The recollection of the treat that fresh meat was after a long period on "bully beef" ration turned the Captain's thoughts to another time of plenty he had experienced after the _Cornwall_ had helped the wounded _Carmania_ limp back to Base following her successful engagement with the _Cap Trafalgar_. "In these times of food economy and restricted rations," he said, "it fairly makes my mouth water to think of the feasts Captain G---- spread for us during the days we were devising a way to get the battered _Carmania_ back to England. You see, when the war started she was just about to sail on one of her transatlantic voyages with the usual midsummer cargo of American millionaires, and her cuisine was of a character calculated to satisfy their Epicurean tastes. When they converted her to an auxiliary cruiser, it was the usual sledge-hammer, crow-bar, and over-the-side procedure with the mirrors, the upholsteries, and the mahoganies, but they left the stores, God bless them, they left the stores. Can you fancy how things such as truffled quail, and asparagus tips with mayonnaise--_iced_--and _café parfait_, and Muscat dates, and California oranges--with the big gold labels on--tasted to men who had been for weeks pretty nearly down to the classic old wind-jammer ration of 'lobscouse' and 'dog's-body'? And those plump, black, five-inch-long Havanas in the silver foil (I can smell the soothing fumes of them yet), and that rarely blended Mocha, and those bottles of 1835 Cognac--the pungent bouquet of them scents the memories of the long evenings I sat with G---- in the wreck of his fire-swept cabin while he yarned to me of the ripping fight he had just come out of. And how we all envied G---- his luck--getting as sporting a show as a man could ask for in that half-converted liner while we cruisers were vainly chasing smoke and rumours over most of the South Atlantic. Nothing less than the banquets he gave us would have salved our heart-burnings." And so it was that the Captain was led on to speak of what he had heard--from those who took part in it, and only a few hours from the time it happened--of the first great duel ever fought between modern armed merchantmen, a conflict, indeed, which is still practically unique in naval history.