newsboys were crying in the streets a Special
Edition, very Special. Set in dirty type in an odd column, headed with
the mysterious words "Stop Press," appeared an announcement by the
Admiralty that far away in the South Seas the battle-cruisers
_Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, under the command of Vice-Admiral Stocky,
had met and sunk the lately victorious German Squadron! It was
glorious news, but the Three Towns thought little at the moment of the
glory. They urgently hungered for an explanation of the inscrutable
means by which two battle-cruisers, mined and cast upon the shoals
below Mount Edgecumbe under their very eyes, could race hot foot to
the South Seas and there lay out a German squadron. As soon as the
winter dawn broke an immense crowd surged upon the Hoe gazing into
blank space. The two battle-cruisers, which for a month had lain
helpless before them, were gone! Gone, too, were the salvage steamers
and the patrol boats. The waters which had been so active and crowded
were void! Then the Three Towns understood; they grasped, men, women
and children, the great spoof of which they had been the interested
victims, and their approving laughter rose to Heaven. For in all that
appertains to the Royal Navy every one born within the circuit of the
Three Towns is very wise indeed.

PART IV

_THE CAPTAIN OF MARINES_

CHAPTER XV

DAWSON REAPPEARS

I had seen nothing of Dawson during my intimate association with
Madame Gilbert. He had written to me copiously--for a very busy man he
was a curiously voluminous letter-writer. He always employed the backs
of official forms and wrote in pencil. His handwriting, large and
round, was that of a man who had received a good and careful Board
School education, but was quite free from personal characteristics.
Dawson's letters in no respect resembled the man. They were very long,
very dull, and very crudely phrased. He had evidently tried to put
them into what he conceived to be a literary shape, and the effect was
deplorable. One may read such letters, the work of unskilled writers,
in the newspapers which devote space to "Correspondence." The writers,
like Dawson, can probably talk vividly and forcibly, using strong
nervous vernacular English, but the moment they take the pen all
thought and individual character become swamped in a flood of turgid,
commonplace jargon. I was disappointed with Dawson's letters, and I am
sure that he will be even more disappoint