A hot bath and a close shave, a hearty breakfast and six cups of coffee, and Lewrie still felt like Death’s-Head-On-A-Mop-Stick, but… there were things to meet and people to do, to make the most of his brief time in London. There was the College of Heralds, where grave people who put a lot of stock in such arcane things as coats-of-arms hemmed and hawed, suggested, and queried him over what he would like, or what was suitable to his career, to paint on a parchment, and… “the, ah, fees will be so much, and might you wish to pay by a note-of-hand, or a draught upon your bank, Sir Alan?”
No fear the Crown’ll run short o’ “tin,” Lewrie sourly thought; They must do a whoppin’ business handin’ out honours, if they cost the recipients so bloody dear! I could buy a thoroughbred for that much!
With the promise that preliminary sketches, in full colour, mind, would be forthcoming, Lewrie toddled off for dinner, then a visit to his bankers at Coutts’ for more cash, and a review of his accounts. He was pleasingly amazed that the Prize-Court on Jamaica had completed their surveys of the four French warships they had taken at the Chandeleurs-captured warships always seemed to breeze through quickly since the Fleet was in such need of new ones-deciding on a sum of ?50,000. Lewrie’s frigate’s share was a fourth of that, and his own two-eighths amounted to ?3,125! Nothing to sneeze at, for certain! He left ?1,000 in savings and transferred ?2,000 to the Funds, where it would earn a tidy ?60 per annum. He pocketed the remainder, with plans to splurge, quite frankly.
Later, passing a bookseller’s bow-window display, he was taken by the sight of not one but two books written by his old steward and cabin servant, Aspinall! He dashed in and flipped through their pages, which were un-cut, so he only saw half. Just as Aspinall had promised, one was an illustrated guide to all the useful knots employed aboard a ship, and the other a compendium of music and songs popular in the Royal Navy.
“Good God!” Lewrie exclaimed as he read the dedication in the first one about knots.