continuous stampede from saloon to junction and from junction to saloon. I couldn't understand it at first, for the mate was a decent, wide-open sort of chap, and fairly sober considering he had once been master and so had an inducement to drown dull care. But I discovered that his wife wouldn't have it in the house, and he was fortifying himself against a 'dry week-end.' It certainly was dry to me. The house, partly paid for when he had a collision and lost his job in the Fort Line, was still called _Fort William_ after his ship, and I could see that the name-plate had been carved out of teak by the carpenter to please 'the old man.' How were the mighty fallen! You know, there was something pathetic to me in that man's drop from master to mate. To him it was more than pathetic, it was the next thing to the end of the world. He was just an average seaman. He had no culture, no art, no religion, no philosophy to support him or act as a substitute in such a misfortune. Even his children did not seem to compensate him. Rather they aggravated the case. They could no longer be referred to as Captain Tateham's children. He was only plain Mr. Tateham now, Fred to us; and when the _Corydon_ was going out through the dock-gates to make the tide, anybody who wanted might see Mr. Tateham on her forecastle head, standing glumly in the rain amid a tangle of ropes and half-boozed sailors and wisps of steam from the windlass. Here was the same thing over again as occurred in our own case. The root of it all was pride, the cursed pride that makes each class ape and envy the one above it, and stamp on the faces of the one below. Here it was, and it was England. This man had a grand little wife and three beautiful clever children winning scholarships at the grammar-school. He had a microscopic home partly paid for and a safe-enough competency. Yet, because he had slipped a cog he was damnably unhappy. His pride was bruised. Fate had given him a nasty knock. He shook his head when I spoke hopefully of him getting a command in our company. His wife said nothing. Of course, although I didn't know it then, for, as I have said, I do not naturally suspect men, the fact was she knew and the owners knew and the underwriters knew why he had had a collision. She had her reasons for keeping liquor out of the house. It was not a very happy week-end for me, for the sight of those two straight, intelligent lads and their charming, golden-haired sister turning and turning inside that tiny house just because it was Sunday and a visitor was present, got on my mind. I saw away ahead, and wondered if they would have any luck in their fight with gentility! Humph!