Round the World in Seven Days

by Herbert Strang

"The South Pacific, sir, or thereabouts."

"Don't you think, Mr. Smith, you are going a little too far?" said the captain sternly.

"Well, sir," replied Smith naïvely, "it was a goodish distance. But I have managed to get back within my leave. Ten minutes to spare, sir."

Captain Bolitho gasped.

"Do you mean to tell me, seriously, you have been to the South Pacific?"

"Certainly, sir. I left home about midnight last Thursday, and got back not quite nine hours ago. Went to the Solomon Islands viâ Penang and Port Darwin, and come home viâ Samoa and 'Frisco."

"But—but—then you have been round the world, sir—in how long?"

"Seven days, sir. My leave expires at nine this morning."

Mechanically, like a man in a dream, the captain took out his watch.

"Twenty-five minutes past eight," he said. "You needn't have hurried yourself. You've another half-hour by Irish time. Perhaps you'd like to fill it up by a trip round Ireland," he added dryly.