"Oh, I did that, Mr. Kenny, an easy walk."
"I'm pleased you had moonlight." In the windows, reflections of candelabra were steady golden fires. "The dem'd road's a caution, noticed it a thousand times and said so in high places too, but it does no good. I trust you met no inconvenience?"
"None, sir." Good white teeth flashed in a light dangerous smile. "No man troubles me," said Mr. Shawn, and patted his left hip, where he carried a short knife something like Ben's. "And I easy found your house, sir, the way everyone knows of Mr. John Kenny." The flattery was gross. Shawn clearly meant it to be recognized as such, using it to intimate a deeper flattery, a suggestion that he and John Kenny knew how to value the coinage of light conversation and enjoy it as a comic work of art.
"To Artemis!" said Mr. Kenny. "May she venture far!"
"Amen!" Shawn jumped up to drink that toast standing, in one draft, and Ben, Reuben saw, could do no less. He took one swallow himself for courtesy, and sat down, shifting his chair until the delicate flame of a silver wall lamp was behind Ben's head and created around him a golden nimbus that no one but Reuben would see, or seeing, remember.
"I'm happy we spoke at once of the bright lady, Mr. Kenny, for that allows me to state my business and so have done, and not be outstaying a welcome that's more than kind." But once settled in the chair at Ben's right, Mr. Shawn appeared to be in no haste at all. Reuben observed an old scar running in a gray-white thread from the black hair behind Mr. Shawn's left ear, winding through the smallpox scars and losing itself under his collar. Mr. Shawn wore no stock, no wig; simple, clean and neat in a brown jacket and gray shirt and patched breeches, he made Reuben feel foppishly overdressed in his fine silk stock, dabs of lace and other impedimenta of a gentleman that Uncle John liked to see him wear. Mr. Shawn's green coat, tossed on a chair, nakedly displayed its own patches. His large-knuckled hands were clean, his face slick-shaven and scrubbed, a moderate tan combining with natural pallor to give him a look of pitted old ivory, the only grooves two deep ones framing his proud nose and three faint permanent frown-tracks between his heavy black brows. Uncle John was replenishing his glass. "I thank you, sir, but I pray you don't press me to drink overmuch, it's I have a poor head for it, now that's no lie."
"In vino veritas," said Gideon Hibbs, and giggled. Reuben squirmed inwardly as usual at that degeneration of Mr. Hibbs' conversation into Latin snippets, the eroded currency of scholarship. With the sometimes dispassionate malevolence of youth, Reuben had spoken of it to Ben as the harrumphitas hemanhorum Hibbsiana.
Daniel Shawn threw a light, tight smile to the room at large. "Legend says truth is a naked lady dwelling in the bottom of a well, and so up we must drag her and cast a rag upon her lest her beauty be a-dazzling us, or will it be that she's a Gorgon and no beauty?—I can't say. Turn our heads, and faith, don't she go down again to the bottom of the well, the way we've had our labor for nothing? I've heard of no man ever lay with her and lived to tell of it, let alone having any get of her at all."
To the stained crystal of his suddenly empty glass, Reuben said: "Unless it was Socrates, and 'tis very true he died."
Small silence ruled. Reuben heard Mr. Hibbs draw a deep stormy breath, but before anyone could set about demolishing green youth for its impudence (if anyone was a-mind to) Daniel Shawn was tranquilly continuing: "To my business, Mr. Kenny, and I'll have done. I'm here, sir, to inquire if there be an opportunity for me to ship aboard your Artemis on her next outward passage." Caution settled on Mr. Kenny's face like cold. "I must tell you, sir, the way I've fallen enamored of the little sea-witch, I'd count it better than a berth on any full-rigged ship I know. Call it a seaman's fancy. I have mate's papers—captain's for that matter, but no man could replace Mr. Jenks, there'd be never no such thought in me mind. Indeed, Mr. Kenny, were I offered a command at present I think I'd refuse, now that's no lie. I think I'm not of a mind for it, though I have captained a vessel twice in the past and done well enough as the world judges. But if any lesser berth be available with Artemis, I'm ready, sir—ready to offer twenty years' experience of the sea and the best devotion a man can give at all."