as he born? "_In a field_."

The walls, too, interest a man like me. There are notices in all the
tongues of Europe on the walls--notices of sunken wrecks, of masters
fined for submerging their loaded discs, of white lights in the
China seas altered to green ones by the Celestial Government, of
transport-medals awaiting their owners, of how to send money home
from Salonika or Copenhagen or Yokohama or Singapore. Near the
door, moreover, is a plain wooden money-box with no appeal for alms
thereon--merely a printed slip pasted along the base of it: "_There is
sorrow on the sea._" And often and often I have seen grey chief
officers and beardless "fourths" drop their sixpences into the box,
for the sake of that sorrow on the sea.

And now it is night--our last night ashore. The Second Engineer
asks me to go up town with him. The Chief has gone to see his wife
home to Cardiff, and George goes on watch at eight-bells. So for the
last time I don a linen collar and shore clothes, and we go up town.
We meet sundry youth from the ship-yard; they are going to that
iridescent music-hall into which I plunged six weeks ago when we
came in. We pay our sixpences for two hours' high-speed enjoyment,
"early performance"; enjoyment being sold nowadays very much like
electricity--at a high voltage but small cost per unit. Scarcely my
sort, I fear, but what would you? I cannot be hypercritical on this
our last night ashore. And so I strive to feel as if I were sorry to
go away, as if parting were indeed that sweet sorrow I have heard it
called, as if I really cared a scrap for the things they care for.
True, I feel the parting from my friend, and it is no sweet sorrow
either. But that is at Paddington, when the train moves, and our hands
are gripped tightly--a faint foretaste of that last terror, when he or
I shall pass away into the shadows and the other will be left alone
for ever. It is when I ponder upon that scene that I realize what our
friendship has become, that I realize how paltry every other familiar
or even relative appears by comparison. Let me treasure this
friendship carefully, healthfully, old friend, for, by my love of
life, it is rare enough in these our modern times.

I have been wondering why this is--I think it is money, or rather
business. Have you noticed how business _dehumanises_ men? I count
over in my mind dozens of men whom I know, men of age, experience, and
wealth, who almost demand that I should envy them b