"I remember now: I saw your appointment. James and I belong to her. We're going to be shipmates, then." He blew a cloud of smoke ceilingwards. "It's all right in one of those new ships: no scuttles: tinned air and electric light between decks: wake up every morning feeling's if you'd been gassed. An' the turrets----" He plunged gloomily into technicalities that conveyed the impression that the interior of a turret of the latest design was the short cut to a lunatic asylum. "I'm the Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant in our hooker, and I tell you it's a dirty business." "What d'you do for exercise?" queried the India-rubber Man when the Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant lapsed again into gloomy silence. "Plenty of that," said Thorogood. "Deck-hockey and medicine-ball--you mark out a tennis-court on the quarter deck, you know, and heave a 9-lb. ball over a 5 ft. net--foursomes. Fine exercise." He spoke with the grave enthusiasm of the athlete, to whom the attainment of bodily fitness is very near to godliness indeed. "You can get a game of rugger when the weather is good enough to allow landing, and there's quite a decent little 9-hole golf course. Oh, you can keep fit enough." "How about the sailors--are they keeping cheery?" Thorogood laughed. "They're amazing. Of course, we've got a real white man for a Skipper--and the Commander, too: that goes a long way. And they're away from drink and--other things that ain't good for 'em. Everybody has more leisure to devote to them than in peace-time: their amusements and recreations generally. Cinema shows and regattas, boxing championships, and all the rest of it. There's fifty per cent. less sickness and fewer punishments than we ever had in peacetime. Of course, it's an exile for the married men--it's rough on them, but on the whole there's jolly little grumbling." "Yes," said the India-rubber Man. "It must be rough on the married men." He felt suddenly as if an immense period of time had passed since he said good-bye to Betty: and the next moment he felt that he had had enough of the others. He wanted to get along to his own compartment where the scent of violets had lingered. He rose, stretching himself, and slipped his pipe into his pocket. "Well," he said, "'Sufficient unto the day.' I'm turning in now." There was a little pause after his departure, and Thorogood prodded the bowl of his pipe reflectively. "I wonder what's happened to the India-rubber Man?" he said. "It's some time since I saw him last, but he's altered somehow. Not mouldy exactly, either...." "He's married," said the King's Messenger, staring at the shaded electric light overhead, as he sprawled with one elbow on the pillow.