Sublime

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

Little wonder that Strasser’s nickname was Rolling Thunder. Hayes, meanwhile, was Doomsday. Woodell was Weight. (As in Dead Weight.) Johnson was Four Factor, because he tended to exaggerate and therefore everything he said needed to be divided by four. No one took it personally. The only thing truly not tolerated at a Buttface was a thin

Mr Smith, a sea-officer of the small, trim, brisk, round-headed, portwine kind, once shipmates with Stephen in the Lively and now second in the Goliath, rode by on a camel, with his legs folded negligently over the creature’s neck to the manner born: