rbidden tobacco, and placed an empty pipe between his teeth.

"I suppose you fellows know," he said, "that we've got a daily Mass
on board."

"What's that?" asked Doe.

Monty removed his pipe and gazed with affected horror at his
questioner. Certainly he would hold forth now.

"Bah!" he began, but he changed it with quick generosity to "Ah
well, ah well, ah well! I know the sort of religion you've
enjoyed--and, for that matter, adorned. It's a wonderful creed! Have
a bath every morning, and go to church with your people. It saves
you from bad form, but can't save you from vice."

Doe moved slightly in his chair, as one does when a dentist touches
a nerve. Monty stopped, and then added:

"'A daily Mass' is my short way of saying 'A daily celebration of
the Holy Communion.'"

"Heavens!" thought I. "He's an R.C."

I felt as though I had lost a friend. Doe, however, was quicker in
appraising the terrible facts.

"I s'pose you're a High Churchman," he said; and I've little doubt
that he thereupon made up his mind to be a High Churchman too. Monty
groaned. He placed in front of Doe his left wrist on which was
clasped a bracelet identity disc. He switched on to the disc a shaft
of light from an electric torch, and we saw engraved on it his name
and the letters "C.E."

"That's what I am, Gazelle," said he, as the light went out, "C. of
E., now and always."

("Gazelle" was ostensibly a silly play on my friend's name, but,
doubtless, Doe's sleek figure and brown eyes, which had made the
name of "The Grey Doe" so appropriate, inspired Monty to style him
"Gazelle.")

"C. of E.," muttered I, audibly. "What a relief!"

"You beastly, little, supercilious snob!" exclaimed Monty, who was
easily the rudest man I have ever met.

I didn't mind him calling me "little," for he so overtopped me
intellectually that in his presence I never realised that I had
grown tall. I felt about fourteen.

"You beastly, little, intolerant, mediaeval humbug. I suppose you
think 'C. of E.' is the only respectable thing to be. And yet your
C. of E.-ism hasn't--" He stopped abruptly, as if he had just
arrested himself in a tactless remark.

"Go on," I said.

"And yet your religion," he continued gently, "hasn't proved much of
a vital force in your life, has it? Didn't it go to pieces at the
first assault of the world?"

"I s'pose it did," I confessed humbly.

"Shall I tell you the outstanding religious fact of the war?" asked
he. "L