The Captain of the Forecastle, who read his "Old Moore's Almanac," and was susceptible to signs and portents, confirmed the optimism of the Quartermaster. "I 'ad a dream last night," he said. "I was a-walkin' with my missus alongside the Serpentine--in London, that is. There was swans sailin' on it, an' we was 'eavin' bits of bread to 'em. 'Fred,' she says, 'you'll 'ave it beautiful for your regatta. You'll win,' she says, 'the Stokers' Cutters, the Vet'rans' Skiff's, the Orficers' Gigs, an' the All-comers.'" "That's along of you eatin' lobster for supper last night," said the Ship's Painter, a sceptic who had a sovereign on a race not mentioned by the Captain of the Forecastle's wife. "Wot about the perishin' Boys' Cutters? Didn't your old Dutch say nothin' about them?" The seer shook his head and performed intricate evolutions with a pin in the cavernous recesses of his mouth. "Mebbe she would 'ave if she'd 'ad the chanst," was the reply. "But she didn't 'ave time to say no more afore the Reveille interrupted 'er, an' I 'ad to turn out." The Quartermaster of the Morning Watch concluded his repast. "Well," he said, "Mebbe she'll tell you the rest to-night. Then we'll know 'oo's 'oo, as the sayin' is. But there's one crew as I'll put my shirt on, an' that's the Orficers' Gigs." "'Ow about the Boys' Cutters?" demanded the Ship's Painter whose sovereign was in jeopardy. "_An'_ the Vet'rans' Skiffs," echoed the Captain of the Forecastle, "what my wife mentioned? 'Fred,' she says----" "An' the All-comers," interrupted the Captain of the Side, "wiv the Chief Buffer[2] coxin' the launch?" The Quartermaster of the Morning Watch made a motion with an enormous freckled paw as if stroking an invisible kitten. "I ain't sayin' nothin' against 'em. Nothin' at all. What I says is, 'Wait an' see.' I ain't a bettin' man, not meself. But if anyone was to fancy an even 'arf quid----" The shrill whistle of the call-boy's pipe clove the babel of the crowded mess-deck. "A-a-away Racing Whaler's Crew!" shouted the cracked high tenor. "Man your boat!" "There you are!" said the Blacksmith, a silent, bearded man. "What are we all 'angin' on to the slack for? Come on deck. That's the first race." Regatta-day, even in War-time, was a day of high carnival. The dozen or so of Battleships concerned, each with its crew of over a thousand men, looked forward to the event much in the same spirit as a Derby crowd that gathers overnight on Epsom Downs. The other Squadrons of the vast Battle-fleet were disposed to ignore the affair; they had their own regattas to think about, either in retrospection or as an event to come. But in the Squadron immediately concerned it was, next to the annihilation of the German Fleet, the chief consideration of their lives, and had been for some weeks past.