"That's right," said the Lieutenant-Commander with his eyes pressed against the eye-piece of the periscope. "Oh, good! It's bales of hay floating, not baskets. Better still: no chance of damaging the periscope. There's Gedge----!" "Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Hee! I see you, but you can't see me!" He slewed the periscope through a few points and back to the original position. "Hullo!" he said presently, "what's he up to? He's altered course.... Thinks he sees something, I suppose. You're wrong, my lad. We're not in that direction." The minutes passed in silence. Forward in the bow compartment a man was softly whistling a tune to himself. The feet of the figure at the periscope moved with a shuffle on the steel plating. "How's the time?" he asked presently. "He ought to have started the apparatus," said Sir William, standing, watch in hand, by the compass. "What's he doing?" "Legging it to the Northward at the rate of knots--eight points off his course, if he thinks he's going to get anywhere near us ... Ah! Now he's coming round.... Humph! You're getting warm, my lad!" Another prolonged silence followed, and suddenly the Lieutenant-Commander spoke again. "Sub," he said in a curiously restrained tone, "just come here a minute." The Lieutenant moved obediently to his side and applied his eye to the periscope. "Well?" said the Captain after a pause. "Well, Sister Anne?" The Lieutenant turned his head swiftly for an instant and looked at his Commanding Officer. "Have we got any boat out on this patrol to-day?" he asked. The other shook his head. "Not within thirty miles of this. 'Sides, he wouldn't come through here submerged, with only his periscope dipping." "It's a Fritz, then," said the Lieutenant, an ominous calm in his voice. He stepped aside and relinquished the eye-piece. "It is," said the other. "It's a naughty, disobedient Fritz. He's coming through in broad daylight, which he's been told not to do. He hasn't seen us yet--he's watching old man Gedge. Gedge thinks it's us and is pretending he hasn't seen him.... Lord! It's like a French musical comedy." Sir William put his watch back in his pocket and stood looking from one speaker to the other. Finally he removed his eye-glass and began to polish it with scrupulous care. "Do I understand----" he began. The voice of the Lieutenant-Commander at the periscope cut him short. "Stand by the tubes!" he shouted. There was a swift bustle of men's footsteps down the electric-lit perspective of glistening machinery. "Fritz must be in a tearing hurry to get home," commented the First Lieutenant. "P'raps they've all got plague or running short of food ... or just tired of life?" "P'raps," conceded the Lieutenant-Commander. "Anyhow, that's as may be.... The beam torpedo tube will just bear nicely in a minute." The white teeth beneath the rubber eye-piece of the periscope showed for an instant in a broad grin. "Won't old man Gedge jump!"