the same to you, Mister blooming
Lieutenant."

* * * * *

In the year 1907 John Fanshawe Dawnay-Devenish arrived in a certain
Far Eastern port, deck passenger aboard a Dutch tramp out of Batavia.
The Volendam mate accompanied him to the gang-plank, shaking a size
eleven fist: "Now yous, get, see?... an' iv yous gome bag...!" He
ground his horse-teeth and made unpleasant noises in his throat.

"Shouldn't dream of risking it, old dear," replied John Fanshawe
pleasantly, "not on your venerable coffee-grinder anyhow--not until
she gets a navigator." He kissed his nicotined fingers to the
exploding Hollander and strolled off down the wharf, whistling "_Nun
trink ich Schnapps_."

Arrived in the European quarter he smoothed what creases he could out
of his sole suit of drills, whitened his soggy topee and frayed canvas
shoes with a piece of chalk purloined from a billiard saloon, bluffed
a drink out of an inebriated ship's engineer and snatched a free lunch
on the strength of it. Thus fortified he visited the British Consul,
and by means of somewhat soiled letters proved that he really was a
Dawnay-Devenish of the Dorset Dawnay-Devenishes (who should be in no
way confused with the Devenish-Dawnays of Chipping-Banbury or the
Devenishe d'Awnay-Dawnays of Upper Tooting; the Dorset branch alone
possessing the privilege, granted by letters patent of ETHELRED the
Unready, of drinking the King's bathwater every Maunday Tuesday of
Leap Year).

Awed by the name--was there not a Dawnay-Devenish occupying a plump
armchair in the Colonial Office at the time?--the Consul parted
with five hundred dollars (Mex.). Next time the yield was not so
satisfactory, not by two hundred and fifty dollars. At the end of
a month, the Consul having proved a broken reed only good for
five-dollar touches at considerable intervals, it behoved our hero to
seek some fresh source of income. He cast up-river in search of it and
disappeared from civilised ken for seven merciful years.

In June, 1914, he beat back into port in a fancifully decorated junk,
minus one ear and two fingers, but plus a cargo of jingling genuine
money. He hired the bridal suite in the leading hotel, got hold of a
fleet of motor cars and a host of boon companions, lived on a diet
of champagne cocktails and splashed himself about with the carefree
abandon of a dancing dervish.

By the middle of July he was "on the beach" again and once more began
t