Feb 6, 2022
‘We thought you might like to view our beetles. They are now fully set out for the first time, a most gratifying sight, covering the entire table and the floor. It cannot last however, the gentlemen of the gunroom being so impatient for their supper.’
‘That would give me great pleasure,’ said Jack, with a last searching look under the mainsail to the fully-drawing fore-course. ‘And if the gunroom – after the bugs, of course – would invite me to take a bite of bread and cheese, how happy I should be.’
— Patrick O’Brian, The Reverse of the Medal