By then, with the money in his pockets, and his stack of books and such much reduced, and sure that he had seen almost all thirty of the employees who ran the entire Fleet, Lewrie made his adieus and trotted down the stairs to get his hat and cloak from the hall porter, looking over the Waiting Room in hopes he might espy at least one old shipmate before departing, someone who'd shared privations, dangers, and high cockalorums, if only to stave off the dread that there would be exceedingly dull times ahead, on his own, without such companionable "sheet anchors" linked to the bulk of his adult life.

One'd think so, Lewrie thought as he took his time buckling on his sword belt, settling the heavy and enveloping boat-cloak upon his shoulders; an hundred ships o'the line, an hundred frigates, sloops o'war, and brig-sloops… less'n a thousand active Post-Captains, Commanders, not ten thousand Lieutenants… ye'd think I'd know one of 'em in here!

Well, there were some he'd rather not encounter, this side of the gates of Hell; Francis Forrester, who'd made Post years before he had, the idle, well-connected bastard; that idle "grand tourist" Commander William Fillebrowne; that Captain Blaylock of the rosaceaed phyz back in the West Indies… Come to think on't, there were rather more than a few fellow Commission Sea Officers listed in Steel's Original and Correct List of the Royal Navy who'd be more than happy to play-act the "Merry Andrew," glad-hand him, then spit in his tea on the sly, or worse!

There was the drooling, drizzling Midshipman; there was that gloomy, tall, and skeletal dark-haired Lieutenant, now taken to wringing his hands, and there were an hundred strangers. Fie on it!

Lewrie clapped his cocked hat on his head and left, going out to the courtyard, feeling as he imagined an aging foxhound would when left in the run and pen whilst the younger, spryer dogs set out for a hunt… to be idly, lubberly, civilian-useless!