tter rack and notice board, and the stove.

The latter is fitted to burn anthracite. It looks well, with its
highly polished brass casing and funnel reaching up through the deck
above, but it has a very decided will of its own. Sometimes, in a fit
of contrariness, it persists in blazing like a blast furnace on muggy
days until its sides are nearly red-hot and the heat of the wardroom is
well-nigh intolerable. But on chilly mornings it occasionally rings a
change by refusing to burn at all, and merely vomits forth clouds of
acrid, grey smoke. This generally occurs during breakfast, when folk
are sometimes apt to be snappish and irritable. We have never really
quite fathomed the idiosyncrasies of the stove. Maybe it is sadly
misunderstood, but at any rate we can always empty the vials of our
wrath for its misdeeds upon the head of its unfortunate custodian, a
newly caught officer's steward of the second class, with long hair and
a mournful aspect.

We are at war, and there is little or no attempt at decoration in our
habitation. The bright red and black tablecloth of the usual service
pattern gives the place a touch of colour, but beyond this and a couple
of vases of tightly packed flowers on the table, and on the ship's side
a print of the gallant old admiral after whom the ship is named,
everything serves a strictly utilitarian purpose.

But in spite of its bareness the wardroom is very snug and comfortable.
It is particularly inviting on returning from a spell at sea, when one
goes below from the wet and chilly upper deck, to find everybody
talking at the top of their voices, and pipes, cigarettes, and the
stove all going full blast together. If it is after sunset and the
ship is "darkened" the scuttles will all have their deadlights down,
and the place will be very, what we may call "frowsty." The
atmosphere, indeed, what with tobacco smoke and various unnameable but
pungent odours from the pantry outside, might well be cut with a knife;
but nobody seems to mind. It is warm, at any rate, and is ten thousand
times better than the piercing wind and bitter cold on deck.

At sea it is not always pleasant. In heavy weather the stern of the
ship has an unwholesome knack of jumping into the air and shaking
itself like the tail of a dog. It is disconcerting, to say the least
of it, particularly when the water sweeps its way aft along the upper
deck in solid masses which no so-called watertight ventilator can ke