to a senile pose with nodding head and shaking fingers, mumbling
at his lips:

"Ah! Ah!" he wheezed, "how time flies! I mind the day when he and I
were lads together--hee-hee--brave lads ... Eton and Christ Church
together----" He broke off into a decrepit chuckle.

"Dry up, Pills, you ass," cried the Torpedo Lieutenant, laughing. "You
aren't a bit funny--in fact, I'm not sure you aren't rather bad form."

"Bad form?" echoed the First Lieutenant. "Let us see now. What's the
penalty for bad form, Pay? I've forgotten."

"To be devoured by lions," said the Paymaster calmly, with an eye on the
sofa where Garm, the bull-terrier, sprawled as usual.

"That's right," said the First Lieutenant, "so it is: devoured of lions."

The next moment the Doctor was tripped up into the depths of the sofa,
the bull-terrier, thus rudely awakened from slumber, dumped on top of
him, and his struggles stifled by the bodies of the Paymaster and First
Lieutenant. "Eat him, Garm--Hi! good beastie! Chew his nose, lick his
collar...!"

The great bull-terrier, accustomed to being the instrument of such
summary execution, entered into the game with zest, and sprawling across
the Surgeon's chest with one massive paw on his face, nuzzled and
slavered in an abandonment of affectionate gusto.

"Oh!--oh!--oh!--pah!--phew!" The victim writhed and spluttered protests.
"Dry up--Garm, you great donkey! Piff!--you're--smothering--me--beast!
Ugh! my collar--clean--no offence--Jimmy, I 'pologise--lemme get up ...
Faugh!"

In the midst of the uproar the door opened and the Midshipman of the
Watch appeared.

"Mr. Thorogood, sir," he called. "Someone to see you."

The group on the sofa broke up. The Surgeon sat up panting and wiping
his face. The dog jumped to the deck and accompanied Thorogood across to
the door, wagging a friendly tail.

Sir William Thorogood, hat in hand, with his cloak over his arm, entered
the ante-room. His eyeglass fell from his eye.

"Hullo, Uncle Bill," exclaimed his nephew. "You're early--nice and
early--we've just started training for the Regatta and we're straffing
the coxswain by way of a start! Er--Staff Surgeon Tucker, Sir William
Thorogood."

The Surgeon advanced with a rather embarrassed grin and shook hands with
the eminent scientist.

"I fancy I knew your father once," said the latter smiling. "He held the
chair of Comparative Anatomy--we were at college together--bless me!--a
good many years