ings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Meanwhile the speck has enlarged itself into a blot with a tag above
it and some cotton-woolly smoke. "'Tis the _Nautilas_," observes the
Mate, and he calls it "Naughty Lass" with hibernian unconsciousness of
his own humour. I wonder, now, why it is that we sailor-men invariably
display such frantic _feminine_ interest when another craft heaves in
sight. The most contemptible fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, when
she appears on the horizon, receives the notice of all hands--the old
as well as the young. And when we pass a sister ship, the _Aretino_ or
the _Cosimo_ or the _Angelo_; in mid-ocean, we talk about her and
criticise her, and rake out her past history, for days. I sometimes
think, from hints the Mate drops, that our own _Benvenuto_ has a past,
a St. John's Wood past I mean, not a Haymarket past. But he will have
no talk by others against the ship. "What's the matter with the ship?"
he will shout. "Damn it all, I like the ship! She's a good old ship,
an' I glory in her!" So we talk scandal about the others instead.

Here, on the ragged edge of the Empire, things are managed
expeditiously by the authorities. Scarcely an hour after the
_Nautilas_ has dropped her pick the tugboat comes out again and flings
us our mail. Bosun and donkeyman trudge aft and take the letters for
the foc'sle, the mess-room steward deposits a letter in my lap, and I
think of my friend. At this moment he is engaged in repartee with the
housekeeper as she lays the table for tea. The heavy twilight is
settling down over the river outside; lovers are pacing the walk as
they return from their Sunday tramp. Possibly, too, that fantastic
scene which he has described to me is now enacting. He is at the
piano; the housekeeper, in tears, is on her knees beside him, and they
raise their melodious voices "_for those in peril on the sea_." How
affecting, for one to be so remembered! I thank them both with all my
heart.

And now he tells me that his play goes well, and I am glad. It will
indeed be a red-letter day when I pay my shilling and climb into the
gallery to see his work. No, I shall not criticise. Probably I shall
hardly listen. I shall be thinking many thoughts, dreaming dreams,
feeling simply very glad and very proud.

I sympathise always with his struggles with his _personnel_, but I
think, though, he hardly allows enough for the point of view. These
actors and actresses are not literary. (They