n the tangled cliff-garden, tethered Caliban
in the tool-shed, and watched the white surf far withdrawn, or listened
to its murmur between the lordly boles of the red-currant bushes.
For the first time he became aware of some limitations in Billy.

He had long been aware of some serious limitations in his nurse: she
could not, for instance, sail a boat, and her only knot was a "granny."
He never dreamed of despising her, being an affectionate boy; but more
and more he went his own way without consulting her. Yet it was she
who--unconsciously and quite as if it were nothing out of the way--
handed him the clue.

A flagstaff stood in the garden on a grassy platform, half-way down the
cliff-side, and the boy at his earnest wish had been given charge of it.
On weekdays, as a rule he hoisted two flags--an ensign on the gaff, and
a single code-flag at the mast-head; but on Sundays he usually ran up
three or four, and with the help of the code-book spelt out some message
to the harbour. Sometimes, too, if an old friend happened to take up
her moorings at the red buoy below, he would have her code-letters
hoisted to welcome her, or would greet and speed her with such signals
as K.T.N., "Glad to see you," and B.R.D., or B.Q.R., meaning "Good-bye,"
"A pleasant passage." Skippers fell into the habit of dipping their
flags to him as they were towed out to sea, and a few amused themselves
while at anchor by pulling out their bags of bunting and signalling
humorous conversations, though their topmasts reached so near to the
boy's platform that they might with less labour have talked through a
speaking-trumpet.

One morning before Christmas six vessels lay below at the buoy, moored
stem to stem in two tiers of three; and, after hoisting his signal
(C.P.B.H. for "Christmas Eve"), he ran indoors with the news that all
six were answering with bushes of holly at their topmast heads, while
one--a Danish barquentine--had rove stronger halliards and carried a
tall fir-tree at the main, its branches reaching many feet above her
truck.

"Christmas is Christmas," said his nurse. "When I was young, at such
times there wouldn't be a ship in the harbour without its talking-bush."

"What is a talking-bush?" the boy asked.

"And you pretend to be a sailor! Well, well--not to know what happens
on Christmas night when the clocks strike twelve!"

The boy's eyes grew round. "Do--the--ships--talk?"

"Why, of course they do! For my part,