Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but his smile drew the heart. “You didn’t happen to hear what Frankie told me from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I’ve logged them here in shorthand, were”—he opened a neat pocket-book—”_‘Get out of this and conduct your own damned manœuvres in your own damned tinker fashion! You’re a disgrace to the Service, and your boat’s offal.’”_ “Awful?” I said. “No—offal—tripes—swipes—ullage.” Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he dealt out like cards. “I shall take these as my orders,” said Mr. Moorshed. “I’m chucking the Service at the end of the year, so it doesn’t matter.” We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam. “That’s Mr. Hinchcliffe,” said Pyecroft. “He’s what is called a first-class engine-room artificer. If you hand ’im a drum of oil an’ leave ’im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin’.” Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manœuvres, with the rules that regulate these wonderful things, below. “Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,” he said, yawning. “Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?” As a preparation for naval manœuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big lumber-ship’s side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No. 267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels—soft, for they gave as I touched them. “More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an’ aft, an’ you erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops, thus ’avin’ as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o’ command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an’ consequently collapses equally ’andy when requisite. Comin’ aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish bathin’-machine proprietor fittin’ on her bustle.” Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at the stern.