.

.
But upon this came the recollection of those cruel words: "_What a dam funny-looking little man!_" He might--he assuredly would--keep them a secret in his own breast.
But they echoed there.
His vanity was robust.

Again and again it asserted its health in his day-dreams, expelling, or all but expelling, that poisonous memory.
Only at night, in his hammock, it awoke again--sinister, premonitory.
But as yet the man continued cheerfully incredulous.

Fate was playing, less on him than through him, a rare practical joke--no more.
On the eighth of June, at about nine o'clock in the evening, it occurred to Admiral Lord Keith that the wind and weather afforded an excellent opportunity of testing the _Vesuvius's_ far-famed catamaran against the shipping moored off Boulogne pier.

He signalled accordingly; and at nine-thirty, under the eyes of the squadron, a boat from the bomb-ship started to tow the infernal machine towards the harbour.