revolving searchlight
played upon the waters.

CHAPTER XIX

It was a very cheerful little party dining that night at the Dormy House
Club. There was Granet; Geoffrey Anselman, his cousin, who played for
Cambridge and rowed two; Major Harrison, whose leave had been extended
another three weeks; and the secretary of the club, who made up the
quartette.

"By-the-bye, where were you this afternoon, Captain Granet?" the latter
asked. "You left Anselman to play our best ball. Jolly good hiding he
gave us, too."

"Went out for a spin," Granet explained, "and afterwards fell fast
asleep in my room. Wonderful air, yours, you know," he went on.

"I slept like a top last night," Major Harrison declared. "The first
three nights I was home I never closed my eyes."

Granet leaned across the table to the secretary.

"Dickens," he remarked, "that's a queer-looking fellow at the further
end of the room. Who is he?"

The secretary glanced around and smiled.

"You mean that little fellow with the glasses and the stoop? He arrived
last night and asked for a match this morning. You see what a miserable
wizened-up looking creature he is? I found him a twelve man and he wiped
the floor with me. Guess what his handicap is?"

"No idea," Granet replied. "Forty, I should think."

"Scratch at St. Andrews," Dickens told them. "His name's Collins. I
don't' know anything else about him. He's paid for a week and we're
jolly glad to get visitors at all these times."

"Bridge or billiards?" young Anselman asked, rising.

"Let's play billiards," Granet suggested. "The stretching across the
table does me good."

"We'll have a snooker, then," Major Harrison decided.

They played for some time. The wizened-looking little man came and
watched them benevolently, peering every now and then through his
spectacles, and applauding mildly any particularly good stroke. At
eleven o'clock they turned out the lights and made their way to their
rooms. Shortly before midnight, Granet, in his dressing-gown, stole
softly across the passage and opened, without knocking, the door of a
room opposite to him. The wizened-looking little man was seated upon the
edge of the bed, half-dressed. Granet turned the key in the lock, stood
for a moment listening and swung slowly around.

"Well?" he exclaimed softly.

The tenant of the room nodded. He had taken off his glasses and their
absence revealed a face of strong individuality. He spoke quietly but
disti