The Admiral made his son welcome with unusual warmth.
"I never tasted a finer flavoured piece of mutton. This jelly, too, lifts it to the dignity of a haunch. Those spring cabbages are very tender. We do not eat nearly enough vegetables in this country. What purifies the blood like a well-cooked spring cabbage that melts in the mouth? I am in hopes that we shall get a very good show of potatoes. Are you fresh from the ship?"
He asked this question with much importance. Indeed, during the last two days he had manifested great interest in all that concerned the Merchant Service; had found out, for instance, and avowed the fact to Captain Acton, that our Colonial Empire was founded by British Merchant seamen who, in the employ of merchant adventurers, sailed into all parts of the globe and established settlements, and often fought for the preservation if not for the conquest of principalities over which the King's flag now waved. He also pointed to the Honourable East India Company, and asked if our own or any Navy were superior in their capacity and splendour to those ships, and whether our Navy treated their officers with so much consideration, liberality, and prudent foresight for each man's well-being.
"Yes, I have come straight from the Minorca."
"Will you complete your lading by the date announced for your sailing?"
"I think so—I hope so. I am very well disposed towards that scheme I have put into being—the construction of a sick-bay. Every ship should have a sick-bay. You must agree with me, sir."
"Wherever room can be found a sick-bay is most important," answered the Admiral.
"A man falls sick of small-pox. What are you to do with him? You can't cure him, and you can't heave him overboard. But because one falls ill it surely does not follow that the others should go sick. Besides, we carry no surgeon, which was an additional incentive to my suggesting a sick-bay to Captain Acton."
"Oh, you have done well. Acton will value your foresight. A sick-bay is a valuable detail in a ship's catalogue."
They talked of this and of other matters connected with the Minorca, and then the Admiral went to the window to fill his pipe, and Mr Lawrence to his bedroom.