“But she’s laid up here—and Blue Fleet have gone,” I protested. “Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn’t put us out of action. Thus we’re a non-neglectable fightin’ factor which you mightn’t think from this elevation; _an’_ m’rover, Red Fleet don’t know we’re ’ere. Most of us”—he glanced proudly at his boots—“didn’t run to spurs, but we’re disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser, when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree; while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was the second cutter’s snotty—_my_ snotty—on the _Archimandrite_—two years—Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin’, an’ gettin’ the cutter stove in on small an’ unlikely bars, an’ manufacturin’ lies to correspond. What I don’t know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don’t know about me—half a millimetre, as you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when ’e’s of age; an’ judgin’ from what passed between us when Frankie cursed ’im, I don’t think ’e cares whether he’s broke to-morrow or—the day after. Are you beginnin’ to follow our tattics? They’ll be worth followin’. Or _are_ you goin’ back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_—which I lay they’ve just dismounted the third engineer out of—to eat four fat meals per diem, an’ smoke in the casement?” The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled. “Yes, Sir,” was Mr. Pyecroft’s answer. “I ’ave ascertained that _Stiletto, Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P.M. with the first division o’ Red Fleet’s cruisers except _Devolotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by engine-room defects.” Then to me: “Won’t you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed ’ud like some one to talk to. You buy an ’am an’ see life.” At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267. “What d’you want?” said the striped jersey. “I want to join Blue Fleet if I can,” I replied. “I’ve been left behind by—an accident.” “Well?” “Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do you need?” “I don’t want any ham, thank you. That’s the way up the wharf. _Good_-night.”