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 pinnace, Hinch, an’ creep for it. It won’t be more than five miles back."

The two men, with bowed heads, moved up the road.

"Look like etymologists, don’t they? Does she decant her innards often, so to speak?" Pyecroft asked.

I told him the true tale of a race-full of ball bearings strewn four miles along a Hampshire road, and by me recovered in detail. He was profoundly touched.

"Poor Hinch! Poor—poor Hinch!" he said. "And that’s only one of her little games, is it? He’ll be homesick for the Navy by night."

When the search-party doubled back with the missing screw, it was Hinchcliffe who replaced it in less than five minutes, while my engineer looked on admiringly.

"Your boiler’s only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling from beneath her. "She’s a wicker-willow lunchbasket below. She’s a runnin’ miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?"

I told him.

"And yet you were afraid to come into the Nightmare’s engine-room when we were runnin’ trials!"

"It’s all a matter of taste," Pyecroft volunteered. "But I will say for you, Hinch, you’ve certainly got the hang of her steamin’ gadgets in quick time."

He was driving her very sweetly, but with a worried look in his eye and a tremor in his arm.