I am paid to come this fool’s jaunt as a doctor, and I’ll see them hanged first before I interfere with their job. I certainly would not let them meddle with mine. If they did follow any advice I happened to give and it was unsuccessful, I should never hear the last of it, or, if it by chance were successful, they would pat each other on the back and pretend and believe too that it was their plan all along; so it was much better to smoke my pipe and keep my own ideas to myself. Eventually they decided to arrange the exchange, although Cummins seemed personally averse to such a proceeding, thinking it much beneath our dignity to treat with such a man. *CHAPTER X* *Destroyer "No. 1" Meets her Fate* To Release Ping Sang—Trapped—"No. 1" Disabled—A Gallant Deed—Sinking—Poor "No. 1" Disappears _Mr. Glover’s Narrative is now continued_ The three days after Captain Helston had been shot (his coxswain told me he probably would have been killed but for Dr. Fox) were most exciting. Then things calmed down and became rather monotonous. We were not allowed ashore after sunset, however. Captain Helston did not want anything to happen to us midshipmen, and that was a nuisance, for we missed any amount of fun—dances and things. Our gun-room people played the _Strong Arm’s_ gun-room at Socker in the Happy Valley, and knocked "the hide and hair" off them; and this was some consolation, for they had been rather uppish. We also had a picnic in the sailing pinnace to Deep Bay, which was jolly good fun, although we all got wet through coming back, and that ass Dumpling dropped the bread into the water whilst he was wading ashore with it. I had been sent back to the _Laird_ from "No. 3", and Tommy Foote (Toddles) from "No. 1", and on New Year’s eve we were having a bit of a jamberee in the gun-room—we had asked for half an hour’s extra lights—when Jeffreys, our Sub-Lieutenant, was sent for by the Commander. We thought it was because of the row we were making, but he came back and told Tommy to get his things ready and stand by to go aboard "No. 1" at daybreak. "No. 1" went off in the morning, but was back again in time for seven-bell tea. Tommy hadn’t much to tell. They’d run over to Macao, and Mr. Pattison, the Skipper, had given a letter to a Chinaman who had come alongside as soon as they anchored. That was all, and nothing more happened for seven or eight days, whilst we had to grind at school, mathematics and torpedo theoretical rot and other things. But then there were more rumours, and one day we heard that all Hopkins’s gear was being packed—you remember him, the Yankee secretary who had been under arrest ever since leaving Colombo—we often wondered why. Tommy Foote was sent again to "No. 1", and when next morning Mr. Pattison came aboard for final orders, he was evidently to take Hopkins with him.