day--and he makes good ones,
but he would rather, I think, hold an open reception where Tom, Dick,
Vera, Phyllis and Harry crowded about him in a democratic mob to shake
his hand.

Yet though he does not like speech-making, he showed from the beginning
that he meant to master the repugnant art. To read speeches, as he did
in the early days of the tour, was not good enough. He schooled
himself steadily to deliver them without manuscript, so that by the end
of the trip he was able to deliver a long and important speech--such as
that at Massey Hall, Toronto, on November 4--practically without
referring to his notes.

During his day in Conception Bay, the Prince went ashore and spent some
time amid the beautiful scenery of rocky, spruce-clad hills and
valleys, where the forests and the many rocky streams give earnest of
the fine sport in game and fish for which Newfoundland is famous.

The crews of the battleships went ashore, also, to the scattered little
hamlet of Topsail, lured there, perhaps, by the legend that Topsail is
called the Brighton of Newfoundland. It is certainly a pretty place,
with its brightly painted, deep-porched wooden houses set amid the
trees in that rugged country, but the inhabitants were led astray by
local pride when they dragged in Brighton. The local "Old Ship" is the
grocer's, who also happened to be the Selfridge's of the hamlet, and
his good red wine or brown ale, or whatever is yours, is Root Beer!

For many of the battleships' crews it was the first impact with the
Country of the Dry, and the shock was profound.

"I was ashore five hours, waiting for the blinkin' liberty boat to come
and take me off," said one seaman, in disgust. "Five hours! And all I
had was a water--and that was warm."

IV

On Tuesday, August 12, the Prince transferred to _Dragon_ and in
company with _Dauntless_ steamed towards St. John's, along the grim,
sheer coast of Newfoundland, where squared promontories standing out
like buttresses give the impression that they are bastions set in the
wall of a castle built by giants.

The gateway to St. John's harbour is a mere sally-port in that castle
wall. It is an abrupt opening, and is entered through the high and
commanding posts of Signal and the lighthouse hills.

One can conceive St. John's as the ideal pirate lair of a romance-maker
of the Stevensonian tradition, and one can understand it appealing to
the bold, freebooting instincts of the first dari