at the critical moment of 'staying' it would pretty certainly
mean disaster. Also the yacht (as I began by saying) was a hired one, and
the captain tender about his responsibility. Rather ignominiously,
therefore, we turned tail; and just as we did so, a handsome sea, arched
and green, the tallest of the lot, applauded our prudence. All the same,
our professional pride was wounded. To stay at anchor is one thing: to
weigh and stand for the attempt and then run home again 'hard up,' as a
sailor would say, is quite another. There was a Greek mariner, the other
day, put on his trial with one or two comrades for murder and mutiny on
the high seas. They had disapproved of their captain's altering the helm,
and had pitched him incontinently overboard. On being asked what he had
to say in his defence, the prisoner merely cast up his hands and sobbed,
"Oh, cursed hour in which we put about!" We recalled this simple but
apposite story.

Having seen to our anchor and helped to snug down the mainsail, I went
below in the very worst of tempers, to find the cabin floor littered with
the contents of a writing-case and a box of mixed biscuits, which had
broken loose in company. As I stooped to collect the _debris_, this
appeal (type-written) caught my eye:--

"Dear Sir,--Our paper is contemplating a Symposium of literary
and eminent men--"

(Observe the distinction.)

"--On the subject of 'What is your favourite Modern Lyric?' I need
not say how much interest would attach to the opinion of one
who," etc.

I put my head up the companion and addressed a friend who was lacing tight
the cover of the mainsail viciously, with the help of his teeth.

"Look here, X," I said. "What is your favourite Modern Lyric?"

"That one," he answered (still with the lace between his teeth), "which
begins--

"'Curse the people, blast the people,
Damn the lower orders!'"

X as a rule calls himself a Liberal-Conservative: but a certain acerbity
of temper may be forgiven in a man who has just assisted (against all his
instincts) in an act of poltroonery. He explained, too, that it was a
genuine, if loosely remembered, quotation from Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn
Law Rhymer. "Yet in circumstances of peril," he went on, "and in moments
of depression, you cannot think what sustenance I have derived from those
lines."

"Then you had best send them up," said I, "to the _Daily Post_.
It is conducting a Symposium."