by this age of sixteen , i was considered bookish by the clan of elder kinsmen who gathered at the table every night , my parents ' uncles mostly , and all very much of a former time when `` bankers had not run the world , '' who had marvelous tales to tell of the crusades , to which they had gone when they were young , and of what they had seen at the fierce battle of acre , or fighting on the island of cyprus or rhodes , and what life had been like at sea , and in many exotic ports where they had been the terror of the taverns and the women .