"Now," said the Junior Watchkeeper, when all the glasses had been filled, "I call on Number One for a song." Amid vociferous applause the First Lieutenant, clasping a huge tumbler of ginger-beer, rose unsteadily. Without the semblance of a note anywhere he proceeded to bawl "A frog he would a-wooing go." A prima donna at the zenith of her fame might have envied his reception. The Junior Watchkeeper broke half the glasses in the transports of his enthusiasm. "Come along, Doc," said the singer as soon as he could make himself heard; "give us a yarn." With the assistance of his neighbours the Doctor placed one foot on his chair and the other on the table. "Say, you fellows," he said thickly, "jolly litl' yarn—Goblylocks an' Three Bears."
Overcome, apparently, by tender recollections he was silent, and fixed the walnuts with a dreamy stare.
"Go on, Doc!" "Goldilocks, Goldilocks." "The Doc," said the Paymaster, "was always a devil for the girls."
"Pay," remonstrated the First Lieutenant sorrowfully, "that's the third half-penny for swearing this year. You mean that the Doctor has always evinced a marked partiality for the society of the gentler sex."
Punctuated at the more exciting points with breathless exclamations of horror and amazement from his audience, the Doctor's rendering of the story proved an overwhelming success. As he painted in vivid periods the scene where Goldilocks was discovered by all three bears asleep in the little bear's bed, the First Lieutenant broke down completely and had to be patted and soothed into a more tranquil frame of mind before the story could proceed. Then there was a spell of musical chairs, the First Engineer obliging at the piano, and afterwards giving a tuneful West-Country folk-song at the Doctor's request. The Junior Watchkeeper, declaring his inability to remember anything, read half a column from the "Situations Vacant" portion of The Times, and amid the ensuing applause slipped quietly from the room in obedience to an unspoken signal from the First Lieutenant. After the Second Engineer had given an exhibition of what he asserted to be an Eskimo tribal dance, the First Lieutenant addressed the Assistant Paymaster.
"Now then, young fellow, it is your turn. D'you want to give us a yarn?"
But the boy had learned his lesson. "I'm afraid I don't know any yarns that would interest you, Sir," he said. "If you don't mind I think I'll turn in."
The First Lieutenant smiled on him with the mature wisdom of twenty-seven summers. "Quite right, my lad. By the way, you might look in at the bath-room on the way to your cabin and tell the Junior Watchkeeper that we shan't want the bath that he is filling from the cold tap. I'm very glad we shan't."