"What I much admire in Mr Lawrence," said Miss Acton, "is his art in making a leg on entering a room. His art in this way rises to a degree that is very unusual in men nowadays, and I should think particularly in sea-faring men. His deportment embraces the whole room. A man has a right to claim some sort of excellence who can make a leg with skill.",
When Mr Lawrence had read this letter through, he was in the act of crushing it by one of those spasmodic motions of the hand which accompany a sudden violent gust of wrath, he met the eyes of the female in the bar fixed upon him; in her gloomy beer-flavoured recess, faintly luminous with hanging rows of highly-polished drinking pots, and a sideboard well within laden with metal vessels for drinking from and for holding drink, the landlady of "The Swan," for such was this decoration of the bar, had manifestly been studying his face whilst he read. She knew him very well, and she was also well acquainted with his habits. In a breath on meeting her eyes he changed his resolution, and folded up the letter into its original creases, giving her a smile which did not seem in the least[Pg 124] degree forced, and saying to her in his pleasantest manner, "Is the ordinary on?" and receiving her answer after she had darted a look at an invisible clock in her room, "In another three minutes, sir," he passed on and went upstairs.,
But the breakfast bell had been rung, and leaving Captain Weaver and his mate to keep an eye upon the stranger and to act with the prudence which was to be expected of a man of Weaver's sagacity and experience, Captain Acton and his companion entered the deck-house. Here was a cheerful little interior, gay with sunshine, which sparkled in the furniture of the breakfast-table, on which smoked as relishable and hearty a meal as was to be obtained at sea in those days. The two gentlemen found much to talk about, and perhaps because of an argument they had fallen into, their sitting was somewhat lengthened: until just when they were about to rise, Captain Weaver came to the cabin door, and after, with the old-fashioned courtesy of his period, begging their pardon, he exclaimed: "The sail's now clear in the glass from the deck.".
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