The thing that we have most against it, however, is its conduct during the great offensive of the spring of 1918. The air was resounding with the wireless pæans of the on-rushing Germans; and everybody was worried, and anxious to know the fortunes of our troops. One rushed to breakfast early to have first chance at the press news. Friends gathered behind one's shoulder, and tried to read before sitting down. What's the news? What's the news? This (or something very like it) was the news: "Dr. Ostropantski, president of the Græco-Lettish Diet, denounced yesterday at a meeting of the Novoe Vremya the German assault on the liberties of Beluchistan." There was one vast, concerted groan from the sons of the Grand Fleet. Some wondered what the anxious folk far out at sea on the destroyers were saying. Finally the wit of the table shook his head gravely. "Boys," said he, "where _would_ we be if the civilians refused to tell?" XXVI MARINES This paper does not deal with the marines fighting in France, but with the marines such as one finds them on the greater ships. The gallant "devil dogs" now adding fresh laurels to the corps have army correspondents to tell of them, for though they are trained by the Navy and are the Navy's men, the Army has them now under its command. It is rather of the genuine marine, the true "soldier of the sea" that I would speak. Having been myself something of a soldier and a sailor, the marines were good enough to receive me in a friendly fashion when I was a guest on one of the battleships now on foreign service. Even as the traditional nickname for the sailor is "gob," so is "leatherneck" the seaman's traditional word for the marine. I am guileless enough not to know just how marines take this term, but if there is any doubt, I advise readers to be easy with it, for marines will fight at the drop of a hat. All those aboard declared, by the way, that the antipathy between the sailor and the marine in which the public believes, does not exist, nor do the marines according to the popular notion "police the ship." The marine has his place; the sailor has his, and they do not mix, not because they dislike each other, but simply because the marine and the sailor are the products of two widely different systems of training. Moreover, the marine is bound to his own people by an _esprit de corps_ without equal in the world. It was very fine to see each man's anxiety that the corps should not merely have a good name, but the best of names.