He came out again in about a quarter of an hour. "So that's the way we're treated," he muttered, walking away. "Anybody would think I'd committed a crime, not going down with everybody else." This was rather hard on a harassed paymaster who could do nothing for Mr. Spokesly save advance him two hundred francs, as per regulations regarding distressed ships' officers, and promise him a compassionate passage home at some future date, unless Mr. Spokesly's owners authorized something more generous. With the two hundred francs in his pocket he walked away with the general idea of getting a suit of clothes. And then--perhaps it was the backward glance he took as he stood at the upper end of the noisy, dirty little Place de la Liberté and saw the sunlight dancing on the green-black water and on the polished brass funnels of the launches; perhaps it was the glimpse he caught of the far peaks of Thessaly that gave him an uplifting of the heart. His mood changed. He saw the thing suddenly not as a grievance but as an adventure, in which he would have to decide for himself. These naval people were only cogs in wheels. If they wanted him they could come for him. He recalled again the important fact that with the loss of the _Tanganyika_ he became exactly what he had so greatly desired--a free agent, so long as he did not press his claim for passage home. There was nothing in his way now except this life-long habit of going to somebody for orders. Men had made great fortunes, he had heard, by being cast adrift in a foreign port in some such fashion. And others, he reflected cynically, had come down in the world to be weak-kneed bummers and drink-cadgers. There it was again. It rested with the man himself. What was it the little green books of the London School of Mnemonics had said? Mr. Spokesly laughed shortly as he thought of them lying at the bottom of the sea. A good place for them. Lot of rubbish, if the truth were known. Fat lot of use they were now, for instance. That chap Dainopoulos was worth a ton of scientific flub-dub about training one's memory. Why not go and see Dainopoulos now? See if his talk about a job would amount to anything. And Mrs. Dainopoulos. And Evanthia Solaris. He drew a deep breath and looked out across the dancing sea. A battalion began to march along the quay, drums and fifes thudding and squeaking behind them, a long line of khaki figures with overcoats curled in a thick band across their bodies, hung all over with an extraordinary assortment of utensils. Going up to the front, he reflected, to be shot or dismembered or racked with dysentery. They got the glory, too. They were "the boys at the front," and they filled the public eye. They and the navy. They had pensions provided and so on. Mr. Spokesly was not a trustworthy authority on the business and emoluments of soldiering. He held always the civilian's point of view. He had been brought up among a class of people who kept silent on the