You have given me a list of subjects which you think require elucidation in regard to my past years--a _résumé_ especially of the incidents which claim peculiar notice between 1902 and 1910; and you ask me to add thereto such episodes from the past as will enlighten the reader as to how it came about that those big events between 1902 and 1910 were put in motion. It’s a big order, in a life of some sixty years on actual service--with but three weeks only unemployed, from the time of entry into the Navy to the time of Admiral of the Fleet. I begin by being heartfelt in my thankfulness to a benign Providence for being capable yesterday, September 13th, 1919, of enjoying suet pudding and treacle with a pleasure equal to that which I quite well remember, of having suet pudding and treacle on July 4th, 1854, when I went on board H.M.S. “Victory,” 101 guns, the flagship at Trafalgar of Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson. Yes! my thankfulness, I hope, is equal to but hardly as wonderful as that of the almost toothless old woman who, being commiserated with, replied: “_Yes, I only ’as two left; but thank God they meet!_” So I say, to express the same thankfulness with all my heart for the years that remain to me, though I have all my teeth--or nearly all--notwithstanding that I have not had even one single “thank you” for anything that I have done since King Edward died. Nevertheless, I thank that same God as the old woman thanked, Who don’t let a sparrow fall without a purpose and without knowledge. I have no doubt the slight has done me a lot of good! I thought at the age of nineteen, when I was Acting Captain of H.M.S. “Coromandel,” that I never could again be so great. Please look at my picture then. It’s a very excellent one--rather pulled down at the corners of the mouth even then. (The child is father to the man.) And though now nearly as old as Dandolo I don’t feel any greater than at 19. Dandolo after an escapade at the Dardanelles similar to mine, became conqueror of Byzantium at 80 years of age. And Justinian’s two Generals, Belisarius and Narses, were over 70. Dolts don’t realise that the brain improves while the body decays--provided of course that the original brain is not that of a congenital idiot, or of an effete poltroon who never will run risks. “Risks and strife” are the bread of Life to a growing brain.