"He's always sick as a dog from the time he puts to sea to the time he returns to port. The only thing that is liable to be more sick is the Hun submarine he once gets his nose on. I've heard him say in a joking way, two or three times, that he always could scent a Hun as far as he could a skunk--I think that's what he calls it; and from some of the things he's done I must confess I'm more than half inclined to believe him. Perhaps his most remarkable achievement, however, is that of taking eight or ten men, just as green as he was himself regarding the sea, and making of them a crew that will handle that cranky little lump of a craft pretty nearly as smartly as old trawler-men would on the nautical side, and at the same time having a fund of resource always on tap that is positively uncanny--almost Yankee, in fact," he added with a smile. "Indeed, I believe D---- speaks of having knocked about the States a bit, which may account for some of the 'wooden-nutmeg' tricks he has played on the U-boats. Try to get him to tell you some of them. You'll hardly be allowed to write much of them for a while yet--certainly not until they have become obsolete through the introduction of new devices; but you'll find it good material some day." * * * * * M.L. ---- looked more diminutive than ever as I was rowed out to her anchorage in the chill grey mists of the following morning; but a raw cold, which had been striking through to the marrow of my bones, dissolved, as by magic, before the friendly warmth of the welcome which awaited me, when I had clambered up the sawn-off Jacob's Ladder and over the wobbly wire rail. A slender but lithely active chap in a greasy overall and jumper, to give it the Yankee name, gave me a finger-crushing grip with his right hand, while with his left he deftly caught and saved from immersion my kit-bag, which had fallen short in the toss that had been given it from below. Just for an instant the absence of visible insignia of rank made me think that he was a petty officer of engineers, or something of the kind; then the magnetism of his personality flowed to me through the medium of his hand-clasp, and I knew I was looking into the eyes of a man who would not be likely to figure for long as anything less than "Number One" on any kind of job he ever undertook.