Drake by George! - The Original Classic Edition

This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: Rumour, introducing the newcomer as a celebrity, began to fly about immediately Captain Drake appeared upon the scene and distinguished himself not only by blocking the single narrow street of Highfield with a presence weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, but by addressing passing men, women, and children in a voice which sounded from the church at the top of the hill to the post office at the bottom; top, middle, and bottom being comparative terms when applied to the great hills of Highfield. ...On this single matter the Captain was a pessimist; and, as he believed in appealing to the eye when the appeal to the ear failed, he prepared and set up another noticeboard, upon which he had painted in large letters with his own hand, The enemy will be in Highfield tomorrow; and he whipped small boys who threw stones at it; and, when their parents grumbled, he threatened to whip them too. ...She did not know her age, but believed she had been born in Exeter since the building of the cathedral; for she recalled, as her earliest experience, falling upon her face beside the west front of that building on a cold winters day, and being picked up by no less a person than the Dean, who had made a joke about the ungodly and slippery places, which was published in a local paper, quoted in the Press of the country as a witticism of the Duke of Wellington, and translated into most of the European languages in consequence. ...About twice a week he created a thunderstorm about his nephew, who remained in the attitude of an admiring listener until the tempest of tangled metaphor concerning starvation ahead, rudderless vessels, and vagabonds begging their bread, had died away along the village street; and then the cunning rascal would either place a trembling hand to his forehead declaring he had not much longer to live, or shuffle towards the door with the announcement that it might just as well happen at once, and drowning was the best way he could think of, as he could not afford to purchase fire-arms or poison; besides, a watery grave was the proper ending for a Drake. ...Doctors had warned her that the Captains immense size was not a healthy symptom: upon his last voyage he had been discovered unconscious in his cabin; and although he declared subsequently this was nothing more than a fit of exhaustion easily to be explained by his first mates habit of answering back, it was nevertheless accepted as a danger signal which made retirement necessary.