For a week the gunboat's officers and men endured the new routine with what fortitude they could muster. On Monday they had their progressive games, when the watch on board,--the watch whose turn it was to go on leave had gone ashore to a man,--were compelled, much to their disgust, to squat round on the upper deck with draughts, halma, and picture-lotto boards spread out before them. The proceedings were not exactly jovial, for the men looked, and were, frankly bored, while a party of four able seamen, finding the innocent attractions of Happy Families hardly exciting enough, were subsequently brought up before the First Lieutenant on a charge of gambling. Half an hour after the games started, moreover, two other men, one a marine and the other the ship's steward's assistant, fell in to see him. "What is the matter?" he asked. "Well, sir," the marine explained. "It's like this 'ere. I was told off to play draughts along o' this man, an' all goes well until I makes two o' my men kings an' starts takin' all 'is. Then 'e says as 'ow I've been cheatin', so I says to 'im, polite like, as 'ow I 'adn't done no such thing, an' wi' that 'e ups an' 'its me in the eye, sir, which isn't fair." "He hit you in the eye?" asked Number One. "Yes, sir," said the sea-soldier, exhibiting a rapidly swelling cheek. "What have you to say?" the First Lieutenant asked the alleged assailant. "What he says isn't true, sir. I did say he had been cheatin', becos he had, becos he was movin' all his other pieces over the board how he liked. I says he mustn't do that, becos it isn't the game, but he says that as he's been told off to play, he'll play how he bloomin' well likes. I says it's cheatin', and he hits me on the nose, so I hits him back, and we has a bit of a dust up." He exhibited a gory handkerchief as proof of his injuries. "Do either of you men bear any grudge against the other?" asked Pardoe, knowing that they had often been ashore together. "No, sir," came the immediate reply. "Well, go away, and don't make such fools of yourselves again. We can't have all this bickering and fighting over a simple game of draughts." The two combatants retired grinning, and Pardoe, sighing deeply, walked up and down the deck wrapped in thought. One fact was quite patent, and that was that if the innocent amusements for the ship's company were suffered to continue, he would require the wisdom and patience of a Solomon to arbitrate between the disputants. On Tuesday they had a reading from Shakespeare, conducted by the Captain, and, to judge from the _sotto-voce_ remarks of the audience, they were neither amused nor instructed. "'E must be wet if 'e thinks we liken listenin' to this 'ere stuff!" muttered Able Seaman McSweeny dismally. "'E talks abart 'is ruddy merchant o' Venice, but I doesn't want to 'ear nothin' abart a.... Eyetalian shopkeeper. I expec's 'e was one o' these 'ere blokes wot wheeled an ice-cream barrer. S'welp me I do!"