furnaces
big as houses, whose proportions were eloquent of the colossal ships
that were to be. But here indeed, all things were on a gigantic
scale; ponderous lathes were turning, mighty planing machines swung
unceasing back and forth, while other monsters bored and cut through
steel plate as it had been so much cardboard.

"Good machines, these!" said my companion, patting one of these
monsters with familiar hand, "all made in Britain!"

"Like the men!" I suggested.

"The men," said he. "Humph! They haven't been giving much trouble
lately--touch wood!"

"Perhaps they know Britain just now needs every man that is a man," I
suggested, "and some one has said that a man can fight as hard at
home here with a hammer as in France with a rifle."

"Well, there's a lot of fighting going on here," nodded my companion,
"we're fighting night and day and we're fighting damned hard. And now
we'd better hurry; your party will be cursing you in chorus."

"I'm afraid it has before now!" said I.

So we hurried on, past shops whence came the roar of machinery,
past great basins wherein floated destroyers and torpedo boats, past
craft of many kinds and fashions, ships built and building; on I
hastened, tripping over more cables, dodging from the buffers of
snorting engines and deafened again by the fearsome din of the
riveting-hammers, until I found my travelling companions assembled
and ready to depart. Scrambling hastily into the nearest motor car I
shook hands with this shortish, broad-shouldered, square-jawed man
and bared my head, for, so far as these great works were concerned,
he was in very truth a superman. Thus I left him to oversee the
building of these mighty ships, which have been and will ever be the
might of these small islands.

But, even as I went speeding through dark streets, in my ears, rising
high above the hum of our engine was the unceasing din, the
remorseless ring and clash of the riveting-hammers.

V

SHIPS IN MAKING

Build me straight, O worthy Master!
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
--_Longfellow._

He was an old man with that indefinable courtliness of bearing that
is of a past generation; tall and spare he was, his white head bowed
a little by weight of years, but almost with my first glance I seemed
to recognise him instinctively for that "worthy Master Builder of
goodly vessels