He was a "Red" Marine and an old shipmate of mine in the Mediterranean Flagship 'way back in the dark ages: one of those born leaders of men, possessing (although I believe it doesn't always follow) a curiously magnetic fascination for women. Yet I believe women bored him; I remember he once told me he would as soon kiss a dog as a woman, unless he was drunk. He was full of "parlour-tricks," too--the things that make a man sought after as a messmate; he could vamp a comic song and do sleight of hand conjuring tricks, and he had the most infectious laugh that ever kept a mouldy wardroom alive. The only vice I ever observed in him was a passion for gambling, but he had a peculiarity which is unusual in the Navy: we used to say he was "fey." He had queer dreams sometimes that used to come true--the date for paying off and things like that--and on one occasion I recollect drawing back the curtain of his cabin on my way down from the middle watch, because I heard him laughing and wondered who was with him at that hour. He was sitting up in his bunk with the moonlight pouring through the open scuttle, and his hand stretched out in gesticulation (a way he had when animated); otherwise the cabin was empty. He was wide awake, told me he was talking to his mother, and cursed me for interrupting. She was at the time about 2,800 miles away as the crow flies. He came towards me wheeling a ramshackle motor-bicycle, with a cocker spaniel on a chain, and a porter following with his bags and golf clubs. "Bill Hornby!" he said, and the years between us and our last meeting seemed to close up like a telescope. We climbed into an empty carriage and settled down in two corners facing each other, lugging out our pipes and 'baccy pouches preparatory to a long yarn when, just as the train was starting, there was a bit of a commotion outside. A porter jerked open the door, pitched a woman's dressing-case on to the seat (we were sitting at the end furthest from the door), and fumbled for his tip as the owner of the dressing-case followed. She was a long-legged, graceful girl, dressed in tweeds and rather neatly shod. Milsom swore softly under his breath when the dressing-case appeared and stopped filling his pipe. But presently, when the train had started and our fellow-passenger had settled down in the corner facing the engine next to the door and opened a novel, Milsom leaned forward in his seat and asked her permission to smoke. Until she was addressed the girl had not shown that she was aware of our presence in the carriage. She had not even glanced in our direction, and now, hearing herself spoken to, she turned a rather pale face and two almost startled grey eyes towards each of us in turn. "D'you mind this?" enquired Milsom, in the kindly tolerant voice in which he spoke to women, and held out his iniquitous looking briar for her inspection.