16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
tend a particular dinner I have noticed
that he has seemed more ill at ease in
the gunroom than he was before. We
now have added to our company one
of the ransomer mates, recently discharged
from the sick-berth, and the
loud-voiced confident mirth of the supercargo,
the merchant and this mate
oppresses him; nor can it be said that
the conversation of our two actinglieutenants
is enlivening: both are eminently
respectable men, but neither has
enough experience of this kind of mess
to keep the ransomers in order, so that
in Tom's absence the place is more like
the ordinary of an inferior Portsmouth
tavern than the gunroom of a man-ofwar.
The officers quite often invite Dutourd,
and he does impose a certain respect;
but unhappily he is a great talker