was in
1912, remember.

"'Dear me, yes,' he answered with another pitying smile. 'Didn't you
know really? There will be war you know. Next week possibly. Perhaps
to-morrow. Why,' he added with considerable animation, 'it might start
to-night!'"

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Spenlove, seated on the extreme edge of his little deck-stool, his
knees out, his hands lightly inserted in his trouser pockets, paused
again in his narrative and looked over his shoulder as the quartermaster
at the gangway rang four bells. The moon was gone behind the vast mass
of rock which had been used by him as a material background to the
fantastic tale he was telling in his own introspective and irritating
manner. Out beyond the sharp black silhouette of the headland the open
water was a dazzling glitter that contrasted oddly with the profound
obscurity of the tiny haven. From time to time a silent form had risen
from the chairs beneath the awning and gone forward to the navigating
bridge, returning in the same unobtrusive fashion. And as Mr. Spenlove
paused, and the clear-toned bronze bell rang four strokes that echoed
musically from the cliff, another form, moving with care, emerged from
the ward-room scuttle and set down a tray on a small table. There was a
movement among the deck chairs as feet came down softly and felt for
discarded shoes, and the surgeon, clearing his throat noisily, stood up
and yawned. One by one the officers who had thus elected to pass a night
in conversation took from the tray a cup of the British Navy's
celebrated cocoa and returned to their chairs. Mr. Spenlove, still
sitting upright and looking round as though he expected someone to
contradict him, put out his hand, and the night-steward placed in it the
remaining cup before moving off and vanishing into the shadows, shot by
gleams of brass handrails and polished oak, of the companion. Mr.
Spenlove, his head cocked slightly on one side, his dark elvish eyebrows
raised satirically, and his sharp, short beard moving slightly, stirred
his cocoa. He betrayed no concern as to the state of mind of his
audience. He was well aware that the perfect listener does not exist.
The novelist is more fortunate. For every hundred persons who deign to
take up his book and trifle with it for an hour, putting it down upon
the slightest pretext and perhaps forgetting to finish it, there will be
one enthusiast who savors every word, notes the turn of a phrase, and
enjoys the peculiar