The ash from the Commander’s neglected cigarette fell upon the topside of the precious manuscript. He blew it reverently off, and dug himself into the pile: "H’m, hum!" "_By Me, Robert Foulis, Seaman, Tenth Earl of Clanronald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the British Fleet, and Marquis of Araman, etc., etc. Invented & Conceived Not in Hatred of Mankind, but in Defence of my Country and the Rights Beloved by Every True Briton——_" "Marvellous old cock! And in 1854, when he was eighty if a day, he offers it for the fifth time to the British Government!" "Busy, Owner? See you’ve got inside the prize-packet! My Christmas! what is it? Miss Araminta’s Diary; ’FOUND AFTER FORTY YEARS!’ or ’HOW I BROKE MY ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CURATE!’" This from a young, exceedingly wet, and dirty Engineer Lieutenant, fresh from an interview with the damaged diving-plane, and smelling potently of castor-oil. The Commander looked up, and strange things were in his eyes. "You’re pretty wide!" He added, speaking partly to the other man inside the Commander: "Jolly good thing we’re on the Home trip. That main motor gives a lot o’ trouble, and—suppose some purblind sailing ship crashed into us—and sent us to the bottom with THIS aboard. Great Sea Boots! It makes me crawl all down my back to think of it!" The Second clattered down the steel ladder and filled the doorway with his burly personality. "What makes you crawl? Don’t say the leg o’ mutton we bought Saturday from the skipper of that Grimsby trawler has gone back on us! Is that what the liar means by fresh meat?" "If I told you, you’d crawl too. Or you’d think it a case of sunstroke—or D.T. of the deferred kind." The Commander stowed the papers back in the sharkskin case with gingerly carefulness that provoked the query whether he thought he had got hold of a new kind of floating mine, and elicited the retort: "I don’t think!—I know it!" No one got anything more out of the speaker, who, presently, declining stewed mutton, whose wholesome savour amply certified to the moral character of the trawler’s skipper, went to the Wireless and dispatched a pithy message to the Commander of E-131’s particular Coast Defence station, and the news was flashed to Whitehall, to go forth ere long from thence over the world. Sir Roland said, with that unwonted cloud dulling his bright eyes, and a certain huskiness of utterance: "There’s no other solution of the puzzle. Remembering that I had said to him, ’_In an emergency, you might do good service to your country by destroying this!_’ my Scout took the only course open to him—and dumped the satchel into the sea!" The Minister admitted with characteristic reticence: "Whether I concur with your theory or not, I must admit to you that the report received specifies that the strap had been cut. ’Hacked through’ is the actual expression—and the back of the leather outer case scratched as though by a knife."