fur rug apparently in search of clothes.

"Not much of a library, I'm afraid," said the host, seating himself.
"I'm not much of a reader myself. The Sub's the bookworm of this boat."

The First Lieutenant of the Submarine shot a swift glance of suspicion
at his Commanding Officer as he helped himself to a chop. The look,
however, appeared to pass unnoticed.

"Some months ago," continued his Captain, speaking with his mouth full,
"we were caught in shallow water over the other side----" he jerked his
head upwards and to the South East. "We were sitting on the bottom
waiting for it to get dark before we came up and charged batteries. I
was having a stretch-off on my bunk here, and the Sub, of course, had
his nose in a book as usual. From subsequent developments it appears
that a Hun seaplane saw us and proceeded to bomb us with great good
will but indifferent success."

"We ought never to have been there," interrupted the First Lieutenant
coldly. "Bad navigation on the Captain's part."

"Granted," said the Lieutenant-Commander. "The first bomb was rather
wide of the mark, but it woke me, and I saw the Sub's eyelids flicker.
After that I watched him. The Hun bombed us steadily for a quarter of
an hour (missing every time, of course), and the Sub never raised his
eyes from his book."

"I was interested," said the First Lieutenant shortly; his eyes, in one
swift glance captain-wards, said more.

"Quite. I was only trying to prove you were a book-worm."

"What was the book?" enquired Sir William.

"Oh, Meredith, sir. Richard something-or-another. Topping yarn."

The guest steered the conversation out of literary channels.

"Were you over the other side much?" he asked blandly.

"Pretty well all the war, till we came up North," was the
Lieutenant-Commander's reply. "You'll have to use the same knife for
the butter; hope you don't mind. We get into piggish ways here, I'm
afraid.... Amusin' work at times, but nothing to the Dardanelles; we
never got out there, though; spent all our time nuzzling sandbanks off
the Ems and thereabouts. Of course, one sees more of Fritz in that
way, but I can't say it exactly heightens one's opinion of him. We
used to think at the beginning of the war that Fritz was a
sportsman--for a German, you know. But he's really just a dirty dog
taking very kindly to the teaching of bigger and dirtier dogs than
himself."

Sir William pondered this intelligence. "That's the ge