"Tosh, Cap'm Lewrie, we own the place now!" Maggie said, wiping her red-raw hands on a bar towel and coming round to greet him.

"Old Beakman sold up?" Lewrie asked, puzzled, as he made her a showy "leg" and bow. Maggie dropped him a curtsy.

"La, 'e wuz gettin' on in years, an' not but 'is daughter t'inherit, an' 'er still a spinster, so, once Will paid off from 'is last ship, with all 'is pay an' prize-money, we made an offer an'-"

"Cap'm Lewrie, sir! Welcome 'ome, by yer leave, sir, why I've not clapped glims on ya in ages an' amen!" Will Cony said with glee as he emerged from the back kitchens. The tow-headed, thatch-haired lad he'd been had thickened considerably, too, and his forehead had grown higher, his top-hair thinned considerably, though still drawn back in a sailor's queue.

"Will Cony! My man! Damme, but ye look hellish-prosperous in a blue apron!" Lewrie told him, stepping forward to shake his hand. "When did ye-"

"Last year, sir," Cony told him, pumping away at his "paw" like a well-handle. "After I'd healed up an' got my Discharge." He stomped his right foot on the clean new floorboards, making a loud sound. "Th' Dons went an' shot me foot clean off, sir, but after a spell in Greenwich Hospital, they fitted me with a knee-boot an' an oak foot, and I 'peg' round as good as ever. Ya come for th' good old winter ale, I'd wager, Cap'm? Yer first taste o' 'ome, not a minute back, and ya come t'th' Olde Ploughman, an' bless ya for it."

"Ale for all my party, Will, and right-welcome it'll be, aye," Lewrie agreed, introducing Cony to Desmond and Furfy, explaining how they'd been with him all through HMS Proteus's commission, then Savage, and lastly Thermopylae.

"Beakman's daughter, ehm…?" Lewrie had to ask, for before Will had wed Maggie, he'd spooned round the mort (not all that bad-looking a Wench, really) and though no promises were made, no gifts exchanged to plight a throth-"I give my love a paper of pins, and in this way our love begins"-wasn't this new arrangement prickly?