Naval Occasions, and Some Traits of the Sailor-man

all boy in the uniform of a Naval Cadet st

decision that he was a railway official of vast, if premature, responsibilities. He leaned over the balustrade and looked up harbour; beyond the scattered yachts and coal-hulks, black against the path of the sunset, lay the old Brit

sort of way he thought of the thousands of other boys those wooden walls had shelt

, life was all picnics and dances. He saw them yet farther afield, chasing slavers, patrolling pirate-infested creeks, fighting through jungle and swamp, lying stark beneath desert stars, ... and ever fresh ones came to fill the vacant plac

ut in some dim way he realised it was part of his new heritage, a sort of broth

mands other sacrifices. How, in order that men might die to martial music, must sometimes come first an even greater heroism of self-denial. Years of thrift and

hin arm inside his. It is rarely given to men to live worthy of the mothers that bore them; a few-a very few-are perm

ntervals throughout the meal the embryo admirals glanced at one another with furtive interest. After dinner the mother and son sat on the balcony watching the lights of the yachts twinkling across the water, and talked i

tar and resin. She saw the chest-deck, where servants were slinging hammocks above the black-and-white painted chests-the ch

ficer; and as he spoke she knew the time had

erman's boat till it was out of sight. Then he turned with a desperate longing for privacy-anywhere where he could go and bl