it's too late.
Consider what it means. If you make the wardroom untenable, I shall
have to sit in the office all the morning. I might even have to do
some work!"

The First Lieutenant shook his head dourly. "The chipping party is
going to start in the wardroom this morning. Paint's inches thick on
the bulkheads, and a shell in here would start fires all over the
place. Bunje, if you want to write letters you'd better go somewhere
else and do it."

The Indiarubber Man thumped the blotting-paper on his freshly written
sheets and looked up with his penholder between his teeth. "I've
finished, Number One. Admit your hired bravoes."

As he spoke an ear-splitting fusillade of hammering commenced outside.
The steel bulkheads reverberated with blows that settled down to a
persistent rain of sound, deafening, nerve-shattering.

"They've started outside," shouted the First Lieutenant.

A general exodus ensued, and the Indiarubber Man gathered his writing
materials preparatory to departure. "I guessed they had," he was heard
to say. "I thought I heard a sound as it might have been someone
tapping on the bulkhead."

The watchkeepers asleep on the settee stirred in their sleep, frowned,
and sank again into fathomless oblivion.

* * * * *

The Indiarubber Man entered the wardroom in company with the Paymaster
as the corporal of the ward-room servants was putting the finishing
touches to the dinner-table. They surveyed the apartment without
enthusiasm.

"Considered as a banquet hall, I confess it does lack something,"
observed the former.

"There's a good deal of paint lacking from the bulkheads. Number One
has had a field day and a half."

The other nodded. "In the words of the song:

'There's no carpet on the floor,
And no knocker on the door,
Oh, ours is a happy little home . . .'

Phillips, bring me the menu, and let's see the messman has succeeded in
being funny without being vulgar."

Corporal Phillips brought the menu with the air of one who connives at
a felony. "Messman says, sir, it ain't all 'e'd like it to be, what
with guests comin' and that. But I says to 'im, 'war is war,' I says,
'an' we can't expect eggs-on-meat _entrees_, same's if it was peace
time.'"

"To-day's beautiful thought!" remarked the Indiarubber Man when the
corporal had withdrawn. "Really, Phillips has a knack of disclosing
great truths as if they were the lightest gossip."

The Engi