seen him!"

"Oh, bored stiff by the whole performance, of course. Still he did
make one wild leap for the gun and got off a round at point-blank
range. Hit her just below the conning tower. She must have been in
diving trim, because she went down like a stone, bubbling like an empty
soda-water bottle."

"What about the Huns in the water?" demanded the enthralled Clerk.

"We could only find one. The other must have got mixed up with the
submarine's propeller. The one we picked up was nearly done and
awfully surprised because we gave him dry clothes and hot drinks and a
smoke, and didn't spit in his eye or anything of that sort. Said their
officers always told them we illtreated our prisoners. Aren't they
Nature's little Nobs?"

There was a little silence, each one busy with his own thoughts.
Finally one broke the silence, voicing the opinion of the rest:

"Well," he ejaculated, "some people have all the blinking luck. I've
done about twenty night patrols since I've been up here and never seen
anything 'cept a porpoise."

The Night Patroller lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke with the
air of a man who had earned it. "You were at Suvla Bay and the landing
from the _River Clyde_," he retorted. "You can't have _every_ ruddy
thing in life."

* * * * *

A fine day in Ultima Thule--they were rare--was an occasion for
thankfulness and rejoicing. Directly after luncheon the members of
Gunroom and Wardroom made their way on deck to bask in the sun and
smoke contemplative post-prandial pipes in the lee of the after
superstructure. Forward, in amidships, the band was playing a slow
waltz and fifty or so couples from among the ship's company were
solemnly revolving to the music with expressions of melancholy
enjoyment peculiar to such exercise.

"It's make-and-mend this afternoon," said the Senior Midshipman,
tilting his cap over his eyes and lazily watching the antics of a gull
volplaning against the light wind. He sat on the deck with his back
against the superstructure and his hands clasped round his knees.

"It's a topping day, too," added Malison from his vantage astride the
coir-hawser reel. "Too good to waste onboard. The footer ground's
bagged--let's have a picnic in one of the cutters. Have tea ashore,
an' fry bangers over a fire."

The project found favour generally. "We might ask one or two of the
Wardroom," suggested Harcourt. "Some of the cheery ones; Stand