Questions
"Hello Stephen, we are just about to--is that alive?""I find it most prudent... to refrain from asking one another questions one can expect not to like the answer to..." Stephen answered distractedly, eyes firmly fixed upon his handiwork. He looked intently at his subject, and then suddenly sighed resignedly and put his scalpel and forceps down.
"Well it isn't any longer," he said as an aside, then continued with his earlier trail of thought. "...just as I never ask what Killick puts into the pudding or you if we will pass another ship without fighting."
Captain Jack Aubrey stood in the door opening, his large frame blocking the entrance, and opened his mouth as if to reply. Then a look of fond exasperation crossed his face, and he closed his mouth and took himself off to the quarterdeck with a chuckle.
