"Not so much of the 'rats-in-a-trap' now, Doc," the cheery Fleet-Paymaster called across the table. "More of the 'bird-in-a-gilded-cage', eh? Don't cheer up too soon; we shall be right in the thick of the submarines to-night and to-morrow. You'd better blow up your safety waistcoat."
"That's all right, Pay. It's hanging up in my cabin, blown up tight."
"Good! I'll know where to steal it," grinned the Fleet-Paymaster.
After dinner the other gun-room officers were invited to come along and start a "sing-song". They came in, and the Lamp-post, itching to get at the piano, was stuck down in front of it and told to play.
As his fingers drew music from the battered, uncared-for old instrument, he lost himself in another world altogether. He didn't hear the Navigator asking why the China Doll had not come; or the Pimple and Rawlins say: "Oh, we forgot him; we left him in the gun-room"; nor notice them rush away with the Orphan, Bubbles, and the War Baby, and bring back the Assistant Clerk lashed in a bamboo stretcher, with a big cardboard label—pointing the wrong way—"This side up. Fragile—with care."
They rushed him through the ward-room door, his squeals drowned by their shouts and the Lamp-posts music, and stood him upside down on his head, against the table.
"He's frightfully fragile! Listen how he cracks if you touch him!" And the Pimple nipped his ankle, the poor China Doll giving a squeak of pain.
"That's hardly comfortable, is it?" Dr. Gordon suggested.
"Well, look at the label, sir. 'This side up', so it must be right," they laughed. But Dr. Gordon made them unbuckle the stretcher and take it away, whilst the China Doll was "stood up" the right way, blinking his eyes, and opening and shutting his mouth. "Look at his lovely pink socks!" they cried, pulling up his trouser legs. "Aren't they pretty?" But the Assistant Clerk, with a frightened look at the Sub, who had forbidden him to wear them in uniform, tried to hide them.
The Lamp-post stopped playing and "came to earth" again.