It was not till dinner, eaten in the dining-room of the hotel, a chamber that reminded one of past glories and ancient pomp and circumstance, that he put in an appearance. The room was fairly crowded when he arrived, as he was rather late, and he had to thread his way between the other guests’ chairs to reach the table the three occupied on the window side of the room. Anxious mamma glanced severely at him, slightly bored papa exchanged a nod and a good-evening, and demure Miss So-and-So smiled into her plate. A large portion of the remainder were military officers passing through the town or staying for a short while on duty. Those of his own seniority hailed him with aplomb; he had a knack of making himself liked everywhere. ‘Well?’ queried Seagrave, as his captain sat down. ‘Curious news,’ began Raymond, attacking the soup. ‘From a Service point of view I’m fed up about it, but from a purely personal standpoint it’s jolly good business. We can’t go back to base for another three days, as they can’t get an escort before then.’ ‘What awful rot; you’d think they’d have plenty of Destroyers knocking about doing nothing, or at the worst they might let us go up by ourselves.’ ‘And get sunk by our own patrols on the first night up. No thank you, George, not for mine this journey. You as a young and able officer ought to be jolly pleased to think you can have another whole three days among this bevy of beauty. You don’t make the most of your chances.’ ‘This is such a dull hole, though,’ put in Boyd; ‘you can’t get much in the way of amusements in the evening. What on earth can we do to shake things?’ ‘Now wait, I have an idea. I feel it maturing,’ said Raymond, holding his hand to his brow. ‘Don’t speak for a moment, it’s coming. Ah-h-h, I have it! We’ll give a dance, a Submarine dance here in the hotel; the drawing-room will be just the place, and we’ll invite all the old fogies who’re staying here, and a few choice spirits of our own for leavening. It’ll be all right, the manager and I are old pals, and I’ve done it before. I’ll try and fix it for to-morrow night. It begins with men only, and we give them a practice attack with pillows for torpedoes and Boyd for the periscope. That comes off in my room, by the way. Then we adjourn to the drawing-room, and the damsels troop in, and we get the show going. Little Miss Bored Stiff, or whatever her name is, will be only too pleased to bang on the piano, I feel sure. What do you think of it?’ ‘Not so dusty. What about clothes, though?’ ‘Just monkey jackets and bow ties and white kid gloves. Oh, and you can’t disgrace me by appearing in those disreputable old pumps, so you’ll have to trot out and buy new ones. What about you, Seagrave?’ ‘I was just thinking. I don’t seem to remember having a decent suit to my name, but I’ll do my best.’