Jonathan Strange was not in the habit of spending his holidays confined to hotels like an invalid, but at present remaining in the Crown and its immediate environs suited him rather well. He had awoken that morning with a tremendous headache (brought about, it must regrettably be admitted, by overindulging the previous evening) and had committed himself to a day of rest, nursing himself through the worst of last night's aftereffects with another bottle or two of wine, and writing a series of letters to the Misses Margaret, Maria and Georgiana Erquistoune. They and the rest of the Erquistounes were no doubt enjoying the familiar comforts of Edinburgh at that moment, and Jonathan was more than half inclined to add a postscript or two asking if their errant cousin might be welcome to join them. Sanditon may have been a great source of material for the sort of amusing sketches that he liked to include in his correspondence, but he was uncertain of just how much more of the place he could stomach before madness set in.
The exact wording of the request was still being debated as he approached the bar for a fresh bottle, but the sight of Sidney Parker sitting there with a face like thunder drove all such thoughts from his head. For a moment he looked about the room to see if there was someone else that the other young man might have been addressing so sharply, but, finding no one worth noticing, he could only assume it was meant for himself.
"What the devil for?" Strange replied, a bit of testiness coming through in his voice. He was still in something of a mood and it left him with little patience for the ill-humor of another