By degrees the more adventurous spirits found their way down between decks, where, in a short time, the doorway of each officer’s cabin framed a cluster of inquisitive heads. In one or two cases daring sightseers had invaded the interiors, and were examining with naïve interest the photographs, Rugby caps, dented cups, and all the _lares atque penates_ of a Naval Officer. "’Ere, Florrie!" called a flushed maiden of Hebraic mien, obtruding her head into the flat, "come an’ look!" She extended a silver photograph frame,—"Phyllis Dare—signed an’ all!" The other sighed rapturously and examined it with round-eyed interest. Then she gazed round the tiny apartment. "_Ain’t_ ’e a one! Look at ’is barf ’anging on the roof!..." The harassed sentry evicted them with difficulty. "Better’n Earl’s Court, this is," opined a stout lady, who, accompanied by a meek-looking husband and three children, had subsided on to a Midshipman’s sea-chest. She opened the mouth of a string-bag. "Come on, ’Orace—you just set down this minute, an’ you shall ’ave ’arf a banana." A very small Midshipman approached the chest. "I hate disturbing you, and Horace," he ventured, "but I want to go ashore, and all my things are in that box you’re sitting on—would you mind...?" "Ma!" shrilled a small boy, indicating the modest brass plate on the lid of the chest they had vacated. "Look—" he extended a small, grubby forefinger, "’e’s a Viscount!" "Garn," snapped his father, "that’s swank, that is. Viscounts don’ go sailorin’—they stops ashore an’ grinds the faces of the poor, an’ don’ forget what I’m tellin’ of you." The Marine Sentry overheard. "Pity they don’ wash ’em as well," he observed witheringly. His duties included that of servant to the Midshipman in question, and he resented the scepticism of a stranger who sat on the lid of his master’s chest eating cold currant pudding out of a string-bag. * * * * * On the pier-head a dense perspiring crowd surged through gates and barriers, swarmed outward into all the available space, and slowly congested into a packed throng of over-heated, over-tired humanity. Those nearest the rails levelled cheap opera-glasses at the distant line of men-of-war stretching away into the haze, each ship with her attendant steamer circling round her. An excursion steamer alongside hooted deafeningly, and a man in a peaked cap on her bridge raised his voice above the babel, bellowing hoarse incoherencies. A gaitered Lieutenant clanked through the crowd, four patrol-men at his heels, moving as men do who are accustomed to cramped surroundings.