He was a moderately tall, broad-shouldered, heavily-built, red-faced, and exceedingly--not to say delightfully--healthy-looking specimen of sailor humanity. His thin khaki-twill garments hung loosely about him--for if young subalterns, like Philip and Geoff, must needs have their clothes for active service cut almost as smartly as for residence in London, there were others, older than they--wiser, let us dare to venture--who, with much experience behind them, preferred comfort to elegance, and ease to any degree of smartness. Underneath the helmet which clothed the head of this naval officer was a broad and very rubicund face--as we have already mentioned--a strong, open, and peculiarly prepossessing figure-head, which was seamed and lined, partly by the action of the sun, but more by the almost constant smiles of the owner. "Just shut down that throttle, Marsden," he called cheerily to the man operating the engine; and then to one of the sailors right for'ard: "You can let go that anchor, Clark. Now, boys, we'll pipe down to a meal and a smoke of tobacco, for there's no violent hurry. Glad to meet you two young officers. I'm Commander Houston, lately of H.M.S. ----, the ship the Admiralty authorities in Whitehall insisted on keeping in the Persian Gulf--a nasty sort of a place that Persian Gulf, I can tell you. Aboard-ship life in those parts is worse than any 'hole in Calcutta', and when the hot weather comes, phew! it's a wonder that a white man survives, and to me it's a miracle that I remain so robust and stout, when you'd expect me to get as thin as a lath, and waste away rapidly." Waste away indeed! No one who cared to look at the jovial Commander Houston would ever imagine that to be possible, to have been probable even at any stage in his career. For the man was heavily built, as we have said, his bones well covered with muscle, and the latter clad with an amount of fat which made his figure rather rounder than was desirable. Geoff smiled back at him, while Philip unbent and let himself go in a moment. They couldn't help themselves, for the Commander made them feel at ease almost immediately. His smiling crew, the oil-stained individual who worked his engine, the Cox who sat right aft with the tiller, every one of them smiled, as if happy to be in his company. "Looks jolly promising," Philip told his chum _sotto voce_, "It never occurred to me before that in joining this expedition we might have found ourselves under a high and mighty sort of fellow, who would order us about like dirt, just because we're junior subalterns. Ahem! Breakfast? Rather!" "And to think that we had a meal just before we left our side of the river," said Geoff; "but I'm hungry enough, and ready for anything."