dings to topple over; flagpoles to snap
asunder, signs to blow down; chimneys to shower their bricks on your
head; not to mention the death-dealing currents that come through
telegraph and telephone wires? Add to this threatening collection trees
and snow-slides and slippery pavements and you have quite a list of
horrors. Danger! Why, the land is nothing but maelstrom of catastrophes
compared with which the serenity of the open sea, with nothing but its
moon and stars overhead, is an oasis of safety. Of course there are
certain things you must be on your guard against while on the
water--fogs, icebergs and gales. But where can you find a spot under
God's heaven entirely free from the possibilities of mishap of some
sort? I'd a hundred times rather take the risks the sea holds than run
my chances on land. Besides, aren't we a city, same as you? Just
because we are afloat and you can boast the solid ground under your
feet is it a sign we are not citizens with laws and duties? with the
wireless singing its messages to us wherever we go we certainly are not
cut off from the rest of the world."

For a moment he paused to catch his breath.

"No, siree!" continued he. "We folks on shipboard simply belong to a
floating republic, that's all. It's our country same as this is yours,
and we love it quite as much as you do."

"I never thought of the ocean that way," Mary returned with a
thoughtful smile. "It's always seemed to me a big, big place without
any--any streets or----"

"But we have streets, lassie," cried her uncle, instantly catching her
up. "Regular avenues they are. Travel 'em and you'll meet the passing
same as you would were you to drive along a boulevard. They are the
ocean highways, the latitudes and longitudes found to be the best paths
between given countries. In some cases the way chosen is shorter; or
maybe experience has proved it to be freer from fog or icebergs.
Anyhow, it has become an accepted thoroughfare and is as familiar to
seafaring men as if it had been smoothed down with a steam roller and
had a signpost set to mark it. Never think, child, of the ocean as a
lonely, uncharted waste of water. It is a nice quiet place with as much
sociability on it as a man wants. You don't, to be sure, rub elbows
with your neighbors as you do ashore; but on the other hand you don't
have to put up with their racket. Pleasant as it is to be on land the
hum of it gets on my nerves in time, and I am always thankful to