I was thankful that so far I had escaped their embarrassing notice, and kept close to Belinda as we streamed over a level crossing and approached the water’s edge. Do not suppose she was dumb all this while. Far from it, for she it was who led the various war-cries, and, as she would have termed it, “kept her end up”; but in the midst of her wildest sallies, she never forgot me, and more than once when some rough girls and men jostled against me unnecessarily, she gave them “what for!” vigorously. At last she landed me, flushed, panting and dishevelled, but triumphant, in a cosy nook on the wharf formed by huge piles of timber on three sides and the water on the fourth. The planks were so arranged as to form a seat below and a little pent-house roof above, while I enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the beautiful battleship which was to be launched presently. There was just room for one and no more, so Belinda Ann stood at the entrance and surveyed me as if I were her invention and she had just taken out a patent for me! I was less amused by this than usual as I was lost in admiration at the sight before me. I had always heard that a launch at the docks is made a general holiday in the neighbourhood, which accounted for the dense crowds around. I am not now alluding to the stands erected for the aristocratic spectators—though these were packed—but to the uninvited guests, who literally swarmed everywhere, so that you might have walked on their heads. Every roof, bridge, hole and corner was thick with sightseers, and the water was black with boats. The ships being built in various other parts of the docks had also been “boarded,” and not a square inch of ground or water was uncovered. I recognised many of the girls I had seen at the Club, some with a bashful-looking young man in attendance, with whom they were evidently “walking out,” but most of them arm-in-arm with four or five girl-friends, all in a state of innocent high spirits, shrieking with laughter at nothing at all and indulging in practical jokes at each other’s expense. Presently a flourish of music from various bands in the vicinity announced the arrival of the Royal personages who were to launch the boat, and a long string of firemen came hurriedly through the crowd to form a guard of honour. Each man had to bend under a rope which was stretched across the path, and this formed fine sport for Belinda Ann’s irrepressible friends, who knocked off their helmets, tripped them up, and otherwise harassed them as long as they were within reach. I thought Belinda Ann looked on rather regretfully, but she would not desert her self-imposed sentry duty, and turned a deaf ear to her “pals’” invitations to join them.