got it that time!" he groaned,--"got it in the neck! But didn't
I tell you just now that I was turning over a new leaf?"

"Then prove it," Philippa pleaded. "Let me write to Rayton and beg him
to use his influence to get you something to do. I am sure you would be
happier, and I can't tell you what a difference it would make to me."

"It's that indoor work I couldn't stick, old thing," he confided. "You
know, they're saying all the time it's a young man's war. They'd make me
take some one's place at home behind a desk."

"But even if they did," she protested, "even if they put you in a coal
cellar, wouldn't you be happier to feel that you were helping your
country? Wouldn't you be glad to know that I was happier?"

Sir Henry made a wry face.

"It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear," he
grumbled. "However--now what the dickens is the matter?"

The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but Jimmy
Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the room.

"Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?" his patron demanded.

"Beg your pardon, sir," was the almost incoherent reply. "I've run all
the way up, and there's a rare wind blowing. There's one of our--our
trawlers lying off the Point, and she's sent up three green and six
yellow balls."

"Whiting, by God!" Sir Henry exclaimed.

"Whiting!" Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. "What does this mean,
Henry?"

"It must be a shoal," her husband explained. "It means that we've got to
get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?"

"She there all right, sir," was the somewhat doubtful reply, "but us'll
have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor'easter is blowing great
guns again and it's a cruel tide."

"We've got to get out somehow," Sir Henry declared. "Mills, my oilskins
and flask at once. I sha'n't change a thing, but you might bring a
cardigan jacket and the whisky and soda."

Mills withdrew, a little dazed. Philippa, whose fingers were clenched
together, found her tongue at last.

"Henry!" she exclaimed furiously.

"What is it, my dear?"

"Do you mean to tell me that after your promise," she continued, "after
what you have just said, you are starting out to-night for another
fishing expedition?"

"Whiting, my dear," Sir Henry explained. "One can't possibly miss
whiting. Where the devil are my keys?--Here they are. Now then."

He sat down before his desk, took some papers from the top drawer,