Besides the more or less organised forms of work and play, many of the men in the Fleet have some sort of a hobby to which they turn in the rare intervals which might otherwise be spent in "thumb-twirling" and "thinking," those twin enemies of "The Contented Sailor." Thousands of men "make things"--not the old ship-in-a-bottle seaside bar ornament sort, but objects of real usefulness. One officer had become a specialist on electrical heating contrivances, and had equipped the wardroom with cigar-lighters to work with the ship's "juice" and save matches. Another was making his own golf clubs, and I heard of a Captain of Royal Marines of noble lineage who had fabricated a very "wearable" pair of Norwegian ski-boots. There are so many skilled artisans among the men that one is not surprised to see them making almost anything; nevertheless, the gunner of one of the battleships who--with the sole exception of the lens--made a complete kinema projecting machine, did a very creditable piece of work. Some of the senior Naval Officers have gone in for stock-breeding, overflowing to the land in their endeavours to find room to expand. Pig-raising is the most popular line, and there is great rivalry between the several "sty proprietors." A certain distinguished sailor--his name is a byword to the English people--discoursed learnedly to me for fifteen minutes on the strategy of the Battle of Jutland, and then, turning to a visiting officer, spoke with equal facility, and even greater enthusiasm, of his success in crossing the "China Poland" with the "Ordinary Orkney" to increase (or was it to reduce?) the "streak" in the bacon. He called the new breed the "Chinorkland," or something like that, and if the fact that he was planning three or four generations ahead conveys anything as to the view the Navy takes regarding the duration of the war, my readers--with the Censor's indulgence--are welcome to the tip. THE HEALTH OF THE FLEET It was a great day for the Principal Medical Officer. In spite of the fact that there were nearer 1200 than 1100 men in his ship, the returns of "Sick" and "Hospital" cases had been recorded by successive "pairs of spectacles" for several days. Even a single twenty-four hours like that for a battleship on active service was worthy of remark, and three or four days of it undoubtedly constituted a record for the British or any other Navy. That the clean sheet would be spread over a whole week was almost too much to hope for, even after the sixth day of the double duck's eggs had gone by. But now the morning of the seventh day had come, the last of a week in which there had been no case of sickness in a ship which carried one of the largest, if not _the_ largest, complement of men in the British Navy. It was no wonder that the P.M.O.'s eyes were beaming, and that he shook hands all round with his Staff Assistants, for it was an achievement which might well stand as a record for many a year.