Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/202

 taken up by them was probably not more than 5 cubic feet. Well, so much for the chaser.

There were only 14 men in our crew and there was far less formality on board than on a battleship. Bill Adams and I got to be pretty good pals. The first time I met him he was trying out one of her and I was watching him.

“Where did you get that chunk of mud?” he queried as he pointed the gun at an imaginary U-boat.

“Speaking to me?” I asked in turn.

“You said it,” he replied bluntly.

“If you refer to the sparkler on my annularis finger I have to inform you, sir, that it came from the land of the Raripunas about 1500 miles up the Amazon river,” I explained with great perspicacity.

You see, I had had the diamonds cut that Princess Mabel gave me and the one I wore was a  weighing about 2 carats and it was mounted in a. In fact it was altogether too big a diamond for any ordinary blue-jacket to come by honestly.

“That’s where it came from, but I’m askin’ you, as man to man now, where did you get it?”