"And that," said my informant, "put the lid on!" Boanerges went down
lest he should be tempted to murder; and the tramp affirms she heard
him rumbling beneath her, like an inverted thunder-storm, for fifteen
minutes.

"All those tramps ought to be disarmed, and _we_ ought to have all
their guns," said a voice out of a corner.

"What? Still worrying over your 'mug'?" some one replied.

"He _was_ a mug!" went on the man of one idea. "If I'd had a couple of
twelves even, I could have strafed him proper. I don't know whether I
shall mutiny, or desert, or write to the First Sea Lord about it."

"Strafe all Admiralty constructors to begin with. _I_ could build a
better boat with a 4-inch lathe and a sardine-tin than ----," the
speaker named her by letter and number.

"That's pure jealousy," her commander explained to the company. "Ever
since I installed--ahem!--my patent electric washbasin he's been
intriguin' to get her. Why? We know he doesn't wash. He'd only use
the basin to keep beer in."


UNDERWATER WORKS

However often one meets it, as in this war one meets it at every turn,
one never gets used to the Holy Spirit of Man at his job. The "common
sweeper," growling over his mug of tea that there was "nothing in
sweepin'," and these idly chaffing men, new shaved and attired, from