"Well, see here. We don't want any talk about the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_. So, before they arrive, we must give the people of the Three Towns a real titbit of excitement. Battle-cruisers come to dock in Devonport quite often when they are damaged. Two battle-cruisers which had been mined or submarined, one towing the other, would be a pretty picture in the Sound. It would set all the folk talking for days, and no one would think that two damaged cruisers had anything to do with the South Seas. Everybody would say, 'What cruel luck. If the _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_ hadn't got blown up they would be just right and handy to send down south. As it is--' And then the German agents would somehow get the news to Holland--we would help them all we could in a quiet way--that the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, two fast battle-cruisers, had been nearly lost, and were being patched up at Devonport. The Germans, hearing the glorious news, would hug themselves and say that now was the time for the High Seas Fleet to come out and smash Jellicoe. The last thing in their minds would be any concentration in the south against their own Pacific Squadron. That's how I apply my general principles to this case. Meanwhile, of course, the _Terrific_ and _Intrepid_, well and sound, would be racing away down to the South Seas and no one in the Three Towns--except the dockyard hands, whom we would look after--and no one at all in Germany, would have a glimmer of the real truth." While Dawson was thinking aloud in this rather halting, stumbling way, the First Lord and his chief naval colleague were looking hard at one another. The politician, with his quick House-of-Commons wits, jumped to the idea before his slower thinking expert colleague could sort out the two battle-cruisers who were to be mined or submarined from the two which were to speed away south to avenge the recent disaster. "If the two battle-cruisers are mined or submarined--which God forbid," said Jacquetot, "how can they sail for the south?" "Need they be the same ships?" inquired Dawson, whose eyes had begun to flash with excitement. "Need they be the same?"