HMS Surprise (Aubrey & Maturin, #3)

by Patrick O'Brian

Stephen had spared no expense in making himself more unhappy, his own position as a rejected lover even clearer.

‘Here’s a palm in Gilead,

‘That is so, sure. But it is in her mother’s hands entirely; and this mother is the most unromantic beast that ever urged its squat thick bulk across the face of the protesting earth;

‘Was you a midshipman in the Surprise, sir?’ cried young Callow, amazed, amazed. If he had thought about it at all, he would have supposed that post-captains sprang fully armed from the forehead of the Admiralty.

but he had had to be persuaded, and on leaving, with a partially-concealed wild secret grin on his face, he had sworn upon his honour that he was uninfluenced by vampires – that he should not bring a single vampire aboard.

‘Jack, you have debauched my sloth.’

they know they are in the Navy – they have chosen their cake, and must lie on it.’ ‘You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.’ ‘No, no, it is not quite that, neither.

This book is just so casually funny !

‘She is not a strumpet. She is a clergyman’s daughter.’

You have no notion what bitches women are.

He does, though.