s members all possess a hopeless passion for the sea, and
besiege their mothers for promises that their future life shall be that
of middies. They wear straw hats and loose blue shirts, and affect as
much of the sailor in their costume as they can. Each has a boat, or as
they call it a "vessel," and the build and rig of these vessels is a
subject of constant discussion and rivalry in the section. Much critical
inquiry is directed to the propriety of Arthur's jib, or the necessity
of "ballasting" or pouring a little molten lead into Edward's keel. The
launch of a new vessel is the event of the week. The coast-guardsman is
brought in to settle knotty questions of naval architecture and
equipment, and the little seamen listen to his verdicts, his yarns, the
records of his voyages, with a wondering reverence. They ask knowingly
about the wind and the prospects of the weather; they submit to his
higher knowledge their theories as to the nature and destination of each
vessel that passes; they come home with a store of naval phrases which
are poured recklessly out over the tea-table. The pier is a favourite
haunt of the naval section. They delight in sitting on rough coils of
old rope. Nothing that is of the sea comes amiss to them. "I like the
smell of tar," shouts a little enthusiast. They tell tales among
themselves of the life of a middie and the fun of the "fo-castle," and
watch the waves leaping up over the pier-head with a wild longing to
sing 'Rule Britannia.' Every ship in the offing is a living thing to
them, and the appearance of a man-of-war sends them sleepless to bed.

There is but one general meeting of the children's congress, and that is
in front of the bathing-machines. Rows of little faces wait for their
turn, watching the dash of the waves beneath the wheels, peeping at the
black-robed figures who are bobbing up and down in the sea, half longing
for their dip, half shrinking as the inevitable moment comes nearer and
nearer, dashing forward joyously at last as the door opens and the
bathing woman's "Now, my dear," summons them to the quaint little box.
One lingers over the sight as one lingers over a bed of flowers. There
is all the fragrance, the colour, the sweet caprice, the wilfulness, the
delight of childhood in the tiny figures that meet us on the return from
their bath, with dancing eyes and flushed cheeks and hair streaming over
their shoulders. What a hero the group finds in the urchin who never
crie