HH_mirror

Which was likely part of why Stephen and Susan got on so well. "I could never be called a 'social creature' either. I have been consulted in matters one would consider to be of a personal nature, mind, as a physician. A ship, too, is something of a floating microcosm, a world unto itself. One cannot live in such close quarters with such a press of humanity without learning something of their ways. That floating world is masculine in character, of course. I did once have a woman as loblolly-boy, a matronly efficient Polly who came highly recommended by a Dublin doctor I had known; and there are ships where the gunner will take his wife aboard. Captain Aubrey has always preferred not to have women aboard, when he had the choice." He thought of Clarissa again and smiled. Clarissa had been a stowaway, and Jack had not been pleased in the least to have her presence forced upon his ship as a fait accompli; Stephen, though, had found her most agreeable, though not in the way Jack might have suspected.

"I should understand women better than I do, now that I have been one. It was while you were popcorn; there is a potion that accomplishes the change." Suddenly a speculative look crossed his face. "Do you think Teatime would recognise you, were you a man?"