o back their faith in it. And perhaps it was not the worst policy in
the world to tell them what that navy was doing.

Still he said No.

But why?

Well, for one thing (he was disintegrating a little), in the British
service they did not allow civilians of any kind to go to sea with their
ships in war time. That further--they allowed no reports of their work
at sea to appear in the press.

I pointed out that reports of fine deeds were, nevertheless, appearing
in the press; that from the London dailies of the week past I had made
clippings of such, and if he cared to see them I would show them to him.

"But we allow no civilians to go cruising with ships at sea in war time.
And I will not establish a precedent now."

It was the old fetich--precedent. I thought of judges who used to hang
men on precedent. He surely had what is called the mediaeval mind, with
apologies to that same mediaeval age.

I pointed out that conditions in our country and his were not the same.
That there were hundreds of thousands of officers and men in the British
navy; that those officers and men were regularly ashore on liberty or
leave; that they gossiped, and that hundreds of thousands of officers
and men gossiping could pass the word pretty far, especially in a
country where there was not a single little hamlet more than 40 miles
from tide-water. With us it was different. Our nearest Atlantic port was
3,000 miles from this very naval base; and 3,000 miles farther to the
Pacific coast, with no hundreds of thousands of men on liberty ashore.
If men like myself were not allowed to tell them something, how were
they ever to learn what was doing?

I wound up by telling him he was an autocrat; which disturbed his graven
serenity. Autocrat and autocracy were not pleasant-sounding words just
then. He snapped his head up, and for the first time looked as if he
might be human.

"We have to be autocratic in war time," he barked.

"Not in everything," I barked back.

Then, and not till then, did he soften. We had a little more
conversation, and then he said he wanted that night to think over the
unprecedented request. He would let me know next day.

A perfect bigot; and yet there were worse than he. He dared to say what
he thought about the rights of his station. Some of his judgments may
have been childish, but his convictions were deep and honest. I
respected him, and later came to have almost a liking for him.

I have expended many par