enthusiasm, though, for he was out on
the same stunt the next night. No question about his nerve, nor his
luck, nor his skill, for that matter. Smart seamanship probably has as
much to do with the fact that he has never been torpedoed as has his
fancy camouflage."

I made up my mind at once that here was a man worth meeting and hearing
the story of, but as the only base he seemed to have was not easy to
reach, and as his ship was reported at sea on the only occasions I was
free to go there, some weeks went by before I was able to carry out my
plan of paying him a visit. Then, one morning, a nondescript craft,
which might have been anything from a wood-pile to a Chinese junk half a
mile away, came nosing inconsequentially through the lines of the Grand
Fleet and moored alongside the very battleship in which I happened to be
at that time.

"K---- has come in with the '----' to 'swing compasses,'" the
navigating officer announced to the ward-room. "He's a 'converted
side-wheel river ferry-boat' this morning, or something of the kind; and
he's going to get blown to sea in a 'sudden gale,' or something of the
kind; and he says that, if anyone doesn't believe it, to come aboard and
he'll give 'em something to stimulate their 'stolid British
imaginations.'"

As certain lockers of the "----" had not been entirely looted of their
age-mellowed treasure when the yacht was dismantled for sterner service
than lounging about limpid Mediterranean harbours, the doubters were,
naturally, many; but it is pleasant to be able to record that those who
came to scoff remained--to tea. Indeed, it was not until after tea that
I had a chance for a half-hour's yarn alone with K---- in the
"banquet-hall-deserted" splendour of the stripped saloon. It was then
that he told me how it was he chanced to "come across and get into the
game."

He used the latter expression several times, I remember, and to no one
that I can recall having met, either on land or sea, was the grim work
he was doing more of a "game" than to this brave, resourceful,
devil-may-care Middle Westerner.

"I had had a fair bit of experience in yachting and boating during the
last six or eight years before the outbreak of the war," he said,
settling back at ease in one of the two remaining lounging-chairs, "and
most of it has stood me in good stead at one time or another since I
have been on the job over here. I sailed a single sticker on Lake
Michigan for a number of seasons