"Allow me to answer with a three-fold proposal," Alan said as he got to his feet a trifle unsteadily, making a supportive triangle from the fingers of his right hand for a moment, before taking up a refilled glass of port to hold before him and peer into its semi-opaque redness as if for inspiration.

"First, for my ship, the Proteus frigate, the finest, soundest Fifth Rate that ever swam. Secondly, to her crew, the bravest tars ever plied rammer, rope, or cutlass. From highest to lowest, they produced victory, ev'ry man jack! And lastly to our recent foes, the Dutch. They fought us English-fashion, hull-to-hull, yardarm-to-yardarm, and held stout to the last, past the time when their hopes were gone. Gentlemen, I give you HMS Proteus, her crew, and a worthy foe!"

"Proteus… tars/sailors/yer crew… the Dutch/foes!" others babbled, mangling his toast. Lewrie feared it would be too much for them, but to Blazes with that, he thought; they were lusty and loud, and that was what counted-loud enough to raise "Huzzahs!" from the onlookers, too, who'd been drawn by the noise at their table.

"Tryin' t'prove yer sobriety?" his father teasingly said as he seated himself again. "Showin' how you can still form compound sentences this late?"

"Wanted it out and done, before I went under the table," Lewrie told him. "Else we'd all be half-seas-over before we got round to the toasts to the ladies!"

Quite a few of the onlookers were fashionably dressed ladies in company of male companions, or two women out together despite the rigid rules of London Society; dashing, unconventional morts who ogled him as openly as he'd ogle them, given the chance, A mixture of hero worship, sympathy for his nobly-wounded "wing," that broken left arm still hung in a neat sling-one or two licking their lips and half-lidding eyes. "Here, Captain Lewrie," the elegantly dressed man, Mr. Lumsden, whom they'd discovered was a City banker, demanded. "The papers don't tell us half of how 'twas done. Do give us your account of it. Tell us the whole tale!"