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Various sensations were depicted in Mr Eagle's face as he listened. First he looked scared, then fierce by mere force of frown and enlargement of eyes, then sceptical with his sour, sneering mouth, then obstinate, sullen, mulish. He perfectly believed in the statement Mr Lawrence had made. Captain Acton, the owner, was a naval officer, and so was Mr Lawrence. They had agreed to abide in this matter of selling the ship and discharging the crew by a custom of their Service, namely, the sealed instructions., "He is all right, Billy," she answered softly., The Admiral missed the sea; he was near it, nay, in heavy weather within sound of it, but not a glimpse of the blue deep could be caught through the windows. He had retired on a pension and on trifling private means which rendered this retreat the fittest he could have chosen for the convenience of his purse and for the simple tastes of his life. Here he lived with an old servant and a young girl, and now with his son; but he was always hoping that this last obligation would not be continuous, though the prospect of getting anything to do in such an obscure corner of the earth as Old Harbour Town was as remote as the possibility of Mr Lawrence ever becoming Prime Minister of England. Yet a secret hope, an indeterminable dream, one of those imaginations which make blessed the possessors of the sanguine temperament, buoyed the Admiral. Who could tell? Something might happen! Walter might fall in with a man who should prove a friend, even in that very haunt, "The Swan," which seemed obnoxious to his interests. Thus the old fellow would reason without logic, or even knowing what he was talking to himself about..