Finally, after about ten days of it, when the ballast tanks had been cleaned out and painted (you had to crawl in through a tiny manhole to get to them), the time for testing arrived, and Seagrave was allowed to depart on his well-earned leave. The tanks were tested separately by a water pressure, water being pumped in and left at the required pressure for a stated interval. Then the tank was drained and opened up, and Raymond and Hoskins, who was a man in great demand just now, would crawl in clad in overalls and see that all was in order. The main ballast tank, the trimming tanks, auxiliary and buoyancy tanks, were all tested in this way, and even the fuel tanks had to go through the same ordeal, though of a much less severe character. By the time these tests were all satisfactorily finished, the re-fit was in its third week, and matters were at their height. The battery tanks had been cleaned out and were now being ‘rosmanited,’ or covered with a preparation that resists the action of the acid, if any should be spilt out of the cells. The bow-cap had been down and replaced, and the rudders and hydroplanes were once more in position by the time Seagrave returned from his ten days’ leave and Boyd was able to go away for his spell. Raymond, poor wight, would be lucky if he could snatch a couple of days just at the end of the performance. The air bottles underwent their ordeal and were replaced singly, a matter of much labour, and the engines began to return in pieces and take shape and resemble their accustomed appearance. The bigger jobs were over, and the boat was painted inside and out, and left the dry dock after being a month out of the water. Then the battery began to come back, and the cells were strapped together and the boards laid down, and the internal appearance of the boat looked a little more ship-shape. But there was still a host of minor things to be done. Motors and rheostats were ashore, and had to be replaced and wired, alterations were being made to the bridge, and the superstructure was not yet in place. Presently Boyd returned from leave, and Raymond made a dash to London only to be recalled three days later over a matter of an alteration to the H.P. air line. The stores began to drift aboard and the boat to look a little more like her old self, for they were speeding things up now owing to urgent telegrams of recall to the _Parentis_, and every one was working at fever heat. The last stages were reached, however, when the painting party arrived to beautify ‘123’s’ internals with white enamel, what time the carpenters were putting up those shelves (on which one would imagine the captain wanted to place his boots) and shifting the wine locker from above to below the chest of drawers. However, the messes were clearing up and the time of turmoil nearly at an end; most of the crew had had a few days’ leave and the re-fit had been satisfactory.