Lord St Vincent hunched his shoulders and wiped his nose on a fine linen handkerchief. Templeton knew the gesture. The explosion of St Vincent's accumulated frustration would be through the touch-hole of his office, since his opponents stopped his muzzle.
'Be so kind, Templeton, as to add upon the skin of Sir James Palgrave's file that he is not to be employed again during the present war…'
'Yes my Lord.' St Vincent turned back to the window and his contemplation of the waving tree-tops in St James's Park. It was now his only eye upon the sky he had watched from a hundred quarterdecks. Templeton waited. St Vincent considered the folly of allowing a man a post-captaincy on account of his baronetcy. He recollected Palgrave; an indifferent lieutenant with an indolent fondness for fortified wines and a touchy sense of honour. It was perhaps a result of the inconsequence of his title. St Vincent, whose own honours had been earned by merit, disliked inherited rank when it eclipsed the abilities of better men. Properly the replacement of Palgrave should not concern the First Lord. But there was a matter of some importance attached to the appointment.
Templeton coughed. 'And the Melusine, my Lord?' St Vincent remained silent. 'Bearing in mind the urgency of her orders and the intelligence…'
'Why did he resign, Templeton?' asked St Vincent suddenly.
'I do not know, my Lord.' It was not the business of the Secretary's third clerk to trade in rumour, no matter how impeccable the source, nor how fascinating it sounded in the copy-room.