“You touch me, and I’ll let your blood for you, Tom Richards. The Lord forgive me, sir”—and he imitated the man’s voice—“you’d be learning something if you went to sea with Captain Gore.”
“Oh, I should, should I!”
“The devil you would.”
“And you’d be teaching me, perhaps!” said the man in livery, with a sententious sniff.
“’Twouldn’t be my business. They’d send you to the cook’s galley to clean pots.”
While Sparkin was instilling obfuscated respect and caution into Tom Richards, Captain John Gore made his way to Lady Purcell’s house. The stare he met there was no more flattering than that which his father’s servant had given him. A three days’ beard, no wig, a soiled coat, and a moulting beaver were not calculated to conciliate menials.
“My Lord Gore is here?”
“What may your business be?”
He walked in over the servant’s toes.
“Tell my lord that Captain Gore is below.”