_The Marshal._ It was a highly coloured piece of fireworks. _The Admiral._ Well, it was all prepared and written down days before the fight was fought. I heard this from a sure source, from someone, in fact, who had seen the manuscript and had afterwards caught sight of the Imperial one rehearsing it before a looking-glass. Whatever might have happened, the speech would have been the same, even if we had returned into harbour with only one ship--and there was a time when I thought we should hardly be able to do even that. _The Marshal._ I wonder what would have happened to him if he had not been able to deliver the speech at all. _The Admiral._ He would have burst himself. _The Marshal._ Yes, that is what would have happened to him. _The Admiral._ Well, anyhow, the beer is good here. _The Marshal._ Oh, yes, the beer is all right. * * * * * THE ONLY WAY. Judkins was the last man in the world one would have expected to meet in the fashionable costume of the day. To begin with, he was well over age. And then he was on the quiet side, usually looking for some odd, old thought which had gone astray, and possessed of one of those travelling mentalities which take note of all sides of a subject. Yet there he stood in khaki. "The very last man in the world I expected to see like this," I said. It was quite true. Judkins was the sort who would have attempted dreamy analyses with the drill-instructor. "Don't blame me, old thing," he said with a shade of melancholy. "I know I am stiff and over age and all that, but the recruiting fellow said he would willingly overlook a decade. There was nothing else for it. It was the only way." "How do you mean, 'the only way'?" I asked. Judkins sighed. "It was like this," he explained sadly. "I should have joined up before, but I have always tried to keep to the truth ever since I was seven and told a lie, and felt that I was lost. But I gave in at last. If Lord DERBY looks at my papers he will think I am forty. So I am, and a bit more. I meant to deceive his lordship, though it went against the grain. I am sure I don't know what Mr. WALTER LONG will say if he ever finds out what I have done. I can picture him exclaiming, 'Here's this man, Private Judkins, declaring he is only forty, when to my certain knowledge he was born in '66.'