"He gives a lecture every few days showing what is going on at the front. His brother's a General, and, of course, he gets any amount of tips from him. The brother of one of our Snotties--Karrard--was killed at Mons, and the Captain sent for Karrard (who's rather a kid and felt it awfully) and showed him a letter from the General about Karrard's brother--he had seen him killed--which bucked Karrard up tremendously. In fact, he rather puts on side now, because he's the only one in the gun-room who has lost a brother." "And you don't wish you were back at Dartmouth again?" "Dartmouth!" The speaker's voice was almost scornful. "Why, mother. Kedgeree here would have got his First Eleven cap this term if we'd stayed, and even he----" A small midshipman with remarkable steel-grey eyes, who had not hitherto spoken much, shook his head emphatically and flushed at hearing his nickname pronounced in open conversation ashore. "We were treated like kids there," he explained. "But now----" He jerked his head towards the north with that unfailing sense of the cardinal points of the compass which a seaman acquires in earliest youth, or not at all. Somewhere in that direction the German fleet was presumed to be skulking. "It's different," he ended a little lamely. Suddenly the son leaned forward and pressed his mother's knee under the table. A tall, sinewy Engineer Commander was walking across the _foyer_ on his way to the billiard room. "There, mother, that's old Beggs. He had our term at Osborne. Did you see his nose? . . . Captain of England!" . . . The speaker broke off and lifted his head, listening. Through the doorway opening on to the sea-front there drifted a faint sound, the silvery note of a distant bugle. "Hush!" said one of the others, raising a warning hand. "Listen!" 3 At the window of one of the detached houses in the residential part of the town a small Naval Cadet stood with his nose flattened against the window-pane. "I say, Betty," he ejaculated presently, "they're giving leave to the Fleet. I can see crowds of officers coming ashore." His sister continued to knit industriously. "Well, I don't suppose any of them are coming here. You needn't get so excited." Her brother watched the uniformed figures filing along the distant road from the landing place. "I hope this war goes on for another couple of years," he sighed. "Joe! You mustn't say such dreadful things. You don't know what you're talking about." "That's all jolly fine, but you haven't got to do another year at Osborne---- I say, Betty, one of them _is_ coming here! How jolly exciting! He's coming up the avenue now. He's got red hair. . . . I believe--yes, it's--what was the name of that Lieutenant at Jack's wedding, d'you remember? The funny man. He made you giggle all the time."