. Some were Scots fishermen, men from
trawlers and drifters, excellent, hardy creatures used to small craft,
bad weather, and boat work. Others, having served their time in the
Navy, had taken to some shore employment, and in August 1914 had been
recalled to their old Service.

Nearly every imaginable trade was represented. In one of the
first-class cabins was the barber's shop, presided over by a man who in
pre-war days had worked in a hair-cutting establishment not far from
Victoria Station. Next door lived another man who had been a
bootmaker, and he, bringing all the appurtenances of his trade to sea
with him, carried on a roaring business as a "snob." There was also a
haberdashery emporium kept by a seaman who had been employed in some
linen-draper's shop in his native town, while a professional tailor in
blue-jacket's uniform spent all his spare time in making and repairing
the garments of his shipmates. Even the ship's electric laundry was
manned by folk who were well acquainted with starching and ironing.

Most of the cooks and stewards had left, but sufficient remained to
provide for the needs of the officers and men. The catering was still
run by the company to which the vessel belonged, and, as she had roomy
kitchens and all manner of labour-saving devices in the way of electric
dish-washers and potato-peelers, the messing was even better than that
on board a battleship.

Gone were the troops of laughing children and the passengers. A pile
of wicked-looking shell and boxes of cartridges for the guns lay ready
to hand in the nursery, while the promenade decks resounded to the
tramp of men being initiated into the mysteries of the squad and rifle
drill and the work at their guns.

* * * * *

They have been at it for two years; two years of strenuous naval
routine and discipline which have transformed the passenger liner into
no mean man-of-war.

THE "PIRATES"

"It is not possible to prevent the occasional appearance of enemy
submarines within the range of our shores, but I can give an assurance
that the measures which have been and will be taken are such as to
render proceedings of this sort increasingly dangerous to the
submarines."--DR. MACNAMARA, _Financial Secretary to the Admiralty_.

They looked an orderly little squadron of six as they steamed jauntily
out towards the open sea in single line ahead through the grey-green,
tide-ripped waters of the most t