Captain Ishmael was nervous; Sir Jaisen might be willing to let people other than himself and Ishmael and Jock (the fireman/engineer) mess about on the ship, but all the hammering, and drilling noises set his teeth on edge; it's was like it were my house and the landlord kept tinkering with the chimney and the plumbing, he thought; surely sooner or later somewhat'll get stopped up, and we and the commodore'll have to figure it all out all by ourselfs.
Then , in came himself, asking what kind of information he had. Ishmael told him about the recent smallpox epidemic in america, and how Rosita and her daughter had Esmeralda had moved to London to escape it; apparently she had also wanted to enroll Esmeralda in Patrick O'Landry's School of Technomancy, Esme, as teh called her for short, being unusually gifted with the blacksmith's "fire and ire," as Sir Jaisen would have quoted his Uncle caractacus as calling it. Apparently, they had an audience with Patrick tomorrow, and Rosita had managed to find and get hold of Ishmael in order to ask Jaisen to put in a good word for his Niece. The commodore wondered aloud why Rosita hadn't contacted him directly, and Ishamael explained that she had tried to through HMSS at whitehall, and how they could take weeks just to pass a note. Sir Jaisen then left, thanking Ishmael for the information, and said he had some work to do "in that case." Ishmael went back to working ove rthe ledger, wincing everytime a BANG! of a hammer, or a ruummmble of a drill sounded.
