By common consent the tragedy of the day before was banished from conversation, and the different little companies of friends were grouped about talking and reading after the ordinary morning fashion. Bedford came forward to greet Katrine, looking cool and big in his loose white clothes, and altogether unembarrassed and at his ease. As usual a string of children followed at his heels, foremost among them that "Jackey" who had been his devout admirer since the episode of his own defeat. They scowled at Katrine, as the cause of their hero's defection, but he waved them away with good-natured decision, and led her forward to a corner of the deck where stood two chairs, and a small table on which was placed a mysterious cardboard box. "You are going to be amused this morning," he announced breezily. "Talk is forbidden, so I've borrowed a toy. A jig-saw in four hundred pieces. How's that for high? You and I are going to get it out before lunch?" Katrine's aspect was not enthusiastic. "Jig-saw! A puzzle, isn't it? I have never tried. Isn't it rather a fag?" "You wait and see!" The brown fingers rained the wooden morsels upon the table. "You _think_ it a fag, until you begin--then it's a possession! There's a man in the regiment who has 'em sent up from Bombay, and we have a sweepstake for the quickest solutions. I once sat up half the night, over three horses in a meadow; brown beggars, all of 'em, as like as three pins. Everybody's bits belonged to everybody else, as much as to himself, and the rest was a mass of green stuff, cut in points, diabolically alike. This is a locked fellow; all the better for shipboard. It's the dickens when they joggle. Plenty of colour, too. That's good for a start." "Where is the picture?" asked Katrine innocently. She was bored at the prospect of the jig-saw, but relieved at the geniality of Bedford's manner, and anxious to respond to his efforts towards amusement. It was a shock to hear that there was _no_ picture, and that the mass of pieces before her were to be sorted with no clue whatever as to their meaning. "How does one begin?" was the awed question, and at that Bedford's smile deepened. "_Cela depend_! I am rather interested to see. There are two ways, and you shall choose between them. You can look out all the edges, straight, you see, like this; study the grain of the wood, make up your frame, and gradually work towards the centre--that's one way, and perhaps the most common. On the other hand you can abandon method, and dash for the colours, make up little blocks here and there, half a dozen at a time perhaps, and look out for a chance of fitting them together, leaving the frame to look after itself. You take your choice. Which will you do?"