16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
and in the public gaze. He walked across the
quarterdeck, taking off his hat as he came,
but instead of passing straight on beyond the
Captain to the windward gangway and so
forward as he would have done at an ordinary
muster, he advanced to the capstan. There,
upon the capstan-head, Adams paid down
two guineas, one louis d'or, two ducats (one
Venetian, the other Dutch) and enough pieces
of eight and Jamaica bits to bring the sum to
twenty-seven pounds six shillings and fourpence.
Ayrton swept them into his hat with a
chuckle, moved on two paces and touched his
forehead to the Captain. 'Give you joy of them
Ayrton,' said Jack, smiling at him. So it went
throughout the alphabet, with more laughter
and outbursts of wit than would have been
countenanced in a more regular man-of-war,
until a minute after John Yardley, yeoman of
the sheets, had joined his jocose, wealthy