She resigned the glasses to me, and took over the tiller, while I had a turn at examining the coast.

I soon made out the roof of the bungalow, which, as Joyce had said, was the only part visible.  It stood in a very lonely position, high up on a piece of rising ground, and half hidden from the sea by what seemed like a thick privet hedge.  To judge by the smoke which I could just discern rising from its solitary chimney, it looked as if the occupants were addicted to the excellent habit of early rising.

There was no other sign of them to be seen, however, and if the launch was lying anywhere about, it was at all events invisible from the sea.  I refreshed my memory with a long, careful scrutiny of the entrance to the creek, and then handing the glasses back to Joyce I again assumed control of the boat.

“Well,” I observed, “we haven’t wasted the morning.  We know where their bungalow door is, anyway.”

Joyce nodded.  “It may come in very handy,” she said, “in case you ever want to pay them a surprise call.”

Exactly how soon that contingency was going to occur we neither of us guessed or imagined!

We reached the Nore Lightship, and waving a courteous greeting to a patient-looking gentleman who was spitting over the side, commenced our long beat back in the direction of Southend.  It was slow work, for the tide was only just beginning to turn, and the wind, such as there was of it, was dead in our faces.  However, I don’t think either Joyce or I found the time hang heavily on our hands.  If one can’t be happy with the sun and the sea and the person one loves best in the world, it seems to me that one must be unreasonably difficult to please.

We fetched up off Southend Pier at just about eleven o’clock.  A hoarse-voiced person in a blue jersey, who was leaning over the end, pointed us out some moorings that we were at liberty to pick up, and then watched us critically while I stowed away the sails and locked up everything in the boat which it was possible to steal.  I had been to Southend before in the old days.

These simple precautions concluded, Joyce and I got in the dinghy and rowed to the steps.  We were met by the gentleman in blue, who considerately offered to keep his eye on the boat for us while I “and the lady” enjoyed what he called “a run round the town.”  I accepted his proposal, and having agreed with his statement that it was “a nice morning for a sail,” set off with Joyce along the mile of pier that separated us from the shore.

I don’t know that our adventures for the next two or three hours call for any detailed description.  We wandered leisurely and cheerfully through the town, buying each other one or two trifles in the way of presents, and then adjourned for lunch to a large and rather dazzling hotel that dominated the sea front.  It was a new effort on the part of Southend since my time, but, as Joyce said, it “looked the sort of place where one was likely to get asparagus.”