The owner of the green unguent, who was feverishly dusting his boots with a pyjama jacket, signified his pleasure in accepting the invitation. The sentry on the aft-deck stepped to the head of the ladder with a bellows, on the mouth of which a small fog-horn was fitted, and gave a loud blast. It was the customary warning that the officers' boat would be alongside in five minutes. The Assistant Clerk ran distractedly for the ladder. "There's one 'G'! Have I got time to borrow five bob from the messman before the boat shoves off?" "You might borrow five bob for me while you're about it," shouted a belated Engineroom Watchkeeper, struggling into his clothes. "And me, too," called another. "Buck up, for the Lord's sake, and we'll have poached eggs for tea." "And cherry jam," supplemented another visionary voluptuously, "and radishes." Here a figure, who had been sitting on the lid of his chest swinging his legs, tilted his cap on to the back of his head with a snort that suggested outlawry and defiance to the world at large. "Hallo!" exclaimed a neighbour, wielding a clothes-brush with energy. "What's up? Aren't you coming ashore? It isn't your First Dog, is it?" The outlaw shook his head. "No; my leave's jambed. You know that beastly six-inch wire hawser? We were bringing it to the after capstan yesterday, and the Commander----" The aft-deck sentry gave two blasts on his fog-horn. Chest lids banged, keys rattled. "Jolly rough luck!" commiserated his friend, and joined the stampede for the quarterdeck. In thirty seconds the flat was deserted save for the disconsolate figure swinging his legs. Presently he climbed down from his chest and wended his way by devious and stealthy routes to the after conning-tower, where he smoked a surreptitious cigarette in defiance of the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions (his age being sixteen) and felt better. In the meanwhile the picket-boat was driving her way shoreward with the emancipated members of Wardroom and Gunroom clustered on top of the cabin and in the stern sheets. "Bunje," said the First Lieutenant, "come to the club and have tea and play 'pills' afterwards?" The Indiarubber Man shook his head. "No, thanks; I'm afraid I--I've got something else to do." The Paymaster contemplated him thoughtfully. "Bunje, my lad, the darkest suspicions fill my breast. Wherefore these carefully creased trousers, this liberal display of fine linen and flashing cuff-links withal? Our Sunday monkey-jacket, too. Can it be----? No." He appealed to the occupants of the stern sheets: "Don't tell me the lad is going poodle-faking!"[1] "His hands are warm and moist," confirmed one of the Watchkeepers. "He wipes them furtively on the slack of his trousers in frightened anticipation." The Indiarubber Man reddened. "You silly asses!" The Junior Watchkeeper squirmed with delight. "He is--he _is_! He's going poodle-faking. And in war time, too! You dog, Bunje!"