up at Eastleigh for a few minutes; then, just as it was on the move, Dacres happened to catch a glimpse of his late fellow-passenger seated in a Portsmouth train by the furthermost platform.  

"H'm! Decidedly funny way to get to Southampton Docks by that train," he muttered. "That fellow was trying to pull my leg over the cold storage business, I'll be bound. Bless me, if I like the cut of your jib. I am not generally given to presupposition, but something seems to tell me that you and I will fall foul of each other before very long."    

CHAPTER VI.

CHALLENGED.

  REFERRING to the back of an envelope on which he had jotted down the times of the trains, Dacres found upon alighting at Brockenhurst junction that he had three-quarters of an hour to wait. Since he did not feel inclined to cool his heels on the station platform he made up his mind to take a stroll through the village, have tea, and thus turn the interval of waiting to good account.  

The air was cool, the dense foliage afforded a pleasant shelter from the slanting though powerful rays of the sun, and Dacres began to feel quite easy in his mind.  

"By George!" he ejaculated. "That airship seems to interest me far more than my forthcoming interview with the governor. I wonder if she has been sighted again. I'll get an evening paper at the bookstall when I return to the station. How jolly fine the forest scenery is. Now I am not surprised that the pater came down to this part of the country if the scenery around Cranbury House is anything like this."  

A plain but substantial tea filled Dacres' cup of contentment to the brim. English bread, fresh country butter, and watercress, after the fare obtainable on board the "Royal Oak" in the Tropics, combined to make the most appetizing meal he had tasted for months past. It reminded him of the saying of an old chief boatswain on returning to England after a two years' arduous commission mostly in the Persian Gulf.  

"Bless you, sir," said the warrant officer emphatically. "Directly I set foot ashore at Portsmouth I'll order a prime beefsteak and a tankard—not a glass, mind you—of ale."  

Two months later the chief bo's'un retired with the rank of lieutenant, and forthwith settled down in the country. One of his first acts was to hire a man to stand outside his bedroom window every evening from ten to eleven, his duty being to throw 

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