ent sometimes condescends to occupy the armchair in front of
the stove. He is very friendly with Cuthbert.

The first steward we had was an ex-valet. He suffered from a swollen
head and what he was pleased to call a "college education." He may
have been an excellent valet, but was no earthly good as the steward of
a destroyer, and soon departed. His sins would fill a book. He used
our expensive damask table napkins as dish cloths, involving us in
endless complications with the Victualling Yard authorities, who
objected to their being used for such a purpose. He produced cold ham,
biscuits, and pickles for breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. Excellent
in their way, no doubt, but rather monotonous in the depths of winter.
On one occasion he skinned a pheasant to save himself the trouble of
plucking it--we will draw a veil over what happened.

The next caterer we had was an able seaman who re-entered the Navy as a
volunteer for the war. He, during his time out of the Service, had
been a sort of general factotum to some dark-skinned South American
potentate. He is a real treasure--the A. B. I mean, not necessarily
the potentate. He feeds us liberally and well, though it is true that
he speedily discovered the virtues of tinned salmon. In fact we don't
know what he would do without it, and the ubiquitous pig. Sometimes we
have tinned salmon fish cakes and bacon for breakfast, tinned salmon
kedgeree, cold ham, and pig brawn for lunch, and roast pork as a joint
for dinner. By rights we should have grown cloven hooves and salmon
scales, but we always have a pleasant feeling of repletion after meals
and have no cause for real complaint.

Our amusements are simple. We talk a great deal of "shop" and argue a
lot, read a great deal--some of us get through two "seven-pennies" a
day--listen to the gramophone, write letters, play with the doctor's
Meccano set, and try to persuade Cuthbert to strafe the cat.

Our arguments are of the usual naval variety. Positive assertion,
followed by flat contradiction and personal abuse, terminating in a
babel in which everybody shouts and no one listens.

Sometimes, before breakfast, we have our early morning "hates," and are
fractious and peevish. We long to strafe someone or something, and if,
like the soldiers in the trenches, we had the Huns always with us, we
might vent our spleen on them. But we can't, worse luck!

But please do not imagine that we are unhappy, because we