Lt. Urquhart beheld a man in his mid- to late thirties who owned a charming and easy smile; a captain who "wore his own hair" 'stead of a wig, whose hair was mid-brown, where the sun had not lightened the shade to light brown, and the merriest blue eyes surrounded by laugh lines and the crow's-feet of perpetual sea-squinting-though they did, when Lewrie turned more serious about professional matters, seem to go frostier and greyer. Lewrie was three inches shorter than Lt. Urquhart's own six feet even, a fellow who might weigh eleven or twelve stone, with a fit build, without the beginnings of a senior Post-Captain's pot belly, bred of higher pay, prize-money, or private means natural to the typical squirearchy background of most captains his age; born of the ability to purchase more wine, brandy, and rich viands, consumed alone in a ship-captain's traditional aloofness from others aboard; from the richness of suppers shared with fellow captains and foreign dignitaries when "showing the flag," with junior officers and Midshipmen on a weekly rotation when at sea, where one was forced to show off open-handed hospitality, even a touch of splendour, from one's own purse.

Or, as Edward Urquhart had always suspected, from sheer boredom to fill the lonely, aloof hours spent so often alone at-table in one's great-cabins. Or the gluttony that followed years of plain commons!

Capt. Lewrie had done most of the talking, asking the usual questions about Urquhart's previous service, and Urquhart had responded as firmly as he could without veering off into too many inessential digressions. After that disastrous first meeting ashore, he had a false impression to correct, an urgent need to please and to reassure his new captain that he would be a worthy addition; and, the hope that he fit in.