ip which had been in action had some souvenir which
the enemy had sent on board in anger and which was preserved with
a collector's enthusiasm.

The Inflexible seemed as good as ever she was. Such is the way of
naval warfare. Either it is to the bottom of the sea or to dry docks and
repairs. There is nothing half-way. So it is well to take care that you
have "the range of them."

XXX
On The Fleet Flagship

Thus far we have skirted around the heart of things, which in a fleet is
always the Commander-in-Chief's flagship. Our handy, agile
destroyer ran alongside a battleship with as much nonchalance as
she would go alongside a pier. I should not have been surprised to
see her pirouette over the hills or take to flying.

There was a time when those majestic and pampered ladies, the
battleships--particularly if there were a sea running as in this harbour
at the time--having in mind the pride of paint, begged all destroyers to
keep off with the superciliousness of grandes dames holding their
skirts aloof from contact with nimble, audacious street gamins, who
dodged in and out of the traffic of muddy streets. But destroyers have
learned better manners, perhaps, and battleships have been
democratized. It is the day of Russian dancers and when aeroplanes
loop the loop, and we have grown used to all kinds of marvels.

But the sea has refused to be trained. It is the same old sea that it
was in Columbus' time, without any loss of trickiness in bumping
small craft against towering sides. The way that this destroyer slid up
to the flagship without any fuss and the way her bluejackets held her
off from the paint, as she rose on the crests and slipped back into the
trough, did not tell the whole story. A part of it was how, at the right
interval, they assisted the landlubber to step from gunwale to
gangway, making him feel perfectly safe when he would have been
perfectly helpless but for them.

I had often watched our own bluejackets at the same thing. They did
not grin--not when you were looking at them. Nor did the British.
Bluejackets are noted for their official politeness. I should like to have
heard their remarks--they have a gift for remarks--about those
invaders of their uniformed world in Scottish caps and other kinds of
caps and the different kinds of clothes which tailors make for civilians.
Without any intention of eavesdropping, I did overhear one asking
another whence came these strange birds.

You kn