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comfortable reflection to lean to strike awe and even terror

in a dégagé attitude against the white paint-work (one of the seven deadly sins): then to hear admonition and your name, coupled together like chain-shot, ring out along the orowded main deck. Harker had seen you.

There were other C.P.O.'s on board: each term owned one. But they were, by comparison with Harker, sorry fellows. One, in a scarlet jersey, was reputed to be given to beating the big drum at Salvation Army meetings ashore. Hotly his term denied it, but the story was stamped with the unimpeachable authority of the boatswain's mate of the lower deck: a godless seaman, conversation with whom, being of a spicy and anecdotal nature, was forbidden.

into the spectators' hearts. And now, after the lapse of years, recalling the circumstances of that harrowing quarter of an hour, it is doubtful whether there was not just some such motive behind the grim circumstance that led up to the painful consummation.

The scene was the orlop deck. What light there was came in through the open gun-ports, slanting upwards off the water. Not cheering sunlight, you understand, but a greenish sickly gleam that struggled ineffectually with the shadows clinging like vampires among the low oak beams overhead.

The victim's term were fallen-in in a hollow square about the horse-a block of wood supported on short legs with ring-bolts and canvas straps hanging from

Then there came a pause. Possibly the captain had not finished his breakfast; or perhaps Harker had for once made a mistake and got his term there too early. But for the space of several minutes (or weeks, or years) the term stood in shuddering eontemplation of this engine.

Another was admittedly of a good enough heart, but a sentimentalist, and oensequently to be despised. On corner. the occasion of the chastisement of an evil-door, his was the arm chosen to administer the strokes with all the pomp and circumstance of an official execution. He laid the strokes on well and truly-that much the vietim himself admitted. But when he turned from his duty his eyes were observed to have tears in them. term had in consequence to adopt an apologetic manner for a considerable time afterwards.

His

It was a similar scene, but one in which Harker played the Lord High Executioner, that must here be recorded. The setting alone was sufficient

Then one of the spectators, the victim of either an overrich imagination or an acutely sensitive conscience, dramatically fainted and was borne forth. After that things began to happen. The malefactor appeared, accompanied by Harker. The captain, the term lieutenant, and (a thrill ran through the onlookers) the

It was half ease and reflection in the washing till of some one's seachest. Harker's the suspicious mind that led to official ruxes of private tills, and the confiscation of meerschaum pipes, Turkish oigarettes, and other contraband. Yet all this without any effect of espionage.

surgeon followed. expected that the chaplain would also join the group and administer ghostly consolation to the culprit, who, it must be reluctantly admitted, looked rather pleased with himself.

His offence was not one to alienate him from the hearts of his fellows. If memory serves aright, he had been overheard to refer to his late crammer in terms that may or may not have been just, but were certainly not the way a little gentleman should talk. But

his term or most of themwere still smarting under the recollections of orammers' methods, and were disposed to regard the delinquent's lapse rather more as a pardonable ebullition of feeling than a breach of morality. In short, he was a bit of a hero.

"Chief Petty Officer Harker," said the stern voice of the term lieutenant, "do your duty." The harrowing preliminaries completed, Chief Petty Officer Harker did it, as was to be expected of him, uncommonly well.

The victim took it, as was also to be expected of him, uncommonly well. It was not long before these lines were written that he was called upon to meet a sterner and his last ordeal. The pity is that no spectator can bear testimony to the worthier courage with which he must have met it.

Harker it was who smelt out, like a Zulu witch-doctor, the grass snake and dormouse that lived a life of communistio VOL. CCIV.NO. MCCXXXIII,

The nearest approach to active espionage that Harker permitted himself was hovering in the vicinity of the gangway when the terms were landed for daily recreation. The law of the Medes and Persians had it that during cold weather all cadets not playing games must land wearing a particularly despicable form of under-garment: a woolly and tucked-into-thesocks abomination that the soul of every right-minded cadet revolted from. As the procession passed under the low gangway on its way to the launches alongside, Harker, lurking in the vicinity, would suddenly pounce upon a suspect.

"Ave we got our DRAWERS on, Mr So-and-So?" came the merciless query. The progress of the procession was arrested while Mr So-and-So racked his brains for some suitable parry to this very leading question. A damning negative having eventually been extorted, the underclad one was hauled from the ranks and given three minutes in which to get to his chest, extract from his wardrobe the garment that found such high favour in Olympian eyes, put it on, and rejoin the tail of the procession. Thus & first offender: a second offence

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resulted in "no landing." There ker's X-ray glance rarely failed

was no appeal.

The muddy, tired, everhungry throng that returned some three hours later, again passed on board under this lynx-eyed surveillance. This time illicit "stodge" was the subject of Harker's unquenchable suspicions.

Smuggling stodge on board (another of the seven deadly sins) required considerable ingenuity, owing to the ban the authorities thought necessary to impose on poekets. Regular outfitters pandered to this Olympian whim, and constructed trousers with an embryonic fob just large enough to hold a few coins. The unorthodox, who arrived with garments bearing the stamp of provincialism and pockets, were bidden to surrender them forthwith, and stout fingers ruthlessly sewed them up.

The jacket had only one, a breast pocket already congested by keys, handkerchief, letters from home, pet bits of indiarubber, and the like. Remained therefore the despised garment already alluded to. This, being tucked-by official deores-into the wearer's socks, formed an admirable hold-all for a packet of butter-scotchworked flat-a snack of Turkish Delight, or a peculiar and highly favoured form of delioaey known as "My Queen."

With a not too saintly expression, an unflinching eye, and a sufficiently baggy pair of trousers, the contrabandist might count on a reasonable amount of success. But Har

him.

