“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” said he, “if you were shipped to one of these new Submarine Provokers.”

“What’s that?” I asked uneasily.

“Why, it’s a sort of a dee-coy,” said he, stretching his huge hulk, “a little, unarmed boat that goes messing around in the ocean until it finds a submarine and then it provokes it.”

“How’s that?” asked Tim.

“Why, you see,” continued the jimmy-legs, “it just sort of steams back and forth in front of the submarine, just steams slowly back and forth in front of the submarine until it provokes it.”

“Ah!” said I, taking a deep breath.

“Yes,” he continues cheerfully, “and the more you provoked the submarine why the harder it shoots at you, so of course it doesn’t notice the real Submarine Sinker coming up behind it.  See the tactics.”

“Oh,” says I, “we just provoke the submarine until it loses its temper and the other boat sinks it.”

“That’s it,” says the jimmy-legs, “you just sort of steam back and forth in front of it slowly.”

“How slowly?” asks the Spider.

“Very,” replied the jimmy-legs.

“No guns at all?” asks Tim.

“None,” says he.

“A regular little home,” suggests Tony.

“Sure,” says the jimmy-legs, “nothing to do at all but steam slowly back—­”

“For God’s sake don’t dwell on that point any more!” I cried.  “We understand it perfectly.”

“A regular lil’ home,” muttered Tim as he began to stow his bag.

(Later) I write these lines with horror.  Some one has told me that the Navy needs Powder tasters, something I’d never heard of before, and that perhaps—­that’s what we are going to be used for.  All you have to do, this guy says, is to taste the powder to see if it’s damp or dry and if it’s damp you take it away and bake it.  This sounds worse than the Submarine Provoker.

(Still later) Rumor is rife.  The latest report is that we are going to be Mine Openers.

“What’s a Mine Opener?” I asked my informant.

“Why, it’s a guy,” says he, “that picks up the mines floating around his boat, but only the German mines of course, and opens them to see if they are as dangerous as they look.  Some are not half as dangerous as they look,” he continues easily, “some are not quite so dangerous and of course some are a great deal more so.  But they are all dangerous enough.”

“My dear chap,” I replied, turning away miserably, “a pinwheel is quite dangerous enough for me.”

Sept. 6th. This is being written from the gate.  My bag and hammock are beside me.  Tim lashed them together for me so they wouldn’t come undone.  We are waiting for the truck.  Tony in his excitable way wants to kiss the guard good-by.  The guard doesn’t want him to.  My last moments at Pelham have been hectic.  The doctor said I looked one hundred per cent better than when I came in, but that wasn’t enough.  If you didn’t