ions! The men gathered on
the forecastle and the officers on the poop were alike gazing hard at a
town of brilliant whiteness, which became more distinct every minute.

"And that is Suakim," said one of the group of officers. "It looks very
clean at a distance. What is it made of, doctor?"

Doctor MacBean was a middle-aged man who liked the society of young ones
because he had one little weakness: he was very fond of holding forth,
and young men were more inclined to listen patiently to him than older
ones. He was a naturalist, a sportsman, and had been a great traveller.
There are men who go through Greece, as they would through Surrey,
gleaning nothing; but the doctor was not one of them. If he were only a
day in a place he learned all about it, and what he learned he
remembered. So that to be in his company was to have an encyclopaedia
conveniently at hand, from which you could learn what you wanted to know
without the trouble of turning over the leaves. For the rest, such a
_boy_ past forty there never was--ready for anything for sport or fun,
even to a spice of practical joking; and with all this a grave Scottish
face which imposed upon those who had not found him out. But in matters
of information he was trustworthy, his passion for fact overcoming his
love of mystification.

"Suakim is built of madrepore," he replied to the above question; "very
curious. Houses and mosques all of the same materials as these reefs we
are now coming to."

"Madrepore--why, that is a sort of coral--isn't it?"

"Yes, it is coral."

"That's queer though. My shirt-studs are made of coral; fancy a town
built of shirt-studs!"

"Shirt-studs are quite a secondary use of the article; the principal
being to help babies cut their teeth. Have you got your coral still,
Green?"

Green was a very young subaltern, who had not been to a public school,
and was somewhat easily imposed upon.

"No," he said; "at least not here. It is somewhere at home, I believe."

"That is right; you will want it when you come to cut your wisdom teeth.
You know, I suppose, that you cannot get your company until you have
done that?"

"I knew I had to pass an examination," said Green, not convinced that
this information was quite _bona fide_.

"Of course, but this is in addition to that. When a vacancy occurs, you
send in your certificate of having passed in tactics, and then you are
ordered to go to the Veterinary College, and there they look