"No, thanks," was the reply. "To tell the truth, I'm feeling considerably stiff. Bad enough climbing to last me for at least a month. By the bye, do you know if Eric found my umbrella?"
Tressidar delighted his questioner by replying that Eric had recovered the lost property, but he hadn't the courage to continue the story. The A.P. had brought the thing on board. Examination showed that the handle had been "sprung," the silk ripped in three places, the wires bent, and, generally, damaged by salt water. So Eric had handed it over to the carpenter's crew for repairs and renovation. The men did the job not neatly, but too well. The silk they had patched with waxed seaming twine, re-waterproofing it by a liberal application of soft soap and linseed oil This was the outcome of a consultation of the naval recipe book; but since there was no mention of how to waterproof silk, they had adopted the process laid down for waterproofing canvas. The handle they repaired by "parcelling and serving" the fracture and concealing the tarred marline under a long gunmetal tube. The remaining visible portion of the handle they scraped and varnished.
The A.P. could not quite make out whether the "repairs" had been effected as a joke or in real earnest. At all events he quickly settled the matter by dropping the "game" out of a scuttle, intending to lead his parent to believe that the prized umbrella had been lost on that momentous night. And now Tressidar had unwittingly let the cat out of the bag.
The duty boat was fretting alongside the accommodation-ladder. Punctual to a minute Sub-lieutenant Tressidar boarded her and assisted Doris into the stern-sheets. From a manhole in the flat metal engine-room casing a leading-stoker's grimy head and shoulders appeared, his curiosity excited at the appearance of the sub.'s companion. He winked knowingly at the bowman and disappeared to his cramped quarters below.
"Mr. Tressidar!" sang out the commander, leaning over the guard-rails of the quarter-deck.
"Sir?"
"Stand by a minute. I want you to take a packet of correspondence to the 'Velocity.'"
Some minutes elapsed before the article in question was handed down to the boat. Bending and peering into the little cabin, Tressidar noticed that it was already twelve minutes to four.
He nodded to the coxswain. The latter, ordering "Easy ahead," put the helm over and the duty steamboat glided smoothly away from her parent ship.
"You'll be jolly cold," remarked the sub. to the girl. "It's awfully nippy, in spite of the protection afforded by the cabin top. Let me help you into this oil-skin."