THE SULKIEST NAVAL OFFICER.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Good Mundane,

Glad though I am to be held in your high esteem, I am... concerned about your intentions for me.

Do not forget that I am first and foremost, an officer of His Majesties Royal Navy. I have a duty to my country and to my captain, and I cannot have you pursuing some alternate commission for me beyond the navigations of the heavens! Not any more than I could stand idle while you linger upon your indecision of my fate.

Will all due respect, you could offer me no landscape so wondrous as the sand and sea of the Indies, no adventure so great as the war on France, and no duty more honorable than my service to my country! I must insist that you allow me to return to it at once!

Now please, let's have no more of this talk. I wish to return at once to my ship.

Yours
Lt. Horatio Hornblower

Comments

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Of course you did.

[He's not being facetious, amazingly. Horatio says that like he actually means to reassure Cassel that he's sure he knew what a whorl was!]

I do not know that such a thing is possible, and I do not know where I would find the liquor even if it is.

[patheticvillain]

Well, look harder! This is important.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

She doesn't have a--

[Pause.

The clinking of bottles.]

I think I have found some, actually.

[Prefect's secret stash of gin, tucked carefully away in my subconscious.]