"Officers' wives eat puddings and pies, But soldiers' wives eat skilly."
"What the dickens does it mean?" he murmured, and then, raising his voice, hailed the mysterious steamer.
"Ahoy there, ahoy! Where away?" came the answer.
The fog lifted again, and this time Lawless could see the decks thronged with anxious passengers and the captain leaning over the port bridge-rail.
"The _Cotswold_, for Hull. Just sighted an enemy submarine and opened fire on her," came the answer.
"About ten minutes. She was using her machine-gun."
"Why don't you provide your look-outs with spectacles?" answered Lawless wrathfully. "It was me you sighted, not a submarine!"
"I saw her periscope," answered the skipper of the _Cotswold_.
"Saw your grandmother! You opened fire on me and I replied."
"Then it was your business to hail me. Pity you haven't something better to do than take pot shots at passenger boats," answered the merchant skipper with some heat.
The latter was obviously in the wrong, but, as a matter of fact, during his voyage across the Atlantic he had been chased by two enemy submarines and only by skilful seamanship and unceasing vigilance had succeeded in eluding them and saving his ship. He was, therefore, a trifle "nervy" and apt to suspect every indistinguishable floating object he met of being a submarine. Possibly, seen dimly through the fog, the _Knat_ looked something like a submarine awash and the captain of the _Cotswold_ had been justified in opening fire on her. Lawless, however, was ignorant of this, and the skipper's last taunt made him almost dance with rage. Fortunately, perhaps, another fog bank rolled up at this moment and the two vessels were again hidden from each other.
For some moments Lawless growled to himself things which, had the captain of the _Cotswold_ heard them, might have produced a resumption of hostilities. Suddenly he gave vent to an exclamation:
"Extraordinary phenomenon; I'll have to make a note of it in the log. 'Seven p.m. Commanding Officer seized----'"
"Don't try and be funny, it's too pathetic. What I'm going to do is to give that skipper the biggest shaking up he's ever had. If I don't get even with him you can call me Von Tirpitz and I'll turn the other cheek."