One wonders if our old conservatism, our clinging to the past, shall persist long after the time of strife has gone; if, in the years when war is a memory and the time comes to deck our ships in pre-war symmetry and grace of black hulls and white-painted deck-work and red funnels and all the gallant show of it, some old masters among us may object to the change. "Well, have it as you like," they may say. "I was brought up in the good old-fashioned cubist system o' ship painting--fine patterns o' reds an' greens an' Ricketts' blue, an' brandy-ball stripes an' that! None o' your damned newfangled ideas of one-colour sections for me! . . . _Huh!_. . . And black hulls, too! . . . Black! A funeral outfit! . . . No, sir! I may be wrong, but anyway, I'm too old now to chop and change about!" If we have become reconciled to the weird patterns of our war-paint, every instinct of seafaring that is in us rebels against the new naming of our ships. Is it but another form of camouflage--like the loving Indian mother abusing her dear children for deception of a malicious listening Djinn? _War Cowslip_, _War Dance_, _War Dreamer!_ War Hell! Are our new standard ships being thus badly named, that the enemy may look upon them as pariahs, unworthy of shell or torpedo? Perhaps, as a thoughtful war measure, it may be chargeful of pregnant meaning; our new war names for the ships may be germane to some distant world movement, the first tender shoot of which we cannot yet recognize! More than likely, it is the result of the fine war-time frolic of fitting the cubest of square pegs in the roundest of holes. How is it done? Is there, in the hutments of St. James's Park, an otherwise estimable and blameless greengrocer, officially charged with the task of finding names for vessels, 015537-68 inclusive, presently on the Controller's lists and due to be launched? We sailors are jealous for our vessels. Abuse us if you will, but have a care for what you may say of our ships. We alone are entitled to call them bitches, wet brutes, stubborn craft, but we will stand for no such liberties from the beach; strikes have occurred on very much less sufficient ground. Ridicule in the naming of our ships is intolerable. If _War_ is to be the prefix, why cannot our greengrocer find suitable words in the chronicles of strife? Can there be anything less martial than the _War Rambler_, _War Linnet_, _War Titmouse_, _War Gossamer_? Why not the _War Teashop_, the _War Picture House_, the--the--the _War Lollipop_? Are we rationed in ships' names? Is there a Controller of Marine Nomenclature? The thing is absurd!