Empire of Ivory Page 0,33

against it. Brick will be a much more practical construction," he opined; he had not looked up from the papers since being handed them, so badly nearsighted he was inspecting the plans with a jeweler's loupe, an inch from his watery blue eyes, and could most likely not make either dragon out in the least. "Silly oriental stuff, this roof, do you insist on having it so?"

"It is not silly oriental stuff at all," Temeraire said, "it is very elegant: that design is my mother's own pavilion, and it is in the best fashion."

"You will need linkboys on it all winter long to brush the snow clear, and I will not give a brass farthing for the gutters after two seasons," Royle said. "A good slate roof, that is the thing, do you not agree with me, Mr. Cutter?"

Mr. Cutter had not the least opinion to offer, as he was backed to the trees and looked ready to bolt, if Laurence had not prudently stationed his ground crew around the border of the clearing to forestall just such panicked flight.

"I am very willing to be advised by you, sir, as to the best plan of construction, and the most reasonable," Laurence said, while Royle blinked around himself looking for a response. "Temeraire, our climate here is a good deal wetter, and we must cut our cloth to suit our station."

"Very well, I suppose," Temeraire said, with a wistful eye for the upturned roof-corners and the brightly painted wood.

Iskierka meanwhile took inspiration, and began to plot the acquisition of capital. "If I burn up a ship, is that good enough, or must I bring it back?" she demanded, and began her piratical career by presenting Granby with a small fishing-boat, the next morning, which she had picked up from Dover harbor during the night. "Well, you did not say it must be a French ship," she said crossly, to their recriminations, and curled up to sulk. Gherni was hastily recruited to replace it under cover of darkness, the following night, undoubtedly to the great puzzlement of its temporarily bereft owner.

"Laurence, do you suppose that we should be able to get more capital, by taking French ships," Temeraire asked, with a thoughtfulness very alarming to Laurence, who had just returned from dealing with this pretty piece of confusion.

"The French ships-of-the-line are penned in their harbors by the Channel blockade, thank Heaven, and we are not privateers, to go plying the lanes for their shipping," Laurence said. "Your life is too valuable to be risked in such a selfish endeavor; in any case, once you began to behave in such an undisciplined manner, you may be sure Arkady and his lot would follow your example at once, and leave all Britain undefended, not to mention the encouragement Iskierka would take."

"Whatever am I to do with her?" Granby said, wearily taking a glass of wine with Laurence and Jane that evening, in the officers' common room at the covert headquarters. "I suppose it is being dragged hither and yon in the shell, and all the fuss and excitement she has had; but that is no excuse forever. I must manage her somehow, and I am at a standstill. I would not be amazed to find the entire harbor set alight one morning, because she took it into her head that we would not have to sit about defending the city if it were all burnt up; I cannot even make her sit still long enough to get her under full harness."

"Never mind; I will come by tomorrow, and see what I can do," Jane said, pushing the bottle over to him again. "She is a little young for work, by all the authorities, but I think her energy had better be put to use than go in all this fretting. Have you chosen your lieutenants, Granby?"

"I will have Lithgow, for my first, if you've no objection, and Harper for a second, to act as captain of the riflemen also," he said. "I don't like to take too many men, when we don't know what her growth will be like."

"You do not like to turn them off later, you mean, when they like as not cannot get another post," Jane said gently, "and I know it will be hard if it comes to that; but we cannot shortchange her, not with her so wild. Take Row also, as captain of the bellmen. He is old enough to retire if he must be turned off, and