"His hands are warm and moist," confirmed one of the Watchkeepers. "He wipes them furtively on the slack of his trousers in frightened anticipation."
The Indiarubber Man reddened. "You silly asses!"
The Junior Watchkeeper squirmed with delight. "He is--he _is_! He's going poodle-faking. And in war time, too! You dog, Bunje!"
"Can't a fellow know people ashore without a lot of untutored clowns trying to be funny about it?" demanded the victim.
"It's the spring," said the Young Doctor. "Bunje's young fancy is lightly turning--yes, it is." The Surgeon sniffed the air judicially. "The bay rum upon your hair proclaims it. Ah, me! The heyday of youth!" He sighed. "'Time was when love and I were well acquainted.'"
"That's a fact," retorted the Indiarubber Man bitterly. "But you needn't brag about it. I haven't been shipmates with you for four years for nothing. There's nothing you can tell me about your hideous past that I don't know already."
The picket-boat slid alongside the landing place and went astern.
The Engineer Commander made his way towards the little cabin. As the senior officer of the party, his was the privilege of embarking last and disembarking first. "Don't wait for me," he said. "Unstow! I've got to get my golf-clubs."
The Indiarubber Man took him at his word. "Right. I'll carry on, if I may." He leaped ashore, and set off with long strides in the direction of the town.
The First Lieutenant gazed after him. There was a general feeling that the Indiarubber Man had suddenly assumed an unfamiliar and inexplicable role. "Now, what the devil is he up to, I wonder?"
The others, mystified, shook their heads.
The mothers of Midshipmen have a means of scenting the whereabouts of a fleet that mere censorship of letters cannot balk. There were at least half a dozen mothers in the _foyer_ of the big, garish hotel on the sea-front. Some were tête-à-tête with their sons in snug, upholstered corners, learning aspects of naval warfare that no historian will ever record. Others presided over heavily laden tea-tables at which their sons and their sons' more intimate friends were dealing with eggs and buttered toast, marmalade, watercress, plum-cake, and toasted scones in a manner which convinced their half-alarmed relatives that famine must have stalked the British Navy ever since the War started.