u (O excellent
friends!), let us move swiftly over the gooseberry tart. There was
the gooseberry tart, and again, a few minutes later, it was not
there. All things have their appointed end. "Boy!" said the captain.
(Must I remind you, we were on imperial soil.) Is it to be said that
the club rose to the captain's cabin once more, and matters of
admirable purport were tastefully discussed, as is the habit of us
mariners?

"The drastic sanity of the sea"--it is a phrase from a review of one
of the captain's own books, "Merchantmen-at-Arms," which this club
(so it runs upon the minutes), as lovers of sea literature,
officially hope may soon be issued on this side also. It is a
phrase, if these minutes are correct, from a review written by H.M.
Tomlinson, another writer of the sea, of whom we have spoken before,
and may, in God's providence, again. "The drastic sanity of the sea"
was the phrase that lingered in our mind as we heard the captain
talk of books and of discipline at sea and of the trials imposed
upon shipmasters by the La Follette act. (What, the club wondered
inwardly, does Mr. La Follette know of seafaring?) "The drastic
sanity of the sea!" We thought of other sailors we had known, and
how they had found happiness and simplicity in the ordered combat
with their friendly enemy. A virtue goes out of a ship (Joseph
Conrad said, in effect) when she touches her quay. Her beauty and
purpose are, for the moment, dulled and dimmed. But even there, how
much she brings us. How much, even though we do not put it into
words, the faces and accents of our seafaring friends give us in the
way of plain wisdom and idealism. And the secretary, as he stepped
aboard the hubbub of a subway train, was still pondering "the
drastic sanity of the sea."

[Illustration]

INITIATION

Allured by the published transactions of the club, our friend Lawton
presented himself at the headquarters toward lunch time and
announced himself as a candidate for membership. An executive
session was hastily convened. Endymion broke the news to the
candidate that initiates in this select organization are expected to
entertain the club at luncheon. To the surprise of the club, our
genial visitor neither shrank nor quailed. His face was bland and
his bearing ambitious in the extreme. Very well, he said; as long as
it isn't the Beaux Arts cafe.

The itinerary of the club for this day had already been arranged by
the secretary. The two