Bloemfontein and start in cattle-raising. It's big and peaceful – a ten-thousand-acre farm. I could go on inventing there, too. I'll sell my Zigler, I guess. I'll offer the patent rights to the British Government; and if they do the 'reelly-now-how-interesting' act over her, I'll turn her over to Captain Mankeltow and his friend the Lord. They'll pretty quick find some Gussie, or Teddie, or Algie who can get her accepted in the proper quarters. I'm beginning to know my English.
"And now I'll go in swimming, and read the papers after lunch. I haven't had such a good time since Willie died." He pulled the blue shirt over his head as the bathers returned to their piles of clothing, and, speaking through the folds, added:
"But if you want to realise your assets, you should lease the whole proposition to America for ninety-nine years."
THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
POSEIDON'S LAW
When the robust and brass-bound man commissioned first for sea
His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and, "Mariner," said he,
"Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.
"Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
But ye the unhoodwinked waves shall test – the immediate gulfs condemn —
Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.
"Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts.
"Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts,
A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts —
The wide and windward-opened eye, the large and lavish hand,
The soul that cannot tell a lie – except upon the land!"
In dromond and in catafract – wet, wakeful, windward-eyed —
He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brass-bound man ashore.
The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,
And where three hundred blades bit white the twin-propellers ply:
The God that hailed, the keel that sailed, are changed beyond recall,
But the robust and brass-bound man he is not changed at all!
From Punt returned, from Phormio's Fleet, from Javan and Gadire,
He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire,
And, moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice,
Revenges there the brass-bound man his long-enforced truce!
THE BONDS OF DISCIPLINE
As literature, it is beneath contempt. It concerns the endurance, armament, turning-circle, and inner gear of every ship in the British Navy – the whole embellished with profile plates. The Teuton approaches the matter with pagan thoroughness; the Muscovite runs him close; but the Gaul, ever an artist, breaks enclosure to study the morale, at the present day, of the British sailorman.
In this, I conceive, he is from time to time aided by the zealous amateur, though I find very little in his dispositions to show that he relies on that amateur's hard-won information. There exists – unlike some other publication, it is not bound in lead boards – a work by one "M. de C.," based on the absolutely unadorned performances of one of our well-known Acolyte type of cruisers. It contains nothing that did not happen. It covers a period of two days; runs to twenty-seven pages of large type exclusive of appendices; and carries as many exclamation points as the average Dumas novel.
I read it with care, from the adorably finished prologue – it is the disgrace of our Navy that we cannot produce a commissioned officer capable of writing one page of lyric prose – to the eloquent, the joyful, the impassioned end; and my first notion was that I had been cheated. In this sort of book-collecting you will see how entirely the bibliophile lies at the mercy of his agent.
"M. de C.," I read, opened his campaign by stowing away in one of her boats what time H.M.S. Archimandrite lay off Funchal. "M. de C." was, always on behalf of his country, a Madeira Portuguese fleeing from the conscription. They discovered him eighty miles at sea and bade him assist the cook. So far this seemed fairly reasonable. Next day, thanks to his histrionic powers and his ingratiating address, he was promoted to the rank of "supernumerary captain's servant" – a "post which," I give his words, "I flatter myself, was created for me alone, and furnished me with opportunities unequalled for a task in which one word malapropos would have been my destruction."
From this point onward, earth and water between them held no marvels like to those "M. de C." had "envisaged" – if I translate him correctly. It became clear to me that "M. de C." was either a pyramidal liar, or…
I was not acquainted with any officer, seaman, or marine in the Archimandrite; but instinct told me I could not go far wrong if I took a third-class ticket to Plymouth.
I gathered information on the way from a leading stoker, two seaman- gunners, and an odd hand in a torpedo factory. They courteously set my feet on the right path, and that led me through the alleys of Devonport to a public-house not fifty yards from the water. We drank with the proprietor, a huge, yellowish man called Tom Wessels; and when my guides had departed, I asked if he could produce any warrant or petty officer of the Archimandrite.
"The Bedlamite, d'you mean – 'er last commission, when they all went crazy?"
"Shouldn't wonder," I replied. "Fetch me a sample and I'll see."
"You'll excuse me, o' course, but – what d'you want 'im for?"
"I want to make him drunk. I want to make you drunk – if you like. I want to make him drunk here."
"Spoke very 'andsome. I'll do what I can." He went out towards the water that lapped at the foot of the street. I gathered from the pot-boy that he was a person of influence beyond Admirals.
In a few minutes I heard the noise of an advancing crowd, and the voice of Mr. Wessels.
"'E only wants to make you drunk at 'is expense. Dessay 'e'll stand you all a drink. Come up an' look at 'im. 'E don't bite."
A square man, with remarkable eyes, entered at the head of six large bluejackets. Behind them gathered a contingent of hopeful free-drinkers.
"'E's the only one I could get. Transferred to the Postulant six months back. I found 'im quite accidental." Mr. Wessels beamed.
"I'm in charge o' the cutter. Our wardroom is dinin' on the beach en masse. They won't be home till mornin'," said the square man with the remarkable eyes. "Are you an Archimandrite?" I demanded.
"That's me. I was, as you might say."
"Hold
