he has been known to hint that on more than one occasion it was primarily
due to his efforts that the world was eventually made safe for democracy;
but of this his greatest exploit he will never speak without pressure, and
even then but diffidently.

When WILLIAM HOHENZOLLERN first cried "Havoc" and let slip the Prussian
Guard, Reginald was among the most unsophisticated of landsmen. He had
never in his life so much as heard a bo'sun's pipe and could scarcely
distinguish a battleship from a bathing-machine. But the blood of a
maritime ancestry ran hot in his veins, and, being too highly educated to
get on in the Army, he placed himself at the disposal of the Senior
Service, which embraced him gladly. Henceforth his career was one of
unbroken triumph.

Having taken a First in Mechanical Sciences at Cambridge, Reginald was at
once detailed off for deck-swabbing on a Portsmouth depôt ship; but one day
an enterprising Rear-Admiral of the younger school, noting his scientific
manner of manipulating a squeegee, had him sent before the Flag Captain,
who, on learning his antecedents, recommended the blushing Reginald for the
post of batman to the Senior Wireless Officer. Here his talents showed to
such advantage that in a little over a year he received a commission as
technical officer, and was placed in charge of an experimental Torpedo
School, well away from the storms and tempests that vexed his less gifted
brothers.

It were tedious to relate Reginald's adventures during the next two
years--how time and again he baffled the cunning devices of the German
naval scientists--how he invented a pivotal billiard-table for use on
drifters in rough weather and perfected an electro-magnetic contrivance by
means of which enemy submarines were inveigled into torpedoing themselves