"Sawdust Club!" said the Surgeon. They crossed the road and turned up a narrow passage-way. As they quitted the street, a diminutive boy, with an old, wizened face and an unnaturally husky voice, wormed his way in under the Young Doctor's elbow, "'Erald, sir? Latest, sir! Naval—" The Surgeon slipped a sixpenny bit into his hand and took the proffered paper, still damp from the press. They entered a long vault-like apartment, its floor strewn with sawdust and long counters and a row of wooden stools extending down each side. Behind the counters rose tiers of barrels, and in one corner was a sandwich buffet, with innumerable neat piles of sandwiches in a glass case. The place was crowded with customers: a bull-dog sauntered about the floor, nosing among the sawdust for pieces of biscuit. As the new-comers entered several of the inmates, perched on their wooden stools, looked round and smiled a greeting.
"Ah-ha! Last night in England, eh?"
"Yes," replied the Junior Watch-keeper, "the last night." He sniffed the mingled aroma of sawdust, tobacco-smoke, and the faint pungent smell of alcohol. "Good old pot-house! Good old Sawdust Club! Dear, dear, curried egg sandwiches! ... And a drop of sherry white-wine 'what the orficers drinks'—yes, in a dock-glass, and may the Lord ha' mercy on us!"
* * * * *
"And now," said the Young Doctor, "a 'chop-and-chips,' I think."
"A mixed-grill," substituted the other. "Kidney and sausage and tomato and all the rest of it. Oh yes, a 'mixed-grill.'"
They entered swing-doors, past a massive Commissionaire, who saluted with a broad smile. "They're askin' for you inside, sir," he whispered jocularly to the Junior Watch-keeper. "Wonderin' when you was comin' along.... Sailin' to-morrow, ain't you, sir?"
Together the "last-nighters" descended a flight of carpeted stairs and entered a subterranean, electric-lit lounge bar. A dozen or more of Naval men were standing about the fireplace and sitting in more or less graceful attitudes in big saddle-bag arm-chairs. The majority were conducting a lively badinage with a pretty, fair-haired girl who leaned over the bar at one end of the room. She smiled a greeting as the new-comers entered, and emerged from her retreat. The Junior Watch-keeper doffed his hat with a low bow and hung it on the stand. Then he bent down, swung her into his arms, and handed her like a doll to the Young Doctor, who in turn deposited her on the lap of a seated Officer reading the evening paper. "Look what I've found."
With a squeal she twisted herself to her feet and retreated behind the bar again, her hands busy with the mysteries of hair-pins.
"Hullo! hullo!" Greetings sounded on all sides. A tall broad-shouldered figure with a brown beard elbowed his way through the crush and smote the Junior Watch-keeper on the breast-bone.