"I love it. I can't get away from the people in it. They are so splendid, one moment; and, the next, they are just too mean and petty for words; and the queer part of it is, they never see. They tell falsehoods, and they cheat, and the things they do to get into Palestine are simply disgusting--even if they had the shadow of a right there, which they haven't." "But the land was promised to them." She had a mind to criticise that promise, but checked her lips. He was a child, and she would do no violence to the child's mind. Getting no answer, he considered for a while, and harked back. "But I don't see," he began, and halted, casting about to express himself. "I don't see why, if you read it like that to yourself, you should read it differently to old Hichens. That's a sort of pretending, you know." She turned her eyes on him, and they were straight and honest, as always. "Oh," said she, "you are a man, of course!" Master Dicky blushed with pleasure. "Men," she went on, "can go the straight way to get what they wish. The way is usually hard--it ought to be hard if the man is worth anything--but it is always quite straight and simple, else it is wrong. Now women have to win through men; which means that they must go round about." "But old Hichens?" To herself she might have answered, "He only is allowed to me here. On whom else can I practise to please? But, alas! I practise for a master who never comes!" Aloud she said, "You are excited to-day, Dicky. You have something to tell me." "I should think I had!" "What is it?" "It's about Uncle Harry. Dad showed me a letter from him to-day, and he's fought a splendid action down off Grand Bahama. Oh, you must hear! It seems he'd been beating about in his frigate for close on three months--on and off the islands on the look-out for those Spanish fellows that snap up our fruit-ships. Well, the water on board was beginning to smell; so he ran in through the nor'-west entrance of Providence Channel, anchored just inside, and sent his casks ashore to be refilled. They'd taken in the fresh stock, and the _Venus_ was weighing for sea again almost before the last boatload came alongside.--Can't you see her, the beauty! One anchor lifted, t'other chain shortened in, tops'ls and t'gallants'ls cast off, ready to cant her at the right moment--" "Is that how they do it?"