Mr. Spenlove, seated on the extreme edge of his little deck-stool, his knees out, his hands lightly inserted in his trouser pockets, paused again in his narrative and looked over his shoulder as the quartermaster at the gangway rang four bells. The moon was gone behind the vast mass of rock which had been used by him as a material background to the fantastic tale he was telling in his own introspective and irritating manner. Out beyond the sharp black silhouette of the headland the open water was a dazzling glitter that contrasted oddly with the profound obscurity of the tiny haven. From time to time a silent form had risen from the chairs beneath the awning and gone forward to the navigating bridge, returning in the same unobtrusive fashion. And as Mr. Spenlove paused, and the clear-toned bronze bell rang four strokes that echoed musically from the cliff, another form, moving with care, emerged from the ward-room scuttle and set down a tray on a small table. There was a movement among the deck chairs as feet came down softly and felt for discarded shoes, and the surgeon, clearing his throat noisily, stood up and yawned. One by one the officers who had thus elected to pass a night in conversation took from the tray a cup of the British Navy's celebrated cocoa and returned to their chairs. Mr. Spenlove, still sitting upright and looking round as though he expected someone to contradict him, put out his hand, and the night-steward placed in it the remaining cup before moving off and vanishing into the shadows, shot by gleams of brass handrails and polished oak, of the companion. Mr. Spenlove, his head cocked slightly on one side, his dark elvish eyebrows raised satirically, and his sharp, short beard moving slightly, stirred his cocoa. He betrayed no concern as to the state of mind of his audience. He was well aware that the perfect listener does not exist. The novelist is more fortunate. For every hundred persons who deign to take up his book and trifle with it for an hour, putting it down upon the slightest pretext and perhaps forgetting to finish it, there will be one enthusiast who savors every word, notes the turn of a phrase, and enjoys the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the style. One must not expect this when telling a tale, except perhaps when one is a boy, and the dormitory is hushed to listen, and one goes on and on until honest snores register satiety. Mr. Spenlove, stirring and sipping his cocoa, stared straight across at Grünbaum's house, which the current had now brought before him, and composed his thoughts before going on to the final conclusion of his story. He was moved somewhat himself because the mere act of narration had evoked memories whose strength he had perhaps underestimated since they had remained dormant so long, and the immediate stress of the great conflict, in which they were all leisurely participating, had led him to imagine that the world before the war was dead and gone.