g now he've a-lef' home an' 'tis tu late to
come back if he wants tu. He's ther, sure 'nuff, an' that's all about
it."

In the presence of grief, we are all thrown back on the fine old
platitudes we affect to despise. "You mustn't get down over it, Tony,"
I said. "That won't make it a bit the better. If he's steady--woman,
wine and the rest--he'll get on right enough. He's got his wits about
him; knows how to sail a boat and splice a rope. That's the sort they
want in the Navy, I suppose. _He_'ll make his way, never fear. Think
how you'll trot him out when he comes home on leave. Why, they say a
Devon man's proper place is the Navy."

"Iss, they du. _I_ should ha' been there meself if it hadn' been for
the rheumatics--jest about coming out on a pension now, or in the
coastguards. I _be_ in the Royal Naval Reserve, but I ain't smart
enough, like, for the Navy. The boy...."

"He's as smart and strong as they make 'em."

"Aye! he's smart, or cude be, but he'll hae to mind what he's a-doin'
there. _They_ won't put up wi' no airs like he've a-give'd me.
Yu've got to du what yu'm told, sharp, an' yu mustn't luke [look] what
yu thinks, let 'lone say it, or else yu'll find yourself in chokey
[cells] 'fore yu knows where yu are. 'Tis like walking on a six-inch
plank, in the Navy, full o' rules an' regylations; an' he won't get fed
like he was at home nuther, when us had it."

[Sidenote: _GROG AS A SLEEPING DRAUGHT_]

"Why don't you go to bed and sleep, Tony?"

"How can I sleep wi' me head full o' what the boy's thinking o'it all!"

More walking and he calmed down a little.

"Come and have some hot grog for a sleeping draught, Tony, and then go
home to bed."

"Had us better tu?"

"Come along, man; then if you go straight to bed you'll sleep."

"I on'y wish I cude. The boy must be turned in by this time. 'Tis like
as if I got a picture of him in my mind, where he is, an' he ain't
happy--_I_ knows."

When Tony went down the narrow roadway, homewards, he had had just the
amount of grog to make him sleep: no more, no less. That father's
grief--the boy gone to sea, the father left stranded ashore--it was bad
to listen to. While going up town, I wondered with how much sorrow the
Navy is recruited. We look on our sailors rather less fondly than on
the expensive pieces of machinery we send them to sea in. I don't think
I shall ever again be able to regard the Navy newspaper-fashion. It
seems as if someone of mine belongs