From robber bands in stranger lands, From perils of the sea, From sailing boxts, or aught that floats, Good Lord, deliver me.
Since journalism has been spoken of as the Nazareth of literature, and since—in this connection only—I am a Nazarene, a discerning public withholds from mean appreciation lavished on men of lesser soul. ime was when I soiled a keen annoyance in the many-coloured garment of youthful cynicism. I looked with sad eyes on a dull world. Even now I sigh for les beaux jours quand nous tions si malheureux
upon me since then, and I have outgrown, any days have brushed quick-lying wings among other things, my distaste for this best of all possible worlds. I have even arrived at the point of realising that the appreciation of honest Hodge, multiplied indefinitely, is a thing to be desired. True, it is evanescent, a thing of to-day, passing like moonbeams, but its temporary possession is 1 jewel of price. It holds the'secret of such comforts as are the natural desire of a man. The praise of the competent few is better always, and may take the ear of posterity. Answer me, however, you of the elect, whether a mort gage on' the appreciation of generations yet unborn be not a poor diet for a very ent hunger. By your speech shall I know you.
Let the aforesaid discerning public put aside for a moment its distrust of that Nazareth which is journalism, and credit me with an occasional quick flush of sincerity. So, gentlefolk all, your minds tuned to my plaint, let me repeat my prayer for deliverance from sailing boats—traps for the unwary, moving cradles of infinite discomfort. The story I would tell is not of yesterday. In the East, where there is sun, we do not rush into print. We amble very sey A It will be generally admitted that Fleet Street is not in China.
I had been occupied very fully with the idiosyneracies of an obstinate centre board, ud the constant desire of that living and evil-disposed thing, the boat, t" move through the water at such an acute and unpleasant angle that the rudder sometimes useless, and the boom in imer of euterit water and thus capsizing us. spor the damage done t" a valuable nor of the loss of treasured dignity in throwing myself into unwonted positions in order to balance the boat. I was a vivified bag of ballast, capable of receiving and keeping bruises' in great number and of rare and curious shades, To touch upon these—quod avertxt Deus—would be too painful. Let the objectionable and muttiimpression fade.
imes in that day had I, always with my friend, sought physical refreshment in bathing, Now, when the racing he proposed that we should sail y again for our last bathe, send the houseboat to await us a distance of five miles, and run down to it in the cool evening. I consented, not knowing that the next hour should'bring forth bitter fruit. Now, earlier in the day a wind gusty as a rheumatic temper had compelled the taking in of two reefs in the sail. When we started for our bathe, however, we fell upon other weather. Wo flirted round a corner into a still green creek, where the wind filtered at us, gently as to the shorn lamb. This was the slow dying of the day, and time was of account. Therefore I was hidden to "shake out" a reef.
Here let me, after the manner of Ariosto, digress awhile, I would have you, kind redder, sind aside from the action of ing story. Nero's fiddling was done at a distance from burning Rome. For some weeks previous to this time I had, at sharply-defined periods, wrestled wordily with a Chinese tailor, to the end that I might wear a suit becomingly light, and which should not betray too strongly that disinclination for the supreme outline of the human figure which is characteristic of clothes in this land. I had attained some measure of success, and I valued the result, not in any pictorial sense, but as representing such self-restraint as is, with me, rare and creditable. Eheu!
Figure me, then, unsteadily standing, fumbling with unwonted hands to "shake out," slowly unlashing that miserable reef outwards from the mast to the end of the boom. One by one the knots gave, until the last and worst: remained. By this time I was standing astride the tiller, the main-sheet stretched lightly across my legs. I reached a long arm to that fatal knot, and fumbled vainly. Then did evil chance send a puff of wind, the sail filled to it, the boom flew from me, the main-sheet rapped taut upon my shins, and—I lost my balance. A sharp muscular contraction fetched me back somewhat, I spun round, lurched into my friend's arms, and in' a horrid second we had found the water together. Fully-clothed I plumbed the cozy depth of that creek, filling my hands with what seemed to me the ultimate slime. Green reeds bound themselves about me as I rose and headed for shallow water. Then T emerged, clad in garments which were a frank indiscretion, decked unhandsomely with the green life of the water. Hard and bitter words beat at my ears—T had, be it remembered, involved another in my mishap.
Night had fallen, and the horned moon rode in a sky' bediamonded with stars. Under the stars and the moon a small boat moved upon the face of the waters. In the boat, blown upon by the fresh breath of evening we were silent—and very chill. Generous darkness hid
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.