"Just joining up? Mouldy and I have been there since January, '15--I'll fetch him." The speaker vanished and returned a moment later with a companion who wore a Lieutenant's uniform, and carried a tooth-glass in his hand. His lean, rather sallow face relaxed for an instant into a smile during the process of introduction, and then resumed a mask-like gravity. He up-ended a suit-case, sat down and silently eyed the others in turn. "What have you two been doing?" asked the King's Messenger. "Been on leave?" "Yes," replied Thorogood. "I met Mouldy this morning, and we had a day in town together." "Brave man! I should be sorry to have had such a responsibility. What did you do?" "Well, we lunched with my Uncle Bill at his club----" "That was nice for Uncle Bill--what then?" "Uncle Bill had to go to the Admiralty, so I took Mouldy for a walk in St. James's Park"--the speaker contemplated his friend sorrowfully--"and I lost him." The King's Messenger laughed. "What happened to you, Mouldy?" The officer addressed put his empty glass between his knees and proceeded to fill a cherrywood pipe of villainous aspect from a Korean oiled-silk tobacco pouch. "Took a flapper to the movies," was the grave and somewhat unexpected reply. Thorogood, lounging in any easy attitude against the door, took up the tale of gallantry. "Apparently the star film of the afternoon was 'Britain's Sea-Dogs, or Jack-Tars at War,' and that appears to have been too much for our little Lord Fauntleroy. He slipped out unbeknownst to the fairy, and I found him at the club an hour later playing billiards with the marker." The cavalier relaxed not a muscle of his sphinx-like gravity. "Never know what to do with myself on leave," he observed in sepulchral tones. "Always glad to get back. Like the fellow in the Bastille--what?" He raised his empty tumbler and scanned the light through it with sombre interest. "Long ship, this, James." The phrase is an old Navy one, and signifies much the same thing as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina. "Sorry," apologised the host. "There isn't any more soda, I'm afraid, but----" "Don't mind water," said his guest, diluting his tot from the water-bottle. He turned to the India-rubber Man. "What ship're you going to?" he asked. Standish named the ship to which he had been appointed. The other took a sip of his whisky and water and nodded with the air of one whose worst misgivings had been confirmed.