ion. I feel tender and giddy.
I _know_ all this foul exercise is bad for me early in the morning."
The speaker sat up and juggled dexterously with a cake of soap, a
sponge and a tooth-brush. "I'm getting rather good at this---- My
word, look at Mally's shaving outfit. One would think he was a sort of
Esau--'stead of only having to shave once a blooming week!"

"Are you going to shave, Mally?" queried a voice across the flat.
"Because I'm not sure I shouldn't be better for a bit of a scrape
myself. Can I have a rub at your razor after you?"

"You can have it after me if you swear not to skylark with it," replied
the owner. "Only, last time I lent it to you, you shaved your beastly
leg----"

"Only for practice," admitted the petitioner, advancing with a finger
and thumb caressing his chin.

"Well it blunted it, anyhow. Come on, I'm going to the bathroom now."

The Gunroom bathroom was situated in another flat, reached via the
aft-deck. Here about this hour an intermittent stream of figures in
quaint _neglige_ passed and repassed to their toilets. Inside the
bathroom itself song and the splashing of water drowned all other
sounds. The owner of the enlarged biceps was seated, fakir-wise,
cross-legged in one of the shallow, circular baths in a corner, bailing
water over himself from an empty cigarette tin.

"Harcourt, old thing," said the shaving enthusiast, who had filled a
bath and dragged it alongside his friend, "did you mean what you said
just now about the boxing show--are you going to put your name down for
the Light-weights?"

The fakir stopped crooning a little song to himself and nodded. "Yes,
I'm rather keen on it as a matter of fact. Standish saw me scrapping
with Green the other night and sent for me afterwards and told me to
get fit. I'm going to have a shot at it, I think. Wouldn't you?"

His friend tested the temperature of the water in his bath with his
toe, and got in. "Yes, rather," he replied, and hesitated. "I'm going
in for it too," he added.

Harcourt rose and reached for his towel. "_Are_ you, Billy?" For a
moment his eyes travelled over the other's slim form. "What a rag! We
may draw each other--anyhow we shall have to scrap if we get into the
semi-finals. Billy, I believe you'd bash me!" He towelled himself
vigorously.

The other shook his head. "You beat me at Dartmouth. But I'm going to
have a jolly good shot at it, cully!" He looked up with his face
covered w