d someone leave the house and saunter along the
cliff. When I got my glasses on him I saw it was an old man, wearing
white flannel trousers, a blue serge jacket, and a straw hat. He
carried field-glasses and a newspaper, and sat down on one of the iron
seats and began to read. Sometimes he would lay down the paper and
turn his glasses on the sea. He looked for a long time at the
destroyer. I watched him for half an hour, till he got up and went
back to the house for his luncheon, when I returned to the hotel for
mine.

I wasn't feeling very confident. This decent common-place dwelling was
not what I had expected. The man might be the bald archaeologist of
that horrible moorland farm, or he might not. He was exactly the kind
of satisfied old bird you will find in every suburb and every holiday
place. If you wanted a type of the perfectly harmless person you would
probably pitch on that.

But after lunch, as I sat in the hotel porch, I perked up, for I saw
the thing I had hoped for and had dreaded to miss. A yacht came up
from the south and dropped anchor pretty well opposite the Ruff. She
seemed about a hundred and fifty tons, and I saw she belonged to the
Squadron from the white ensign. So Scaife and I went down to the
harbour and hired a boatman for an afternoon's fishing.

I spent a warm and peaceful afternoon. We caught between us about
twenty pounds of cod and lythe, and out in that dancing blue sea I took
a cheerier view of things. Above the white cliffs of the Ruff I saw
the green and red of the villas, and especially the great flagstaff of
Trafalgar Lodge. About four o'clock, when we had fished enough, I made
the boatman row us round the yacht, which lay like a delicate white
bird, ready at a moment to flee. Scaife said she must be a fast boat
for her build, and that she was pretty heavily engined.

Her name was the ARIADNE, as I discovered from the cap of one of the
men who was polishing brasswork. I spoke to him, and got an answer in
the soft dialect of Essex. Another hand that came along passed me the
time of day in an unmistakable English tongue. Our boatman had an
argument with one of them about the weather, and for a few minutes we
lay on our oars close to the starboard bow.

Then the men suddenly disregarded us and bent their heads to their work
as an officer came along the deck. He was a pleasant, clean-looking
young fellow, and he put a question to us about our fishing in very
g