"Who asked them?"
"Why?"
"Are drinks going down to the mess?"
And then the door opened and the guests arrived, smiling, a little shy, as the naval officer is wont to be when he finds himself in a strange mess.
They were relieved of caps and cloaks, and, under the mellowing influence of sherry and bitters, began to settle down.
"Jolly good of you fellows to ask us to dinner," said the First Lieutenant, an officer with a smiling cherubic visage and a choleric blue eye. "We were getting a bit bored with our hooker. A fortnight of looking for Der Tag gets a bit wearisome. D'you think the devils are ever coming out?"
"We didn't want to ask you a bit, really," explained one of the hosts (the advantage of having a chummy-ship is that you can insult them in your own mess). "It's only a scheme of Bunje's for drinking intoxicating liquor to excess at the expense of his messmates."
The guests grinned sympathetically. As a matter of fact, most of the company drank little else than water during those days of strain and vigil. Frequent references to indulgence might, therefore, be regarded as comic, in a sense.
"We thought of bringing our own chairs," added one, "in case you'd landed all your spare ones."
"Yes," chimed in a third politely. "We didn't expect to find such a wealth of furniture—it's like a Model Homes Exhibition. You should see our mess!"