Be it understood that Gunroom Officers do not usually talk at breakfast. The right-minded entrench themselves behind newspapers, and deal in all seriousness and silence with such fare as it has pleased the Messman to provide. In harbour, those favoured of the gods make a great business of opening and reading letters, pausing between mouthfuls to smirk in an irritating and unseemly manner. But it is not until one reaches the marmalade stage, and the goal of repletion is nigh, that speech is pardonable, and is then usually confined to observations on the incompetency of the cook in the matter of scrambling eggs and the like. Abreast the screen-door, which opened from the battery to the quarter-deck, the ship’s side curved suddenly into a semicircular bastion. It was thus designed to give the main-deck gun a larger arc of fire, but had other advantages—affording a glimpse ahead of splayed-out seas racing aft from the bow, and in fine weather a sunny space sheltered from the wind by casemate and superstructure. Here, one morning after breakfast, came the Gunroom Smokers, pipe and tobacco-pouches in hand. Cigarettes were all very well in their way: "two draws and a spit" snatched during stand-easy in the forenoon. A cigar was a satisfying enough smoke after dinner when one’s finances permitted it; but while the day of infinite possibilities still lay ahead, and the raw, new sunlight flushed the world with promise, then was the time for briar or clay: black, well seasoned, and of a pungent sweetness. Each smoker settled into his favourite nook, and, cap tilted over his nose, with feet drawn up and hand-clasped knees, prepared to sit in kindly judgment on the Universe. The Sub-Lieutenant blew a mighty cloud of smoke and gave a sigh of contentment. He had kept the Middle Watch. From midnight till four that morning he had been on the bridge, moving between the faint glow of the binnacle and the chart-house, busying himself with a ruler and dividers, and faint lines on the surface of the chart. He was clear-eyed and serene of brow, as befitted a man who had seen the dawning. For a like reason he had neglected to shave. "What’s the news?" inquired the Assistant Paymaster between puffs. The ship had been three days at sea, and was even then a hundred and fifty miles from her destination. But very early in the morning a tired-eyed Operator in the Wireless-house had sat, measuring in dots and dashes the beating of the world’s pulse. "A disastrous earthquake—" began a Midshipman, reading from the closely-written sheet. "Oh, hang you and your earthquake!" said the Sub. "I’m sick of earthquakes—who won the Test Match?" Which, when you consider the matter, is no bad attitude towards life in which to start the day. "A new aeroplane—" resumed the reader. "Talkin’ of aeroplanes," interrupted some one, "I once knew a girl——" "Why don’t they have Snotties in the Flying Corps?" chimed in a third. "Why, if I were in the Government, I’d——"