The day passed as most days do in harbour. In the afternoon the Captain played a game of golf, and in the evening dined with a brother Captain. During the meal they discussed submarine signalling and a new putter. The Commander, who contemplated matrimony, was in a conservatory conducting himself in a manner calculated to reduce his ship’s company—had they been present—to babbling delirium. In the twilight, the Captain’s Clerk, with rod and fly-book, meandered beside a stream twenty miles away. The Master-at-Arms, who had a taste for melodrama, witnessed from a plush-lined box "The Body-Snatcher’s Revenge" in the company of Mrs and Miss Master-at-Arms and a quart of stout. On board, in the foremost cell, sat a recovered deserter under sentence of ninety days’ detention. "Gawd!" he whined—and in his voice was an exceeding bitterness—"Wotcher want to ’ate me for?" Now these things were happening at about the same time, so you see the drift of his argument with his Maker. *III.* *A GALLEY’S DAY.* Boom! On board the Flagship a puff of smoke rose and dissolved in the breeze; the cluster of whalers and gigs that had been hovering about the starting-line sped away before the wind. The bay to windward resembled the shallows near the nesting-ground of white-winged gulls as the remaining gigs, whalers, and cutters zigzagged tentatively to and fro, and a couple of belated 25-feet whalers, caught napping, went tearing down among them. The launches and pinnaces do not start for another hour, and are for the most part still at the booms of their respective ships. There are three more classes before us, and it only remains to keep out of the way and an eye on the stop-watch. The breeze is freshening, and it looks like a "Galley’s day." A 32-feet cutter (handiest and sweetest of all Service boats to sail) goes skimming past on a trial run. Her gilded badge gleams in the spray, and there is a sheen of brasswork and enamel about her that proclaims the pampered darling of a ship. The Midshipman at the helm—to show a mere galley what he can do—chooses a squall in which he put her about; she spins round like a top, and is off on her new tack in the twinkling of an eye. Casey, Petty Officer and Captain’s Coxswain, is busy forward with the awning and an additional halliard rove through a block at the foremast head. This, steadied by the boat-hook, will serve us as a spinnaker during the three-mile run down-wind; and, in a Service rig race, is the only additional fitting allowed beyond what is defined as "the rig the boat uses on service, made of service canvas by service labour." Only half a minute now.... Check away the sheets. Spinnaker halliards in hand. Boom! We are off! Hoist spinnaker!