“Where’s Molly?” enquired Brandon. No one knew. She had been last seen asleep in a box under Craddock’s bunk. All hands below joined in the search. They called the pup by name, hunted high and low, but without success. “S’pose she wasn’t in one of the blankets when we shook them overboard?” suggested Heavitree. “Now you mention it, I think I did hear a sort of splash,” said Symington. “It was too thick to see.” “Let’s hope not,” continued Heavitree. “She’s not big enough to climb the companion ladder.” “What’s the matter, lads?” enquired Mr. Grant, entering the cabin and removing his dripping cap. “We’ve lost Molly, sir,” announced Brandon dolefully. The Scoutmaster sat down on one of the settees. As he did so a growl of protest came from the neighbourhood of his back. Turning, he raised one of the side-cushions. There, in a small recess formed between the two cushions, was the missing pup together with about nine-tenths of a shoe. “Peter, old man!” sang out the Patrol Leader, “Molly’s been lost. We’ve found her making a meal of your shoe. Jolly careless of you to leave your gear all over the place.” Craddock, from whom the news of his special pet’s disappearance had been hitherto kept, temporarily abandoned his sounding operations and came below. “Naughty pup!” he said reprovingly. Molly, no wise daunted, looked fearlessly up into her master’s face and struggled to give him a lick of devotion and affection. “She wouldn’t be so brave a week ago,” remarked Brandon. “Don’t hit her, Peter.” “No fear,” replied his chum. Then he critically examined the damaged footgear. “Strikes me, old son, you’ve made a slight mistake,” he continued, addressing Brandon. “It’s not my shoe; it’s yours.” The others roared at the Patrol Leader’s discomfiture, but Brandon took it in good part. “That shows Molly’s sense of discrimination,” he retorted, taking the shoe from Peter’s hand. “It’s one of my second best. Where’s the other one, I wonder?” He searched and discovered it in his kit-bag, together with one of his best shore-going pair. A further hunt failed to find the other. Molly, with her sense of discrimination, had taken two odd ones from the Patrol Leader’s kit-bag, and of these one had been thrown overboard by Symington when he had shaken out his blankets. To make matters worse the odd shoes were both lefts. Breakfast was dispatched in grand style. The Sea Scouts were in high spirits. The fact that they were surrounded by fog hardly troubled them. They were afloat in one of the soundest craft imaginable for her size, and, what was more, they were bound for the Jamboree. If necessary they had sufficient provisions and fresh water for a week.