rly handled and
without mishap, there was no reason why she should ever return to the
surface except in the neighbourhood of her own harbour.

Her most remarkable device, however, was the microphone, so sensitive
that, with the aid of her searchlights it would enable the _Destroyer_
to account for any "U"-boat that came within seven or eight miles of
where she was lying.

As Blake stood surveying his handiwork, he was joined by his
second-in-command, Jasper Quinton, known among his intimates as
"Spotty," a nickname due to the irregularity of his complexion.
Quinton was an Englishman who had gone to Canada to make his fortune as
a mining-engineer. Soon after war broke out he had successfully
applied to John Dene for a job, and had acquitted himself so well that
John Dene had taken him into his confidence in regard to the
_Destroyer_, and "Jasp," as he called him, had proved "a cinch." John
Dene made few mistakes about men and none about women: the one he
understood, the other he avoided.

"Spotty" Quint on spat meditatively upon the hull of the _Destroyer_.
He was a man to whom words came infrequently and with difficulty; but
he could spit a whole gamut of emotions: anger, contempt, approval,
indifference, all were represented by salivation. If he were forced to
speech, he built up his phrases upon the foundation of a single word,
"ruddy"; but apparently with entire unconsciousness that it had its
uses as an oath. To "Spotty" Quinton, John Dene was the "ruddy boss,"
his invention the "ruddy _Destroyer_," the enemy the "ruddy Hun," the
ocean the "ruddy water." He served out his favourite adjective with
entire impartiality. He no more meant reproach to the Hun than to John
Dene. He tacitly accepted them both, the one as a power for evil, the
other as a power for good.

As Quinton silently took up a position by his side, Blake turned and
looked at him interrogatingly.

"Ruddy masterpiece," exclaimed Quinton, spitting his admiration.

Blake gazed upon the unprepossessing features of his subordinate, and
tugging a cigar from his pocket, handed it to him.

Silently "Spotty" took the cigar, bit off the end and spat it together
with his thanks into the hold of the _Toronto_. He then proceeded to
light the cigar. The two men turned and made their way to the cabin
allotted to them as a sort of office of works. Both were thinking of
the morrow when the _Destroyer_ would be floated out from the parent
ship ready f