He boarded the 'bus just as it was leaving Piccadilly Circus. "Full ahtside," chanted the conductor, so the A.B. squeezed into a totally inadequate space between a girl of sixteen and an elderly and benevolent-looking lady. Squaring himself forward, he placed a hand like a boxing-glove on either knee and glanced genially up and down the 'bus. He was a large man, dark and hairy, and it was quite easy to associate him with pigtails, tar and cutlasses. After the first impression there came to one a sense of something odd and un-nautical. Then one became suddenly aware that, instead of the regulation Navy cap, he was wearing a rough woollen tam-o'-shanter, which hung coyly over one ear. A thin man in a top-hat was the first to notice it. "Still pretty cold in the North Sea?" he ventured, with an eye upon the tam-o'-shanter. "So I've 'eard," the sailor replied guardedly; "but this 'ere," he touched his headgear, "ain't an Arctic brow-mitten. I got this from a friend, 'avin' lost me own little 'at jest after the second torpedo was fired." "Gracious!" ejaculated the elderly lady, and the occupants of the 'bus became magnetised to attention. "Now that's extremely interesting," exclaimed the thin man with a nervous movement of his hand; "could you tell us the name of the ship?" "Can't say as I can, Sir," was the discouraging reply. "Of course not, of course not," spluttered a testy old gentleman in white spats; "a very injudicious question in a public conveyance." He glared at the thin man with intention. "Sort o' fancy name she 'ad," the sailor continued, quite unmoved by this outburst; "fact she was a bit fancy all round." "Ha! disguised, I presume?" exclaimed the old gentleman, his discretion for a moment overcome. "Did she float for any length of time after being torpedoed?" The thin man put the question with a legal incisiveness. "Went to pieces like a paymaster's digestion as soon as the second mouldy got 'er. Most unnatural." He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and ruminated on the peculiarity of it. "I suppose you got dreadfully wet?" the elderly lady asked feelingly. "Well, Mum," he said gravely, "I wasn't exactly dry. Yer see, after the show sharp squalls set in from the Sou'-west, an' me 'avin' made fast to my mate's bow awnin', I 'adn't no claim to the umbereller. So I did get a bit soused round the superstructure, but not, so to speak, flooded right down to my propeller casins." "Dear! dear! How truly terrible." She relapsed into silence convulsively, while the old gentleman wheezed with great ferocity and muttered something about a good answer to a d----d silly question. "A submarine, of course?" The thin man pursued his examination relentlessly. "So we presoomed from events which 'appened later." "Artful them blinkin'--beg pardon, ladies--pirits is," vouchsafed a man of toil from the far end of the 'bus; "my brother wot's----"