“You must go right off your feed,” he said.  “Let the doc. see you feebly pecking and he’ll soon get alarmed.  In the meantime I’m off to give Binnie critical accounts of your appetite and send him to market right away.”

Only a burning passion and stealthy bars of chocolate could have sustained Frederick through the next few days.  To sit down to breakfast with a healthy appetite and refuse his egg and rasher put the biggest possible strain on his constancy.  His task was made doubly difficult by the scheming of Percival, who was constantly inciting Binnie to procure fresh delicacies.

“You’ve crocked poor Freddy,” he said; “and there will be others going the same way if you don’t improve the messing.  Now I saw some nice plump chickens to-day in the....”

Thus harried, that evening Binnie provided a dinner that almost reduced Frederick to breaking-point.  Only the fact that the M.O. was sitting opposite gave him strength to refuse the soup and fish, to trifle with the chicken and turn wearily from the sweet.  As the savoury was being served he caught a scrap of conversation across the table.

“... to the boat to see her off for demob.,” the M.O. was saying to the Padre.  “Jolly nice girl—­Jim Carruthers’ daughter, you know.”

Frederick pricked up his ears.

“I remember,” said the Padre.  “She used to be at 99 General.”

There was no doubt who was the girl referred to.  Frederick sat back in his chair with a heavy sense of disappointment and loss.  He felt acutely sorry for himself.  But presently above the pain in his heart there arose a stronger and more compelling feeling.

“Corporal,” he said, “I think after all I’ll try one of those crab patties.  Or you might tell the waiter to bring in two.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Conversationalist. “EXTRAORDINARY CRIME WAVE WE’RE HAVING—­ER—­AH—­FOR THE TIME OF YEAR.”]

* * * * *

PICTURES.

  “Some likes picturs o’ women” (said Bill) “an’ some likes ’orses best,”
  As he fitted a pair of fancy shackles on to his old sea-chest;
  “But I likes picturs o’ ships” (said he), “an’ you can keep the rest.

  “An’ if I was a ruddy millionaire with dollars to burn that way,
  Instead of a dead-broke sailorman as never saves his pay,
  I’d go to some big paintin’ guy, an’ this is what I’d say:—­

  “‘Paint me The Cutty Sark’ (I’d say) ’or the old Thermopylae,
  Or The Star of Peace as I sailed in once in my young days at sea,
  Shipshape an’ Blackwall fashion too, as a clipper ought to be.

  “‘An’ you might do ‘er outward bound, with a sky full o’ clouds,
  An’ the tug just droppin’ astern an’ gulls flyin’ in crowds,
  An’ the decks shiny-wet with rain an’ the wind shakin’ the shrouds.

  “‘Or else racin’ up-Channel with a sou’-wester blowin’,
  Stuns’ls set aloft and alow an’ a hoist o’ flags showin’,
  An’ a white bone between her teeth, so’s you can see she’s goin’.