"If you please," the maid began, "there's a cabman at the door. He says he brought a gentleman here and----" Here she faltered. "Go on, Robins," said her mistress. "If you please, I don't like to," said the girl. "It's so--so----" "I should like to hear it exactly," said Sir Charles. "Well," said the maid with a burst of courage, "he says there's a gentleman here who--who bilked him--who passed a piece of bad money on him in the dark. Here it is," and she handed Sir Charles the goldmohur. "And he says if he doesn't get an honest shilling in exchange for it he'll have the law on him." E.V.L. * * * * * THE KNELL OF THE NAVY. Spooner is a remarkable fellow. His duties on board this ship are to fly once a week off the deck, revolve twice round the masts and sink thankfully down into the water, where we haul him out by the breeches and hang his machine up to dry on the fo'c's'le. By performing these duties four times a month, he leads us to believe he is preparing the way for the ultimate domination of Air Power. We of the Navy are obsolete, and our hulls are encrusted with the Harwich barnacle. The argument proceeds on these lines: One day there will be another war--perhaps to-morrow. We of the Navy, coalless and probably by that time rumless as well, will rush blindly from our harbours, our masts decked with Jolly Rogers and our sailors convulsed with hornpipe, to seek the enemy. But, alas, before the ocean spray has wetted our ruby nostrils we shall find ourselves descended upon from above and bombed promiscuously in the middle watch. It will be all over inside a nautical second. The sky will be black with hostile aircraft, and there will be lead in the stew and bleeding bodies in the bilge. Hollow laughter will sound from the bridge, where the Captain will find the wheel come away in his hand, and the gramophone will revolve eternally on a jazz rune because no one will be alive to stop it. When all these things occur we of the Navy will know that our day is past and done. Why our Mr. Spooner is such a remarkable fellow is because he can sit deep in an easy-chair and recite these things without turning a single hair on his top lip. Of course he realises that the work of the Navy must go on--until the crash descends. But it is rather unsettling for us. It seems to give us all a sort of impermanent feeling. Quite naturally we all ask what is the use of keeping up the log and painting the ship? Why isn't all the spare energy in the ship bent to polishing up our boat-drill? or why aren't the people who can afford it encouraged to buy unsinkable waistcoats? The Admiralty must know all about it if they are still on speaking terms with the Air Ministry. It's a beastly feeling. Yesterday a formation of powerful aeroplanes, which Spooner called the "Clutching Hand," came out from the land and flew round us, and simply prodded us with their propellers as we lay defenceless on the water.