“Oh, you mean the cinematograph—the pictures of prize-fights and steamers. I’ve seen ’em up country.” “Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin’ to. London Bridge with the omnibuses—a troopship goin’ to the war—marines on parade at Portsmouth an’ the Plymouth Express arrivin’ at Paddin’ton.” “Seen ’em all. Seen ’em all,” said Hooper impatiently. “We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an’ leaf was easy.” “I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on the station. Why, even Durban’s more like Nature. We was there for Christmas,” Pritchard put in. “Not bein’ a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser, I can’t exactly say. Phyllis’s was good enough after musketry practice at Mozambique. I couldn’t get off the first two or three nights on account of what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon—old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left ’is ship unless an’ until he was ’oisted out with a winch, but _when_ ’e went ’e would return noddin’ like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down below that night, but the things ’e said about Vickery as a fittin’ playmate for a Warrant Officer of ’is cubic capacity, before we got him quiet, was what I should call pointed.” “I’ve been with Crocus—in the _Redoubtable_,” said the Sergeant. “He’s a character if there is one.” “Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the door of the Circus I came across Vickery. ‘Oh!’ he says, ‘you’re the man I’m looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin’ places!’ I went astern at once, protestin’ because tickey seats better suited my so-called finances. ‘Come on,’ says Vickery, ‘I’m payin’.’ Naturally I abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o’ drinks to match the seats. ‘No,’ he says, when this was ’inted—‘not now. Not now. As many as you please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.’ I caught ’is face under a lamp just then, an’ the appearance of it quite cured me of my thirsts. Don’t mistake. It didn’t frighten me. It made me anxious. I can’t tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it ’ad on me. If you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those herbalistic shops at Plymouth—preserved in spirits of wine. White an’ crumply things—previous to birth as you might say.” “You ’ave a beastial mind, Pye,” said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.