'Thank you, sir. But 'Tis a disadvantage, when we have to fight with blunderbusses. The virtue of a blunderbuss, as you may know, is to make a weapon out of whatever nails, pebbles, splinters, and fragments might be lying about – but here on Minerva we make a practice of sweeping that matter up, and throwing it overboard, several times daily. At times like this we do regret that we neglected to hoard it.'