ly worth it. But it takes a lot of port to
get him started. How d'you feel about it, Number One?" They spoke
with indulgent affection, as a nurse might persuade a bashful child to
show off before company.

He of the choleric blue eye was still sitting at the table with one of
his hosts. He turned in his chair, smiling grimly.

"What's that about me? I don't want to start scrapping in a strange
mess, Snatcher, but if you really _are_ looking for trouble----!"

"Don't mind us!" shouted the Indiarubber Man delightedly. "We'll put
up a scrap for you in half a jiffy if you feel like a crumpled
shirt-front!" He looked round the mess. "Wait till Flags and the
Secretary come in from dinner with the Old Man, and we'll out the
gilded Staff. They're good 'uns to scrap."

As he spoke the door opened, and the Flag Lieutenant came in, to be met
by a volley of greetings.

"We of the cuddy," he began in a tone of mincing severity, "are not
pleased at the raucous uproar said to be coming from a mess of officers
and gentlemen. We are pained. We come to lend our presence to what
might otherwise develop into an unseemly brawl----" He helped himself
to a walnut out of a dish on the sideboard. "Here comes my colleague
the Secretary-bird. He, too, is more grieved than angry."

The Secretary entered warily, and intending combatants girded their
loins for battle.

"Pouf!" he exclaimed. "What a fug!" And elevated his nose with a
sniff. The Fiery Cross was out.

"Out Staff!" said the Indiarubber Man in a low voice. "Dogs of war!
Out gilded popinjays!"

With a promptitude that hinted at long experience of internecine
warfare, the newcomers embraced the first maxim of war: "If you must
hit, hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting."

Like a flash, the two members of the Personal Staff were on the
Indiarubber Man. A chair went crashing, a broken glass tinkled on to
the deck, to the accompaniment of protests from the Paymaster, and,
before the mess could join battle, the Indiarubber Man hurtled through
the doorway on to the aft-deck, to pitch at the feet of a delighted
Marine sentry. By the rules of the game, once through the portals of
the mess there was no return until a truce was declared. The younger
members of the mess rose to a man; for a moment the guests hung back.
It is not in the best of form to scrap in a strange mess, except by
express invitation.

"Come on!" shouted the Junior Watchkeeper. "Bite 'em in