spanish frigate at anchor at Gibraltar, Captain Fillebrowne?” Shirke asked him. “Alongside those Spanish xebecs? Those are Sapphire’s prizes, all in the last year. Lord, in the old days, none of us thought you would make a sailor. You were the worst cack-handed, cunny-thumbed lubber we’d ever seen!”
“I think it was all the time I spent ‘kissing the gunner’s daughter,’” Lewrie japed, thankful that Shirke had praised him and defended him. “Though, I must confess that the first time I was warned with that, I thought the girl must be a real dirty puzzle if they meant it as a threat! As little as I knew then, I thought it marvellous that they’d allow girls aboard, and wondered where was mine, and what’s her ‘socket fee’! After a few times, I felt … inspired!”
“We couldn’t recognise him by face, and wondered if he could stand erect, he spent so much time bent over a gun,” Shirke wheezed with glee, “and our Bosun and his Mates could swing a starter so hard, they could have lit off the priming powder at a gun’s touch hole with one blow, hee hee!”
“Raised sparks on my arse,” Lewrie said, laughing along. “You know, I can’t remember either you or Keith Ashburn ever bein’ whipped.”
“That’s because we were never caught out at our duties, Alan,” Shirke reminisced with joy, “nor caught at our games and skylarking, either,” he added with a tap on the side of his nose.
“Excuse me, sir, but supper is laid and ready,” the senior steward announced, and they rose to enter the dining-coach, where Shirke had allowed himself a few more luxuries in good sterling silver and glassware and china.
Lewrie noted that Fillebrowne had merely pretended to laugh along with the others, and he caught his agate-eyed glances as they sat down. He looked almost archly surly, which pleased Lewrie.
What is he, jealous, or irked? he wondered; He keeps that up, and I will tell Hayman one or two o’ my yarns!
