provoked the indignant householder.

"Neither you nor Mr Burnett are accused of sending telegrams. We only
know that you received them."

"Then who sent them, I'd like to know?"

"That, no doubt, will appear in time. I must get back now, Mr
Drummond; but I must first ask you not to mention a word to any one of
this--in the meantime anyhow."

The householder looked considerably taken aback. He had anticipated
making a very pleasant sensation among his friends.

"I--er--of course shall use great discretion----" he began.

Lieutenant Topham shook his head.

"I am directed to ask you to tell _nobody_."

"Of course Mrs Drummond----"

"Not even Mrs Drummond."

"But this is really very high-handed, sir! Mr Burnett is a very old
friend of mine----"

The Lieutenant came a step nearer to him, and said very earnestly and
persuasively--

"You have an opportunity, Mr Drummond, of doing a service to your
country by keeping absolute silence. We can trust you to do that for
England, surely?"

"For Great Britain," corrected Mr Drummond, who was a member of a
society for propagating bagpipe music and of another for commemorating
Bannockburn,--"well, yes, if you put it like that--Oh, certainly,
certainly. Yes, you can trust me, Mr Topham. But--er--what am I to
say to Mrs Drummond about your visit?"

"Say that I was sent to ask you to keep your lights obscured,"
suggested the lieutenant with a smile.

"Capital!" said the householder. "I've warned her several times about
the pantry window. That will kill two birds with one stone!"

"Good morning, sir. Thank you very much," said the lieutenant.

Mr Drummond was left in a very divided state of mind regarding the
Navy's competence, Mr Burnett's sanity, and his own judgment.

V.

ON THE MAIL BOAT.

A procession came down the long slope at the head of the bay. Each
vehicle but one rumbled behind a pair of leisurely horses. That one, a
car with a passenger and his luggage, hooted from tail to head of the
procession, and vanished in the dust towards the pier. The sea
stretched like a sheet of brilliant glass right out across the bay and
the firth beyond to the great blue island hills, calm as far as the eye
could search it; on the green treeless shores, with their dusty roads
and their dykes of flagstones set on edge, there was scarcely enough
breeze to stir the grasses. "We shall have a fine crossing," said the
passengers in the coaches to one anothe