The next day was Sunday, and as the fine weather still held, the Captain of the depot announced to the First Lieutenant his intention of inspecting the boats. Thence was much heart-burning and striving and a prodigious amount of work, the net result being that the nine boats shone inside and out like the proverbial new pins, and the crews, with the exception of those who were to stand the rounds, clad in ‘Number Threes,’ fell in on their superstructures with vacant ‘attention’ expressions on their usually classic features. But before this happy result could be arrived at there was much to be done ... and said, for it must be admitted that there were those among the boat captains who held the opinion that inspections were an unnecessary nuisance, carried out with the sole intention of harassing the inspected. The First Lieutenant of the _Parentis_ had given out the cheery news after breakfast, and a rush had followed on the part of the ‘Subs,’ unusually tidy in their Sunday rigs, to see that their boats were in a fit condition to withstand the piercing gaze of the Captain’s eagle eye. The boat captains learnt the news not without unmixed feelings, and with shrill cries of horror and reproach the unfortunate Number One was hurled from the ward room. Bitter were the reproaches of one, Blake, whose control room had been painted but the day before, while Austin and several others had work going on and improvements under weigh which they didn’t want disturbed. Raymond surveyed the matter with the stony calm of a fatalist, while the Torpedo Lieutenant alone maintained his unruffled serenity and dropped pearls of wisdom for the comfort and instruction of the discomforted captains.