That stern incisive voice would rivet all eyes upon the culprit just when the muster by the officer of the day had been completed, and the long ranks awaited the stentorian dismissal of the chief cadet captain.

"Mr Z! You'll step along to the sick-bay when we falls out."

The blanched smuggler clutched at his momentarily abandoned halo of rectitude.

"Sick-bay!" he echoed indignantly. "Why the sick. bay? There's nothing wrong with me-I swear there isn't. I never felt better in my life.'

"That there nasty swelling on your shin," was the pitiless reply, "did ought to be seen to at once." A draught, that had fluttered the carefully selected baggy trousers against their wearer's legs, had been his undoing. The game was up.

Like all truly great men, Harker could unbend without discipline suffering an As the months passed and his term of fledgling "News" acquired the modest dignity of "Threes" (second term cadets), Harker's methods changed. He was no longer the detective, inquisitor, encyclopædia of a thousand unfamiliar phrases, events, and objects. His term were on their feet now, treading in their turn paths fiercely illumined by the new first term's gaping admiration and curiosity. They were an example.

"Ow long 'ave we been in

the Britannia?" he would demand reproachfully when some breach of the laws called for reproof. "Ere we are in our second term, an' talkin' about HUP-STAIRS !"

The scorn in his voice was like a whip-lash.

"When you young gentlemen goes to sea you won't find no STAIRS!"

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When they went to sea! That was the gradually inoreasing burden of his song. For a while it presented a picture too remote almost for serious contemplation. It was practically a figure of speech, meaningless. But as time went on, and the successive dignities of "Sixer and "Niner" (third and fourththe last terms) loomed up and passed into reality, and at last the Great Wall of the final examination alone stood between them and the sea-going gunrooms of the Fleet, the werds took on their real significance.

Harker abandoned even sarcasm. He became guide, philosopher, and friend, a patient mentor always accessible generally somewhere on the ohest-deck-in leisure hours to thirsters after knowledge. Was one shaky in that branch of nautical lore known as "Bends and Hitohes"? Harker's blunt fingers tirelessly manipulated the end of a hammock-lashing until the pupil could make even a "sheep-shank" with his eyes shut.

Another would bring him, in a welter of grease and ravelled strands, a tortured mass of hemp-rope.

"It's meant to be a Long Splice," was the explanation, "but I don't seem to get it right-ever," and with a despondent sigh it would be thrust into Harker's hands.

Harker would examine the interwoven strands, twisting them to and fro with jerks of his powerful wrists, pulling taut here, tucking something in there, and lo! the thing took shape.

"This is where you goes wrong, Mr P., every time!" (Recollect there were sixty-odd in his term.) "Don't forget what I'm always telling you. You splits the middle strands, and then an over-'and knot in the opposite 'alves .. It always looked so easy when Harker did it.

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It was during the last night on board that Harker rose to heights truly magnanimous. The fourth term regarded it as its right and privilege, on the last night of the term, to hold high carnival until sleep overtook them. Cadet captains even cast their responsibilities to the winds that night and scampered about, slim pyjamaclad figures, in the dim light of the lanterns, ruthlessly cutting down the prig who yearned for slumber, lashing up a victim in his hammock and leaving him upside-down to reflect on certain deeds of the past year that earned him this retribution, floating about on gratings on the surface of the plunge-baths. and generally celebrating in a fitting manner the eve of the day that was to herald in new responsibilities and cares.

fifteen from the river to the playingfields, where the principal canteen stood.

Harker, who for months had haunted the shadows on the look-out for just such a "rux," whose ear caught every illicit soundeven the crunch of the nooturnal butter-scotch-Harker was for once unseeing and unseen. It needed but this crowning act of grace to endear him for ever to his departing flock.

Yet he had one more card to play, and played it as he passed in farewell from carriage to carriage of the departing train. Further, he dealt it with accentuated emphasis for the benefit of those he thought needed the reminder most.

"Gosh!" ejaculated such an one when Harker passed to the next carriage: he flopped back on to his seat. "Did you hear? He said 'Sir' to each one of us when he said good-bye!"

So much for Harker. But he brought with him a number of other memories entangled somehow about his personality, and on these it may be as well to enlarge a little ere they slip back into the limbo of the forgotten past.

It says much for the vividness of Harker's personality that he outran in these reminiscences the the memory of Stodge." Certainly few interests loomed larger on the horizon of these days than the contents of the two canteens ashore.

There was one adjacent to the landing-place: a wise forethought of the authorities, enabling a fellow to stay his stomach during the long elimb

"Stodge" was of a surpassing cheapness. That much was essential when the extent of the weekly pocketmoney was limited (if memory is to be trusted) to one shilling. Further, it was of a pleasing variety, certain peculiar combinations, hallowed by tradition, being alone unchanging.

Of these the most popular was the "Garry Sandwich." Components: a half-stick of chocolate-cream sandwiched between two "squashed-fly" biscuits; the whole beaten thin with a cricket-bat, gymnasium shoe, or other implement handy. The peculiarity of this particular form of dainty was that it sufficed as an unfailing bribe wherewith to open negotiations with one Dunn, the septuagenarian keeper of the boat-house. The moral atmosphere of this haunt, in consequence of its custodian's sweetness of tooth, came in time to resemble that of a Chinese yamen.

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Another delicacy, which legend clustered, was the "Ship's Bun," split in half, with a liberal cementing of Devonshire cream and strawberry-jam oozing out at the sides. Concerning the bun itself, the maternal solicitude of the authorities extended one gratis to each cadet ashore on half-holidays, lest the impeounious should hunger unnecessarily between lunch and tea. The buns were obtainable on application at the counter, whence the daughter

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