Admiralty in London was very crowded with so many ships being decommissioned at once, so much so that it had been necessary to make an appointment for a set date and time to begin the process of turning in all his ledgers, forms, logs, punishment books, and pay vouchers. Thankfully, a fortnight shy of Christmas, Lewrie met with the Second Secretary to Admiralty, William Marsden, not his nemesis, Sir Evan Nepean, and the whole thing was a fairly business-like and pleasant affair, not the ordeal Lewrie had expected.

Well, there was a half-hour stint in the infamous Waiting Room on the ground level, but the tea cart was set up in the courtyard and doing a grand business, with its tea lads whipping round with hot pots, mugs, and sticky buns, right-active. Lewrie had even found a pew bench seat right off after but a single glare at a Midshipman, who'd gotten the hint and sprung from his place to accommodate a senior officer.

Is he the same snot-drizzler I saw, the last time I was here? Lewrie asked himself, for the Midshipman bore a strong resemblance to the mouth-breather with whom he'd shared a bench in February. Damned if he ain't! Lewrie marvelled with a faint grimace of distaste to see him snort back a two-inch worm of mucus, then gulp. Has he been here every day since? Lewrie wondered, shaking his head at the no-hope's persistence at seeking a sea-berth, even as two-thirds of the Navy was being laid up. Don't he know there's a war… off? Lewrie japed.

To make more room for Lewrie a Lieutenant shifted over a bit, a very tall and painfully thin young fellow with dark hair and eyes, and dressed in a shabby and worn uniform coat, with a very cheap brass-hilt smallsword on his hip. Must bash his brains out on ev'ry overhead beam, Lewrie thought; maybe one too many already? he further decided as the gawky "spindle-shanks" stared off into space, lips ajar, and damned near mumbled to himself with a gloomy, vacant expression on his phyz.