“I should rather have you than a heap of gold, even if it were very comfortable to sleep on.”

“He settled for writing a letter, in a quiet corner, while Temeraire dictated his own:"Gentlemen, I am very happy to accept your commission, and we should like to be the eighty-first regiment, if that number is not presently taken. We do not need any rifles, and we have got plenty of powder and shot for our cannons,” Laurence wrote with a vivid awareness of the reactions this should produce, “but we are always in need of more cows and pigs and sheep, and goats would also do, if a good deal easier to come by. Lloyd and our herdsmen have done very well, and I should to commend them to your attention, but there are a lot of us, and some more herdsmen would be very useful.”“Pepper, put in pepper,” another dragon said, craning her head over; she was a middle-weight, yellowish striped with gray, some kind of cross-breed. “And canvas, we must have a lot of canvas—“ “Oh, very well, pepper,” Temeraire said, and continuing his list of requests added, “I should very much like Keynes to come here, and also Gong Su, and Emily Roland, who has my talon-sheaths, and the rest of my crew; and also we need some surgeons for the wounded me. Dorset had better come, too, and some of the other dragon-surgeons. You had all better not stay where you are at present—““Temeraire, you cannot write so to your superior officers,” Laurence said, breaking off.”

“No; they nearly drowned you, and not even on purpose but only through carelessness. I am not letting them have you back,” Temeraire said.”

“He coiled himself neatly and waited without fidgeting, as was polite; but at length, when Majestatis showed no signs of waking—after ten minutes, or perhaps five—very nearly five—Temeraire coughed; then he coughed again, a little more emphatically, and Majestatis sighed and said, without opening his eyes, “So you are not leaving, I suppose?”“Oh,” Temeraire said, his ruff prickling, “I thought you were only sleeping, not ignoring me deliberately; I will go at once.”“Well, you might as well stay now,” Majestatis said, lifting his head and yawning himself away. “I don’t bother to wake up if it isn’t important enough to wait for, that’s all.”

“I should like to know if he has sunk a frigate, alone, with a Fleur-de-Nuit on his back; and as for distinction, my ancestors were scholars in China while his were starving in pits.”

“For his part, Temeraire had been following this exchange with cocked head and increasing confusion; now he said, "I do not understand in the least, why ought it make any difference at all? Lily is female, and she can fight just as well as I can, or almost," he amended, with a touch of superiority.Riley, still dissatisfied even after Laurence's reassurance looked after this remark very much as though he had been asked to justify the tide, or the phase of the moon; Laurence was by long experience better prepared for Temeraire's radical notions, and said, "Women are generally smaller and weaker than men, Temeraire, less able to endure the privations of service.""I have never noticed that Captain Harcourt is much smaller than any of the rest of you," Temeraire said' well he might not, speaking from a height of some thirty feet and a weight topping eighteen tons. "Besides, I am smaller than Maximus, and Messoria is smaller than me; but that does not mean we cannot still fight.""It is different for dragons than for people," Laurence said. "Among other things, women must bear children, and care for them through childhood, where your kind lay eggs and hatch ready to look to your own needs. Temeraire blinked at this intelligence. "You do not hatch out of eggs?" he asked, in deep fascination. "How then--""I beg your pardon, I think I see Purbeck looking for me," Riley said, very hastily, and escaped at a speed remarkable, Laurence thought somewhat resentfully, in a man who had lately consumed nearly a quarter his own weight in food."I cannot really undertake to explain the process to you; I have no children of my own," Laurence said.”

“I do not care if they do not like me," he said. "Maybe then they will let me alone, and I will not have to stay in China." The thought visibly struck him, and his head came up with sudden enthusiasm. "If I were very offensive, do you suppose they would go away now?" he asked. "Laurence, what would be particularly insulting"Hammond looked like Pandora, the box open and horrors loose upon the world. Laurence was inclined to laugh, but he stifled it out of sympathy.”