"Look out for submarines, Bill," said one of them, to his comrade on the other side of the craft.
"Mermaids is more my line," replied the man. "I say, Tom, what if these balloons underneath us was to go pop!"
"And no parachutes neither! Not even bathing drawers. D'you know what this here thing reminds me of?"
"What?"
"The bathing raft at Brighton. Wish you was at Brighton, Bill?"
"Don't talk about it."
"Tea and shrimps, and Mary Angelina in the tea-shop, and the little gal with the curls as played the fiddle so sweet. Bill, you ought to change your name."
"What for?"
"'Cos 'twas Big Bill as sent us to this here Messypotamia. If it hadn't 'a been for him we might have been in Brighton now."
"No we shouldn't. We'd 'a been in the mines blasting coal. Never would have heard of Brighton. But I tell you what: when old Bill's done in——"