The (possibly not so) dear Surprise

[sharpiefan]

The sun-baked decks leaked abominably and the Surprise (though bowling along so cheerfully) echoed with the sound of drips right down to the orlop and the hold itself, wetting all the storerooms, except the tin-lined bread-room, all the cabins and all the hanging beds within these cabins; and even before the evening sun went down in its abrupt, tropical fashion, the hot imprisoned air was filled with the smell of mould: mould, blue or green or sometimes a mottled grey, growing on books, clothes, shoes, marine specimens, portable soup, and of course the great beams under which everybody slept and against which everybody except the Captain banged his head from time to time. This was not because Jack Aubrey was more dwarfish than the rest - indeed he stood rather more than six feet tall - but because his cabin had more clearance. Or rather his cabins, since he had three: the coach, to larboard, which included the lower part of the mizzen mast and a thirty-two pounder carronade and in which he had his meals unless there were more than four or five guests; his sleeping place to starboard; and then right aft the noble great cabin, stretching clean across the ship and lit by the splendid inwardly-sloping, seven-light stern-window, the airiest, lightest place in the ship, Killick's kingdom, perpetually scoured, swabbed, scraped and polished, smelling of beeswax, fresh sea-water and clean paint.

"Perhaps we might have some music tonight?" suggested Stephen, coming up from his fetid dog-hole.