bats and fishing-rods lay about in chaotic confusion.

"Will someone tell me where I'm going to pack anything?" replied
Malison, delving into the inmost recesses of his chest. "Fancy being
told to pack and get away on leave and given an hour to do it in! It
isn't decent. It always takes me a week to find my gear."

"Well, you'd better buck up," interposed the Senior Midshipman. "The
boat leaves in ten minutes."

"Help!" ejaculated Lettigne. "I don't care," he added. "I'm not going
without my blinking trophy." He removed a pair of boots from the
interior of an apoplectic-looking kit-bag and substituted the jagged
piece of metal. "It weighs about half a ton, but it very nearly bagged
Little Willie, and I want my people to see it." He tugged and strained
at the straps. "Make 'em appreciate their little hopeful.... Ouf!
There! I only hope this yarn about there being no porters anywhere
isn't true."

Harcourt, who had reduced the contents of his suit-case in volume by
the simple expedient of stamping on them, had finally succeeded in
closing the lid.

"Never mind," he shouted. "What does anything matter so long's we're
'appy!" He brandished a cricket-bat and sang in his high, cracked
tenor:

"Keep the home fires burning,
Oh, keep the home fires burning,
Keep the home fires burning...."

"I dunno how it goes on," he concluded, lapsing into speech again.

"_'Cos we're all going on leave!_" roared Matthews. "That's how it
ends. That's how everything ends. Ain't it all right?" He closed his
chest with a bang and sat on the top with his hands in his pockets,
drumming his heels against the sides. "Snooks!" he ejaculated, "I
haven't felt like this since I was a mere lad."

"What are you going to do on leave?" queried the tall sandy-haired
Midshipman popularly known as "Wonk."

"Do?" echoed Matthews. "Do?" He allowed his imagination full rein for
a moment. "Well," he said, "by way of a start I shall make my soldier
brother take me to dinner somewhere where there's a band and fairies in
low-necked dresses with diamond ta-rarras on their heads."

"That sounds pretty dull," objected Mordaunt, affectionately burnishing
the head of a cleek with a bit of emery paper. "Is that all you're
going to do?"

"Not 't all. After dinner I shall smoke a cigar--a mild one, you
know--and then we'll go to a 'Revoo' with more fairies. Lots of 'em,"
he added ruminatingly, "skipping about like young stag-beet