cheerful as
a schoolboy out for a holiday. Apart altogether from the knowledge
that I was going to spend a whole delightful day with Tommy and Joyce,
the mere idea of getting on the water again was enough in itself to
put me into the best of spirits.

I stopped for a moment at the flower-stall outside Victoria Station to
buy Joyce a bunch of violets--she had always been fond of violets--and
then calling up a taxi instructed the man to drive me to Fenchurch
Street.

I found Tommy and Joyce waiting for me on the platform. The former
looked superbly disreputable in a very old and rather dirty grey
flannel suit, while Joyce, who was wearing a white serge skirt with
a kind of green knitted coat, seemed beautifully in keeping with the
sunshine outside.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Tommy. "We were just getting the jim-jams about
you. Thought you'd eloped with Sonia or something."

I shook my head. "I never elope before midday," I said. "I haven't the
necessary stamina."

I offered Joyce the bunch, which she took with a smile, giving my hand
a little squeeze by way of gratitude. "You dear!" she said. "Fancy
your remembering that."

"Well, come along," said Tommy. "This is the train all right; I've got
the tickets and some papers."

He opened the door of a first-class carriage just behind us, and we
all three climbed in. "We shall have it to ourselves," he added.
"No one ever travels first on this line except the Port of London
officials, and they don't get up till the afternoon."

We settled ourselves down, Tommy on one side and Joyce and I on the
other, and a minute later the train steamed slowly out of the station.
Joyce slipped her hand into mine, and we sat there looking out of the
window over the sea of grey roofs and smoking chimney-stacks which
make up the dreary landscape of East London.

"Have a paper?" asked Tommy, holding out the _Daily Mail_.

"No, thanks, Tommy," I said. "I'm quite happy as I am. You can tell us
the news if there is any."

He opened the sheet and ran his eye down the centre page. "There's
nothing much in it," he said, "bar this German business. No one seems
to know what's going to happen about that. I wonder what the Kaiser
thinks he's playing at. He can't be such a fool as to want to fight
half Europe."

"How is the Navy these days?" I asked. "One doesn't worry about
trifles like that in Dartmoor."

"Oh, we're all right," replied Tommy cheerfully. "The Germans haven't
got a torpedo to to