But Sewallis suddenly sounded so very mature for his tender five years. Always had, Lewrie realized. Even young as Hugh, the boy had always been aloof, quiet and reserved (call it what you really think, damnit!)-timid-with none of the neck-or-nothing exuberance, the silliness or the folly of a normal boy. Scared of the cat? And for God's sake, he hardly ever goes near the damned pony I got 'em. A Lewrie afraid of a horse? An Englishman shy of a horse!

"Of course I brought you something," Alan announced, "just as Sewallis said, little man. Can you keep a secret?"

Hugh agreed with a firm nod as Alan peered into corners, like a housebreaker unloading his ill-gotten gains in a slum alley, an eye out for the previous owners.

"Rare treats," he promised. Hugh was giggling now, dancing in impatience and wonder. Sewallis.,. well, he was a little wide-eyed, but ever the little stoic. "I made an arrangement with a pirate and a smuggler, lads. Fiercest, meanest set of blackguards you ever did wish to see. Off they went, far as the East Indies. Down to Malabar. Oh, 'tis a mysterious, fearsome place-elephants, and snakes thick as my legs, heathen princes and headhunters. The pirate, he took 'em, and the smuggler, he got 'em out, one step ahead o' the headhunters. Then six months at sea on a tall 'John Company' ship they came, all the way from pagan Hindoo India. 'Round the Cape of Good Hope, over to the Argentine and the Plate for a slant o' wind-"

"Mister Lewrie-oh, excuse me." Mistress McGowan, the cheerless governess, had entered the room. She didn't approve of parents and children mixing except at teatime, perhaps after supper for an awkward moment or two of stilted conversation. Certainly not of parents who really wished to spend time with their children.

"Firewood and water, then off to St. Helena, the crossroads of the Atlantic, m'dears. Thence 'cross the Westerlies, daring all the French privateers, to Ushant. Up our good English Channel, into the Pool o' London up the Thames. From mysterious Malabar … a delight fit for the mighty Moghuls themselves!" He reached into his tail-coat pocket as the boys fidgeted.