when she saw my name had come out in Debrett's - as J. Roland, very discreet - and had me to a nice, sociable little Dinner, with every Cabinet Minister she could contrive to lay hands on, I gather: all very shocked, as they had brought their Wives, but they could not say so much as Boo with Her Ladyship at the foot of the Table as if Butter would not Melt in her mouth, and the Ladies did not mind inn the Least, when they understood I was an Officer, and not some Vauxhall Comedienne. I found them sensible Creatures all of them, and I think perhaps I have got quite the wrong Notion about them, as a Class; I expect I ought to be cultivating them. I don't mind Society half so much if I may wear Trousers, and they were very kind, and left me their Cards.
We are trundling along well enough otherwise and getting back into some Order: feeding dragons on Mash and Mutton Stew is a damn'd site cheaper, Thank God, if the older ones do complain; Excidium is all Sighs and loud Reminiscences of fresh Cattle, and Temeraire's name is not much lov'd among them, for having given us the Technique.
I will say a word in your Ear for him: I am uneasy about this Business in Spain. Bonaparte ain't a Fool, and why he should wreck a dozen cities, on the southern Coast, fresh from the ruin of his Invasion, I cannot understand. Mulgrave thinks he means to take Spain and to stop us from supplying them from the Sea, but for that, he ought to be burning them in Portugal, instead.
If Temeraire should think it some Stratagem of Lien's, I would be glad to know of it, even late as the Intelligence must come: it is very strange to think, Laurence, that I cannot hope for an Answer in under ten Months and a year and a half the more likely. Now we have lost the Capetown port to those African fellows, the couriers cannot even go to India, and meet your letter halfway.
For Consolation, if you should find yourself overcome with Passion and happen to accidentally drop Rankin down a Cliff, or by some Mischance run him through, at least I will not hear of it for as long, and anyway you are already transportd, which I must call a great Convenience for Murder. But I do not mean to Hint, although it is a great Pity to waste an Egg upon him, even one of our poor unwanted Stepchildren.
I hope Emily has not got into too many Scrapes; tho she cannot officially be your Ensign, I am sure you will oblige me by keeping her from any really reckless Behaviour, and do not let Rankin come the Scrub over her, if he have the Gall: I have seen enough to know he is just the sort of Rotter who would try off Airs of False Pity for her Sacrifice and other non Sense.
The three eggs which had been sent with them to begin the experiment were not, by the lights of Britain's breeders, any great prizes: one a dirt-common Yellow Reaper, sent over because there were seventeen such eggs in the breeding grounds waiting; the second a disappointing and extremely stunted little thing which had unaccountably been produced out of a Parnassian and a Chequered Nettle, both heavy-weights. The last and most promising of the three, large and handsomely mottled and striated, was the offspring of Arkady, the feral leader, and Wringe, the best fighter of his pack.
There was no great enthusiasm for this egg in Britain, where the breeders for the most part viewed the newly recruited ferals as demons sent to wreak havoc and destruction upon their carefully designed lines; so it had been sent away. But it had quickly become the settled thing among the aviators who had been sent along as candidates for the new hatchlings to anticipate great things of the egg. "It stands to reason," Laurence had overheard more than one officer say to another, "if that Wringe one should have got so big out in the wild, this one should do a good deal better with proper feeding, and training; and no one could complain of the ferals' fighting spirit."
Those young officers were now in something of a quandary, which Laurence was not above grimly enjoying, a little: they had been firm and united in their disdain, both for his personal treason and