g on the mind of an observer with no more permanency than the
shadows of leaves flickering on a sunny wall.

A Lieutenant-Commander, on whose left breast the gaudy ribbons of
Russian decorations hinted at the nature of his employment during the
War, was talking animatedly to a Lieutenant with the eagle of the
Navy-that-Flies above the distinction lace on his cuff. A grave-faced
Navigating Commander, scenting the possibility of an interesting
discussion between these exponents of submarine and aerial warfare,
pushed his way towards them through the crush.

"... I remember her quite well," the Flying Man was saying as he
stirred his tea. "Nice little thing ... married, is she? Well,
well..."

"You're a nice pair," said the Commander, smiling. "I came over here
expecting to hear you both discussing the bursting area of a submarine
bomb, and find you're talking scandal."

"It's a year old at that," said the be-ribboned one, with a laugh.
"I've just come back from the White Sea, but I seem to know more about
what Timmin's lady friends have been doing in the meanwhile than he
does himself!"

He bit firmly into a sardine sandwich and laughed again. A great hum
of men's voices filled the room. Scraps of home gossip exchanged
between more intimate friends, and comments on the afternoon's boxing
mingled with tag-ends of narratives from distant seas and far-off
shores. It was nearly all war, of course, Naval war in some guise or
other, and it covered most of the navigable globe.

A general conversation of this nature cannot be satisfactorily
reproduced. A person slowly elbowing his way from the big tea-urns at
one end of the mess to the smoking-room at the other, would, in his
passage, cut off, as it were, segments of talk such as the following:

"... Ripping little boxer, isn't he? I had his term at Osborne
College, but he's learnt a good deal since then...."

* * * *

"... Jess? Poor little dog: she was killed by a 4-inch shell in that
Dogger Bank show. I've got an Aberdeen terrier now."

* * * *

"... Bit of a change up here, isn't it, after being under double
awnings for so long? But the Persian Gulf was getting rather boring
... were you invalided too?"

* * * *

"... Not they! They won't come out--unless their bloomin' Emperor
sends them out to commit a sort of hari-kiri at the end of the war....
That's what makes it so boring up