"Cautioned," he said curtly. With a click of the heels, the escort and their prisoner wheeled before the table. The Commander made a brief report, and the Captain scanned a few papers. The charge was desertion. "Anything to say?" "No, sir." "Why did you desert?" "I’m fed up with the Navy." The Captain’s eyes grew stern, and he nodded as one who comprehends. There had been moments in his own career when he too had been "fed up with the Navy." But life holds other things than obedience to inclinations. Now this deserter represented a type that is to be met with in both Services, these days of "piping peace." Recruited from the slums of a great city, bone-lazy and vicious as a weasel, small wonder he found a life wherein men worked hard and cleanly little to his taste. The immaculate cleanliness and clock-work regularity around him were bad enough, but far worse was the discipline. It astonished him at first; then, half-awed, he hated it with all the sullen savagery of his warped nature. The so-called Socialism of black-garbed orators, idly listened to on Sunday afternoons in bygone days, had hinted at such possibilities—but here he met it face to face at every turn. For a while—a very little while—he defied it, as he had defied impassive policemen in guttersnipe days, with shrill, meaningless obscenities. Then he strove to elude it, and was clouted grievously by O’Leary, the brawny Chief Stoker, in that he had skulked from his lawfully appointed task. He had meant to drop a fire-bar on O’Leary’s head for that, but hadn’t the courage requisite for murder. Because of his dirty habits and an innate habit for acquiring other men’s gear, he was not beloved of his messmates; and to be unpopular on the mess-deck of a man-of-war means that the sooner you seek another walk of life the better. He strove to seek it, accordingly, burrowing back into the teeming slum-life of yore, until one night, in the flare of a hawker’s barrow, a policeman’s hand closed upon his collar. "... I think there’s time. I believe we’ll make a man of you yet. I’ll deal with you by warrant." The escort swung him on his heel. The Captain glanced again at the charge-sheet and thence to the third culprit before him. "You were drunk on leave?" "No, sir." "But the Officer of the Patrol and the Officer of the Watch and the Surgeon all say you were drunk." The "bird" sighed deeply. "I ’adn’t ’ad no more’n a drop, sir——" he began. "Deprived of one day’s pay," interrupted the Captain; "and get your hair cut." "’Air cut—forfeit one day’s pay," echoed the Master-at-Arms. "_Hon_ cap; ’bout turn, quick march!" * * * * *