sion
he "caught 'im at it," as he told Archy. "Yes, he was spying on me.
Watching me. See his game? I tell you, Archy, it makes a man sick. Fancy
havin' to work under a man like that. Watchin' me. Now he'll write home
to the owners in his confidential report. Well, let him. Thanks to you,
I got more than one egg in the basket. Sometimes, I feel inclined to go
and demand my discharge. I would, only it's war time. Got to carry on in
war time."

Archy Bates nodded over his glass and dipped his long sharp nose into it
before making an audible reply. "Me, too!" he said, setting the glass
down empty. "Me, too! If it wasn't for the war and everybody having to
do their bit, I'd swallow the anchor to-morrow."

And they sat for a moment in silence, each honestly believing the other,
and thinking poignantly of home. Over the steward's bunk, stuffed into a
corner of the frame that enclosed his wife's portrait, was a photograph
of a girl, stark naked save for a wrist watch and a feather in her black
hair, sitting on Archy's knee. From behind this Mrs. Bates's thin face
and flat bosom peeped out, and her eyes seemed to be fixed thoughtfully
upon the two exiled patriots who sat with up-lifted glasses before her.

And on one occasion, Mr. Spokesly, who was spending the evening on board
because steam had been raised for sailing, and because the owners had a
tyrannical rule to that effect--Mr. Spokesly had a dream. He confessed
to Archy that in common honesty he didn't know whether he was awake or
asleep. A sort of vision! He was lying on his bunk with one of the
manuals of the London School of Mnemonics in his hand which he was, he
imagined, reading. It was an essay on "Concentration," and perhaps his
thoughts had wandered a bit.... Anyhow, as he lay there, in among his
thoughts slipped a new and alien impression that there was somebody in
the room. He didn't turn his head, but just lay on in contemplation of
this possibility. Perhaps he had half-closed his eyes, for the
instructions how to concentrate included a note that the brain worked
better if you lay down and shut out the distracting phenomena of
existence. Everything was soft and hazy at the time. The notion that
someone was there and yet not there intrigued him. And even a physical
change, a faint movement of the air caused by somebody altering his
position in space, a faint access of minute sounds entering by a cleared
doorway, did not rouse his suspicions. On the contrary,